Allemande by Yo-Yo Ma - Essay Example

I think this piece really highlights the ability of the cello, which has an amazing range and can carry a melody extraordinarily well, and I think that Yo Yo Ma plays it with aplumb. Probably my favorite song in this entire playlist. Adagio Sosenuto by Daniel Barenboim This piece is performed on solo piano, a work with significant romantic overtones that recall the original composer, Ludwig van Beethoven. It has a very slow tempo, which builds towards subtle mini-climaxes throughout which peak the emotion without ever going over the top.

It is clearly in a minor key, and is incredibly invocative of sadness and melancholy. The song is driven throughout by a repeated three note riff that has only minor variations throughout, and then is punctuated by all the other music performed, bringing it into incredibly sharp focus. The music has a hesitancy to it, which makes it feel that every note has to push through a barrier before it is allowed to be heard by the audience, and that though each note is soft it has a force to it that allowed it to break through the hesitation.

The variations of the three note riff that flows throughout the composition gives the piece an interest that persists throughout and allows it to capture an audience’s interest and keep it focused on this song for long periods of time. I think this is an amazing song and is incredibly compelling. Its best feature is probably its emotional power, which creates an incredible amount of feeling in the listener, removing them from the time and space of the experience and into a more emotionally compatible one.

Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson This is a pop song with overtones of several other genres. One of the major genres that it recalls is funk, especially through being carried by a bass line, though it is incredibly danceable with a fast, four-four tempo that would keep people moving while listening to it. The instrumentation can be hard to make out, because a lot of it sounds like it might either be synthesized or heavily processed prior to being heard, but as is fitting for a funk-influenced song, the most prominent instruments are bass, staccato guitar and drum kit, with Michael Jackson’s amazingly distinct and interesting voice layered on top.

This song seems to have several vocal tracks, especially in the chorus where it sounds like Michael Jackson harmonizes with himself. His signature falsetto is used to great effect, heightening the emotional appeal of the climax of the song, along with samples of real-world sounds (such as police sirens) heightening the stressful narrative the song carries forward. Despite having mostly repetitive music, this song is able to build a rich soundscape with a wide variety of textures. Viva La Vida by Coldplay This is a orchestral pop-rock hybrid song.

This song is defined largely by its incredible amount of forward momentum, provided largely by short bursts of cello and bass drum that strike every beat of this four-four song. This forward momentum is carried further by perpetually adding more instruments on top of one another as the song progresses. It starts with a simple cello, then adds a bass drum to that to complete the main, almost train-like forward thrust of the song. Organ, piano, violin, viola, and even timpani are all then added on top of this as the song progr