*This is part of an on going series highlighting some unique techniques to make the chorus in a song sound more prominent than the verses. For Part 1 go here.
Harmony is one of the classic techniques to make a chorus stand out. The typical way is to add a harmony only during the chorus, thus further juxtaposing the chorus against the verse parts of a song. But there are some neat ways of utilizing this that goes against the normal way of doing it... But first, what's the normal way?
One thing that is almost always true with harmonies, is that the harmony takes the secondary/background role. In other words, the main vocal melody line is either equal to, or more prominent than, the harmony vocal line(or lines). Otherwise the harmonized vocal line would...sound like the main vocal line instead.
*Even Barbershop Quartets - which can sometimes get confusing in terms of what the "main" vocal line is - have the main vocal line, and three harmony lines, so the main vocal line is still "equal" to the other lines (I should do an entry on Barbershops, they are quite fascinating...). Either way, it's really clear how once you overwhelm the main vocal line, it would get really confusing.*
So what is the normal thing to do if you added a choir to back the main vocal line? When there is a harmony to be sung, the choir would be split in half - with one half singing the harmony, and the other singing the main vocal line. All to prevent the main vocal line from getting drowned out, or confused with the harmony.
But there's a wonderful exception to this rule, and it is a great example because of it's sheer simplicity.
"Weighty Ghost" by the band Wintersleep is a song with 2 chords. That's right, only 2 in the whole entire song. The melody is incredibly simple as well...really repetitive and kind of bland..and the pre-chorus part is the exact same melody as the chorus...yet I think it's a great song, with an absolutely killer chorus. Why? because of the way harmony is used...which is a little different, but super effective (I also think the drum pattern, and the stomps/hand claps add to it, but that's for another post).
What Weighty Ghost does during the chorus, is to have a small choir (or the rest of the band anyway) to sing the harmony, essentially drowning out the main vocal line during the chorus. Exact opposite of what you're supposed to do... but it works.
Here's the song. When you listen to it, pay attention to the vocal lines from 32 seconds to 42 seconds. This will be the exact same melody as the chorus, with 2 exceptions - the lyrics are different, and the harmony is sung by one person. It's neat, but doesn't truly push the chorus. Then pay attention when the chorus hits right after - there's an entire group singing only the harmony, but it somehow really really works. *I was going to post one of the amateur covers on youtube on here, to show what it sounds like without the choir harmony, but I think posting anything on this blog as a "bad" example would go against the spirit of this blog...so I didn't.
It works because it's a simple melody line. It works because the pre-chorus is exactly the same melody but with only one person singing a harmony. That extra boost of harmony somehow pushes the songs even further, thus establishing the chorus section as the most prominent part of the song.
Neat use of breaking the "rule" of harmony.
Showing posts with label chorus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chorus. Show all posts
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Pushing the Chorus - Part 1 Introduction
When you hear a song for the first time, how is it that you are able to recognize a specific part of it as "the chorus"? What is it that lets you know when the chorus of a song begins and ends?
The simplest answer is that you've been socialized to recognize the structure of a pop song. Think about how many pop songs you have heard in your life (and by pop songs, I mean anything that isn't classical, essentially). All that listening has given you expectations on how songs are supposed to be structured - and the most important part is the chorus. You don't expect the chorus to be the first thing you hear in a song (with some exception, such as when it's part of an introduction phrase). Instead, you expect the first few melodic lines to be the same thing over and over...known as the Verse. After that, a pre-chorus section might follow, or the song might go straight to the chorus. Either way, the modern listener is extremely adapted to recognizing the chorus section of a song.
Maybe you don't think that recognizing the chorus is a big deal. Indeed, the modern pop structure (verse-chorus-verse-chorus pattern) might seem straight forward and obvious, but people 150 years ago would have been dumbfounded listening to modern pop structure. Why? Because it doesn't fit with the structures they were used to, such as Fugues and Sonata forms (or put simply, Classical music structures). If you ever thought that classical music was hard to follow, it's not your fault - the modern musical landscape makes it hard for most listeners to become acquainted with classical music structures. In fact, you might be surprised to know that classical music has many more restrictions and many more rules about the structure of the piece than pop songs do. Once you learn the structure of classical music, it becomes easy to follow because you know what's coming next....in the same way that we can recognize a chorus, and a verse..etc.
But songs are not just patterns of musical notes. If they were, we would be quite content looking at musical notation, instead of needing to hear them. The chorus isn't just the thing that follows the verse...it's the emotional highpoint of a song, the essence of the entire piece. We've all heard songs that have great verses...but mediocre choruses that don't hit that musical and emotional highpoint.
So how do you create a musical and emotional highpoint? Well, that's what artists have been trying to figure out for decades. But sometimes the secret isn't in the musical notes, or the structure of the song....but ingenious tricks that can be utilized in the production of the song itself. That isn't to say that these songs have bad choruses - but that the emotional highpoint is established much more prominently through these production techniques.
In the next few posts, I will be trying something new: A Series! I'll be talking about some songs that utilize really neat techniques to make a chorus sound... like a Chorus. You might be surprised at the implications! Stay tuned....
The simplest answer is that you've been socialized to recognize the structure of a pop song. Think about how many pop songs you have heard in your life (and by pop songs, I mean anything that isn't classical, essentially). All that listening has given you expectations on how songs are supposed to be structured - and the most important part is the chorus. You don't expect the chorus to be the first thing you hear in a song (with some exception, such as when it's part of an introduction phrase). Instead, you expect the first few melodic lines to be the same thing over and over...known as the Verse. After that, a pre-chorus section might follow, or the song might go straight to the chorus. Either way, the modern listener is extremely adapted to recognizing the chorus section of a song.
Maybe you don't think that recognizing the chorus is a big deal. Indeed, the modern pop structure (verse-chorus-verse-chorus pattern) might seem straight forward and obvious, but people 150 years ago would have been dumbfounded listening to modern pop structure. Why? Because it doesn't fit with the structures they were used to, such as Fugues and Sonata forms (or put simply, Classical music structures). If you ever thought that classical music was hard to follow, it's not your fault - the modern musical landscape makes it hard for most listeners to become acquainted with classical music structures. In fact, you might be surprised to know that classical music has many more restrictions and many more rules about the structure of the piece than pop songs do. Once you learn the structure of classical music, it becomes easy to follow because you know what's coming next....in the same way that we can recognize a chorus, and a verse..etc.
But songs are not just patterns of musical notes. If they were, we would be quite content looking at musical notation, instead of needing to hear them. The chorus isn't just the thing that follows the verse...it's the emotional highpoint of a song, the essence of the entire piece. We've all heard songs that have great verses...but mediocre choruses that don't hit that musical and emotional highpoint.
So how do you create a musical and emotional highpoint? Well, that's what artists have been trying to figure out for decades. But sometimes the secret isn't in the musical notes, or the structure of the song....but ingenious tricks that can be utilized in the production of the song itself. That isn't to say that these songs have bad choruses - but that the emotional highpoint is established much more prominently through these production techniques.
In the next few posts, I will be trying something new: A Series! I'll be talking about some songs that utilize really neat techniques to make a chorus sound... like a Chorus. You might be surprised at the implications! Stay tuned....
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