[Pg 3 & 4]
Page 3 analysis
The final page shows the chord/ harmonic analysis.
The use of the change in time signature was rather smooth-flowing and not abrupt.
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CONCLUSION
I divided this piece into three sections, A, B and C, where all three sections do not have overlapping themes or similar melodic lines, however, i realised that the use of chords in this piece is rather limited.
Although in stylistic manner, the composer was trying to emulate Bach's writing (abit similar to fugal writing, in the simplest of form), however, it was limiting the harmonic progression to basic chords like i, iv, V, and the occasional use of VI, III and ii (dim) chords, it does not explore the "realms" of modulation and sticking to the standard chords used in most pop songs.
There are alot of use of repetitions (chord progression, melodic material) but on the overall feel, i thought that the song worked in the context that it was written for, not in the baroque/ Classical era, but to suit a movie theme.
And what i thought is noteworthy is that, upon closer scrutiny of Jay Chou's music (although this piece is not directly written by him, i think, but it looks like it is inspired or probably written for him - this of which is a speculation on my part...), i realised that he uses alot of walking bass/ descending bass line by steps.
We discovered this in NAFA when a friend and i was jamming in the studio, and we figured out most of the chords quite easily due to this predictable factor and nature of Jay Chou's music, and although it works pretty well for his songs, i feel that there can be more explicit use of other chords to make his songs even more interesting and nicer=) hehe just my own two cents worth...
2 comments:
Dot, you are right about the Baroque feel of this song, but it's more because of the figurational writing than any fugal element, of which there are none!
Across bs. 27-29, there is a chromatic line F(as n-n)-E-D#-D-C#-C-B-A-G-F#-E (which continues further) that gives the passage a clear general direction. This long line is in direct contrast with the opening (as pointed out in your earlier blog entry).
At b. 43, I would regard the surface bass note C as an inner-voice neighbour note to B, hence the basic progression is i-V; the apparent ii6/4 is a neighbouring harmony. The same may be said of the ii4/2 chord on the fourth beat of b. 40 where the progression is i-V(9-8). Such voice leading is, admittedly, not conventional hence it does sound a little 'weird' (or 'weak' to our tonal ears).
Going over your analysis again, I realized that I overlooked one point: you seem to equate the walking bass with the lament bass descent, this is incorrect. A walking bass typically refers to a bass line that is moving in even flowing rhythm and melodically more extensive than simply i-7-6-5.
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