The song I chose from the reading today was “Nag Biegu”, which means ferocious wild bull to the Dagbamba people of Ghana. The song is extremely drum-focused, which parallels the importance of drummers in their culture and everyday life where drummers, like the lunsi, serve dual roles in the community as both musical performers and counselors to royalty, genealogists, and cultural experts amongst other things.

For the piece’s melody, its contour is incredibly varied. The song only has one main vocalist and his contour is extremely erratic. When he begins singing, his tone and volume escalate quickly and plateaus for a long note until the note drops out  and  he finishes the phrase with a quick succession of short notes of the same pitch in the mid-range. He continues again with a long burst, followed by another, followed by several mid-range bursts of vocals and then another mid-range sustained note. For the rest of the two minute long recording, he continues in the same kind of pattern, varying it only slightly occasionally, adding more mid-range shorter notes in the middle of the song. The piece’s melodic character is disjunct. The main singer varies between both high and extremely low notes. His vocalizations escalate and decline erratically through his phrases, with the disjunct character paralleling the varied contour of the melody. Some phrases are conjunct in the middle of the song when the main vocalist strays from the long bursts of sustained, louder notes and transitions into the phrases of mid-range vocal bursts that have a much closer range. The overall range of the song is very wide. The main singer begins in a higher register, belting our longer, booming notes and then quickly drops down into lower notes to finish out the phrase. The phrasing of the song, like the contour, is also very varied. The vocalist mixes in very long phrases, with his long bursts of sustained, louder notes; as well as  very short phrases that are merely comprised of tiny bursts of vocalizations in a lower register. These varied lengths of phrases also parallel the erratic drum beats that accompany the melody. Most of the song is very varied in its melodic content. However, there are repeating musical motive sections in the melody. The main vocalist varies his vocalizations throughout the song mostly, but he does repeat his long, sustained, louder note bursts several times throughout the musical piece.

The piece’s texture is relatively simple monophony with percussion as the song only contains four layers. One layer is a deeper, louder, booming drum beat. A second layer is a shorter, higher pitched drum beat, probably coming from a smaller hand drum. The third layer is a high pitched screech, seemingly coming from either a female vocalist or an animal nearby, that occurs four times throughout the song, and the fourth layer is the main, male vocalist. The first two layers of drum beats serve a function of signaling the beginning of a new phrase of melody, as well as setting the beat of the music. The deeper drum serves as a beat for the piece where as the higher pitched drum accents the deeper drums loud, booming sounds with lighter beats. The fourth layer of the male vocalist serves as the melody of the piece. The third layer, which I’m not entirely sure if it was meant to be part of the song or was just surrounding sound picked up by the recording equipment, does not appear to have any function. It does not fit the melody or accompany the beat. The fourth layer of the male vocalist is going at a much faster pace than the rest of the layers for most of the song. The higher pitched drum’s layer is the second fastest layer of the song for most of the time, followed by the deeper drum’s layer, and the screeching layer last. The only time the two drums are at the same speed is near the end of the song where the two match each other in time, speed, and rhythm for an extended phrase. The timbres of the layers are radically different as one is a male vocalist whose vocals have a ululate-like quality to them. Meanwhile the drums have contrasting sounds they emit as one is deeper and reverbs outward more, while another is smaller and has a more succinct noise it emits when struck. The other layer is merely a screech reminiscent of a distressed female or some sort of animal, possibly a bird-like creature. There is no call-and-response as there is only one layer of melody in the song.

