Animal Collective-Safer - Experimental Band from Baltimore with Experimental Music - Essay Example

Animal Collective-Safer Student Name Institution and Affiliation Instructor Date Animal Collective-Safer The animal collective is a sound experimental band whose origin is Baltimore, Maryland. The band discovered experimental music way back in high school in 2005. Experimental music is one that is made with pure sound and textures. It is in high school that the band started doing walls of drones with delay pedals and guitars and screaming into mics. Music is a ubiquitous, cross- cultural activity that is usually found in every human culture. Different individuals demonstrate various preferences for music. The preferences for music are usually based on the effective reactions of the listener to excerpt music from various musical genres. While analyzing an audio recording, it is very important to know what kind of information seems relevant and where that information can be extracted from. Also, it is important to note the amount of information that a particular audio carries and how much of that information is linkable to the cultural or contextual sources, (Ferris, 2012) In analyzing animal collective, safer I will dwell on the following issues as raised by the music itself. One, I will focus on the acoustic features of the audio. For this feature, I will focus on the pitch, intensity, and duration to know whether it is high or low level. In addition, my focus will be on the musical features such as intervals, dynamics, harmony, rhythm, key, tonality, tempo, and instruments. Also, I will also dwell on the complex concepts of the audio recording such as emotion, genre, mood, and expression. Previous studies have brought forward five factors structures that are used to describe genre- free music. In music, we have the mellow factor that presents relaxing and smooth music. Also, there is the Urban that brings forth percussive and rhythmic music mostly found in funk, acid jazz, and rap. In addition, there is the sophisticated factor that is for classical music and intense factor for forceful, energetic and loud music. Lastly, there is campestral music that is for roots and direct music for country and singer- songwriter music. Safer is a genre- free music under the intense factor. The structure of the song safer by animal collective is made up of three short melodies. Two of the three melodies are repeated over and over again. A chorus is defined as lyrical words in a song that are repeated with very little or no change throughout the song. The chorus mostly carries the song title and often gives the listener a general idea about the song. The chorus for this specific song is: oh, oh, man and things have reformed in the snow filled lake and river where there used to experience waves, I feel deranged, they’re building beaches inside, so it’s sunny all May, I don’t know, I think it’s strange, cause I know we met before I cannot place it, I don’t know if there’s any real danger, but the creatures all know that it’s safer in the dark. It is the most remembered song by the listener, (Animal Collective & Campfire Songs (Musical group), 2010). The verses of the song also make this particular recording structure. Verses have second melodies of the song. The verses melodies do not change, but the lyrics change as seen in the song. The verses convey the message about the song title. Despite how the verse lyrics are, they should fit the song melody. The bridge in this song also brings in the song structure. The bridge appears only once in every song. In this song, the bridge comes in after the second chorus whereby the listener is caught but surprise because one expects a continuation of the third verse. A bridge is accompanied by a change in chord structure which leads to a smooth shift to another scale. The bridge of the song is usually a flashback or conclusion to the whole song, which, of course, adds to the audience surprise. For this particular recording, the bridge appears at the end of the song. Since this is a rock song, the bridge is a solo without a lyric. This recording follows the following song structure. Verse / chorus/ verse/ chorus/ verse/ bridge. The bridge for the song is “ man, don’t get too freaky on me.” A music parameter is a song element that can be composed or manipulated in a separate way from the other elements in music. Music parameters include rhythm, timbre, dynamics, melody, texture. Form, harmony, text. The song starts with a very dark; with a coarse and sharp piano. It then reaches its peak, “am alright if you’re alright”, and then comes to a soft moment at, “shh, everything is ok now” which is kind of a lullaby. During the outro, the piano sample is in a low tone. In terms of culture, this song leaves behind a huge fear to the listener but it reminds one that no matter how freaky life situations get one, one can finally find solace in a friend, oneself or family member. In a broader concept about how this song situates itself, the listener must interpret keenly the last line of the chorus: “I don’t know if there’s any real danger, but all the creatures know it’s safer in the dark”. According to me, the song is all about opening up to new things and being honest to oneself. That is, if you want to be innovative, you must get out of your comfort zone and make yourself vulnerable. It also involves taking risks if one wants