Month: March 2023

So far I have really only discussed how chord progressions entrance our ear, but using some of the same logic behind chord progressions, we can see that the melodies of some songs are a bit more thought out then we first believed. I will admit, when Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” came out, I was addicted to it, as were most people. So much so that I asked my saxophone private lessons teacher to obtain a copy of the music so I could play it for myself.

Source: IMDB

When I later received the music, I was caught off guard by the fact it was written almost entirely with two notes, an A and a G. In the key of G, the A is the second note of the scale, which is known as the semitonic, and obviously the first note of the scale, the G, is the tonic. At first I thought the music was just too simple and stupid. After all, even I could write a song with just two notes, but the key was the A in the melody. If you take a listen to the song, you will notice that when Timberlake sings the chorus “Nothing I can see…you when…dance dance dance” all these words are on the same note, the semitonic A. The ones I omitted, but and you, are closely related on the tonic of the scale and add a brief resolution. However, this semitonic note is so crucial in the chorus because it allows our ear to tune into the note right above the tonic where we want to be. By building a minute amount of tension with the note above the tonic, we want to keep listening to hear the phrase resolve.

But the theory behind staying on the second note of a scale goes a bit deeper. In every chord in a major key, the second note of the chord fits in a musically sound manner. Though it would take too long to show every combination of the second note and how it fits into a chord, choosing the semitonic as the note to write a melody around is a safe choice since it will fit into nearly any chord progression. Therefore, combining a semitonic based melody and an addicting progression will make your song irresistible, and is seen in many recent pop hits like Taylor Swift’s “I Don’t Want To Live Forever” and the Weekend’s “I Can’t Feel My Face”.  Because of this example of melodical music writing, it is easy to see that even a musically simple song that utilizes primarily two notes can be addicting to our ears if the song writer knows what they are doing.

 

It’s the 2000s. Computers have become such a large necessity that nearly every house has one. You go downstairs into the office to check your email, and you see an email from your high school friend. Despite every instinct telling you the link could be a scam or a virus, you click the link where your taken to a dancing man and the sound of eighties electronic drums.

By now, everyone knows the same annoyance in clicking a link and being Rick Rolled, after all, Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” gets stuck in your head every time you hear it and is sure to ruin your day. Interestingly, this song shares musical parallels to Asian pop music, which makes music theorists wonder why the one hit wonder made it so big in America.

Source: epuzzle.info

Similar to the “four chords” progression I have discussed before, Asian pop music relies on a four chord progression that the call “The Royal Road” progression. This four chord system begins on a major four chord, then to a major five chord, followed by a minor three chord, and ends on a minor six chord.  What this progression does so differently from the American four chords is its emphasis on tension. Our ear wants a chord progression to end and resolve on the tonic chord, a major one chord, but the closest we get to resolution is the minor three chord which shares two notes with a major one chord. By omitting the major one chord, the four, five, and six chords can build tension while never completely resolving, and although four and five chords are comfortable chords to our ear, the missing context of the one chord’s resolution only helps to build upon the tension of the song.

This avoidance of resolving the progression allows the music writer to continue writing more verses and choruses that never quite feel like the end of the song. While our brain searches for resolution, the building tension grabs onto us and entices us with what is to come next. For this very reason, we feel a helpless need to let the video keep playing. We want to listen to Rick Astley sing in the hopes of his song eventually resolving, but we never completely get there. In turn, Astley’s song captured the hearts of millions and the addictiveness of his music led to the famous internet trend we all can’t help but enjoy listening to.

Whether it be his claim to fame “Hamilton” or his more recent work in “Moana”, Lin-Manuel Miranda has become one of the biggest composers in the last decade. More recently, he wrote the soundtrack to Encanto, where one song seemed to be a smash hit above the rest.

“We Don’t Talk About Bruno” quickly took over the top of pop charts, but what made this song so popular? There are likely three reasons for this occurrence, the first of which is the Afro-Cuban influence on the song. Afro-Cuban music traditionally has a sort of dance feel and what makes it easier to dance than repetitive music? Take Santana’s popular “Oye Como Va”, an Afro-Cuban inspired song that only uses two alternating chords the entire time.

In a typical Afro-Cuban inspired way, Miranda’s song has a dance feel by utilizing a minor one, minor four, major five chord pattern repeatedly. The repetitiveness is also comforting in that the sequence comes back to the root chord, the one chord, very often.  This would explain why so many people enjoyed the song for how it compelled them to dance.

One of the more intelligent musical choices that Lin-Manuel Miranda uses in his writing is his shifting between keys, time signatures, and modes very readily. Within the song are many notable changes in the time signature and speed of the song, which can seem exciting to the listener. It also helps build on the mysteriousness of this unknown character, Bruno. One place in particular the time signature of the piece changes is when one of the girls sings “Hey! Grew to live in fear…”, which sounds awfully faster than other parts of the song.

The last primary reason I believe the song is so successful is for changing to a major key and utilizing the four chords I had mentioned a few weeks ago. When one of the girls begins singing “He told me that the man of my dreams”, the key of the song shifts to a major key, and you can hear the major one, major five, minor six, and major four chord that we have all become so familiar with. This sequence then is used to clash all of the minor chord sequences early on when the song hits a climatic moment. This stands out to the listener in a way they cannot predict by adding dissonance to the piece (when two directly next to each other notes play). Additionally, Miranda’s clever understanding of madrigal style music provides this piece with a seamless transition into the climax of the song. Together, this culmination of my theory on the song’s success offers a plausible explanation for why, despite the song title, people could not stop talking about Bruno.

What originally kept me from writing about the minor keys was that I worried I would add too much confusion to the readers of this blog, but it has become more apparent that for some of the songs I hoped to dive into the theory of I need to teach minor keys.

Like the Do Re Mi… pattern of the major scale, minor scales also have eight notes that follow a consistent chord pattern, but the chords are mildly more complex. Additionally, a minor key is better visualized as starting and ending on La. This means a minor scale would sound “La, Ti, Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La”. Once again, each note can be assigned a number, but not he same value as a major scale. In this case, the La would be the value one, Ti would be two, Do would be three…you get the gist. Its just more crucial to understand that the minor scale causes some of the chords to change sound a bit from what a major scale would have.

The first quality of chord in the scale is a minor one chord, which contradicts the first chord in a major scale. Following this is a diminished two and then an augmented third. Don’t worry if you do not know what these two types of chords are as I will make a deliberate effort to simplify them if they come up or skip them entirely. A fourth chord in a minor scale is minor. The fifth chord is major just like in the major scale, so this one is quite easy to remember. The sixth chord is major, followed by a diminished seven chord. Once again, you should not need to know any of the chords that are not major or minor chords.

Source: Piano-Keyboard Guide

This portion of the post is only important for those who have in depth knowledge of music theory and may want to offer a correction to the terminology I am using. I referred to a minor key as if there was only one type of minor key when there are many different types with different series of chord than the ones listed above. For the music theory I am going to discuss in this blog series, I will only be covering harmonic minor chords.

Although this may feel like a lot of information now, I hope I can use the information presented in this post to analyze what some would say is the most influential song of this past year.