Something's Coming

Question 1

Melody

Answer 1

• Tenor voice part
• Uses lots of accented off-beats to give anticipation
• Begins in a half-whispering style with quaver rests between words to feel breathless and agitated. This breaks up the melody
• Combination of short riffs and sustained notes

Question 2

Harmony

Answer 2

• Uses the tritone to give an edgy, unpredictable feel
• Used as an appoggiatura in the first chord
• Jazz harmony - ordinary chords have added blue notes

Question 3

Tonality

Answer 3

• D major - happy to reflect Tony’s excitement
• Piano bass ostinato is tonic, dominant, supertonic. The supertonic is away from D major so makes the listener unsure of the key
• Last note is flattened 7th of scale, C, not belonging to the tonic key

Question 4

Structure

Answer 4

• Intro - 3 beat ostinato to set excited mood
• A - fast and loud with word painting on ‘cannonballing’ on a B
• B - more on-beat rhythms to give strength to lyrics
• B1, A1, then outro - simple fade out, change of scene

Question 5

Instrumentation/Timbre

Answer 5

• Male tenor with a very large orchestra, needing players who can double up
• Includes sax, piano, guitars, mandolin, celeste, timpani, glockenspiel and police whistle
• Latin American instruments reflect Puerto Rican gang

Question 6

Texture

Answer 6

• Polyphonic, arranged to sound exciting
• Section A uses ostinato throughout
• Word painting used on ‘cannonballing’ and by the violin harmonics for ‘humming’

Question 7

Rhythm

Answer 7

• Written in 3/4, feels like 6/8 because the RH piano quavers have accents on first and fourth beats. Cross rhythms make it ambiguous
• Lots of syncopation and rhythmic ostinati
• Push rhythms anticipate the beat
• Accented off-beats give anticipation

Question 8

Tempo

Answer 8

• 176bpm - fast to reflect excitement
• ‘One in a bar’ feel
• Jagged and abrupt notes move the song along quite a lot

Question 9

Mood

Answer 9

• Excited, breathless, expectant

* Looking forward to the future, anticipating future events

Question 10

Dynamics

Answer 10

• Begins singing in pp
• Gets louder as excitement builds suddenly
• p when violins ‘hum’
• Diminuendo little by little towards the end, fades out like typical jazz