I believe it's my sister who first piqued my interest in this piece. I remember she asking me to "try keeping count of the beats".
Unlike most pop songs, this piece uses a quintuple meter. The other pieces which do so that come to mind’re Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen, Jr.’s (Theme from) Mission: Impossible and Dave Brubeck’s Take Five by. In fact, the accompaniment for this piece’s the same as that of Take Five.
In addition to the quintuple meter, this piece occasionally uses a duple meter. This makes it pretty tricky to keep count as we're used to counting in 4s and suddenly we're faced with 5s instead. Then when it alternates to 2s, which we're more comfortable with, it quickly reverts back to 5s again. Unless you're fond of counting in 5s, a bit of concentration's required if you wish to keep track of the when the 1st beat comes in.
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A rare gem for pop song hypermetric analysis!
ReplyDeleteApart from the uncommon 5/4 time complicated by the 'intrusion' of 6/4, I think another factor subtly 'confusing' the listener is the somewhat ambiguous subdivision of the 5/4 bar: do you hear the accompaniment as 2+3 or 3+2? In the videoclip, it sounds like 2+3. If so, the switch to 3+3 will change the second RH chord to an off-beat one. My preference, however, is to hear/feel it as 3+2, which seems to be suggested by the 6th bar of the intro melody. In the chorus, the vocal melody begins with 3+2 unambivalently. If one hears/plays the accompaniment as 2+3, there is then cross-metric tension.
I've always heard it as 3+2 but now I've realised I can hear from another perspective. This other live performance will sound more 2+3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3gNXUC4cX0
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, you've brought to light and vocalised the "feeling" I've when the 3+2 switches to 3+2. It's very enlightening. Thank you, Dr. Chong!