Disney Music Theory
  • Blog
  • Twitter
  • Copyright Disclaimer
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Twitter
  • Copyright Disclaimer
  • Contact
Picture

Thank You!! + Rhythmic Diminution in "Let it Go"

7/27/2020

0 Comments

 
"Frozen" and "Moana" songbooks just arrived in the mail! Thanks to those of you who donated to my Ko-Fi page for giving me the money to buy these!

And now (because I said having these scores would help me help you, didn't I?), here is an awesome example of rhythmic diminution from "Let it Go."

The first two measures present a melody in 8th notes; the next two measures repeat the same melody in 16th notes.

You're welcome! (And thank you!)

​❤️
Picture
0 Comments

Let's Talk About Modal Harmony - Disney Style! (Days 4-5)

4/5/2019

0 Comments

 
Well, well, well. I had SO many ideas yesterday, that I didn't get around to posting ANY of them!

So I guess I'll just have to do a double post today. :-)

And since the last few posts have mostly discussed the Lydian mode, I figured I'd spend today writing about two other modes, which are rarely discussed in music theory classes: the major blues and the Mixolydian b6.

The Major Blues in "Carryin' the Banner" (​Newsies)

One of the modes that rarely gets discussed in music theory classrooms (because racism) is the blues mode. As the name suggests, it originated with the blues genre in African-American music and then later entered the jazz repertoire along with all the other modes we've been discussing (plus even more - jazz is a galaxy of modes).

Alan Menken's score for the 1992 film Newsies uses the blues mode extensively, setting the scene in early 1900s New York City and characterizing the newspaper-selling orphans as poor, emotionally broken, and transgressive. By contrast, he used the major mode for more "innocent" characters, like mothers and nuns. It's important to acknowledge the racist underpinnings of Western musical culture, which associates a "white" mode like major with innocence and a "black" mode like the blues with transgression, even if this blog isn't the space to dive into that discussion at length. That's why modal contrasts like this are used by film composers, and it's why audiences pick up on them, even if neither the composer nor the audience is necessarily aware of the racist undercurrent driving their musical experience.

Anyway, there are two primary blues scales: the major blues and the minor blues. Since Menken used the major blues in Newsies, that's the one I'll focus on in this blog post.

The major blues scale is constructed like this:

1. Start with a major scale.
2. Grab five of those notes - 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 - to create a "major pentatonic scale."
3. Then add a sixth note - the "blue note" - which is a half-step lower than scale degree 3.
Picture
In Newsies, the opening song's verses use a D major blues scale, with a jazzy accompaniment that breaks all the rules of classical music theory. Here's the melody, with the scale degrees labeled and the "blue notes" color-coded:
Picture
Things get really interesting, though, in the bridge section. After several verses and choruses featuring the rambunctious newsies singing their energetic, syncopated blues, we suddenly hear a group of nuns solemnly singing in major about Jesus. (Hollywood is as Christian-centric as it is white-centric, but again, that's another discussion.) Then one of the kids' mothers sings the same major-mode melody about how terrible it is that her son ran away to join the newsies, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME the newsies sing their syncopated blues tunes. This contrast is especially poignant in the 2nd measure of the sheet music excerpt below, where the mother is singing F# (scale degree 3 in D Major) at exactly the same moment that the kids sing an F-natural (the "blue" note in D Major Blues):
Picture
This is an interesting moment of "polymodality" – having two different modes going simultaneously. But it's also a dramatic moment: the polymodal effect here is not just a stylistic thing, but even more so a way of dramatizing the split between a God-fearing mother and her rebellious, runaway child.

If you'd like to hear an alternate interpretation of the modal harmony in this song, check out Hunter Farris's podcast episode about it. It's also an interesting, if very different, take on both the harmony and its dramatic implications.

Mixolydian b6 (aka "the Wonder Mode")
​in Hunchback of Notre Dame

I've gotten so many requests to analyze music from Hunchback of Notre Dame, especially from a Twitter follower of mine named Jeff Wilcox. So.... this one's for you, Jeff! ;-)

Legendary music theory YouTuber Jake Lizzio has called the Mixolydian b6 scale "the wonder scale," because it's often used in popular music and film music to evoke feelings of, well, wonder. It's exactly the same as the standard Mixolydian mode, but with scale degree 6 lowered by a half step:
Picture
But what makes this "Wonder Scale" so... wondrous?

How is this scale different from all other scales?

As Lizzio explains in his YouTube video, the first half of the Mixolydian b6 scale is exactly the same as major, while the second half is exactly the same as minor. It's like if the happy major mode and the sad minor mode had a baby and exactly half of each parent mode's genes ended up in the baby. That baby would be the bittersweet Mixolydian b6 - "The Wonder Scale."
Picture
What's cool about this mode is that it has a major I chord but a minor IV chord. None of the other modes we've looked at are like this. Not the major or the minor; not the Lydian, the Phrygian, or the regular Mixolydian. Not Aeolian, not Ionian, not Dorian, not Locrian, and not the Major Blues.

