Assignment 2 - Comparative analysis
I chose to create a cover arrangement of "Marvin Gaye" by Charlie Puth and featuring Meghan Trainor because I was really fascinated by the different tone colours that Meghan Trainor's voice could take and I already knew and liked the song very much. I chose to feature my arrangement around the concepts structure and tone colour because I felt that the piece could use an instrumental, bass boosted version. I also explored pitch, duration, texture, and dynamics.
Here are two recordings to help with your understanding
Original song
Cover song
Structure
The main difference between the original song and my cover is the structure. Originally, the structure was
- Chorus
- Verse 1
- Pre Chorus
- Chorus
- Post Chorus
- Verse 2
- Pre Chorus
- Chorus variation/ Bridge
- Chorus
- Post Chorus
However, I wanted to make it shorter so I cut out the first second chorus, first post chorus and jumped straight to Verse 2 from the pre chorus of Verse 1. Then after Verse 2 and the pre chorus, I skipped the chorus variation and went to the chorus and post chorus and ended the song. My final structure was
- Chorus
- Verse 1
- Pre Chorus
- Verse 2
- Pre Chorus
- Chorus
- Post Chorus
Tone Colour
I explored the concept of tone colour in my arrangement throught the change in instrumentation. The original version has Vocals (melody and harmony), and Piano (accompaniment). In my arrangement, I used the flute to replace the vocals, a bass guitar for a bass line and a synthesised piano for the accompaniment. The main instrument that altered the Tone Colour was the Flute as this is the most obvious difference between the two versions. The original version does have a bassline, however it is played by the piano along with the accompaniment, I feel that adding a bass guitar to play the bassline changed the tone colour as well because the bass guitar has a very warm sound. I didn't want to leave out the piano so I had to make do with a synth on GarageBand, and this affected the tone colour because a synth and a grand piano will have very different tone colours.
Texture
The textures throughout the original song and my cover have been slightly changed. In the original version, it starts out with Charlie Puth singing and then the piano comes in , adding just a bit of accompaniment, and in the Bridge, the texture becomes very thin, and it almost sounds as if they are only singing with no accompaniment, however, for my cover, I start out with the flute then I come full force with the piano and bass and don't change the texture throughout the song.
Pitch
I performed this song in the original key of E major and tried not to alter the melodic or harmonic lines at all. But because I had used MuseScore as a reference and figured the rest out by ear, there may have been some parts that have been altered. I have changed the range in the pre chorus' and the chorus' (excluding the first one), and the post chorus'. I decided to raise the octave for all of them to give a bit of variation and to make it more interesting
Duration
Both arrangements are played at 120bpm and sound upbeat. Using the bass guitar and the syncopated rhythm, a sense of pulse is there for both arrangements. It was quite interesting recording this song because nearly everything was off the beat.
Dynamics & Expressive techniques
Overall, this piece has a very smooth dynamic contour, and there aren't any sudden changes. It smoothly reaches a peak at the pre chorus and and in the middle of the 2nd chorus.
