WL: Popular Music and Jazz Flashcards
Courtney Pine: LDJC
Dizzy Gillespie: “A Night in Tunisia”
- SIM: Complex chord extension
- DIF: Quick alternation between chords, vs. LDJC, in which the harmonic movement is comparatively slow
Courtney Pine: LDJC
Chuck Berry: “Johnny B Goode”
- SIM: 12 Bar Blues harmonic structure
-> Rock and roll song, showing how the blues style influenced successive genres of music - DIF: Specifically 12 bars, whereas LDJC stretches over a longer period
-> Blues only an influence, part of his fusion
Courtney Pine: LDJC + L&A
+
The Beatles: IWTTY
- Little Walter: “I’m a Man”
+ - Randy Newman: “Little Criminals”
1.
CP
SIM: Blues-inspired notes, like flat 5ths and 3rds
-> BEATLES uses minor-major thirst with acciaccatura
DIF:
- Unrelenting, repetitive structure of chords and guitar refrain
- Improvisatory feel to vocals -> often speech-like
-> LINK! CP sax solos
- B
SIM: Swung, blues-influenced guitar + piano accompaniment
Courtney Pine: LDJC
John Coltrane: “In a Sentimental Mood”
(+ Charlie Parker: “Blues for Alice”)
SIM: Sax solo with an improvisatory feel
-> “Blues for Alice”
-> LDJC, ISoM,
DIF:
- While CP uses energetic, virtuosic extended techniques eg. chromatic slides, pitch bends, multiphonics…
- … JC creates a slow, more contemplative mood, decorated mainly with short grace notes
+
- While JC uses MDH throughout, swapping between the saxophone and piano…
- … CP uses backing vocals, countermelodies and saxophone interludes to add moments of polyphony
Courtney Pine: LDJC
Avicii: “Levels”
SIM: Reverse cymbal effect
-> Demonstrate CP’s electronic influences
Courtney Pine: ISoM
- Gershwin: “Summertime”
- Miles Davis: “So what?”
- Both quoted
- Vocal refrain
- Horn section (sax+trumpet)
Courtney Pine: ISoM (+ L&A)
Nas: “Memory Lane”
SIM - ISoM:
- East Coast Rap influence:
-> Drum Machine
-> Turntable Scratches
-> Small chordal range
SIM - L&A:
- Gospel-style backing vocals
-> DIF: Repeated refrain throughout
-> DIF: Vocables, not lyrics
Courtney Pine: ISoM
Marco Polo: “For the Future”
SIM
-> Rapper saying his name (Marco Polo vs. Black Twang)
Courtney Pine: LDJC/L&A
Charlie Parker: “Cherokee”
Chromaticism
- Creates enclosed sequential figures
- Repetitive riff harmony (L&A), giving a bebop-influenced feel (LDJC)
Courtney Pine: ISoM
+
Kate Bush: Cloudbusting
+
Beatles: Eleanor Rigby/IWTTY
- Miles Davis: “Blue in Green”
+ - The Beatles: “Norwegian Wood”
- Modal
DIF: Incorporates multiple modes: Dorian, Mixolydian, and Lydian, as opposed to “Inner State of Mind” which just uses C Dorian. - Mixolydian
DIF: E Mixolydian (as opposed to B in “Cloudbusting”), moving to E Dorian
- Eleanor Rigby is much darker/disconcerting eg. Lydian on C in cello ascending scale
- IWTTY: Sitar
Courtney Pine: L&A
+
The Beatles: Here, There and Everywhere
The Beatles: “When I’m 64”
CP:
Bass Clarinet - Unusual for pop music, used in imitations of older styles, i.e. imitating cabaret
B:
Verse moves to the relative minor (A minor), rather than the parallel minor - not quite as sudden.
Kate Bush: Cloudbusting
(+Beatles: Eleanor Rigby)
- Elton John: “I’m Still Standing”
+ - The Beatles: “Eleanor Rigby”
- + UI: Kraftwerk, “The Model”
- Constant crotchet pulse
DIF: Begins with tonic pedal, giving an assuredness of key missing from “Cloudbusting” - Constant crotchet pulse
DIF: String octet, vs. Fairlight CMI vocal sample, sounding like strings
-> Actual synth strings in “The Model”
* German techno scene
Kate Bush: Cloudbusting
- Kate Bush: “Wuthering Heights”
- The Beatles: “I am the Walrus”
BASED OF LITERATURE
- “The Book of Dreams”, Peter Reich
-> About his relationship with his father, Freudian theorist Wilhelm Reich, who was arrested and died in a US prison
- First debut single, 1978, aged 19
- Became the first female artist to achieve a UK number 1 with a self written song
-> Highly disjunct - gives it a scattered, unpredictable, airy quality - Based off a poem by Lewis Carol
-> SIM: Mainly strong beat, with drum rolls emphasising the strong beats
DIF: Degrades/fades out into a kind of anarchy at the end of radio samples/static noise -> + Babooshka
+ UI: Melisma on “crying” vs. eg. “over”
Kate Bush: Cloudbusting
The Who: “Baba O’Riley”
SIM:
- Violin riff (in outro)
DIF:
- Electric organ, creating similar rhythmic drive
-> Repetitive riff inspired by minimalist composer, Terry Riley
WL!
