INSIDE THE MUSIC
Key: A (mixed mode)
Novel features: Homorhythmic texture, chromatic parallelism, polymetric implication in melody, ‘embellished’ mixolydian
132bpm
Tempo:
Although this track is in the classic rock guitar-friendly key of A and demonstrates a general blues harmonic language, it distinguishes itself from the rest of the tracks on the album in some fundamental approaches: 1) It employs an example of homorhythmic melodic texture. Most rock and pop arrangements exhibit what can be termed ‘melody-dominated texture’, where a melody is foregrounded and ‘floats’ above an accompaniment that provides rhythmic and harmonic context.
In the main melody here, however, the accompaniment and melody are more unified, and the guitars and keyboards join the voices in a co-ordinated rhythm. This ‘block chord’ approach stands out to the listener even if they can’t identify its mechanism.
2) Furthermore, this homorhythm has an implied ‘grouping dissonance’ similar to the tresillos of Rock And Roll. Here the fabric of the melody is made up of nothing more than three one-beat notes. These are repeated against the 4/4 meter. However, since these three beats don’t line up against the four in the bar, they slip behind and ‘phase’, creating the feeling that there are two meters happening at once (a ‘polymetric implication’). You can see below how the top notes of the melody land on different beats (2, 1 ,4, 3). This means the same three-note motif holds different rhythmic meanings, drawing a hypnotic expression from the simplest idea. 3) While melodies are commonly harmonised diatonically (i.e. with chords derived from the key), here block chords from the keyboards and guitar harmonise this melody in what’s called ‘parallelism’. Parallel chords remain the same regardless of their position (you can think of a fixed chord shape on guitar being moved up and down the fretboard, which is exactly what happens here). In doing so they very often ‘break’ the key, introducing chromatic deviations. In this case the prevailing A Mixolydian of the track (A B C# D E F# G) is embellished with a C natural and D# and G#, creating a swirl of modal colours to the track’s main melody.