I needed a way to notate music without using staves, flats and sharps, notes, pointy lines, arcing lines and wiggly lines. So this is what I came up with.
There are seven named 'notes', from A
to G, and with flats and sharps that makes twelve. An octave is so
called because the seven notes of a scale (some have different
numbers, but most of what we hear uses seven) plus the first note
repeated makes eight, therefore 'oct'ave. If the frequency of the
first note is doubled, it produces the eighth, and remarkably, we
hear it as the same note, only higher. In modern music (since Bach,
that is) the octave is divided into twelve exactly equal intervals.
They used to be unequal; if you hear the terms 'just tuning' or
natural tuning' that's what that refers to. I'll describe that in
another post when I tackle harmonics. But this post is about
intervals.
In the following, A<E means A goes
up to E (a 5th), while A>E means it goes down (a 4th).
A small s or f stands for sharp or flat. () signifies a rest. It'll
help if you have a keyboard handy. This way I can write a melody
without using any of the beautiful, elegant symbols that have been
devised for it. Music typewriters exist, but as far as I know there
is no music ascii set. There should be.
There is a thing called the tonic, in
every 'tonal' piece of music – it is the tonal center, where you
often begin and almost always end the piece. It is 'home', and
hearing it is a bit like drinking a tonic that restores your health
and wellbeing. Here's the beginning of 'Three Blind Mice': E>D>C
() <E>D>C (). If we say we're in the key of C, then C is the
tonic. So let's look at the intervals in a C major scale.
But let's have more fun. We're not
starting with Three Blind Mice, or any other ditty. Let's take a look
at a really great song instead. Let's watch all the rules I'm going
to tell you about be broken, but in just the right way. Here's the
first phrase: DDD<F<A<B (When are you gonna come down?)
>EEE<G>E<A (When are you going to land?)
I'm putting the song in the key of C
because it's cimpler. I'm also assuming you've heard it, and don't
need me to notate the rhythm. Hey, wait a minute! There's no C in
there! Oh yes there is. It's implied in every other note. We feel it
and know it. How? Well, that's among the things I'm trying to
understand.
It's not rare for a melody to be a good
match for its lyrics; songwriters, like the rest of us, respond
positively when things fit, and they'll think they have a good hook
line for a hit. But it is rare for a melody and its lyric to have
such a profound, complex and intense relationship. The song begins on
the 2nd and goes up, and immediately we get the feel of
someone stepping out the door, beginning a journey. The first bit
ends on B, which is almost to the tonic, but it hangs there and
doesn't...finish, so it's a musical question to go along with the
lyrical one.
Now there's another thing called a
triad, that refers to a chord such as C-E-G with all the notes in the
same octave. In the second part of that phrase, we start with the
triad, and that indicates earnestness and sincerity, but we still
lack the tonic, so the question mark is still hanging. 'Landing' on
the A is very interesting; unlike the B, it is not a 'leading' note,
leading us to think another note is coming. A is in fact the tonic of
the minor scale which uses the same notes as C major. So it is a
'questionable' place to 'land'. Are you starting to see how perfect
this is?
Then: D<FF<GG<A>G (I should
have stayed on the farm) G>F>D>CC<E<G>E<C (I
should have listened to my old man) Here we start to repeat much the
same phrase, but wind up at G instead of B, and then we bounce up and
down on the triad, finally landing on C. But it doesn't feel like a
coming home. The lower C might have done that, but here we're talking
about longing to go home, so we diddle with the triad, not knowing
whether to go up or down, and finally find a C up there somewhere,
like a lover in a dream. Then, it starts to get interesting.
From the same high C: C<FFFF>AAA<B
(You know you can't hold me forever) >EEE<G>E<A (I didn't
sign up with you) Now this is more or less the same as the first
phrase, but it feels different already. Going up to the F, instead of
down to the D-F-A triad as before, is an escape. Again, exactly as
the lyrics would imply. And thus the question has altered into
defiance. Landing on the A for the second time, it feels a little
more homey now, but hasn't lost its sense of unsettled motion. Hey,
it's a problem, but it's my
problem.
Then:
>DDD<FFF<G<A>G>F (I'm not a present for your
friends to open [actually there is no pause here])
>D>CCC<D>B<C<E<G<<Af>C<D (This boy's
too young to be singin' the blues...) <G>F>Ef>D>C ()
Af<C<B... This is just incredible. That it could be thought
of, and that it works so well. I'm going to spend some time on this,
before we move on to the chorus.
