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Edexcel AS: 20th-Century Vocal Music (2011) : by Simon Rushby
Edexcel AS: 20th-Century Vocal Music (2011) : by Simon Rushby
KS
Simon Rushby is
director of music at
Reigate Grammar
School in Surrey,
and was a principal
examiner for A-level
Music for a number
of years.He is also a
published songwriter
and a composer of
TV and production
music, and is the coauthor of Rhinegolds
Edexcel GCSE Listening Tests (Book 4).
Introduction
The Vocal Music set works for 2011 include three songs from what might loosely be called the 20th-century
popular tradition, but each song could also be seen as an example of indigenous folk music, representative
of the society, culture and people of its region. Summertime by George Gershwin comes from Porgy and
Bess, which Gershwin himself described as a folk opera an opera about the lives of African-Americans set
in the fictitious Catfish Row in the deep south of 1920s USA. You Can Get It If You Really Want by Desmond
Dekker and the Aces comes from the island of Jamaica, whose local musical tradition became global in the
1960s and 1970s. And finally, Oasiss anthem Dont Look Back In Anger comes from the heights of Britpop,
a 1990s phenomenon that celebrated British culture and took the country by storm.
Rhinegolds Edexcel AS Music Study Guide provides detailed background and analysis of these three songs,
and this is content that I do not intend to repeat in this article. Instead, we will look at each song from the
perspectives of the two types of questions that will come up in the 2011 summer AS examination.
Section A of the Unit 3 paper is the listening section, and candidates will have to answer two questions,
one on each of the areas of study. This means that even if they focus their study on the Instrumental Music
topic, they will still have to know these Vocal Music set works well enough to answer the listening questions.
A good, broad overview of each work should suffice for this.
Section B asks two questions about the stylistic and analytical detail of the set works, and for this candidates choose to specialise in either the Instrumental or Vocal Music area of study. They will need to be able
to write about the important musical features of each work, identify the social and historical context and
possibly compare works with one another. In this article I will suggest possible Section A and Section B
questions for each song.
The composers
brother and longtime lyricist, Ira
Gershwin, supplied
additional lyrics.
in October 1935. The run was reasonably successful but the opera did not gain the status it enjoys today
until some years after the composers death. Gershwin, however, considered it his best work.
Summertime is probably the best known of the songs from Porgy and Bess,
though other numbers such as I Got Plenty of Nuttin and It Aint Necessarily So
have also become staples of the jazz repertoire. Like other arias in the opera, it is
written in the style of a spiritual in an attempt by Gershwin to capture the folk style
of the African-American characters. It appears very early in Act 1, as part of the
opening scene, and is sung by the character Clara as a lullaby to her baby. Parts
of the song also appear later in the act and the song is reprised by Bess in Act 3,
following the death of Clara and her husband, Jake, as she sings it to Claras baby
once more.
Tip
Bear in mind that a skeleton score of the extract in question would be provided, and students would have a
total of five playings of the extract to answer approximately eight to ten questions. Additionally, it is likely
that only an extract of the song would be used for a Section A question.
(a) In what ways does the orchestral introduction (bars 17) capture the sense of a lullaby?
(b) What is the harmonic device heard in bars 37?
(c) What is the key at bar 8?
(d) One which type of scale is the vocal melody based?
(e) Between bars 8 and 24, give a bar and beat number where an example of syncopation can be heard in
the vocal melody.
(f) Between bars 8 and 24, give bar numbers where the following can be heard:
(i)
Chromatic passing notes
(ii)
(iii)
(g) What changes in texture are there at the start of the second verse (bar 25 onwards)?
(h) What name is given to the harmonic progression heard in bars 4044?
(i) What is the form of this aria?
Answers
(a) Expressive, legato phrases; falling arpeggios; rocking oscillating notes in the clarinet and bells.
(b) (Dominant) pedal note.
(c) B minor.
(d) Pentatonic scale.
(e) Bar 12 beat 1; bar 15 beat 3; bar 16 beats 1 and 2; bar 21 beat 1.
