Eleanor Rigby - Analysis
This song is quite depressing. It talks about an unlamented death of an old and lonely spinster who used to clean up after joyful church weddings. This depressive mood is reflected in the music where descending lines are used throughout the song. It is in the key of Emin and also sound modal. Also, this whole song is written using only the harmony of C and Em chords (VI-I). Is there any term for this? or is there anything very significant about it?
In the Intro, the descending line A G F# E sung by the singer can be heard distinctly (b.1-2). This is repeated by the keyboard an octave lower as part of a compound melody (b.3-4). Also, there is a pedal point in b.1-2 and 5-6 below the descending line. This alternating between the voice and kbd of the descending melodic motif is repeated twice.
Moving on to the verse, most of it is made up of a decorated descending melodic line over a tonic pedal. D C# B A can be heard very distinctly (b.10-12 and 15-17). This line moves downwards in spirals gradually. The word-setting is also very apt because all the stressed syllables are held longer by the rhythmic displacement of the melody .
We've learnt about the '5-6' technique, and we've also learnt of other suspensions, but not '6-5'. In b.13 there is '6-5' suspension and also in b.12 which is separated by a long rest.
The chorus (b.19-29) can be looked at in 3 parts: the bass, 'tenor' and melody line.
The bass is a tonic pedal of Emin throughout. This gives a strong sense of the key in Emin even though the Dominant is not used once in this song. The 'tenor' line descends chromatically D-C#-C-B and adds to the harmony. As for the melody line, it has leaps of 8th (b.20) and 10th (b.24) upwards followed by a descending line. This style of the music climbing upwards quickly and gradually coming down is typical of this song as we have seen in the Verse section (b.10-11) and now in the chorus section (b.20-21 & b.24-25)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hello!
Nice song you got here. It looks and sounds like it's very hard to tell key.
I have a different interpretation for the introduction actually. I'd put the key of the introduction as G maj. There are no D#s to confirm the key of E min. Therefore, overall, it will be a chord IV going to chord vi.
The introduction to me sounds like a recurring interrupted cadence. I.e. IV -- (V) -- vi in G maj. But I'm not sure if the chord V is there or not.
When the verse starts, then the music can be taken as E min? I don't why even though the same harmony is used, I take the 2 sections as being in different keys. Maybe it's because of the melody?
This piece is not in E minor and it's certainly not in G major. It's in the Dorian mode. Maybe this is where all of your confusion comes from.
Post a Comment