to grow. However, this is the scariest thing that one can do to see the change in oneself. At the end, we learn that there is nothing to be afraid of. Melody, harmony, rhythm, form, tempo, and dynamics are so important in this recording because they help in bringing out the structure of the entire song. Melody describes the succession of notes that are heard as a form of a unit. Further, it refers to the single lines of the tone moving up and down; sometimes the tones stay the same using skips, steps and tones that are repeated. This is brought out very well in the song from the beginning of the first verse, the choruses, to the bridging end. On the other hand, harmony refers to the interaction between two or more simultaneous pitches. The keys are usually affected by chord progression. The harmony of a song is only understood only after understanding the melody of a song. The notes of the harmony in this song are played either beneath, behind or around the melody. It is the harmony of this song that has supported the entire songs melody. It gives this particular recordings mood or texture. If one wanted to change how the song sounds, all that can be done by changing only the harmony of the music. With the same melody but different harmony, a piece of music sounds different. Rhythm refers to the variation of the sound accent in a song over time. The form of a song brings forth the structure of the entire piece, that is, how it is put to make the whole sensible piece. In addition, the tempo is the speed used in the song. The piece is in high tempo though some parts are sung in slow motion to convey the message of the song, (Wolfe, 2013). The song is on the high pitch. The pitch for the song is inclusive of the melody, harmony temperament, tonality, and tessitura. Timbre is the quality of the sound in the music which is determined by the harmonics and the envelope. For this recording, the timbre varies between voices and with the musical instruments that are playing at the moment. The timbre for this recording is awesome due to the high tone color of the singers and their articulacy. The recording has a loud intensity or dynamics. The song has a high stress at the last lines of the chorus: “but I’m alright if you’re alright, I’m alright if you’re alright, man”. This helps in bringing out the meaning of the recording. The ability to detect the kind of instruments used in a specific piece of music recording is usually very relevant while analyzing any kind of music recording. Instruments in any recording define the timbre qualities of the recording. Instruments also act as the determinant of music texture, atmosphere, mood, distinctiveness and contrasts in a piece of music. Instruments also define the genre that a piece of recording belongs to. The types of instruments used for this recording are guitar, piano, drum pad, bass guitar, synthesizer, and autoharp and sequencer. This specific recording being a European music has used a time signature, or meter signature for measuring the rhythm of the piece of music, safer by the animal collective. The time signature used in this particular time signature is 4:4 time that is known as common time. There are four beats per measure, and the unit is used for each beat in the quarter note. For this piece, not all the note lengths are the same. The melodic motion refers to the movement of a melody qualitatively. It also includes the farness or nearness of successive notes or pitches in a melody. For this piece, we have an ascending and descending melodic motion together with a pendulum motion. The pendulum motion is an undulation that is extreme which uses large interval and large intervals. For this music recording the progression of the individual voices or parts with the vocal and instrumental composition is the best. The individual melodic lines, which are known as voices that are making up the entire composition are interacting to create harmony. The recording exhibits smooth movement of notes from one chord to the next. The chords connect to each other in a smooth manner. Moreover, every voice in the texture is led from one pitch to the next forming a pleasing melodic line while at the same time producing in consort with the other voices to produce successive harmonies. The pitch changes relatively overtime on a primary sequence of played notes. The same pitch contour is transposed without loss of the important relative qualities such as sudden fall and the rise of a pitch. Tempo rubato refers to rhythmic and expressive freedom that involves slight speeding up and then slowing down a piece’s tempo. For the music safer, it has played a major role in expressively shaping the music that in other terms is known as phrasing. In addition, the piece exhibits one type of rubato whereby the melody is flexible. References Animal Collective, & Campfire Songs (Musical group). (2010). Campfire songs. Washington, DC: Paw Tracks. Ferris, J. (1995). Music: The art of listening. Madison, Wis: Brown & Benchmark. In Tan, S.-L, In Cohen, A. J., In Lipscomb, S. D., & In Kendall, R. A. (2013). The psychology of music in multimedia. Odowichuk, G., Driessen, P. F., Tzanetakis, G., University of Victoria (B.C.), & University of Victoria (B.C.). (2012). Free-space gesture mappings for music and sound. Wolfe, B. T. (2013). An analysis of texture, timbre, and rhythm in relation to form in Magnus Lindberg's Gran duo. Read More