This links for
the weekend is going to feature a fairly large chunk of links from music
blogger and scholar Dr. Ethan Hein. I’ve
appreciate his work quite a bit over the years and his recent posts I commend
to you.
https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2024/identifying-blues-melodies/#more-29063
https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2024/identifying-phrase-structure/
https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2024/identifying-song-forms/
https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2024/identifying-melodic-motives/
“Dear
Prudence” is a great example of developing melodic gestures through a variety
of contexts, whether rhythmic or harmonic. Even a simple repetition of a
gesture like A-D-E-A gets developed if it is repeated across a descending bass
line. The great part about the end is
the rhythmic augmentation of the melodic line.
The musical space and phrasing opens up for the climax of “Dear
Prudence” and within those expanded phrase spaces The Beatles add contrapuntal
embellishments. A lot of pop songs work
on a paradigm of what Leonard Meyer would have called statistical climax rather
than syntactic climax. A syntactic
climax in its archetypal form for classical music would be the recapitulation
in a sonata movement.
