Reflection
We started the assignment in week four of term three. We formed our group and immediately started searching for a song. After a few lessons and about eight songs, we finally decided on Something's Got A Hold On Me by Etta James.
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But there was a problem: due to new (and perfectly timed) COVID-19 restrictions, we wouldn't be able to perform with more than one person singing or playing a wind instrument. So, since we had planned to have a lead singer (Mary), a saxophone player (Aden), and a backup singer (me), we had to compromise. After much thought and consideration, we decided that we would record our parts one at a time and put everything together by multi tracking. This way, we wouldn't break the rule, as there would technically only be one person singing or playing saxophone at any given time. Mary volunteered her dad Sean's studio, and he was kind enough to take us through the whole process of recording - from start to finish - after school on Wednesday of week 7.
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With that date noted, we began to practice in week 5. Strahan and I looked up the chords (I would play them on guitar and he would play the root notes on bass) and we saw that the song was in C# major, so we decided to transpose the original down by one semitone to be in C major to make it easier to play. Strahan familiarised himself with the key so he could improvise, and I found a rhythm that worked with the song to play the chords in. Mary was already knew the song quite well, so she had no problem singing along in our first few playthroughs. Ezra quickly made a beat that worked, Ally began making her own violin part, and Aden transposed the chords for saxophone so he could write his own part in the right key.
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We practiced in music lessons and during lunchtimes in week 5 and 6 and we gradually got better and better. By the time wednesday of week 7 arrived, we were all very comfortable and confident with our parts. When the bell rang to mark the end of the day, we all headed to Mary's house.
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We were surprisingly able to record our cover in a matter of hours, all in one night. We started with Ezra playing the cajon, and then recorded Strahan's part on bass, which we adjusted a bit to better fit the song. Then we recorded me playing the chords on guitar normally in one track, then on every 2nd and 4th beat in another track. This would provide more rhythm to the song. Then, Ally quickly recorded her violin part and Aden followed soon after on saxophone. He even improvised a bit in the outro after being encouraged by Sean, and I think it turned out really well. Next, we all took a break to have some pizza for dinner before Mary recorded lead vocals. Despite needing a few takes, she finished quite quickly, and then it was time for us all to individually record backup vocals (except for Ally). Everybody else sang one track of backup vocals but I got to sing two high ones. Finally, we all got into the booth one last time, this time together, to record a clap track and then have fun with percussion in the intro.
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And with that, it was over. I was amazed how quickly we finished recording. Mary edited the video the next day and sent it to us and we were all so happy with the final product. We had lots of fun rehearsing, recording, and watching the video back together.
Task #6 - Rock Music Performance Task
For this assignment, we recorded a cover of Etta James' Something's Got A Hold On Me in a group of six (Me, Aden, Strahan, Mary, Ezra, and Ally).
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Mary sang lead vocals, Aden played saxophone, Ezra played drums/cajon, Strahan played bass, Ally played violin and I played guitar. All of us except for Ally sang backup vocals, did a clap track, and played percussion in the intro.
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We recorded the cover in Mary's dad's studio after school and we all had a lot of fun. Being in the studio was a really cool experience that I'm really grateful for. I couldn't have asked for better group members.
Here's our completed music video, which Mary edited and put together with clips that she collected throughout the evening. We're all really happy with the final product.
Comparative Analysis
The changes we made from the original in our cover were few and each quite subtle, but altogether they made a substantial and distinct difference.
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We made only a few changes to the texture of the song. The vast majority of the original song is homophonic and thick, with the exception of the monophonic part of the intro, which is just lead vocals. Our cover mirrored this for the most part, with the exception of our acapella section. Towards the end of the song, in the chorus, we briefly cut all of the instruments back except for vocals and percussion. While this was still technically homophonic, as there was a melody and a rhythmic accompaniment, it was a significantly thinner texture than the rest of the song.
In the original song, the intro follows the following pattern:
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MONOPHONIC - HOMOPHONIC - MONOPHONIC - HOMOPHONIC - MONOPHONIC - HOMOPHONIC - MONOPHONIC
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The monophonic part is just lead vocals and the homophonic part also includes backup vocals. In our cover, we decided to make even more contrast in texture, which resulted in this:
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MONOPHONIC - POLYPHONIC - MONOPHONIC - POLYPHONIC - MONOPHONIC - POLYPHONIC - MONOPHONIC
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The monophonic parts are still just lead vocals, but the polyphonic parts have backup vocals, percussion, violin, saxophone, guitar, and bass.
In the outro of the cover, we decided to have another tiny acapella section, but this time there were no other instruments and just backup vocals. We chose to do this instead of utilising a fade-out like the original does.
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In our cover, we kept pitch almost identical to the original, except we transposed it down one semitone from the key of C# major to C major. This was so that it would be easier for us to play bass, violin and guitar in the right key (which are all C instruments).
The melodic contour of the whole song more often than not relies on descending patterns. However, it breaks away from this in the first half of the pre-chorus, forming an ascending pattern. This helps to create significant melodic interest through change and contrast.
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We kept the structure of our cover identical to that of the original, only making changes within each section which didn't alter the structure in any way. Both the original and our cover follow this structure:
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INTRO --- CHORUS --- VERSE --- PRE-CHORUS --- CHORUS --- VERSE CHORUS --- BRIDGE --- PRE-CHORUS --- CHORUS --- OUTRO
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Tone colour is possibly where we made the most changes in our cover. The overall tone colour of the original is quite warm, grand, sweet, and brassy, with coarse and unpolished vocals. However, in our cover, the general tone colour is a lot brighter, cleaner, and clearer, and our vocals are a lot more polished.
In the intro, the original only uses vocals, but our cover also uses percussion, guitar, violin, saxophone, and bass. This means in our cover's intro, there is more contrast in both tone colour and texture, creating a lot more interest. The original's intro only shows warm, grand tone colour, whereas our intro also shows clean, dark, sparkly, brassy, sweet, murky, and bright tone colours.
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Dynamics don't modulate much in the majority of the song, however there is significant dynamic contrast in the intro of the original. Each mezzo forte phrase in the lead vocal melody is followed by a forte chord, sung by backup vocalists. In our cover, we took this contrast to another level, where we greatky increased the difference in dynamics. Our lead vocal melody is still mezzo forte, but the chord that follows is fortissimo, or it can even be interpreted as fortississimo.
Some of the expressive techniques apparent in both the original and the cover include growling in singing, hitting a tambourine, and reverb on vocals. Additionally, in the cover we also used delay on the vocals, louder reverb, bowing and plucking on violin, and even a little bit of distortion on one of the two guitar tracks, along with some reverb. The original fades out at the end of the song, but we decided not to do this in o
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In terms of duratuion, our cover has the exact same tempo as the original, which is 151bpm. This can be considered allegro. The song is also in common time, 4/4.
The only time where the tempo modulates at all is in the intro. It has no specific tempo, as it consists only of a melody and huge points of emphasis in which no rhythmic patterns are established. This is apparent in both our cover and the original song.
Generally, the melody consists mainly of short note values, although it will often alternate between short and long note values in between phrases. This provides a bit of contrast, which once again helps create musical interest.