Analysis of Joni Mitchell - River Essay

A) A long flowing melody that rises and falls gently. Two distinct sections- the first introductory melody, followed by another melody which has calls and responses in a minor key. These phrases are joined with a small rising then falling melody and repeated. Left hand octaves are followed by arpeggios of chords/inversions of the chords. The first section is then

Cobi has created an overall central theme of injustice throughout the song-seeing injustice, the unease of acting against it, and finally doing something about it. The way Cobi has written the song puts great emphasis on how important it is to him. He wants listeners to take the matter of suicide seriously so he includes darker visions of people being hanged. Being a serious topic he avoids colloquialism and mainly uses metaphors to express the meaning. Witnessing how relevant injustice is, Cobi comments on how others react to it observing, “I’ve seen an ocean run away.” He notices how many people (ocean being a Synecdoche for people) have “run away” and do not help, which emphasizes the repeated lyric, “please help me chop this tree down,” indicating that the effort to help must be shared. Through this symbolism, Cobi is speaking to the listener and pleads for them to assist as well. This tree represents the injustice in the world that he wants to fight. By taking action against it, people can interpret the gravel being paved as a reference to a new beginning of hope. He uses mental images to reach people on a deeper level, which connects to people's imagination and inspires them.

This Section is called A1, because it uses similar rhythms and pitch throughout the Section. The structure of the section is however not the same to section A as there are various key changes

sunrise theme of the development which is ‘y-y-x’ then ‘x-x-x-x’) and the fact the second melodic phrase of the sunrise theme is one bar longer. The development then continues again similarly to

Measures 1-5 are a short introduction. The A section begins at the fourth beat of measure 5 and is in A major. The A section ends in a half cadence, which is an E major chord. The B section, which starts on the fourth beat of measure 29, is in C sharp natural minor. This is the relative minor of E major, which was the final chord of the first A section. At measure 49, there is a modulation back to A major which leads into a second A section beginning at measure 50. However, this A section is different mainly because the melody appears in the left hand and the section ends in an imperfect authentic cadence instead of a half cadence. This cadence is at the downbeat of measure 67, and there is no modulation to E major this time. The C section begins at measure 67 and is in A major. This section acts more as a transitional section that leads into a new statement of the main theme at measure 83. The final A section restates the main theme one last

Dynamics play a critical role in this lied to help bring across even more meaning within the lyrics. Looking at the beginning A section, it utilizes a crescendo from the beginning pianissimo in m 6, which then decrescendos with each word repeat “I’ll find it, never more’ and completely decrescendos by m 11. The B section, which starts at m 13, raises the volume to mezzo forte by m18 even though the wording describes a ‘silent grave’, as if she’s begging to break free of this silent grave that she claims to be trapped in. Then, in m22 there is a crescendo with ‘and my poor head’ and in m27 ‘by thoughts of him’. This leads into a decrescendo in m 28 when describing ‘who has my heart’. The return of the A section in m 31 uses a bit different dynamics. This time, rather than having a decrescendo in “I’ll find it, I’ll find it never, never more” a crescendo is utilized on both ‘I’ll find it’ expressions. Forte is then

First off, there’s this thing called the staff. It’s composed of five parallel lines and four spaces in-between. There’s two of them for different pitches. Each line and space stands for a note. Each line and space stands for a note. In the higher pitches, the treble, from bottom up, the line notes are E, G, B, D, and F, commonly memorized by the acronym “Every Good Boy Does Fine’. The space notes from bottom up are F, A, C, and E, spelling the word face. In bass, the line

The chords used in the piece are uncomplicated; they are chord IV and I for the first two bars of each phrase, then basic IV, ii, I, V chords for drumming. The melody is descending and the first phrase ends with chord V while the last phrase ends with chord I, which indicates the finish of the A session. Composers also put

(3) To what extent did I address the issue of getting the ensemble to release their sound together? (At a minimum, please address ictus, speed of cutoff, and size of

Don’t venture into the world of the altissimo range before you are able to play the entire range with proper volume control. You want to play the entire range both very softly and very loud.

There is no clear climax to the song but it has a conjunct motion throughout it because of the very few and spread out leaps. There is a fair amount of variation going on in this song but it also has a lot of repetition. The entire first verses rhythm is variated and every other measure has the same rhythm within it. After the chorus, the next three measures are all repeated and then the rhythm of the chorus is used again. Most measures in the song are either ascending or descending. The overall mood of this song is a happy one because it is diatonic and the repetition even though it has a slower

This piece of music has dynamics ranging from mezzo forte to fortissimo maintaining a loud, upright sound that penetrates the ear. The sound is constant and ranges slightly similar to the dynamics established in the opening of this tune. This song is in quadruple meter, in which it split into measures counted to four. The rhythm is constant during the section using the same techniques throughout. The tempo displayed in this section is steadfast until it comes closer to the chorus. A medium-fast tempo then becomes slower to create an effect of separation between verse and chorus. This example section is an example of step-wise melody, otherwise known as conjunct. It also displays a narrow range in this section, staying only a few notes. This is categorized as dissonant harmony because of the clashing or

In order to separate the bass and the kick drum, the author added a second EQ and found each tracks most prominent low-end frequency, then notched them out of the each others

If a bass guitar does not seem to be cutting through a mix, try creating a duplicate track and run the copy through something that will provide some overdrive. The SansAmp is perfect for this. Overdriven tones can be dialed in with

After doing a brief summary, we decided to divide our work in these main parts below (with the relative chapters and sub-chapters):