Introduction
Happy Halloween everyone,
This past week I released my 5th song ‘Time Heals All Wounds’, and for this episode I would like to take a closer look at the song by analyzing some of the compositional techniques employed. You can take a listen here.
Instrumentation
The instrumentation on this track is comparable to other songs I have released before. I have two classical guitars, piano, clavichord (played via midi), two violins and a drum set (also via midi). I would like to start by examining the two guitar parts.
Key Signature and its Properties
Figure 1 is the score for the two classical guitars measures 1-4. Looking at the score, starting with the key signature, we see that there is one accidental (an accidental is a sharp or flat at the beginning of the music. The number of sharps or flats tells us what key the music is in). With one sharp, that tells us we are in the key g major, or its relative minor, e minor. Any note that is not diatonic (belonging) to the key, will have an additional accidental.
Rhythm
The rhythm of figure one, is a series of eighth note triplets within a 4/4 time signature. So how could we count this? To start, by counting 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + the ‘number’s counted are the quarter notes, then the ‘ands’ in between are eighth notes. Easy enough, now we have to include the triplets; its time for the spice if you will. Triplets are 3 equal subdivided beats. But there are multiple different ‘types’ of triplets. In this case, as mentioned earlier, we want to use eighth notes triplets. So back to the counting, between each ‘number’ and the ‘and’s we have to insert three equally spaced beats, or how I like to think of it, between each ‘number’, 6 beats have to be played. (123456 223456 323456 423456). Obviously, at 95 beats per minutes this becomes next to impossible to dictate. But this counting method is helpful for slower tempos and getting the feel for triplets.
Okay, great! Now we got a feel for the rhythm aspect figure 1. Moving on, I want to explore some of the repeating ideas or ‘patterns’ that fall within this part.
Pattern Identification
Looking back on figure 1, we can identify numerous instances of 'repetition’ or patterns. For one, each quarter note takes the place of a ‘bass pedal note’. What the heck is that? A bass pedal note is what it sounds like; it is a note played in the lower register of an instrument to act as the ‘pulse’ or ‘pedal’ of the phrase. In this instance, measures 1 through 4 have a steady bass pedal note played as the quarter notes, and the eighth note triplets falling neatly in between.
Awesome, so that’s one pattern, what’s another repeating idea we can observe? Well, look at the form of the the piece, it is consisting of phrases that continually rise and fall melodically (think vertically). This can be easily observed by the ‘form’ or the rising and falling of the notes on the staff. The placement a note on a staff corresponds with its pitch. With this in mind, even if you aren’t familiar with musical notation, you can have a good idea of it’s form, just by looking horizontally and vertically.
Cool! So far, we have identified the instrumentation, key signature, rhythmical aspects, and the form of the phrases. Figure 2, now completes the picture with what is thought of as one ‘full’ repetition. Now, I don’t mean to confuse you, because previously I said there are many patterns or ‘repeating ideas’ and yes this is true, when I say ‘full repetition’ I’m taking a step back and thinking of one ‘repetition’ as taking place over a longer period of time.
Large and Small Scale Observations
This is an important note, when analyzing music, to make both small and large scale observations. Within one measure, we can identify small scale patterns; the bass pedal note, the form of the phrases etc., but spanning from measures 1 to 8 we see a large scale repetition. I’ll go into some detail now.
Measures 1-4, the bass pedal note is an E, measures 4-8 (as shown in figure 2) the bass pedal note changes to A, all the while, maintaining the same triplet phrases. This is a large scale repetition; one repetition takes 8 measures to loop, and can be identified by the bass pedal note change.
Using repetitions that take place over an extended amount of time I think helps the listener properly sink in to what is being played. The extended time also creates ‘room’ for other instruments.
Layering
Layering in music is when you set forth one musical idea, then build upon or layer with the addition of other musical ideas. In ‘Time Heals All Wounds’ the five different instruments; piano, drums, guitar, clavichord, and violins are all introduced as a layer upon each other.
The song starts with the two guitars playing (figure1 and 2), then in measure 2 the drums enter playing the ride cymbal, with the piano playing an ascending arpeggio in rhymical unison; they both are playing quarter note triplets over the aforementioned eighth note triplets. These two layers (piano and drums), although introduced at the same time, don’t seem to ‘clutter’ up the soundscape, this is mainly because they have similar timbres and are in syncopation (“Syncopation is a musical term meaning a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat”).
At measure 9 (about 20 seconds in) the drums evolve. The ride cymbal quarter note triplet groove are maintained, but now with the addition of the kick and snare. This helps set the stage for the violins to enter at measure 13 (about 30 seconds in). The violin parts are special for a few reasons. First, the two together create a harmonized melody that adds depth, which doesn’t necessarily happen with the guitar parts. The phrasing the violin uses is also in a state of contrast with the guitar and piano; its melody is long and protracted; each phrase taking up at least 7 measures or about 20 seconds. All this manipulates our perceptions of the time in music.
Perception of Time in Music
Before, when listening to the guitar parts, we were focusing on sound events that were very close together (as discussed the eighth note triplets), but with longer phrases introduced; those played on the violin, our musical time perception is altered, the sound events are now taking place over longer periods of time, the perception of a repetition is stretched.
This seems to tie back into a previous idea, that repetition in music can take on many different forms, and by layering musical ideas that span different amounts of time adds an element of depth.
Hopefully all the analysis doesn’t bore you, my point with these types of articles is to demonstrate and teach about the different realms present in music, and hopefully spark inspiration of your own. Because, in a similar way, just how learning about history helps us understand the present (as to how things have come to be), expanding our knowledge of music will invariably deepen our understanding of what we are hearing.
Thanks for reading, see you all next week.
About the Author
Isaiah Grip is a 21 year old multi-instrumentalist composer (guitar, piano, violin, and voice) out of Longmont, Colorado who records and studies music independently under the name Tetra Veda, as well as collaborating with Ghostwrite Inc, and playing guitar in the progressive metal band Cloud Temple. His personal repertoire can be found on Bandcamp and YouTube under the name Tetra Veda.
Great song and thanks for the analysis.