Force Vomit - Singing styles

In this post, i will look at the singing styles of the boys from FV. if u were to listen closely, you dont really hear FV singing in foreign accented styles. meaning unlike some other bands around, they dont try to sound unsingaporean, or 'ang-morish'. Being malays, they decided that they wanted to sound singaporean and malay at the same time, as they are a local band. i feel that's very interesting as althought singing english songs in a singaproean malay accent doenst normally sound good, i feel it werks for them as their songs have dat certain malay sound to them, as discussed in my previous posts. of course im not saying dat they actually sang all their songs with huge malay accents, just dat their natural singaporean malay accents are kinda prominent in most of their songs.

in spacemen over malaysia, listen to the line, "so if you can tune in please listen so come on in please come on in we came to say hello".

for siti, listen to "don't give up, oh siti dont give up"

The lines above have quite a malay sound to it when mister dino and gang sings them. there are a couple throughout the songs as well.

i feel that singing style also plays a huge part in this analysis as i imagine that FV will sound diff if they were to sing like the members of say electrico, with their non singaporean accent ( http://www.myspace.com/electricomusic). So in wanting to achieve the mlay feel in their music, FV went about singing with a tinge of singaporean malay accent.

Force Vomit - Melodies & Scalings II

As said in my previous post, Force vomit has been describes as surf rock too. Examples of surf rock music can be found here.. http://www.myspace.com/dickdalecom listen to the elimintor for a good example.

the following are some excerpts on surf music scales

most surf is in a minor key, but the five chord is usually major, very harmonic minory.
most surf melodies are bassed on the minor pentatonic scale, athough a full minor scale, harmonic minor, and blues scale could be employed succesfully.
It is sort of related to traditional mexican folk music, as far as the chords go, and to some extent, middle eastern music.

Middle eastern soundin scales help.
E F G# A B C D E
or, if you like to count intervals:
1/2, 1 1/2, 1/2, 1, 1/2, 1 (starting at the root)

it can be seen that both surf and malay music have some roots in middle eastern music. of course it cant be said that all of malay and surf music comes from middle eastern music. both the genres are a mix of many different musical traditions. i feel that in the case of force vomit, they have inculcated both to achieve a certain unique sound dat is neither fully malay nor fully surf, butt has strong leanings to both.

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..

Wonderwall part 5

The ending of the song is the chorus progression played over and over again. an intersting note is that there is a piano outro over the chords right at the end. just 5 notes played 8 times over. Nothing fancy, no crazy guitar solo just simplicity at its best. it serves and closes the song perfectly i feel. my personal musical belief is that sometimes simplicity is perfection. i use this idea of simplicity in many of my bands songs; one cause im not much of a soloist (heheh lazy to learn scales) and secondly and most importantly, i feel that a good musician knows what notes to take out to potray a beautiful sound, instead of playin so many notes. Just liek mister eric clapton. and just like mister noel gallagher of oasis.

i guess that's it for my analysis of wonderwall

(ps; do visit my band's website- www.myspace.com/purplepaigetheband and www.myspace.com/purplepaigetheband2 . SUPPORT LCOAL MOOZIK!!!)

Wonderwall part 4

The song begins with a four bar intro, played 4 times. the chords used in the intro are the same as the chords used in the verses. there are 3 verses. however the end of the first verse uses a diff progeression compared to the end of the ohter two verses;
Dmaj7 Esus4 B7sus4

I feel that this brings about a niece sound to the song and it also prepares the listener for the next verse, as the first two verses are played one after another. thus for the second verse and the third verse, becasue they are followed by the pre-chorus, the sticks to the same four chords used in the other parts of the verses. meaning F#m7 A Esus4 B7sus4 throut the second and third verse.

the verse is followed by the pre chorus. (and all the roads we have to walk are winding blah blah blah). the prechorus starts off with two lines of D E F#m, a VIb VIIb i progression. it's a common progression used in pop songs everywhere when the song is in a minor key. HOWEVER the third line of the prechorus is intersting. it starts off with D and E chords just as well. so the listener expects an F#m chord next. This doesnt happen. THe next chord is an A chord, follwoedd by A/G# (movin bassline from A to G#; chord stays at A), F#m then B7sus4. This plays with the listernes expectations and provides a twist to the song which sets us up perfectly to receive the cchorus due to the suspended B7 which needs to be resolved.

The a note in the B7sus4 is resolved in the chorus, although not by the conventional means. the first chord in the chorus is a D(add9). By playing the D chord, the A note is resolved as tthe A note exists in the D major chord. Thus although in the previous post i said that the suspended chord isnt resolved, after analysing the song further, i feel that the suspension is resolved, in a hidden and not obvious way. the resolve is felt and not clearly heard, such as in the bach chorales. and i find this method of hidden resolving very very intersting, and not quite common in the normal pop tunes butt used quite widely in rock music. it's quite magical actually. cause the transition and resolving is so smooth and not not openly done. brilliant i say! hahahahaha..

the chorus is a 4 chord progression played 4 times. Dadd9 F#m A F#m. i find the transition between the chorus and the third verse intersting. the song stops after the last chord of the chorus, for a whole bar. then proceeds to play a B7sus 4 chord for a whole bar. This provides the suspension which needs resolve and which is resolved when the songs moves back into the verse with the F#m chord. This bar of B7 also serves as a backdrop for a drum fill that leads us back to the verse. therefore the function of this B7 i feel is to link us back to the verse.

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.