The Mixolydian b6 is totally unique among all of these modes by having a major I and minor IV.

Alan Menken takes advantage of this unique characteristic in Quasimodo's dreamy I-want song, "Out There." Cooped up in the bell tower for most of his life, his physical deformations hidden from the ablist public, Quasimodo dreams of what it would be like to move from his shadowy hiding place to the bright, sunny village square, even if just for a single day. And he sings this in the bittersweet "wonder" mode, rocking back and forth between major I and minor IV, evoking both the uniqueness of this mode and the swinging of his bells:
Picture
So this concludes Modal Harmony Week over here at Disney Music Theory! I hope you enjoyed it, learned a bit, and are as excited as I am to continue diving into the magical world of Disney. :-)
0 Comments

"Do You Want to Build a... TANGO?"

3/25/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Music theory is not about rules! It's about conventions!

And sometimes, those conventions aren't the best way to do things.

Take the opening of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" from Frozen. The "correct" notation in 4/4, shown above, completely blurs the meter, the counterpoint, the rhythm, and even the genre. What's more, it's hard to play! (Catch that left hand Eb on the last 16th note of beat 1!)

But when we re-beam it to fit the three unequal beats of 8/8 rather than the more conventional 4 equal beats of 4/4, a whole galaxy of details springs to life.

Why does any of this matter? Well, this passage is not just dramatic but also a huge part of both setting up the film's narrative and establishing Anna's personality.


This song comes after that heart-wrenching scene where the troll king erases Anna's memory, to spare her the trauma of her near-death experience. As the scene comes to an end, a confused Anna watches as her sister completely shuns her by locking herself up in her room. The musical background fades into a soft, slow, descending melody, orchestrated very sparsely, a perfect depiction of the loss, abandonment, confusion, loneliness, etc. felt in this scene by both sisters.

And this lonely music moves immediately into a fast, upbeat tango as a now-older Anna races to her sister's door to invite her to play together. What a dramatic contrast! It highlights how playful, giddy, and carefree Anna has become, and makes the tragedy of her memory loss and abandonment all the more poignant.

Sure, you don't need to know any theory to feel this emotional contrast between one scene and the next. But music theory -- including a sensible, if unconventional, notation -- helps us understand that contrast on a much more nuanced level, which means we can also feel it in a more nuanced way. And it also makes it easier to perform!
0 Comments

Polyphonic Melodies in Snow White and Cinderella

2/14/2019

0 Comments

 
Did you ever notice these bits from Snow White and Cinderella are the same?

​And it's SO ACADEMIC! The green notes go up, the blue notes go down, til they blend into purple... put 'em together and what have you got? A "polyphonic melody," in the style of Bach.
Picture
0 Comments

    Categories

    All
    Composer: Alan Menken
    Composer: Danny Elfman
    Composer: Elton John
    Composer: Frank Churchill
    Composer: Kristen Anderson Lopez And Robert Lopez
    Composer: Leigh Harline
    Composer: Lin Manuel Miranda
    Composer: Lin-Manuel Miranda
    Composer: Mack David And Al Hoffman And Jerry Livingston
    Composer: Matthew Wilder
    Composer: Mel Leven
    Composer: Michael Giacchino
    Composer: Randy Newman
    Disney Junior
    Life Update
    Movie: 101 Dalmatians
    Movie: Aladdin
    Movie: Beauty And The Beast
    Movie: Cinderella
    Movie: Coco
    Movie: Dumbo
    Movie: Frozen
    Movie: Frozen 2
    Movie: Hercules
    Movie: Hunchback Of Notre Dame
    Movie: Inside Out
    Movie: Lion King
    Movie: Little Mermaid
    Movie: Moana
    Movie: Mulan
    Movie: Newsies
    Movie: Nightmare Before Christmas
    Movie: Pinocchio
    Movie: Princess And The Frog
    Movie: Snow White
    Movie: Tangled
    Movie: Toy Story 2
    Show: PJ Masks
    Song: It's A Small World After All
    Theme: Anti-Semitism
    Theme: Parks
    Theme: Requests
    Theme: Survey Analysis
    Theme: Villains
    Theory: Absolute Music
    Theory: Chromaticism
    Theory: Counterpoint
    Theory: Foreshortening
    Theory: Gestures
    Theory: Harmony
    Theory: Intervals
    Theory: Meter
    Theory: Modal Mixture
    Theory: Modes
    Theory: Modulation
    Theory: Motifs
    Theory: Neapolitan
    Theory: Notation
    Theory: Orchestration
    Theory: Ostinatos
    Theory: Performance Technique
    Theory: Polymodality
    Theory: Polyphonic Melodies
    Theory: Production
    Theory: Rhythm
    Theory: Sequences
    Theory: Silence
    Theory: Timbre

    Author

    Samantha Zerin has a PhD in historical musicology from New York University, and has taught music theory at NYU, Brown University, and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. She is also a composer and poet, and teaches private students. To learn more about Dr. Zerin and her work, you can visit her main website, www.CreativeShuli.com

    Archives

    July 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly