Hi-ho silver lining - Combined analysis

The song opens with a single droning note, and then jumps immediately
into the verse on a D/A chord, in 4/4 timing. The texture is homophonic,
with the only melody being carried by Beck’s vocals accompanied by 
simple, on-beat, harmonic instrumentation. The drums play a crash cymbal
on beat 1 of each bar from the introduction to the end of the 1st 4 lines.
This changes in the second half of the verse, when the drum part changes
and the violins come in, playing long sustained notes that harmonize with
the vocals; this helps to build up to the chorus and creates a contrast with
the short, staccato notes played on the bass and guitar. It may also be
worth noting that the song is in the key of D major, which is well suited to
the tuning of violins and helps create a better sound from the instrument. 

The vocal line is very simple and only ranges from A to E, until the chorus
where a contrast is made by Beck’s shift up to higher, louder notes,
extending the range up to an F#. The highest and most drawn out lyrics are
‘hi ho silver lining’ giving them an emphasized and anthemic feel that
makes them stand out. The rest of the instrumentation during this first
chorus stays largely the same, so as not to detract from the vocals. There
is a subtle change in drums, however; the stick is bounced off the snare to
create a more buzzy sound rather than being hit once. The violins play long
notes during this chorus, changing pitch only on the start of the next bar. At
the end of the chorus there is a brief drum fill to transition to the next verse.

For the 2nd Verse of Hi Ho Silver Lining, the chords are A, D, G, D, A E, A,

D, G, D, A, E, A7.yea? Sounds about right to me... It’s not The second
verse contains 16 bars then immediately jumps into the chorus after an
A7chord ending it at an imperfect cadence. The chorus then has 8bars and
its exactly the same as the first chorus. The song keeps its strumming
pattern the same throughout the entirety of the song, while the bass keeps
playing the same root notes over the 2nd verse and the chorus. This keeps
the audience with a sense of familiarity acting as a kind of anchor for the
song, a returning point to go to and to act as the base part of the song.
Naturally, that E major would fit in with the E7 directly and it would sound
like it would fit right in.
The rhythm in the 2nd verse is in common time at 130 bpm, and the
violence in the 2nd verse play the same part as the first verse as they are
playing, short root notes of the chords. The singing style in the 2nd verse
moderately high pitched, the vocals and the violin in the 2nd verse have an
overtone relationship. The verse did not have the average instrumentation
and colour as the average rock song or blues song from the time. The
violent use added a bit of a blues/ country theme to it, while the electric
guitar is adding the rock theme to it.
   
For the 2nd Chorus, the chords alternate between A major, A7, D major, E
major, E7. This series of chords can be heard throughout the entirety of the
song, it’s something that then leads to the outro of the song smoothly and
efficiently. For the chorus, the singer delays the ‘Hi’ and the ‘Ho’ to create a
more dramatic effect to further encapsulate the audience to the song. 
The chorus is meant to be the hook of the song and it’s meant to keep the
audience hooked on the song. The chorus also introduced the use of
backup singers, where they would sing the main chorus to have a thicker
texture making homophonic.

The guitar solo uses a recording technique where the track is played twice, and then added on top of
each other which adds a delay effect and makes the tone really sharp and punchy, the tone is also
helped with the distorted guitar tone, which was popular at the time in rock music. This technique was
known as ‘double tracking’. The two guitars are technically not harmonizing since they are playing in the
same octave, but this does add texture to the overall solo which makes it sound thicker. The style of This
song is a mixture of country blues and rock n’ roll.

Other elements like the tempo of 130, which is very common in that style,
keep the song at a pace that is upbeat like rock should be, with the
instruments used to keep it to the blues, and country level.
Techniques used by the guitarist on the solo, like hard picking on the right
hand, allowing each note to sound more prominent and stand out from
each other more, and the solo is played in the pentatonic scale in the key of
D major. The dynamics at the solo are the same as the chorus which is
what was played before it, the solo is played on top of the verse part for the
instrumental. 

The guitar solo also mimics the vocalists in a way and starts playing the
first few couple of notes sung by Jeff Beck in the chorus.The solo guitarist
is playing notes in the key of D major, at the end of the guitar solo, the
notes that are being played match with the singer singing ‘Hi Ho…”, it's the
same notes, but just at a different octave, allowing for a cleaner transition
between the guitar solo and the outro instrumental. You can hear a variety
of guitar techniques such as bending to the next notes and pull-offs and
hammer ons in rapid succession creating a trill effect. These bending and
sliding techniques can be combined to create smooth transitions between
notes and create a smoother solo in general as all of the notes would
naturally flow with each other and create a sense of unity, sounding as if
they were meant to be together. These techniques were used in modern
time rock and roll as well as rock and roll music at the time. Popular rock
and roll artists that use styles similar to this include Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan
and Joe Satriani, some of the world’s most influential guitarists. 

The drums play fills and the beat used throughout the song to contrast with
the guitar and draw attention during lulls in the solo. All of the fills used
throughout this section and largely within the song itself are kept on to the
snare. These fills are simplistic so as not to detract from Beck’s guitar
playing while providing some extra texture. For a similar reason, they aren’t
played across multiple drums or feature any complicated rhythms: they do
exactly what they are supposed to, which is support the guitar without
distracting a listener from the solo. There is also a very subtle use of a
tambourine on beats 3 during the solo, this is a technique often used by
drummers; to create extra emphasis on certain sections they will change
the cymbal that they are using. This creates a very stark difference
between two parts of a piece of music through the change in timbre.

The rest of the instrumentation keeps fairly reserved; the violins are silent
and the bass guitar maintains a constant rhythm on the beat to anchor the
guitar solo. The guitar itself plays syncopated notes and Beck doesn’t
restrict himself to staying on the beat which makes this feel very fluent. It is
also similar to the vocals from earlier, this is further reinforced as it vaguely
follows the vocal line used in the verses with some added embellishment.

The chorus repeats twice before fading to silence. The texture seems to
reflect that of earlier choruses, with no additional instruments except for the
guitar copying the vocals for the first line of the first repeat of the chorus.
The chord progression also remains the same: D, then D7, then G for one
bar each, then A and A7 for half a bar each; this is repeated for the second
half of the chorus but instead of an A7 chord it changes to G, and then D,
where it would previously return to the verse (though of course it instead
segues into a repetition of the chorus). 

The vocals begin again- doubled up and with harmony in intervals of thirds-
and the violins resume the sustained notes they were playing in the
previous chorus after stopping during the guitar solo; their reintroduction
accompanied by the guitar creates a crescendo to the thickest homophonic
texture in the entire song, juxtaposing it with the thinner texture of the solo.
The drums now use more ghost notes throughout than previously seen; this
speaks to a higher amount of complexity reflected within these choruses
though it is rather subtle. 

At the end of the first iteration of the chorus, where the music would
previously drop in volume and texture, the energy is instead maintained by
a snare drum fill that establishes the second repeat of the chorus; the fill is
kept simple so that this second chorus is made conspicuous. In this second
repeat, the music doesn’t begin to fade until after the first line of the chorus,
allowing the emphasis of the title line to be felt by the listener.