Melody
(pitch, range, theme)
In my opiniom melody is the most important element of music and is the organisation and combination of notes, pitch and rhythm working together. The melody in a song is most likely the part that is sung by the artist and if the song/composition doesnt have singing in it then the melody would be the notes that makes us as listeners recognise and memorise the song.
My demosntration of melody in a song –
I went on a random song generator to choose a song to sing so that i could demonstrate the melody of the song, I got given 3 songs to choose from and i chose wthe song by Sia – cheap thrills. I played chords on the guitar and sang the melody of the song.
I researched the chords and played them on guitar whilt singing the melody of the song.
Here is a link with some most recognisable melodies.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-universally-recognized-melodies-in-the-world
These are some of the most recognisable melodies.
The Alphabet Song –
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star –
Baa Baa Black Sheep –
Happy birthday tune –
Frere Jacques –
Moods
The mood is a temporary state of mind or feeling. The mood in music is important as that is what affects the listeners mood and emotional state and makes them feel a certain way depending on the genre of the song, for example, the four most common moods in songs are joyful/happy, mellow, sad/emotional and aggresive.
Example of a joyful/ happy mood in a song.
These type songs will put the listeners in a happy mood.
These songs tend to have major chords and a faster tempo that gets yor haid bouncing.
Example of a Mellow song
These songs can used for relaxation and stress releif.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgpJVI3tDbY
Example of a sad and emotional mood in a song
These songs will most likely bring an emotional mood to the listeners.
Example of an eggresive mood in a song
These songs will most likely bring the feeling of aggression and tend to be genres like heavy metal.
Pitch
Pitch is how high or low the melody/notes are played, every note can be played in a different octave on the piano. Pitching is important when composing, as that gives a good instrumental balance in the soundtrack. If for example all the instruments are played with the same low pitch and in the same low octave all the sounds would be dimmed and the listener wouldnt be able to hear and recognise the different melodies or notes that are played. A good balance would be having a combination of low and high pitching for example, having a melody played on the piano and accompany the melody with bass notes played at a lower octave on the piano, this would give the soundtrack more of a brighter and fuller effect. Vocal pithching is very important in singing and is the basis of singing.
To further research i wached some videos on pitching.
I came across this website –
I liked this video because its explained the science behind pitching, talked and gave examples about indefinite pitch (noise) and definite pitch (notes) but in the other hand the video didnt give much of a musical point of view of pitching and focused more on the science behind it.
Harmony
(chord, progression, key)
Harmony is the verticalization of pitch. Most often is thought as the art of combining pitches into chords (several notes played simultaniously as a “block”).
Harmony involves chords, their construction and chord progression. this involves the combination of notes and pitches. Harmony adds depth and colour to a note with extra notes and creates a chord for example an Am chord is made up of three notes, A, C, and E. Theres also key signatures for example a C major scale that is a major scale based on C, with the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats and no sharps.
screenshots off of the website
I believe that this website was really helpful and told me the difference between harmony and harmonizing and gave examples to easly explain the difference.
I also watched a video on Harmony in music
My notes
This video was very beneficial and helpful to understand the theory behind Harmony, the teacher broke everything down and as a level 2 student I don’t have theory lessons and this video gave me a little more understanding to the small knowledge I have of music theory. Once I will do level 3 will be having theory lessons and I believe that it will be good for me to watch videos like this where I can go back and rewatch multipletimes.
Structure
Song structure is important as that otganizes the song. One of the most common structure in a song is, verse/chorus/2nd verse/ 2nd chorus/ bridge/ 3rd or finishing chorus. The structure tells us where the song is going.
I took screenshots of different song structures off this website – https://www.thoughtco.com/types-of-song-structures-2456856
AABA
Links to song mentioned on the website
AAA
links to songs mentioned on the website
ABAC
inks to songs mentioned on the website
Classic Verse/Chorus/Bridge Form
links to songs mentioned the website
Instrumentation layers
Instrumentation layers add texture to a song and makes it more fuller, interesting and alive.The way you can add texture to a composition, is consider adding different pitches of the same instrument, for example play different octaves on the piano. The way you can layer instruments is, you can play chords on the piano, then accompany the chords with some guitar bass, then you could add some strings, drums and then you could think about adding a guitar riff. When layering instruments you have to be carefull not to over do it.
I thought of adding a video of how this man creates a beat to demonstrate layering instruments, he starts off with adding a kick drum and works his way to make a beat by adding texture and instrumentation layers steeply step.
Texture
Monophonic texture
One melody with no harmony – Monophonic texture (monophony) refers to a single melodic line, though it may be played by one or many instruments. The voices may be in exact unison or in different octaves, as long as the same notes and rhythms are played. An example of monophony include group singing of simple tunes such as “Happy Birthday”
This video explains the monophonic texture more in depth and the man played a melody on the Iano to demonstrate the monophonic texture.
Homophonic texture
This texture features two or more notes notes sounding at the same time, but generally featuring a prominent melody. Homophonic texture is one of the most common textures used in popular songs. It is defined as having one voice, a melody, which stands out from background accompaniment.
This video also explains the homophonic texture more in depth and the man played a clear melody and the accompaniment/harmony on the piano to support the melody.
Polyphonic texture
This is the music between two or more indipendent melodies played at the same time. The more different the melodies are frm one another, the more polyphonic the texture is, which makes the texture more dense.
This video also explains the polyphonic texture more in depth, he described this texture as not a very clear harmony and melody part and its morelike passing melodic snippets from hand to hand.
Rhythm
Rhythm is the element of time in music. Rhythm is the arrangement of sounds as the move through time. The term rhythm is aslo used to describe a specific pattern of sounds.
Rhythm is hard to expain and easier to demonstrate.
To further research I decided watch this video
This video was very helpful to demonstrate rhythms in different song styles and genres. In the video this man describes the ‘wheel method’ of tracing rhythm and uses it to demonstrate the rhythm in different genres.
Analysing songs for the genre we chose
The songs I chose to analyse, were songs that were in the genre of R&B/hip-hop and rock influenced Hip-Hop. I was mostly looking for songs like, R&B with rapping in it and rock hip-hop.
Rock/hip-hop
The song is basically rock/metal that has rapping instead of singing. It has a distorted guitars, bass, and drums it also is a loud volume and has aggressive attitudes. This is a totally different direction of what I want my EP to sound like but it is also fun to find out and know, what different genres have and how you can combine genres together.
R&B, hip-hop and rock
Original song
I decided analyse this song as it has all the genres together. “I’ll Be Missing You” was recorded by an American rapper called Puff Daddy and an American singer Faith Evans, featuring an R&B group 112. The samples The Police’s song”Every breath you make” which is a soft rock song. The song starts off as R&B and then kicks in with the sample of the original song linked above. The song has rapping in it and Faith singing the chorus and the recorded song has vocal layers.
R&B/ Hip-Hop
The song features a distinctive record production, it has a prominent bass line and features instruments like glockenspiel, guitar, drums with a rim shot. The song has rapping and a female vocalist(Jennifer Lopez) her vocals are layered and has some harmonies.