Ray Charles – Georgia on my mind
Georgia on my mind is a blues soul song made by Ray Charles. It was first written by Hoagy Carmichael and he recorded it in 1930 and Ray Charles made a cover of it but in his own style. Ray Charles put this song on his own album (The Genius Hits The Road) The song reached number 1 on the top 200 billboard chart his version is known more than the original and is one of his most popular songs associated with his career.
Hoagy Carmichael was originally going to write the song dedicated to his sister saxophonist Frankie Trambuer told him he should write the song about the state of Georgia in America. hoagy jokingly said the first two words for the song ” Georgia Georgia…” which he ended up using whilst working on music with his roommate Stuart Gorell who actually wrote the lyrics for the song.
The song is played E-flat major consisting of the pitches E♭, F, G, A♭, B♭, C, and D.
The song starts off with some orchestra and very slowly and softly build up to the chorus as choir eventually jumps in singing a beautiful harmony in the background. Then slowly the piano comes in. It has a very relaxed and slow bass. The drums are played very lightly the drummer it is a very slow song played at the tempo of 94 throughout the song dynamics constantly change going from fortissimo to forte but it never gets too loud or too quiet it stays in the middle almost. (crescendo to diminuendo)
The song is very polyphonic with a very big texture of instruments with its orchestra, piano, bass, drums, and choir. The song can you very mixed emotions it can make one person sad and the other happy.
Jimi Hendrix – Hey Joe
This is a cover song originally made by Billy Roberts but Jimi Hendrix puts his own style and twist onto it whilst Billy Roberts version sounds very country Jimi Hendrix version is very blues style mixed with rock music. This is written in G major and consists with five chords.
C-G-D-A-E
These five chords are what are played in the song . The song stars immediately sounding like a blues song using the blues scales during the solos and jazz and blues chords through the song such as the Hendrix chord. The song constantly goes from quiet to loud to middle. There is a beautiful harmony being sung in the background with Jimi’s amazing guitar playing on top.
The texture of instruments consists of bass, drums, guitar, and some singers in the background it is a basic texture of instruments that work perfectly for rock song hence why Jimi used this texture
Cant stop – Red Hot Chilli Peppers
This song was written by Red Hot Chilli Peppers for their 8th studio album (By The Way) it is written in E minor Frusciante plays the riff in reggae style strumming it on the upbeat he also uses a lot of tone bends.
This is a very energetic and happy track the song constantly goes from quiet to loud it gets very calm during the chorus and then jumps back in with tons of energy in the verses. It has a basic texture of instruments (Electric Guitar, Drums, Bass, Harmony in background)