Rap Music Analysis #10 – Dr.

Dre’s Orchestration, 2000-2009

byMARTIN CONNOR/APRIL 9, 2015

Time for another rap music analysis. Attached below is a song-by-song analysis of 52 songs
produced by Dr. Dre between 2000 and 2009. To my knowledge, these are all of the songs he
produced in these years; that, according at least to Dre’s discography on wikipedia.org (although a
more complete one can be found elsewhere I think.) This time period for a Dre production analysis
may strike those in the know as somewhat peculiar. To start with, it is after the release of his
seminal album 2001 (which was actually released in 1999 – fun fact.) Then, it is before anything
recently that he has supposedly done, such as “Kush”, “I Need A Doctor”, or Kendrick Lamar’s “The
Recipe” (listed production credentials be damned.) Furthermore, it leaves out “Straight Outta
Compton” (1988), as well as his “Chronic” (1992) and Snoop Dogg’s album “Doggystyle” (1994.) So
just where, exactly, were these songs released?

To start, it covers the beginning of Em’s work in the new millennium, starting with 4 songs from his
“Marshall Mathers LP.” It also covers 50 Cent’s come up on Em’s Shady label (with 5 songs found
on that album), as well as Busta Rhyme’s short time on Dre’s Aftermath album, along with
Raekwon (2 songs) and Eve (4 songs). It covers some work with the 50 Cent’s G-Unit then (2
songs), as well as Game’s come up on that label before he left for another label. It includes one
song by Mary J. Blige, and 50 Cent has the most songs in this period. Unfortunately, this period
also covers some of Dre’s darker days quality-wise: 50 Cent’s “Curtis” and “Before I Self Destruct
album”, and Eminem’s initial comeback on “Relapse: Refill” (If you’re a fan of Eminem, then you’ll
probably definitely want to check out another article I wrote all about his flow on the 2002 song
“Business,” which you can read by clicking here.) This period thus interestingly covers both much
of his oeuvre that is often criminally overlooked in favor of more popular and critically acclaimed
album’s (Doggystyle, Chronic, Straight Outta Compton, 2001), as well as some of his “worst” —
worst, for Dre, is relative here, as anything considered half-bad for Dre would be great for other
producers. This will all allow us to understand and trace the paths he took after the game-
changing “2001” album, as well as how he developed the ideas he had on that album afterwards.
Additionally, it will let us see where Dr. Dre may have lost his way a bit towards the end of the first
decade of the new millennium, and what we can expect from “Detox.” (Now, if you want to hear a
rapper killing it over a Dr. Dre beat, instead of a Dr. Dre production analysis, then check out on my
article on Nas’ verse from the 2006 Busta Rhymes song “Don’t Get Carried Away,” available here.)
Now, for the orchestration analysis…

For our purposes here, “orchestration” will basically mean the instrument Dre has chosen to play
the musical ideas in his song. Attached below are my notes on all 52 songs, between 2000 and
2009:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
All the way on the left is listed the song, the artist, the album the song came from, any guest
appearances on the song, as well as the year it was released (it goes in chronological order starting
from 2000.) Then, I marked under a couple different categories the musical instrumentation that
the song contained: there are categories for keyboard (which includes piano, harpsichord, and
organ), strings (cellos, violins,) bass guitar (clean, distorted, etc.), drums (snares, bass kicks, the
nature of cymbals or hi-hats, and all other percussion instruments), miscellaneous (instruments
that don’t fall under any of the other category), Audio Sound FX (recorded sounds of real-world
sounds played during the song, guitar (clean, distorted, wah, etc.), singers (female, male, vocalize,
words,) and orchestral hit (which is a big staccato noise by what sounds like a full orchestra,) and
general notes all the way on the right. I took notes of varying detail within each cell.

Now would be a good time to mention my Kickstarter campaign, where you can donate so I can
publish a book to keep bringing you rap analysis like this one. My work is always to increase the
appreciation of music for the average listener, and this book will help me do that.