The piece’s time is hard to describe. The drumming back beat is normally the indicator of the meter of a song but the erratic nature of the song makes it difficult to place any sort of pattern into the song’s composition. The different layers of the drums, plus the fact one could drop out entirely while another one plays a different rhythm and then come back in halfway through another drum part, makes it hard to establish a set rhythm. There is really only chaos. Therefore, I do not believe the song does have any sort of set meter it follows. But while the meter is hard to distinguish, the rhythm in each layer is now. The two drum layers do not have differences in the durations of the notes. The male vocalist does have the ability to switch up how long or short he chooses to hold a note and he does that throughout the song. In the beginning, as mentioned throughout this writing, he begins with a long burst of a loud, high sustained note (“Boom-ahhhhh” and “bom-dee-eyyyyy”) followed by a drop off in both duration, volume, and pitch. He repeats the same type of bursts throughout the beginning of the song before he switches to mainly short notes in the middle of the song. He goes back to his long bursts near the end of the recording again.

There is no harmony component to the melodic part as there is only one melodic layer. But the drums bring about an interesting, dissonant harmonic character. For most of the song, there is a lot of tension between the two drumming parts as they seem to be playing different rhythms at some parts. However, in a few select sections, the two work together to create a pleasant, consonant beat. Especially in the parts with no vocals, the drums seem to match up well.

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The melody of the song is extremely simple and is only one layer. The melody of the song is essentially the wind instrument sample the repeats from the beginning to the end of the song. The contour of the song is pretty diverse. The wind instrument sample has very smooth transition in its switch from its lower notes to high notes. The melody begins low for two beats of the duple meter, and then even lower for another two beats. Then, the melody switches to a short beat for one beat of the meter with a much higher pitch before it goes right back to the lower note for another two, then back to the higher pitch for one, followed by the two beats of the lower, ending with one beat of the higher pitch followed by an even higher pitch on two beats. The character of the song has both its conjunct and disjunct parts. The conjunct melodic character is during the first two sections of the melodic contour with the low and lower extended notes. The rest of the melodic character can be labeled as disjunct as it sharply switches between the high pitches and the lower pitch. The range of the melody is very great as the difference between the lowest note and the highest note is very large. The contrast between the highest pitch and the lowest pitch are on two different ends of the melodic spectrum. The phrasing of the song is eclectic to say the least. The melodic phrases come in many different lengths. Some are longer, some are shorter. The repeating phrases in the beginning of the song share the same length, but after that, the phrases vary in different length, tending to be more on the longer side than short. In terms of melodic motives, the song’s entire melody is a motive. The melody repeats from the opening of the song to the very end.

For texture, the song has 4 distinct layers: the wind instrument layer, the woodblock-like sound, the drum sample, and MC Jin’s rhymes. The drum sample layer helps set the tempo and beat of the song. It sets the parameters of MC Jin’s rhymes. The wind instrument layer gives the song some melody and more of an aesthetically-pleasing sound to the song for the audience to listen to. The woodblock-like sound accents the melody and drum beat. MC Jin’s rhymes serve as the main focus of the song. The layers of the song have different speeds because of their different functions. The melodic wind instrument layer has a slower speed than the drum beat. The drum beat gives the song a more up-beat tempo and the melody accents that at a slower speed. Each layer has its own distinct timbre as well. The wind instrument layer has a sound reminiscent of East Asia. The instrument sounds like some kind of reed flute that is commonly used in traditional east Asian music, as does the wood-block/clave sound. The drum sample layer has a more short, concise sound reminiscent of urban hip-hop. There is an instance of call-and-response in the song. MC Jin plays both the leader and the group roles in the call-and-response. MC Jin says “You on point, man?” and then responds to himself saying “All the time, man”.

For this listening description, I chose the song “My First Time” by MC Jin, a song about MC Jin’s first time with a girl and how it inspired him to write a song.

