The song I chose from my artist MC Jin’s album “The Emcee’s Properganda” was “Perspectives”, a song about hip-hop and how people outside of the genre talk about how the music’s quality is decreasing in recent times.

The song’s melody follows a rather up-down contour. The main component of the melody is the backing track of what seems to be a string instrument sample that starts off on a high pitch and lowers throughout the middle of the phrase and then escalates back up before the beginning of the next phrase of the song. Another component is a guitar/other string instrument accent that comes in intermittently in the background of the song. The character of the melody is rather disjunct as the notes of the melody go through drastic changes multiple times throughout the song. Between the peaks of the high notes and the valleys of the lower notes in the melody, there are not many instances of two notes side by side that are relatively close in pitch. The only times the melody is conjunct is in the middle of the phrases, in between the peaks of the string samples. The range of the song is pretty large between the low notes in the string samples and the low pitch of the guitar/other string instrument being played to accent the backing track as well as the high pitch of the peaks of the main string sample. As far as hip-hop songs go in general, melodic motives are the basis of these types of songs. “Perspectives” melody is comprised entirely of melodic motives. The entire melody is a repeated building block of the song, as the string samples that comprise the melody are repeated throughout the entire song.

The texture of the song is broken up into a few layers. There are six layers total in the song. The first layer is the backbeat or pulse of the song that is a manufactured sample beat. The second is the main component of the melody, the string sample. The third is the secondary string sample that accents the main string sample in the middle of the phrase. The fourth is the main vocals. The fifth is the lower vocals that supplement the main vocals during the chorus. The sixth and final layer is the repeating lower vocal sample “Pers-pers-pers-pers-pective” that is littered throughout the song and always follows whenever MC Jin says the word “perspective” in the song. All the of the layers maintain the same general speed and stay on the same tempo throughout the song as the beat and melody remain the same and are repeated sections throughout the song. Each layer has a different kind of timbre. Although both melodic layers seem to be string samples, they each have a different distinct sound. The main melodic layer with the string sample appears to have the sound of a sustained violin-type sound while the other layer with the string accents seems to have a sound more like a guitar. The backbeat drum sample layer has a very manufactured, “computer”-like sound. The beat sounds entirely created and not played by actual instruments. The listener can tell by the short, choppy sounds of the beats. There is very little echo or reverb that is characteristic of actual drums. There is also an example of call and response in the song and that is shown when MC Jin says the word “perspectives” the other layer that is a pitched-down voice repeats the word in a stuttering fashion.

For time, the meter of the song is divided into six beat sections. in a “1-2-3-4…5-6” meter. The sampled backbeat takes on a boom-ba-clap-boom…boom-clap beat and consistently plays throughout the song. For most of the layers, the rhythm in each layer is relatively short. The notes do not have a very long duration. However, in the main melodic layer with the violin-like sounding string sample, the notes there take up much more time than other other layers’ notes. The tempo of the song is pretty moderate. I would not call it slow, nor would I call it overly fast, but it keeps a decent pace. Swing is apparent in the song though, especially in the pulse of the song. The pulse swings between long and short beats, especially from the 1-2-3-4 section to the 5-6 section of the backbeat of the song. There is some syncopation in the song with the secondary string guitar-sounding layer. When keeping track of the pulse of the song, it becomes visible that that layer is not on the same meter as the rest of the song as it accents the other part of the melody. Like the melody, the rhythm also possesses musical motives. The entire backbeat and pulse of the song is a repeating pattern.

For harmony, the song only contains a little portion of harmonic character evident, particularly in the chorus of the song when MC Jin repeats his verse and there is an audible, lower pitched mimicking of his verse at the same time. The harmonic character can be described as pretty consonant as the quality in terms of volume and pitch of MC Jin’s rhymes are relatively similar to the backing mimicry that is harmonizing in the background.