- More inspired by Elton John, 1983 (KB = 1985)
Kate Bush: All
Bush: “Babooshka”
+ Coldplay: “Kaleidoscope”
STRANGE INSTRUMENTATION/EFFECTS
CB: Balalaika, also used in a repeating melodic figure
- Overlaid cackling/glass shattering vs. CB: Steam engine
ADoS: Spoken voice sample - Shipping forecast vs. Obama in Coldplay’s “Kaleidoscope”
UI: Submarine noises/cracking
UI: Accompanying vocals
-> Not harmonising, but low voices saying ‘babooshka’
Kate Bush: Cloudbusting/ADoS
Queen: “Killer Queen”
CB: Vocables
- ‘Ba’ in chorus
ADoS
- Conventional pop harmony
DIF: Cycles through circle of fifths, vs. I, ii, V, I
Kate Bush: Cloudbusting/ADoS
The Beatles: “Let it Be”
CB: Parallel chordal movement
-> Descending, often to signal the start of a new section
ADoS: Lombardic rhythms (+speech rhythms)
Kate Bush: ADoS/UI
Pink Floyd: “The Wall”
Concept album
-> KB: “The Ninth Wave” section of “Hounds of Love”
- Based on Russian painting: Alone at sea, waiting for the ninth wave, which is said to be unsurvivable
Kate Bush: UI
Anais Mitchell: “Way Down Hadestown”
Portamento
-> Descent into the underworld
- “Under the groooouuuunnnnddd”
-> Contemporary music theatre, with soul/pop/even jazz influences
The Beatles: Eleanor Rigby
Harry Nilsson: “I Said Goodbye to Me”
SIM:
- Similar lilting quality
- Double tracking
DIF: Emphasised by 3/4 time signature vs. repeatedly emphasises 4/4
The Beatles: Eleanor Rigby
- Bob Dylan: “Masters of War”
+ - Bruce Springsteen: “Born in the USA”
ER: Alternates between C major and E minor (with the occasional A minor)
- Also uses two chords: E-flat and F minor
- Similar sense of inevitability but of a more repetitive melody -> short phrases add to a sense of frustration - Also uses two chords: B major and E major
- Sense of pride/joy/celebration
The Beatles: Eleanor Rigby
Led Zeppelin: “Kashmir”
Articulated pedal
DIF: On D as their main riff, vs. E in ER
-> ER also uses inverted pedals
The Beatles: Eleanor Rigby
Bob Dylan: “Simple Twist of Fate”
Chromatic scale
DIF: As a repeated bass line throughout (ER: Under “all the lonely people”)
The Beatles: HTaE
The Beach Boys: “Fun, Fun, Fun”
- Muted drums on the backbeat
DIF: Manic activity, ‘fun fun fun’ energy vs. the laid-back feel of HTaE - Similar to tBB -> HTaE uses parallel, triadic, root position, close harmony backing vocals
-> Barbershop inspired eg. v/ high falsetto, which feels for care-free/emotive in HTaE
The Beatles: HTaE
The Kinks: “Rosy Won’t You Please Come Home”
Features stepwise chord progression
DIF: Descending, minor, more rock and roll inspired
-> Andalusian cadence (think “Hit the Road, Jack”)
The Beatles: HTaE
The Beatles: “Drive my Car”
Unusual time signature in introduction
DIF: Uses 9/8 in intro guitar riff, compared to 7/8 in HTaE’s intro
The Beatles: IWTTY + TNK
+ SHANKAR!!
Kula Shaker: “Govinda”
The Beatles - Within You Without You - Consistent Indian-influenced vocals throughout. Slides, melismas, unusual scales, etc. Shankar
Use of Indian-influenced melody
DIF: Throughout the song, unlike IWTTY, where it is just in the outro
- Sung entirely in Sanskrit
- Tabla and tambura instrumentation
-> Also Shankar WL - this fuses Indian with rock
+ Non-instrumental sounds (bird song) -> Tomorrow Never Knows
The Beatles: IWTTY
+ SHANKAR!!
The Beatles: “Within You Without You”
Use of Indian-influenced melody
DIF: Consistent Indian-influenced vocals throughout:
- Slides, melismas, unusual scales
-> Shankar!!
The Beatles: TNK
- The Beatles: “Revolution 9”
+ - The Chemical Brothers: “Let Forever Be”
- Use of electronics, loops, panning electronics, vocal samples, music concrète influence
DIF: Without the drum backbeat so feels more like free-time - Heavily influenced by Tomorrow Never Knows -> use of drum loop and bass loop, with similar synth instrumental solo
The Beatles: IWTTY + TNK
+ SHANKAR!!
Rolling Stones: “Paint it Black”
Use of sitar
DIF: In a more melodic way - heterophonic with the vocal line in the verse
-> SHANKAR!!!!