The song’s melody is comprised of a string sample, piano key accents, a vocable sample, and a horn sample. The contour of the song is defined mostly by the string sample that characterizes the chorus of the song. The contour is reminiscent of long plateaus as the notes are sustained over much of the duple meter of the song. The song begins and the contour begins at a middle tone for around four beats and then drops lower for another four beats. This melodic motive repeats throughout the song during the intro and the chorus part of the song. Although the contour moves between a middle pitch and a lower pitch of notes, the character of the melody is conjunct throughout the song. The melody’s notes are extremely close together and do not switch between extremely high or low pitches. The pitches stay relatively close to each other and do not go towards one extreme or another. The range, like the contour, is also not very large. The range is comprised of only a few couple of notes and all of those notes are very close to each other, compared to a song with a well-trained vocalist that goes between many different octaves and pitches. The melody is meant to only complement MC Jin’s rhymes that he lays over the melody so a melody with a larger range or a varying in high and low pitches would distract from the lyrics he raps. The phrasing of the song is pretty simple as it follows the meter almost exactly. The meter is duple, but the phrases take up four beats. So every four beats, MC Jin will leave a slight pause and then go into the next phrase on the “1” note of the next section. The only real melodic motive in the song is string sample that was introduced in the beginning of the song that is repeated in the chorus of the song.

For texture, there are six distinct layers: the drum sample that sets the backbeat of the song, a string sample, piano key accents, a vocable sample, a horn sample, and MC Jin’s rhymes. The drum sample helps set the tempo and beat of the song. It sets the parameters of where Jin needs to begin and end his phrases. The string sample, piano keys, vocable, and horn samples set the melody of the song and give the song more of a melodic quality. Their function is to give the audience a melodic guideline for MC Jin’s rhymes and a funky groove to allow the listener to enjoy aesthetically. All of the layers outside of the slow tempo of the string sample, keep the same speed in order to allow Jin to rhyme more in tune with the rest of the song. If the speeds of the layers differed from the main layer of the drum sample back beat, the timing of Jin’s lyrics would be thrown off.

In the documentary “Rockin’ Warriors”, the viewer is introduced to the world of popular music in genres of rock and roll, reggae, jazz, and pop that are heavily influenced and performed by Native American musicians.These musicians, like the rest of their people struggle against the odds, whether it be of making it as career musicians or the oppression by the dominant cultures in their homes. While not overly visible in the United States, musicians and bands of this type have a very welcoming fanbase internationally in Europe where many people embrace the culture and traditions of the Native American tribes. Songs like “Indian Cars” by Keith Secola become cult hits overseas in Europe and Asia as Native American musicians have a greater opportunity to perform and succeed.

When these Native American acts perform, they are not just Native Americans who are playing popular music, their tradition and culture permeate their performances as well. The acts try and bring a “native show” to their audiences. They use traditional dance to help create a sense of showmanship and entertain modern audiences. Just like with the tribal music, this new kind of popular music also centers around the drum beat as the “hearbeat of the music”. Most believe the “beauty is in its simplicity”.

There are many popular Native American musicians who have no only contributed to native music but to popular music as well. Buffy Saint-Marie, a popular Native American musician, is one of the leaders of Native music. She also does activist work in conjunction with her role as an Oscar-winning international musician, educator, and writer. She remains very rooted in her culture, loving the format of song because of its directness and ability to keep people alive. Tom Bee helped bring native music mainstream with an all-native band. He faced a lot of hate and acceptance has been a struggle ever since as his band and he cannot get access to studios in order to record, and on tour, police would stop them routinely because of their ethnicity.

These artists left their reservations to say things that needed to be said about the world, the cultures within it, and particularly the Native culture as a whole. With more technological advancements where artists can begin to publish their own music without the assistance of major record labels, their music will spread and reach a much wider audience in the hope that acceptance will be achieved.

The Sioux Grass Dance song is an interesting song from the native Sioux Tribe of America.