Wonderwall part 2

Wonderwall is taken out of Oasis' second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? THe Morning Glory album has been perceived as the best Oasis record ever as it totally redifined British pop/rock music at that time. It was the fastest selling album ever in British music history.

Wonderwall is one of the few love songs that Noel Gallagher has written. although if u read lyrics, its isn't a conventional love song ala boybands or the divas around. the word love doesnt even appear in the lyrics. Noel gallagher's lyrics have always been appreciated worldwide, and many title him as a genius in song composition. here goes, the lyrics to wonderwall.

Today is gonna be the day
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you gotta do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now

Backbeat the word was on the street
That the fire in your heart is out
I'm sure you've heard it all before
But you never really had a doubt
I don't believe that anybody feels
The way I do about you now

And all the roads we have to walk along are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
I don't know how

Because maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall

Today was gonna be the day?
But they'll never throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you're not to do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do
About you now

And all the roads that lead to you were winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
I don't know how

I said maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall

I said maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after an
You're my wonderwall

Said maybe
You're gonna be the one that saves me
You're gonna be the one that saves me
You're gonna be the one that saves me



BUTTTTT dont ask me what a wonderwall is. It's probably just a metaphor love thing.

Wonderwall part 1

my second piece of music to be analysed is a song by Oasis called wonderwall. Oasis are a five piece Manchester outfit who 'redifined' their generation. They played music that wasn't played during their time. They were very well reknowned for their live sets, whch were not high octane, just walls of sounds, which suited them perfectly. They were the type of band that let the music speak for themselves, believeing that the4 songs hould make the artist, not anythign else. Many of you have of course heard of many stories regarding Oasis, mainly bad ones. They have had bad publicity on countless occasions. basically, they tend to get into fights and brawls and disagreements with basically everyone. internal strife between the two borthers, vocalist liam gallagher as well as lead guitarrist and the brainchild of oasis, noel gallagher. they constantly fought amongst themselves. that numerous problems for the band.

oasis is the reason that got me started on the guitar. although wonderwall wasnt the first song i learnt, it was of of the first few. it's a beautifully constructed piece, played acoutiscally but at times electrically during their live sets. the following is the music video of wonderwawll. note the beautiful cello line that provides a beautiful backdrop form the second verse onwards. (the cello line isn't shown on the scores)



the efollowing is a live set by them. ths particular concert was a 2 night even selling 70000 tickets per night. it was released as a live album called 'familiar to millions'. just listen to the crowd sing along to the chorus!!! such a high man! haha he even lets them sing the whole ending chorus!!!! liam is my idol man!



and the following is another live set by them but with the current band line up.



notice how liam gallagher sings. something dr chia will never allow in choir eh?

all the small thigns part 5

hmm lets talk about form. all the smal lthigns takes on the following structure

intro riff
verse
pre-chorus
chorus
intro riff
short verse
pre-chorus
chorus
interlude
outro

what form is dat? hmmm... i really dunno how to define it. prolly A B C A B C D B
im putting the into and the verse as an A part together. the outro is actualyl an extension of the prechorus art, hence i put it as a B part. so what form is this? anyone?

the outro takes on the tune and lyrics of the pre chorus. dat in itself is very imaginative, as the outro has two lines which are repeated twice, butt the pre chorus is jiust a one liner. this sort of builds about a longing for the prechorus to be extended as it is cut short to just one line by the introduction of the chorus. so when the outro kciks in with the first line of the prechorus, played vigorously by the whole band, it sets off into a very niece setting for the song to end. i personalyl feel dat is a touch of brilliant compositional skills by the boys form blink.

all the samll thigns part 4

why does the power chords work even though teh third is ommitted? i guess what jeanette said about the melody notes palying in the c major scale is probably the correct answer. as can be heard thruout there is no e flat note being sung, so i guess that's the reason why even though the third is ommitted, the major key is still 'established'. another give away is of course the lack of sharp and flats at the key signature.

speaking of melodies, i think blink 182 is very melodious for a punk rock band. their melodies are generally easy to the ear and sticks to yer head most of the time. for this song, most of the vocal harmonies are a third or fourth lower. tom delonge, the guitarist sings lead vocals for this track while mark hopus, mister bass man, takes on backing vocals. tuneful melodies and good harmonies diffrentiate blink 182 from other punk rock bands of their time.

all the small things part 3

i'm not really sure why they are called power chords butt in rock music, power chords refers to the playing of just three notes in the bass strings of the electric guitar,sometimes even two. the notes are the 1, 5 and (8). this gives the chords a basser (stronger) sound compared to the playing of open chords or full bar chords even. it also brigns about a rougher sound, so i guess that's why punk music use them.

The intro to the song is intersting. it goes C F G (no chord) F. Once again it ends on the IV of the key butt what i find quite interesting is the part between the G and F. It actually says there no chord, butt in actual fact they are palm muting the a minor chord (vi). palm muting is a guitar technique predominant in punk rock, where the guitarists puts the base of his palm on the strings dat he's strumming/plucking. it gives a rather muted effect to the sound, hence the term palm muting. why i find interesting is dat the palm muting brings about an interesting rhythmic change to the piece. just for that half a bar.

towards the end of the song, there is an interlude. it goes C C F/C G/D. this particular part of the song takes on the 'good' progression, a I IV V. however both the IV and the V are on a 2nd inversion. This i feel brings about not too strong a progression as the F and G basslines are not heard, merely felt. This however works when u consider what the drums are playing. the drummer is basically 'rolling', doing paradiddles and what nots and the effect created, is quite beautiful if not typical of blink's style.

all the small things part 2

above is the album cover (enema of the state)