“Waltz for Zizi”, written by Yoko Kanno and performed by The Seatbelts is a Blues, slow and steady-paced song that has solidified itself as a thought provoking and emotional piece for me. I first listened to it while on the bus in my freshmen year of High School and since then I’ve used it countless times to focus and relax to. One part of the song (0:59) is especially interesting because the song takes an entirely different route than what was expected because there is now open space; a harmony. The notes of the guitar are accompanied by different players in the orchestra who are all doing their part, making it so that the guitar is maintaining a consonant interval and giving life to the piece. The second half changes up the guitar chords to a higher key, that much is obvious, but the aspect of this song that makes it Blues is because a regular Blues song does not add additional elements; this song is filled with them. From the key change of the acoustics to accordion at the very end, the form changes, this is noted. Giving this song less credit and saying “It just sounds bluesy” will not be doing it justice, The song makes its distinction and signature from following ABBA form, from the start of the “B” segment (0:59) and ending at the start of the next A segment (2:20). From 2:20 onward, we’re back to basics with an accordion and acoustic guitar. That being said, why classify a song that is titled “WALTZ for Zizi” as Blues in the first place if the song can swoon anybody to sleep? If that was the intent of Yoko Kanno, then it would have not ended with the A segment, it would have ended with a B segment, i.e. the orchestra rises up during 0:59 and fades back down into nonexistence at the end. By going “back to basics” with the acoustic guitar being the sole instrument the listener pays attention to; the genre is set. It’s not blues anymore, this song is altering Blues music by incorporating different instruments into a classical Blues (the rhythm of the acoustic guitar at the start and end), thus solidifying itself as something akin to an alternative Blues song; starting at the same point as it ended with a deeply emotional segment in the middle.

Song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryqvdr0UxcI

One of my favorite songs is Flawless by The Neighbourhood. The Neighbourhood is an American band that was formed in 2011. The song Flawless was released in the album, I Love You. (2013). They are under Columbia Records and the genre they are mostly under is rock (alternative, indie, pop, etc). The band consists of vocalist Jesse Rutherford, guitarists Jeremy Freedman and Zach Abels, bassist Mikey Margott, and drummer Brandon Alexander Fried. This is one of my favorite songs because of the story of the song. It is about a man who falls in love and it seems perfect at first, but later he finds himself trying to keep their relationship alive after it starts becoming flawed.

The tempo is 120 BPM and the measure is played in 4 beats. The song is mostly in C key and in Major. The harmony is dissonant because it is reflecting the instability of the love between the two characters displayed in the song. It is a homophony as most modern music is. There is a melodic line (Jesse’s vocals) accompanied by chords. The form of the song is verse 1, pre-chorus, chorus, verse 2, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, and the outro. A musically interesting part is the chorus. When I first listened to it, I didn’t expect for the second part (“The only flaw, you are flawless”) to pick up in the song.

Cacophony is a heavy metal band formed in 1986 by guitarists Marty Friedman and Jason Becker. Their song Speed Metal Symphony was released on the album Speed Metal Symphony in 1987. It is considered one of the best neoclassical metal songs in the genre, and both guitarists the best in the genre as well. I heard this song in my junior year of high school as I was going into my deep heavy metal trance. I was extremely impressed my it due to how technically demanding it is and how it only took two people to come up with a song like that.

The song is in 4/4 timing, however it is very difficult to tell with how much is going on in the song. The song is basically an explosion of sounds from the guitars, which are at the forefront of the song. Although the song stays in 4/4 time, it does speed up and slow down throughout the song. It starts off slow, speeds up to a mid tempo range in the middle of the song, speeds up towards the end o=of the song, and slows down again, which feels, or sounds, a lot like a rollercoaster. It has a lot in common with most heavy metal songs in terms of rhythm, otherwise, by 1987 standards, this was a completely new thing.

The piece is basically the two guitarists interacting with each other, with the bass and drums keeping the rhythm going. Marty and Jason are harmonizing by playing the same guitar lines, trying to keep up with each other. It uses heterophonic guitar lines. The song alternates between guitarists, one playing single notes on his guitar while the other shreds, and then they’ll switch, letting the other guitarist shred while the other plays the rhythm. At the end it does turn into a cacophonic noise to bring the song to a climactic ending.

The song I chose is a game boss battle theme from Genshin Impact’s La Signora Battle, which was composed by Yupeng Chen, a Chinese composer on the game team. Genshin’s music serves the story in the game, so listening to their music allows you to visualize the story in your head. The main character in this song I chose is called La Signora, she is a sad and pathetic character. The innocent girl lost her lover and turned into a crimson witch. She resorted to all means and joined the evil forces to achieve the goal. She was willing to burn her life to fight against the injustice of the world.

The song is divided into two phases. From 14 seconds, celesta joined in. The cold timbre of celesta made people feel cold, and the bass strings and bass drum formed a heartbeat sound, which made people feel uneasy and dangerous. More and more strings join in, and at 60 seconds, dynamics become louder and louder. Then the female chorus joins in to sing the melody, and the female chorus here gives me the feeling that she is telling her suffering. At 2:08 seconds, along with the harp, the male chorus joins in, as to sigh and feel sad about her suffering. Then they call and respond, making the emotion stronger, and finally, they seem to reach some kind of consensus. The music stops and phase one is over.

In 4 minutes, the second phase begins, which is very different from the first phase. Compared with the cello sound in the first phase(at 0:02) , the rhythm of the music is much faster, and the string instrument was replaced by the electric guitar. At 3:36 seconds, the female voice joined again, this time no longer feeling sad, replacing sadness with anger. At 3:57 seconds, drum and bass, strings, and male chorus joined in. The crazy strings made me hear her anger. At 4:30, the electric guitar replaced the crazy strings again, bringing the emotions to the highest level. After the guitar is over, the female voice appears as an operatic solo with the flowing sound of the harp. It is as if she suddenly recalls the good times she had with her lover. Then the drums and the male voice come back and bring her back to reality. Finally, she stands in the fire singing her sorrow, flaming herself up, sacred and solemn.