(f) (i)
(ii)
(iii)
Describe the stylistic features of Summertime that show that there is a strong influence from jazz and
African-American folk music.
This question asks students to identify those features that can be found in the jazz and folk styles of the
1920s and 30s. In their answers, students could mention the following points:
Pentatonic melody (as in folk music) the C# in bars 14 and 15 is the only non-pentatonic note in the whole
of the vocal melody
Swing rhythms, such as the way an the livin is easy is sung
Syncopation often to emphasise words such as jumpin and phrases like Oh yo daddys rich
Decoration and embellishments such the grace note on cry in bar 22
Overly embellished long notes (such as the last note of the song reminiscent of gospel singing)
Blue notes (such as the E against E# in bar 14)
Chromatic chords and passing notes particularly found in the orchestral part and adding colour
Colourful harmony such as the added 6th chords in bars 811
Portamento or slides in the vocal part such as in bar 21
Strophic song form.
larise reggae in America. By the time the film came out, reggae was
an established popular music style heralding from the island of Jamaica, and both Jimmy Cliff and Desmond Dekker (who recorded the
song in 1970, two years before Cliff released his own version) were
well-known reggae singers both in their own country and, increasingly, in the US and Britain.
Jimmy Cliff
This iconic Jimmy Cliff song is one of four that featured on the sound-
Reggae
The genre known as reggae was quite new at the time that this song was recorded, in 1970, but the roots
of reggae went a long way back into Jamaican folk culture. In the early 1960s, an indigenous Jamaican folk
genre known as mento began to be adapted by young emerging musicians who were heavily influenced
by the rhythm and blues that they heard on the radio from American stations. The resultant style became
known as ska and was known for its off-beat chords, walking bass and melodic brass riffs. It was popular in
both Jamaica and Britain and leading artists such as the Skatalites sold many records.
Later in the 1960s many Jamaican musicians preferred to slow down the frenetic ska beat, emphasising
the bass line and the off-beat chords (the playing of which was known as skanking). This slower, toughersounding music became known as rocksteady and it was in this genre that Dekker and Cliff first began to
make their names.
However, this slower music was somewhat short-lived and it was not long before the tempi became
faster again, and more rhythmic interest such as shuffle beats were added. The term reggae was applied
to this broader genre, probably after the Maytals 1968 hit Do the Reggay, which in itself came out of the
Jamaican term streggae which means ragged (and was usually applied to people who dressed or behaved
poorly!).
You Can Get It If You Really Want was Dekkers second UK hit after his rocksteady single Israelites topped
the charts in 1969. It still bears all the hallmarks of the rocksteady style, though it is clearly more commercial
in its outlook and therefore could be seen as one of the earliest reggae hits. It reached No. 2 in the UK charts,
and has been used in recent times by political parties, though not always to Jimmy Cliffs delight!
Further resources
A clip of Desmond Dekker performing this song can be found on YouTube here.
A fantastic live version of this song by Jimmy Cliff himself, backed by Jools Hollands Rhythm and Blues
Orchestra, can be found on YouTube here.
semiquavers on the toms; the snare is played on its rim almost all the time.
(h) Mainly syllabic and rhythmic; there are some melismatic fall-offs at ends of phrases; phrases like try and
try are sung as triplet crotchets across the beat.
Suggested Section B questions
Describe the stylistic features of You Can Get It If You Really Want that are typical of the rocksteady or
reggae style.
This question simply asks students to identify the reggae or rocksteady characteristics of the song, and
since they do not have to answer in continuous prose, a bullet-point list (with bar numbers, if they can remember them) would probably be the best way to approach this question:
Strong backbeat in the drums, with emphasis on beats 2 and 4 and use of cross-stick (or rimshot)
Small number of (mainly primary) chords used
Short, repetitive melodic phrases (such as the title hook)
Instrumental riffs (such as the trumpets in the introduction)
Close-harmony backing vocals (typical of much pop music of the time, but also a feature of Bob Marleys
music later)
Rhythmic guitar and organ parts, with emphasis on syncopation
Lyrics about the struggle against oppression and persecution
Heavy, rhythmic bass part (typical of rocksteady)
Verse/chorus structure, with a central instrumental section and instrumental links between choruses and
verses.
