Listening: Style 4

Lesson 6, Friday 25th January 

Q1. Describe the harmony in this song. (Try and describe the pattern even if you cannot pick the chords - eg. the first chord lasts for two beats then it changes to a chord that last for 8 bars). Is the pattern familiar at all?

At the start of the song, the first chord is played for 16 bars and then the next chord is only played for 4 bars, also, the chords V and IV are normally played for 4 bars and chord I is either played for 8 bars or 16 bars.
The basic of this song comes from the basic 12 bar blues but with a few adjustments like, the song isn't necessarily following the 12 bar blues pattern.

Q2.  This song has "Blues" in the title. Is it a blues song?

Although this song has the word "Blues" in the title and there is also a use of blues chords, major pentatonic and the major scale, this song wouldn't really be called a blues song because of the time signature that's being used and the guitar riffs that are being played

Functions Of A Keyboard 2

Q1. The Three Pedals on a Grand Piano are the Una Corda pedal, the Sostenuto pedal and the Sustain pedal.

• The Una Corda pedal softens the note and also changes the quality of the tone.
• The Sostenuto pedal sustains the notes that are being held down when the pedal is pressed, this also leaves any future notes unaffected when the pedal is pressed.
• The Sustain pedal, when pressed, sustains all the damped strings on the piano

Q2. The three main differences between a grand piano and an upright piano are the keys, the pedals and the action.

Action - In a grand piano, the strings lie horizontally and the hammers hit the strings from below, whereas on an upright piano, the strings are held vertically and the hammers hit the strings from the side 

Keys - There are longer keys on a grand piano which provides a greater reach, allowing more precise control, however on an upright piano, the keys are a lot shorter so the touch isn't as good as a grand piano and it makes the subtle control more difficult

Q3. The parameters that you are able to control on a midi keyboard would be the pitch bend, note velocity, modulation controls and the aftertouch..

Q4. If a sustain pedal is used with an electronic keyboard, it controls the electronic systhesis to produce a sustain effect but when the foot is taken off the pedal, the note is cut off co2mpletely, however on a grand piano, when the foot is taken off the pedal, the piano lets go of the note gently so that it still sounds smooth.

Q5. The advantages of shaping midi data using a keyboard would be that your able to play live music whilst being able to alter the sound, the disadvantages would be that

Landmark Songwriters Analysis

James Brown :

 

James Joseph Brown was known as the king of Funk, Brown was influenced by musical genres such as Classic blues, gospel and African-American folk music.

James Brown knew that he wanted a musical career after watching footage of jazz and RnB singer Louis Jordan.

Artists that influenced Brown were Ray Charles, Elvis Presley and Little Richard. James Brown took the musical genres that influenced him and fused them together into a new genre, which was called Funk.

Funk (being a mixture of RnB, Soul and Jazz) brings a rhythmic groove of bass and drums to the genre. Like most genres, funk doesn't focus on the lyrical content of a song, but more on the music itself being played, which makes funk more suitable for dancing.

For example, in James Brown's song 'Get Up Offa That Thing', The lyrical content is encouraging the audience to get up and dance, and thats more or less repeated throughout the entire song.

James Brown was considered the king of funk because of the energy he had whenever he performed one of his songs which would encourage the listener to get up and dance..

Bob Marley :

Nesta Robert 'Bob' Marley was known as the king of Reggae, Marley was influenced mainly by a musical genre called Ska, which was the predecessor to Rocksteady and Reggae, and also groups such as; The Kingstonians, the Skatalites, the Paragons etc.
Bob's songwriting process usually started with him playing the acoustic guitar, and then after he'd take out his harmonica and play it.
Bob would work on a song for weeks, changing lyrics and changing the melody until it came to a point where he would take the unfinished song to his friend Familyman who would help him in the studio and add different basslines for the song until it was finished.
Unlike Funk, Reggae normally has a much slower tempo and the drums and bass play the biggest role in reggae song, it is also easily recognised for the unique rhythmic accents called the 'skank' which is played on the off-beat.

Bob Marley was considered the king of reggae because unlike James Brown with funk, Bob Marley focuses on the lyrical content of his reggae songs.
Marley is a Rastafarian and is known to be very strong with his religion because part of the religion's belief is that every living thing is equal, this must be part of his inspiration for his songwriting process because more or less all of his songs are about redemption, being happy, treating people equally, not worrying about life's problems and obstacles etc.


Amy Winehouse :

Amy Jade Winehouse was known for her own type of genre called Vintage Soul, which is a mixture of blues, jazz, RnB, gospel, Motown and soul.
Amy was influenced by many artists such as; Aretha Franklin, Mary J Blige, Etta James, Otis Redding etc.
In a lot of Amy's song, the lyrics are auto biographical because the songs are actually about her and events that have occurred in her life. For example, the song 'Rehab' is about her refusing to go to a rehabilitation clinic even after her father forced her to.
Most of Amy's songs are about things that have happened to her in her life, which already makes her quite a unique songwriter, other artists like Adele and Lady Gaga and Duffy have credited Winehouse for her success and her unique way of songwriting.
Her 2006 album 'Back to Black', Amy infuses 1940s jazz with 1960s Motown in a lot of her song in that album.
Amy Winehouse and Stevie Wonder's style of music are quite similar because they both fuse different genres of music together such as; Soul, Jazz and RnB. Amy's style of music is also quite similar to Bob Marley's in a sense, due to the fact that they both write about true stories and everyday events in life such as struggle, happiness etc.


Stevie Wonder :

Stevland Hardaway Morris incorporated genres such as; Pop,RnB, Jazz, Soul and Funk into his songs which gave himself such a wide fan base because of the amount of genres he used.
Back when Stevie was at Motown Records, he worked directly with Marvin Gaye and was influenced by him as well as Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and Johnny Ace.
Much like Amy Winehouse, some of his songs are about events or people in his life, For example, His song 'Isn't She Lovely' was written about his daughter.
A lot of Stevie's songs are known for being difficult to sing, and he has developed a unique sense of harmony as he uses a lot of extended chords like; sevenths, ninths,elevenths, thirteenths, diminished fifths etc. This gives his songs a different feel compared to the other 3 artists', where there are almost unpredictable chord changes, also along with the vocals, which have a melismatic sense to it.

The artists that I've chosen each have their music based around one main genre; Bob Marley with Reggae, James Brown with Funk, Amy Winehouse with her own genre known as 'Vintage Soul', and Stevie Wonder, who doesn't really have a genre of his own but he has created his own style of playing using extended chords and melismatic vocals.
Funk seems to have more lively tempo to it compared to the other genres because of its focus on the rhythm section and keeping the song lively rather than focusing more of the lyrical content like most songs, whereas Stevie Wonder has incorporated funk and a few other genres together with his style of playing the piano to almost give some of his songs some 'funk' to it as well.
The two artists that probably have the most in common when it comes to the lyrical content of their songs would be Bob Marley and Amy Winehouse because both of their lyrics in some of their songs are about events or experiences that have occurred in their lives.