The last thing I noticed when I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC a few days ago is that "long" in the line "Tears keep a-fallin' all night long" in "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" is sung with a melisma (A C#, I think), which musically gives a sense of duration.
I referenced Buddy Holly's original, but it doesn't contain this feature. Evidently, it's something the Beatles added.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
"Soldier of Love"
An-other thing I noticed when I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC a few days ago is in "Soldier of Love." The "so" in the lines "Use your arms to squeeze and / Please 'cause I'm the one who loves you so" is sung with a melisma (C# E), musically giving a sense of degree.
When I referenced the song again in order to find those specific notes and write this post, I noticed that "more" in the line "Baby, I don't wanna fight no more" is also sung with the same melisma, but here there's a (negated) sense of extension or continuation.
When I referenced the song again in order to find those specific notes and write this post, I noticed that "more" in the line "Baby, I don't wanna fight no more" is also sung with the same melisma, but here there's a (negated) sense of extension or continuation.
Monday, March 11, 2019
"I Got a Woman"
I listened to the first disc of Live at the BBC yester-day and noticed a few small points.
In the verse at the very end of "I Got a Woman," both "way" and "town" in the line "Way 'cross town" are sung with melismas (C# C# and D# C# B respectively). Since both of these are drawn out, there's a musical sense of that distance.
This feature is also present in the version on On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2.
I referenced the versions by Ray Charles (who wrote the song) and Elvis Presley. The Beatles' version follows Elvis' version (in E major rather than Charles' A major, with the last verse at a slower tempo, and with "Way 'cross town" in place of Charles' "Way over town" [although Elvis does go back to "Way over town" for the last verse]), but Elvis' version doesn't have these melismas (not at the end at least; he does occasionally sing "town" to the notes A B).
In the verse at the very end of "I Got a Woman," both "way" and "town" in the line "Way 'cross town" are sung with melismas (C# C# and D# C# B respectively). Since both of these are drawn out, there's a musical sense of that distance.
This feature is also present in the version on On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2.
I referenced the versions by Ray Charles (who wrote the song) and Elvis Presley. The Beatles' version follows Elvis' version (in E major rather than Charles' A major, with the last verse at a slower tempo, and with "Way 'cross town" in place of Charles' "Way over town" [although Elvis does go back to "Way over town" for the last verse]), but Elvis' version doesn't have these melismas (not at the end at least; he does occasionally sing "town" to the notes A B).
Saturday, March 9, 2019
"Good Morning Good Morning"
Last year, I wrote a post about a section of the saxophone part in "Good Morning Good Morning" and how it seems to have been inspired by 1950s rock and roll songs. Even at the time, I was a bit unsure of the accuracy of the rhythms in my notation. Yester-day, I was thinking about this part again, and I realized that it's a dotted rhythm. Where I had:
it's actually more like:
What I have still might not be exactly right, but it's certainly a lot closer.
it's actually more like:
What I have still might not be exactly right, but it's certainly a lot closer.
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