The
double << means you go past the first one and up another
octave. The interval thus made can rightly be called a 'leap'. It's
proper name is a minor 9th,
that is an octave plus a halftone. Such leaps are quite rare in pop
music. Joni Mitchell pulled off an 11th
in 'Carey' (on 'Blue'). Al Green makes an impressive major 7th
jump in 'Let's Stay Together'. Musically, the Al Green feat is closer
to what we have here; it transforms the song, rips it from the
mundane realm and into the spiritual with a single interval. But this
song was never mundane to begin with – even Al Green's wonderful
song has some cliches.
Again,
we repeat some of the phrase from before, but notes have changed;
before the feel was one of regretful longing (“I should have...”).
Now it's defiance and assertion. Instead of bouncing along on the
triad, we bounce right around the tonic, then go up as before, and
you might expect we'd land on the tonic somewhere up there,
but...he's escaped. Not like before when he was talking about escape;
now he has escaped, completely. He will not be caught. He goes
beyond words, and in fact sings something that bears a resemblance to
moanin' blues; blues without words. But it isn't in a blues scale or
rhythm. It has a penetrating clarity that goes right to the top of
your head. It so changes your relationship to the song as such, that
when we land on C at the end of a measure, it isn't perceived as the
tonic, but as another landing platform, like the A was earlier.
That's not because of the leap, but because of the notes involved. A
flat doesn't belong in the key of C major, except as a leading or
passing tone. By going directly there from the 5th,
we literally shift reality. For a few moments, we 'feel' the key of B
flat. That's right, there isn't a B flat anywhere; but landing on the
D after the Af>C implies the triad of Bf-D-F. Why this is so
is rather complicated and I'll try to tackle it in the future. But if
you can pick out the melody on the keyboard, try it for yourself;
you'll see the C doesn't sound like tonic any more, but like a 2nd.
Then we wail from G down to C, but in C minor, and again, none of the
notes seem as they did before. (We're still in transitional B flat,
though we never left the key of C major.) Then a repeat of the high
moan, this time landing on the B, which must stand for Bizarre,
because suddenly C is the tonic again, though we haven't heard it
yet. That B actually implies the G major triad, which is C major's
best friend. Again, I'll get into why in another post, because it has
everything to do with harmonics.
So,
CCC>G>E<B (Goodbye yellow brick road) >AfAf<AAAA>F>C<E
(Where the dogs of society howl) <G<EEE<F>E>D>A
(You can't plant me in your penthouse) <C>A<BB<C<D>C
(I'm going back to my plough) <EEE>C>G>E<BBBB (back to
the howlin' old owl in the woods) <CCC>A>F>C<Ef
(Huntin' the horny-back toad) EfEf>CCC<EE<G<C>B<C
(well I've finally decided my future lies) >A<CCC<D>B<Af>C<D
(beyond the yellow brick road) G>F>Ef>D>C( ) Af>C>B<C<D>C
The first bit of the chorus is all along the C major triad, because
he means what he says. There is no ambiguity in this goodbye. The B
at the end now doesn't seem to leave you hanging, but rather implies
that another strong statement is coming. Now we see the A flat again,
but this time in its usual role as a leading tone, bringing us to A,
C's cousin. Then we mark out an F major triad; if G is C's best
friend, then F is the other one who's always hanging out with them.
We use the 4th
to make the most outlandish statements so the tonic doesn't get
blamed for them. Then another leap up, via the C major triad,
reminding the listener that we have indeed escaped. Then comes what
should be the most mundane of all sequences in the piece, diddling
around the tonic again, but instead it appears as a triumphant
return. Then we have some arpeggios (rising or falling melodies which
follow chords) in C major and F major again, but then we suddenly
have another dramatic assertion. Now we're not in a minor key, but
the minor third going down to the tonic is just about the most
decisive-sounding thing you can do in music. So we need to land on
the minor third to get ready, then – we decide! And immediately
know it was the right decision, for the melody goes up again, to that
higher C, reminiscent of the first time we went up to the tonic, but
now near the end of the tale. We wander around the tonic, as
songwriters do when they're getting ready to land on it finally and
finish the piece. There's the leading tone (B), and it leads to –
Freedom! Not the familiar, dependable, stolid old tonic; we've
escaped, remember? We're headed for the siren song of liberty and
adventure. And now we can get there from any note whatsoever.
Of
course there's a second verse, just about as good as the first; but I
think I've done what I could to describe the meanings in the melody
for you. And I need to sleep.
for
now
just1
No comments:
Post a Comment