As mentioned before, this time period covers an extremely interesting cross section of Dre’s work.
You have the all-time classics (“The Real Slim Shady,” “In Da Club”, “How We Do”), the absolute
bombs – and not the good kind (“Bagpipes from Baghdad,” “Fire”), and the criminally overlooked
(“Oh!”, “Get You Some”, “Don’t Get Carried Away” – but this will be addressed in-depth in my “10
Greatest Dr. Dre Songs of All Time Production-Wise” post.) You can go through all of the songs
individually, but I will draw some general conclusions.

The most glaring difference between Dre’s output over his entire career, not just this period, and
every other popular producer, is that Dre’s output is noticeably free of any soul samples. In direct
contradistinction to artistic trends championed by RZA in his work with Wu-Tang and Kanye’s work
years later starting with “The College Dropout”, the two most popular producers of the two
preceding decades apart from Dre himself, Dre does not sample old soul hits. Soul sampling is
found all over in the game today. Instead, we see that he opts to combine “real” instruments (in
contrast to synthesized sounds such as synth keyboards) with manipulation of the stereo world
(allowing these real world sounds to do things they couldn’t have done in a completely audio
acoustic environment, such as phasing back and forth between left and right earphones.) For
instance, his favorite instrument seems to be a clean, real-life piano, white and black keys and all.
Some kind of keyboard can be found in 75% of his songs (rough estimation of mine without
counting.) The nature of this keyboard can differ; sometimes, it plays the accompaniment, giving
the song the harmonic underpinning while other riffs and ideas play themselves out above or
below (The Wash, 2001). At other times, in a monophonic line it itself plays the riff (Round Here,
2006.) Additionally, not only does he often use the piano, he uses other keyboard type
instruments, such as different types of organs (Electric organ – Heat, 2003, or Church organ, Don’t
Get Carried Away, 2006.) In what might be the greatest orchestration decision of all time ever
made in rap (yes, it’s that good) he sets a harpsichord in Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady.” The
amount of “Fuck You” this communicates to the listener cannot be accurately measured…not that
there is an accurate way of measuring “fuck you.” But the harpsichord choice, the most
stereotypical, cliché instrument in pop music as representing old, generic pop classical music of
some type makes the perfect instrumental counterpoint to Eminem’s message of fuck the world in
that song. One can also observe that Dre is not content to play the keyboard simply legato; he also
uses it staccato at times, for instance in X, from 2000. He furthermore differs the kind of textures
he evokes from the piano. That is, the piano is not always playing block chords. Sometimes it is
used in a much more diffuse texture (Cocaina, 2006.) From this, we know that Dre thinks a lot
about the color of his orchestration. This can be seen from his use of pedals and octave doublings.
Oftentimes, he will have an instrument sustain a single note for a long time (a pedal), or play the
same musical idea as another instrument at the same level or in a different octave (doubling.) He
does this often with the bass note; for instance, a lot of times when a carillon bell is utilized (the
strong minor third upper harmonic of a tuned bell perfectly dovetailing with the minor key sound
world Dre wishes to create), such as in Don’t Get Carried Away, 2006, or Hustlers, 2006, it is often
doubling a bass note. Furthermore, his use of the piano is often very scaled back, and used in only
a superficial manner (without any negative connotation), such as in doubling another musical idea.
This reduces the piano to being used only for its timbre, or “sound quality.” Timbre is what allows
a person to tell a piano sound apart from a cello sound, even though they are both playing the
same note, for example, middle C. Instrumental color is, for our purposes here, synonymous with
timbre.

