Force Vomit - Melodies and scalings

hey there peeps

force vomit songs are mostly written in the minor key. After listening to the songs and transcribing the melodies, solos and basslines (to the best of my ability; will upload them once im done transcribing in proper musical notations), i realise the scales used are a mix between the natural as well as the harmonic minor scale. It is NEVER the melodic minor scale, as none of the songs i analysed consisted of a raised sixth. it's always the seventh that is raised, butt not all the time, hence the mix between the natural and harmonic minor scales.

contextually, the harmonic minor scale, sounds very arabic. that is probably of the augmented second interval between the sixth and seventh notes. Malay music is quite influecned by arabic music, where the scales consist of up to 24 tones, due to the fact that arabic music use quarter and three quarter tones. Malay music however is also very influecned by INdian music, the following is a quote from Abdullah Mufa, a well reknowned Malay musician.

"I would say Malay music has got its own blues kind of scale which is not exactly "the blues", but it's got the feel of a lament. It's very dramatic. I guess it has to do with having minor keys in it. A lot of it is really a combination of different types of music, Indian music being part of it. A lot of Malay rhythms are derived from Arabia, Middle Eastern music that's been brought over to Malaysia when the traders were coming over from Arabia and passing through India as well."

HOwever, force vomit music is not only described as malay influenced, butt very surf rock at the same time.

TBCONTINUED

Force Vomit - Chord types

hey there

ok here's a basic roman numeral analysis of the three songs

SITI (Gm)
Verse: i V V i (repeated)
Chorus: V i V i iv III II i

SPACEMEN OVER MALAYSIA (Em)
Verse: i V
Chorus: III II i VI V

LAST NIGHT I SAID GOODBYE (Em)
Verse: i VI iv V
Chorus: VII i VII i VII i VII VI V

As can be seen here, all the three songs are in the minor key. What could be the reason behind this? Well for one, what i can infer is that to achieve that so called 'Malay' sound, a song has to be in the minor key. A check with the frontman of Force Vomit (FV), Mr Dino, shows that 90% FV songs are in the minor key. And those that happen to be in a major key do not have that certain "Malay" feel that i was speaking about. His reasoning is that FV gets inspired by a lot of the olden P Ramlee agogo era type songs as well as the void deck wedding Malay bands. Most of their songs were in Malay and they played around using the minor scale chords. So although it's not SCHOLARLY revealed or taught that the minor key is used to achieve the Malay feel, bands like FV and the old skool Malay bands use the minor key day in, day out.

That's not all however. One another interesting point to note is that the fifth chord in a minor scale is a minor chord. HOWEVER, in all of FV's songs, the 5th is a major chord!!!! And they use this majored fifth to great effect, to get that semi tone down (from the 6th) sound, creating a certain Malay feel too. Notice alaso that most of their cadences (last chord in the whole phrase) are all the majored fifths. I suppose then that by using the majored fifth cadentially, the Malay feel is sort of achieved.

HOWEVER, although the Malay feel is achieved by playing majored fifth, it's not a be all. Meaning, some bands use the Majored fifth in their songs butt not necessarily to achieve the Maly feel. One example is Franz ferdinand. Go check out http://www.myspace.com/franzferdinand and listen to the song Take me Out. They use a V instead of a v. But the Malay feel isn't achieved. I suppose then that to acheive the Malay feel, not only is the majored fifth used, butt another aspect needs to be considerd as well. I think it's the melodic aspect of the song, the tune, and i shall be discussing that in my next post.

force vomit

hey ho.. for this semester's blogging assignment i intend to do an analysis of a particualr local band's music style which i personally find very interesting. the band i'm looking at is force vomit, a very prominent, experienced and charismatic local band. they've been around since the mid 90s.. or should i say.. the early 90s. they've had different incarnations of thebands, with band mates leaving and new ones coming in, butt the chief band member is their frontman, vocalist and lead guiatrist, mister dino. you can learn more about them at www.forcevomit.com or www.myspace.com/forcevomit. At their myspace site, pls have a listen at the song called Siti. That will be the first song i will be analysing. if u have the time then listen to spacemen over malaysia, which is the second song im doing and thridly, listen to last nite i said goodbye. thanx

before i go into further analysis, let me explain why i chose force vomit to analyse. i personally find their music really unique. why unique? well most of their songs have a certain soud to it, a surf punk ala 60s agogo malay feel. haha i knoe i knoe, dats such a long 'genre' or band description, butt dats really the closest i can describe them. this particular feel makes them unique, as they are the only band around having that particular sound, making them, to me, a very singapore band (although dr francis will beg to differ im sure, butt let's leave dat to world music class eh). when i listen to their songs, i get a certain asian feel, typically a malay feel, and since well, during the 60s era, singapore's agogo scene was very strong, so force vomit actually brings back dat unique singapore feel (once again i knoe dr francis will beg to differ as the agogo scene happened in malaysia too.. butt let's not go there shall we?)

another reason is their lyrics. they have very metarophical lyrics, quite rty. plus they do have lcoal inferences in their lyrics, and dat makes them interesting too. well i'll be analysing the first song, Siti, for my next post. i do not have scores of their music, as well not many lcoal bands have their songs scored.. so i'll be using their myspcae site recordings as my inferences. so yeah dat saves me the copyrite stuffs n all. :-)

laters..