Tag Archives: Memories

Frank Ocean- Thinking About You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHXI6AzJi2E

The beat of this phenomenal song is duple meter while maintaining a slow and steady tempo. I feel as if the rhythm in this song divides the time evenly within the music. I believe the song is played with electrical instruments giving it a unique sound in comparison to other songs. The song has one main melody with many accompaniments making it a homophonic song. Frank Ocean sings at a lower pitch in his verses than he does in his chorus. By changing the pitch in his voice he sends off different kinds of emotions. For example, the tone of his voice is more calm during his versus making it seem like he is relaxed. However, during his chorus he sings at a high pitch giving us a feeling of much stronger emotion.The song is in minor scale because it gives off a sad feeling. The songs maintains  consonant sounds throughout by playing chords agreeable to the melody. The song does not change dynamics, except when it gets to 1:56, which is the last verse, it seems to be getting slightly higher in volume. You can notice here that the artist wants to grasp your attention at this point to send a clear message.Frank Ocean uses a ternary form for his song. Throughout the first minute and 56 seconds he maintains a steady beat. However, at 1:56 he changes it slightly making the song sound more gloomy, but then he goes right back to the melody the song began with (similar to “Dance of the Reed Pipes”).

“Springsteen”- Eric Church

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2gGXlW6wSY

I chose this song, “Springsteen” by Eric Church, because it’s one of my favorite songs. One of my favorite things about this song is the simple beat thats offset by the seldom piano notes that occur often enough to be noticed but not too much that they are over shadowing the whole song. This is what I first noticed about this song, since there’s such prominent guitar and drum usage, the piano notes stuck out even more to me.

This song is a duple meter song, which is cause for its relatively fast tempo. There’s a very strong demonstration of syncopation in this song in between each of the downbeats which leads to a very prominent beat in the background. Also, during the most quite parts of the song, when Eric Church is between phrases, there’s a slight arpeggio of the piano notes right before he begins to sing again.

I think the whole mood of this song would be completely different if the piano notes didn’t exist in the background. The song would get very repetitive and the offset of the piano notes keeps things interesting and different.

However, aside from the accompaniment, the lyrics are what stuck out the most to me. This being because I think no matter what stage of life you’re in or where you are, this song represents how a song can bring you back to a certain place in time. Even if you don’t have a memory similar to the one in the song, it still represents how a song (In this case, a Bruce Springsteen song) can bring back feelings of a past experience. This song, without explicitly saying it, is a reminder of the power of music and how a melody can transport you, from wherever you are, back to a specific place in history and evoke feelings you rarely remember. Just like how he says in the chorus “Funny how a melody sounds like a memory”. Sometimes I think with todays music we forget how powerful a song can truly be.