.For this blog post, I chose to listen to the song, “Hip Hop Saved My Life (ft. Nikki Jean).
The song’s melody is not very varied. The melody is the same couple of notes played in succession, which is pretty common among most hip-hop/rap songs in today’s modern world. The tune of most hip-hop songs is used mainly as a backing track and are only used as a structure for the artist to lay his/her lyrics or rhymes over. In terms of contour in the melody, the melody stays very linear mostly. There is not much in the way of stark contrast when it comes to the notes that comprise the melody. The character of the melody is very smooth and allows the listener to understand where the separate phrases are in the melody. Speaking of phrasing, the song makes it very easy to understand where the phrases both start and end in the melody. The rapper and the vocalist take very pronounced pauses in their parts when they end, indicating the end of the phrase.
The song also has a very simple texture. When listening to the song, at most there are only four layers at one time between the beat of the song, the melody, and whatever vocals are being produced over the previous layers. Both the percussive bass layer, the simple melody layer (the linear notes), and the long sustained notes as well, serve one simple function – as a backbeat to the artist and the featured artists lyrics. Those layers, in their incredible repetition keep the song moving, set its pace, and give the artists freedom to both sing and rap over without any drastic changes. All three layers also have the same speed. The layers share the same timbre as well, being very clear and concise in their tonal quality.
The time of the song shares the same repetitive, basic qualities of the texture and melody of the song. The meter of the pulse is separated into divisions of four. The bass takes up 3 beats (in 2 different arrangements) and then followed by a clap sound that follows immediately after. For the rhythm, all of the notes are very short and concise. The simplicity of the instrumental keeps the focus on the vocals.
For most of the song there is a good amount of harmony. Between the linear piano key notes and the long sustained notes, the harmony is mostly consonant. Both layers use the same notes that overlap, but dissonance comes in when the singular piano keys come in and go higher and lower to show separation from the long, sustained notes.
Overall, I enjoyed the song as a fan of hip-hop/rap music and the breakdown of the song’s musical qualities in the listening description has allowed me to have a greater appreciation for the music.