Dre’s treatment of the piano is a sign in general of his treatment of orchestration. No instrument,
and no articulation (way of playing an instrument), is off limits for Dre when he steps in the studio
to choose instruments. He does what good composers do and makes the instrument do what he
wants, not do what the instruments want. He finds ways to utilize instruments in his songs that
you’d find nowhere else in natural ways. The following is a short list of rare instruments (in rap
music) you’ll find in Dre’s work:

1. Sitar (Ass Like That, 2004, and elsewhere)

2. Carillon Bell (Multiple Times)

3. Flute (Bad Intentions)

4. Kazoos (Mosh, 2004)

5. Gu-gin (finger plucked Chinese instrument – Get You Some, 2006 Death To My Enemies, 2009)

6. Harp (Back Down, 2003, and one other time)

7. Harpsichord (Real Slim Shady, 2000)

8. Some Middle Eastern instrument with a drone (Bagpipes from Baghdad, 2009)

9. Bongos (Catalina, 2009)

10. Acoustic Guitar (Round Here, 2006.)

11. Guiro (Satisfaction, 2002)

12. Theremin (Catalina, 2009)

This calls attention to another distinguishing characteristic of Dre’s post “2001” album sound. He
does not use synths as main organizing instruments in his songs, such as by having them play the
accompaniment or bass lines (Fire, 2007, for 50 Cent, is definitely an outlier is this regard), but
instead uses designed, specific synth sounds more for a textural effect. This can be observed all
over; one especially good example is “Hello,” from 2000, written by Ice Cube, feat. Ren, and Dre
(for who Eminem ghost-wrote his verse…of course.) Perhaps that is why “Kush”, supposedly the
first single from “Detox” (since dropped from the album) sounded so un-Dre-ish to so many
people, myself included, and thus was widely disregarded. Additionally, he favors using real,
acoustic snare sounds (Best of Things 2000, Truck Volume & Holla, 2001), over any completely
synthesized clap sounds, but this started to change towards the end of this 2000-2009 period. His
signature bass kick sound is a rather character-less bass “thud”, so lacking of any high frequency
sounds that the listener feels rather than hears that it is there (About Me, 2009). Along the same
line in drums, Dre favors less complex drum sections (drum sections = bass kick, snares, cymbals,
hi-hats, and any other percussion effects.) The emphasis is therefore placed on the melodic
instruments (whether they play the melody or not), while the drum sections provides the beat but
largely tries to stay out of the melodic instruments’ way.

Audio Sound FX also play a large part in Dre’s production choices. Many of his songs, as can be
seen, feature them prominently, especially those with Eminem (Real Slim Shady, 2000.) In fact, he
twice uses audio sound FX to supply essential musical information: in Legend of the Fall Offs, 2006,
and Heat, 2003, a digging shovel and gun cock sound, respectively, take the place of the snare
drum. All over this oevure though, however, Audio Sound FX are featured.

It is important now though to distinguish the different ways in which Dre utilizes his orchestration
choices once he has made them. A central technique that gives Dre beats their longevity, the fact
that you can listen to them over and over again, is his technique of what I call musical layering.
That is, he differentiates structural sections of a song (1st verse from 2nd verse, verse from chorus,
outro from intro, etc.,) from each other by assigning unique musical ideas to each one. The
epitomic example of this can be found in my analysis of his song “Oh!”. For instance, there, an
acoustic guitar arpeggio plays in the background during the 2nd verse, and a solo violin idea plays
in the background during the 3rd verse. Then, a contrabass idea appears during the choruses but
never during the verses. This makes each section of the song stand out from the others, by making
them unique in some way. However, “Oh!” is not an outlier in this regard.

Dre does this everywhere. For instance, in “That’s What it Is”, 2001, Dre doubles the bassline with
strings to differentiate sections from each other. He does the same during 2002’s “Satisfaction,” as
well as “Poppin’ Them Thangs”, in 2003. This is a major hallmark of Dre’s style. The reader is
encouraged to look up different examples on their own on YouTube.