The melody of the song is particularly interesting and noted to be something that European settlers had never heard anything like before. The contour of the song’s melody is a very stark and drastic one with many peaks and valleys in the pitch and volume. The song begins with the leader’s phrase in a piercing falsetto tone with an extremely high pitch. This is soon followed by other male voices joining in on the vocable phrases at a lower pitch. This repeats again, but female voices seem to join the male group at a slightly higher pitch. These phrases then continue on this cycle again three more times until the end of the recording. The character of the song has both conjunct and disjunct character at certain parts. The character is conjunct during the phrases with the leader and male group voices together at a lower pitch. The character becomes disjunct in the parts between the female voices are ending their slightly higher pitched phrase but it slides in the leader’s high pitched falsetto part, showing two distinctive pitches. The range of the song, because of the high pitch of the leader’s phrase and the lower range of the other group of males’ phrase is pretty large. There are very high and very low notes in the piece and the space between the two types of notes is vast. The phrasing of the song is about fourteen separate phrases. The listener can tell the beginning and ending of each phrase because at the beginning of each new phrase of melody, a new melodic part comes in and either the pitch of the phrase drops or raises, or a new group comes in (the leader, the males, the females). This can be when the leader begins his high-pitched vocables in falsetto, it can be when the male group voices repeat the leader’s phrase, when they (the leader and the group together) drop to a lower pitch, or when the female voices come in at a higher pitch than the male voices. The melodic motives of the song are the building blocks of the entire piece. The motive being the “leader-male voices-leader/male voices-female voices” melodic segment that cycles throughout the recording. There is no melodic part that interrupts or divides up that combination of melodic parts and that section is repeated about four times from start to finish.

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The song I chose from my artist MC Jin’s album “The Emcee’s Properganda” was “Top 5 (Dead or Alive)”, a song about the best emcees (according to MC Jin) to ever rap.

The song’s melody, like most hip-hop/rap songs, and even the song I reviewed before, “Hip Hop Saved My Life”, is pretty straightforward and does not change or vary much during the course of the 5 minute track. It consists of a couple of vocal samples from various sources and what sounds like a singular piano chord repeated and played extremely low in the background. The only variation comes during the hook, “Who’s the best emcee?” when some guitar riffs appear and the cut up vocal sample from the basic verse is extended. The contour of the song isn’t too strong as the melody doesn’t have high peaks or low valleys. All the notes are extremely close on a musical scale. In terms of character, the song is pretty reflective and nostalgic, as MC Jin raps about many different emcees both past and present and definitely goes into the other artists different musical rapping styles. Along with the contour, the song’s range is very limited due to its heavy emphasis more on the beat/pulse of the song, rather than the melody. The phrasing is extremely strong, like in most rap songs, as MC Jin takes heavy pauses in between strings of lyrics, breaking up the song into very succinct parts.

The texture of the song is broken up into a number of layers. There’s the basic backbeat which is a sampled drum beat that keeps the pulse of the song. This beat stays consistent throughout the song. Then there is a piano chord that is repeated throughout the song at a low volume over top of that. Over top of those two layers is a sampled disc scratch sound effect to give the song more of an “old school hip-hop” as old-school hip-hop commonly included DJ-ing and record scratching on the tracks. Finally, over that is the layer of the sampled vocal track and above that is MC Jin’s rapping. In terms of the layers timbre, all of the layers share a consistently clean, clear sound. They are all extremely audible and distinctive.

For time, the meter of the song is divided into three and four beats. The drum beat takes on a boom-boom-clap…boom-ba-boom-clap beat and consistently plays throughout the song. For rhythm in the layers, all the notes are very short and do not sustain long as, like most hip-hop songs, most of the composition of the song is based around creating a distinctive beat for the rest of the rap to go over, keeping the focus on the rapping, and less on the instrumentals.

There’s not much harmony in the song. Most of the layers don’t overlap or share the same notes throughout the song. However, at the end of the song, when the vocal samples are extended, it becomes apparent that the guitar riff that was playing on one layer, shares the same tonal quality as the backing vocal sample.

Overall, I’m a big fan of MC Jin and his rapping. He follows a very simple style of composition in his songs. He allows his lyrics and his words to carry his songs, not relying on fancy technological effects to boost his music. I’m glad I chose him as my subject for my research project.

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