Wonderwall part 3
ANALYSIS TIME!!!
ok firstly, the song is at a moderately slow tempo of 90 crochets per minute (i hope i got the terms right). This suits the song well as it makes the lyrics more heartfelt and sing alongable, clearly a crowd favourite. the song is played using a capo on the guitar. a capo is a device used to transpose the guitar up. this song is in F#m key. however what they play are actualyl chords that represent those in em key, as the em key chords can be played as open chords and not barre chords. the capo is attached on the 2nd fret on the guitar, hence by playing the em chord shapes, you are actually playing f#m chord sounds. i hope my explanation is clear. for a better explanation go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capo
The key signature shows 3 sharps, and the song starts and ends sentences with f#m chord, therefore i feel that it's in F#minor key. one thing to note though. the song uses a B7 chord as the last chord in many of its phrases, such as the verse which goes like this
F#m7 A Esus4 B7sus4
B7 chord doesn't actually exist in F#m key. a bminor chord is the 'correct' one. therefore i feel that in playing that B7 chord, the song actually modulates to the dominant of the seventh (E chord). so for the verse above, the first two chords are in F#minor key and the second two are in Emajor key. Is that right?
notice that there are some stylo chords such as Esus4 and B7 sus4 and Dadd9. The reason why this chords appear continuosly throut the song is because the song is played with the first two strings of the guitar depressed on the 5th fret. so although there are many chord changes, by playing it this way, you are actually only moving about two fingers throut the whole song to chagne chords, as your fourth and little finger of your left hand is contiously depressed on the 5th frets of the first two strings of the guitar. how cool is dat. makes guitar playing a wholoe lot easier eh!
becasue the two strings are continously pressed, it brings about suspensions for some of the chords played. such as for the Esus4, as can be seen by the name of the chord, the high A note, played by the little finger on the first string fifth fret of the guitar provides the suspension fpr the chord. one intersting point to note is that the A note is played throut the four chords as the little finger doesnt move at all, thus the suspension is forevre there and therefore it is already prepared form the first chord. The suspension however is NOT resolved throut the song, butt left floating in the listeners mind. i find this very intersting and different from the bach chorales we learnt in class, where all suspensions are prepared and resolved systematically and openly. differnet musical styles i suppose eh.
ok firstly, the song is at a moderately slow tempo of 90 crochets per minute (i hope i got the terms right). This suits the song well as it makes the lyrics more heartfelt and sing alongable, clearly a crowd favourite. the song is played using a capo on the guitar. a capo is a device used to transpose the guitar up. this song is in F#m key. however what they play are actualyl chords that represent those in em key, as the em key chords can be played as open chords and not barre chords. the capo is attached on the 2nd fret on the guitar, hence by playing the em chord shapes, you are actually playing f#m chord sounds. i hope my explanation is clear. for a better explanation go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capo
The key signature shows 3 sharps, and the song starts and ends sentences with f#m chord, therefore i feel that it's in F#minor key. one thing to note though. the song uses a B7 chord as the last chord in many of its phrases, such as the verse which goes like this
F#m7 A Esus4 B7sus4
B7 chord doesn't actually exist in F#m key. a bminor chord is the 'correct' one. therefore i feel that in playing that B7 chord, the song actually modulates to the dominant of the seventh (E chord). so for the verse above, the first two chords are in F#minor key and the second two are in Emajor key. Is that right?
notice that there are some stylo chords such as Esus4 and B7 sus4 and Dadd9. The reason why this chords appear continuosly throut the song is because the song is played with the first two strings of the guitar depressed on the 5th fret. so although there are many chord changes, by playing it this way, you are actually only moving about two fingers throut the whole song to chagne chords, as your fourth and little finger of your left hand is contiously depressed on the 5th frets of the first two strings of the guitar. how cool is dat. makes guitar playing a wholoe lot easier eh!
becasue the two strings are continously pressed, it brings about suspensions for some of the chords played. such as for the Esus4, as can be seen by the name of the chord, the high A note, played by the little finger on the first string fifth fret of the guitar provides the suspension fpr the chord. one intersting point to note is that the A note is played throut the four chords as the little finger doesnt move at all, thus the suspension is forevre there and therefore it is already prepared form the first chord. The suspension however is NOT resolved throut the song, butt left floating in the listeners mind. i find this very intersting and different from the bach chorales we learnt in class, where all suspensions are prepared and resolved systematically and openly. differnet musical styles i suppose eh.
posted by mirzapaige | 5:40 PM
3 Comments:
Refering to the paragraph about the B7 chord:
I'm not familiar with this genre of music, but I really don't think it modulates to Emaj there because i feel its just 'on' the dominant kind of thing instead of 'in' the dominant?
Help!
And also, why do you say B7 doesn't exist there?
Thanks
hmm.. well a B7 doesnt exist in an f#m key right? the 'correct' chord is a Bm.. a B7 is a dominant in E major key. that's why i said dat the third and fourth chords; Esus4 and B7sus4 is in E major key.
Hello!
Cool observation made about the suspensions not resolving. Haha, a whole lot of difference from what we've learnt from Bach chorales. Maybe it was due to the different context in which music was composed and performed.
Maybe the need for resolution in bach chorales was due to the horizontal thinking, i.e. thinking in terms of melodic lines in voices, that's why the need to resolve. But I was wondering, in music genres such as pop, do composers pay attention to the lines of each instrumental part as much? Or is their focus more on the harmonic (vertical) and rhythmic aspect? So the need to resolve suspensions is less important.
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