Compare the melodic writing of Summertime and You Can Get It If You Really Want.
Points mentioned above can be compared with those on Summertime to come to an answer on this question, with the following observations perhaps the clearest:
Both songs use a mainly pentatonic melody
Both are strophic songs
The word-setting is mainly syllabic for both songs, though Summertime has more melismatic and embellished phrases
Both singers use the higher parts of their register for climactic effect
Both vocal melodies are repetitive, but the phrases in You Can Get It If You Really Want are much shorter
and are repeated more often
The melodies in Summertime are more chromatic and colourful
Both melodies contain gospel and folk influences, though of course in Summertime this is from the perspective of a white composer
Both melodies contain syncopation and cross-rhythms.
With these three singles all reaching either No. 1 or No. 2 in the charts, and the album spending ten weeks
A good example of
a live performance
of this song can be
found on YouTube.
at No. 1 (and also doing extremely well in the US), Oasis decided to release Dont Look Back In Anger as the
albums fourth single. It reached No. 1 and its sales achieved platinum status. The song has remained a
staple part of Oasiss live act, with its anthemic qualities making it popular with the crowd.
The song was written by Noel Gallagher, Oasiss guitarist and, unusually,
sung by him rather than brother Liam who is the bands front man. As soon
as he had written it, Noel felt that he had a potential hit, describing the
song as a cross between All the Young Dudes (a Mott the Hoople song
written by David Bowie) and a Beatles song. In fact, the opening chords
are very reminiscent of John Lennons biggest hit, Imagine, a similarity that
Noel Gallagher said was deliberate. Additionally, Gallagher includes a John
Lennon quote in the lyrics.
Noel Gallagher
C (I)
G (V)
C (I)
C (I)
G (V)
Am (vi)
E (#III)
F (IV)
G(V)
C (I)
(c) The texture is melody-dominated homophony, with a dense wall of sound created through low registers,
strummed, distorted guitars, organ and bass, with a busy drum kit part.
(d) The guitars play shorter (or muted) chords, the piano plays more sustained notes, the drums switch from
hi-hat and cymbals to toms, and a strings part enters (probably played on a mellotron). The net result is
a less dense texture.
(e) Fm7 in bar 13, 15 and 17, and G# diminished in bar 20.
(f) The chords are the same as the verse, so the harmony is unchanged. The melody moves to a higher pitch
and is rhythmically slower, making it sound more anthemic. Both melodies are balanced, consisting of two
four-bar phrases, split up into shorter, repetitive phrases.
(g) The guitar solo is based on the chords of the second part (or bridge part) of the verse. It starts each of its
first two phrases (in bars 33 and 35) with a similar melody to bars 13 and 15, but embellishes it with note
bends and fills (very similar to what it has been doing during the verses and choruses). As the solo continues it moves further away from the original melody and rises higher in register, becoming more emotionally
charged and exciting. The last few bars of the solo are based on the high note E, which is the first note of
the final vocal phrase of the corresponding section (bar 21 beat 1).
(h) This coda section starts with a complete reduction in texture and drop in tempo, after the climax of the
previous chorus. The vocal repeats the phrase Dont look back in anger (the title hook), and then pauses
before the final phrase (I heard you say). Additionally, an extra chord (Fm7) is played to emphasise this
repeated line. Three guitars sustain notes to make an interestingly textured part, and the chord progression
shown in question (b) finishes the song, with a G# diminished chord substituted as the penultimate chord.
The drums are restricted to small splashes of colour, though the tambourine resumes in bar 61 to drive the
rhythm to the end of the song.
Suggested Section B question
Describe the stylistic features of Dont Look Back in Anger that are typical of a 1990s Britpop song.