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.
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.
posted by mirzapaige | 11:29 PM
1 Comments:
Good start, Mirza (albeit much belatedly). You are right, defining the Malayness of the music goes beyond just examining the harmony, you may wish to do a little research on the characteristics of traditional Malay music to help you gain insights into these pop songs.
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