This song mixes classical music with modern electronic music on the basis of opera. that is what I think is most interesting. Yupeng Chen combines these two elements so well that it sounds totally compatible. it was blew my mind when I heard this song for the first time while playing the game.

Here is the link: https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VnMOQ2j2l4

“Centuries” by Fall out Boy. Fall Out Boy represents various genres, including Alternative Rock, Pop, emo pop, and pop rock. I like the message of the song but also the intense moments this song has. I liked this song because it begins with a soft melody for a few seconds and then immediately gets more intense by introducing more instruments. Then near the end of the song before the last chorus, the same soft melody played in the beginning, is played again. I found this very interesting because it reminds you how the song began. Lastly, throughout the whole song the same piano repetition/melodic line is played in the back, which is homophony. Chords also accompany it in order to create the song. https://youtu.be/vR18NP-acL4

the song I choose is titled Last Last by burnt boy. the artist was once a grammy winner whose genre is Afro-beat. some people argue that his genre is not afro-beat, while others claim the mixture of R&B, reggae, Afro-beat and more. burns boy mixes his lyrics with mostly Yoruba, English, and other dialect of English. his songs also include street slang. my relation to this is the content and the message of the song. this content include hearth- break, and personal life. this song was global summer national anthem.I think everyone vibe to the song because of the melody tone burns boy utilizes. the melody sound wave is too easy to remember that both people who understand the lyrics, and of those who can’t translate the lyrics was able to hum to the beat. I also notice that the Dynamics was stable and a high deep beat after every four head nod. the texture of the song was crescendo at some point while it changes to decrescendo at other point of the song. the texture was changing at different section of the song.

I am more interest in Chinese music which I would share one of the music by JJ Lin “修炼爱情 Practice Love”. This song is written by him and sang by him in the memorial of a girl which they had crushed upon each other. However, sadly the girl passed away in a plane accident. The rhythm and melody of the song is very upsetting, including all the tears and misses. Good music is meaningful, emotional and self experiences.

As the reading packet 2 has stated that “music must show at least a degree of intentional foresight.” There are humanity in music which when you truly understands the music you’ll get the gist of what this piece of music meant and you will know why it attracts you. I will put a link of the song by JJ Lin, if you are interest you can press into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWV-f6dMN3Q

A song that I am familiar with and that I really enjoy listening to is called “Redbone” by Childish Gambino.

Childish Gambino’s real name is Donald McKinley Glover and is known for being an American actor, writer, singer and comedian. His music has been very popular over the past couple of years and is known for being part of the R&B music genre. The genre of R&B combines jazz, gospel and blues. Gambino was nominated for many awards in the past including Song of the year for the Grammy awards, and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for the Primetime Emmy Awards. When I first heard the song Redbone, I thought it was very strange. It was like something I had never heard before in my life and I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. The vocals sounded distorted and it seemed as if they had been put through some sort of voice changer. After listening to the song multiple times, I found out how nice the lyrics were and how well made the beat is.

There is a part in the song that I find very interesting. In music terminology, I believe this part is called the chorus. In this section, you can hear Gambino’s vocals say “If you want it, you can have it” while accompanied by drums and bass and sounds of high pitched percussion instruments. Based on this we can say that the texture of this part is polyphonic because of how the vocals and instruments are independent and work with each other. We can also see a Harmony present here since there are multiple different notes in the instruments being played at the same time here.

One piece of music that I’m familiar with is The Shade by Rex Orange County. The artist behind this name is Alex O’Connor he is 24 years old, he was born in the United Kingdom. The genre of his songs can be considered Indie rock, Hip Hop music, alternative/ indie, and Lo-fi. The relationship that I have with this pice of music is that I mostly like these type of songs and he is one of my favorite artist. I think that this song can be considered calm in some type of way.

We can see that the melody in this song is decrescendo and the harmony is almost the same thought the whole song. We can also see that the form of the song is the same in the song and the only thing that changes is the rhythm of the lyrics. A musically interest of the song is in minute 2:29 until the end of the song, when he combines different types of his voice to make a different melody with high voices and low voices. “BPM 120, key F”(song BPM)

the link for the song is:

The song I picked was No One by Alicia Keys.  Alicia Keys whose birth name is Alicia Augello Cook was born January 25,1981 in the state of New York. Alicia Keys was known as an “American singer-songwritter, pianist, and actress, who achieved enormous success in the early 2000s with her blend of R&B and soul music”(Britannica.com).  From the age of four she began her transition into performing which would later lead her to learning how to play the piano at the age if seven years old. Years later she would go on to be signed to Arista Records in 1998 after catching the eye of Clive Davis. This also included being the first to join J records in the 2000s, Davis new Label (Britannica.com). She would later on go on to produce a variety of music throughout the years, including performing by herself and collabing with many other successful performers. My relationship when it comes to this type of music specifical this song would be I would alway hear this song when I was younger with either my siblings, cousins and even my friends when we are listening to different music genres. There would always be a moment where we would play this song and others similar to it due to how fond we were of it. A musically interesting moment when referring to the Rhythm within the song would be how it is oraginze. This is because in the song we are able to hear from the beginning to end how the beat is being played at a slow medium tempo. This is since it is not going increasingly fast nor to slow it stays consistant.  As for another musically interesting moment would be the texture within her song. When listening to the song although there is only one accompanied voice it has two different melodic lines being played therefore would be polyphony.