Along with doubling and layering, another hallmark of Dre’s style is his use of the pedal. As
explained before, a pedal is when one instrument sustains a note a very long time. Dre’s second
favorite instrument, behind the piano, is the string section; it is unimportant which instrument is
playing, as they are often very hard to distinguish from each other anyway when they are sampled.
Pedals of this type can be found all over: Bitch Please II, 2000, G’d Up, In Da Club, 2003, High All
The Time, 2003, to name only a few. These are likewise used to differentiate sections of the song
from each other, or re-iterations of the same type of section (verse, chorus) from each other. Dre
favors strings so much to the point that they oftentimes completely comprise the musical
background for a song; “Who Knew?”, 2000, and Psycho, 2009, are shining examples of this, as Dre
uses the three most prominent different articulations for stringed instruments (pizzicato, legato,
staccato) all in one song.
Finally, his use of structurally dividing musical ideas is endemic of his style. That is, he will have
certain musical ideas play at structurally important places in the song (middle point of verses or
choruses, the transition from the end of a chorus to the start of a verse, etc.) to lead from one
section of a song to another. These, again, are a hallmark of his style, and so can be found all over,
but a good example can be seen in 2000’s “Lay Low”.

Now, before considering the tail end of this period in greater detail, let’s examine some outliers.

“Break Ya Neck”, 2001, not listed, is so different from every other Dre song (due to the prominent
featuring of elaborate synth ideas), that I at first questioned whether it was actually ghost
produced for Dre (not unheard of in the rap industry today.) However, his other work on Busta’s
album “Genesis” is somewhat similar (Truck Volume, Holla), so I overlook it. This speaks to another
fact of Dre: he seems to have tried to style himself to fit each new artist he worked with, or at
least went through definite, consistent periods of artistic vision. We see that his work with Eve in
2002 is marked by the use of orchestral hits that won’t return until the end of this period. We see
that his work with Busta is marked by the prominent use of elaborate synth ideas. Raekwon seems
to have received his most elaborate musical treatment on his “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II” album,
starting with the descending piano scale on “About Me.” Then, we see that the carillon shows up
at a distinct time in 2006, and remains somewhat constant until 2009. In any event, it may be an
interesting idea to look more into, or it may only be what we would expect from a mature artist in
his prime.

Another outlier is 2001’s “Bad Intentions.” Although the release date is for 2001 from a movie’s
soundtrack, I’m inclined to think that this work dates from much earlier, maybe even mid-90s. The
funky flute along with the prominent use of synth and synthesized shaker is simply too similar to
his work on “Doggystyle” for me. 2001’s “Your Wife” is similar for me in this regard, although it
sounds more similar to “2001” then “Doggystyle.”

We can thus see the direction that Dre took the ideas he initially came up with on “2001.” The
move towards real instruments from the prominent synths and 808 drum sounds of “Chronic” and
“Doggystyle” on “2001”, which there manifested itself as clean guitars (Still D.R.E.), clean bass lines
(Forgot About Dre), and the occasional, heavily processed string part (bass line for Still D.R.E.),
continued in a natural evolution to real orchestral instruments, such as real, authentic-sounding
strings, pianos, and even harps, sitars, and so on, in this 2000 to 2009 period.

Unfortunately, the next few outliers are not to be seen in a positive light. First, we have 2007’s
“Fire”, which so badly tries to imitate 50’s 2003 “In Da Club” and in doing so fails terribly its almost
awkward to listen to. From the octave doubling, to the syncopated rhythms of the prominent
synth, to the return of the shaker in the percussion, it tries to be “In Da Club” but fails. I can
dismiss this with a clean conscience, however, because it was 50 when I’m not sure 50 cared
anymore, and it clearly was a club track. If 50 put it down on this track, I’d see it differently.

The outliers came more and more quickly though. “Bagpipes from Baghdad” is certainly
unprecedented, even with Dre’s outlandish orchestration choices from before. I reference, of
course, the wind Middle Eastern instrument of some type. Again, Eminem completely drops the
ball on the rhymes. Even this track wouldn’t be that bad, if Eminem didn’t throw into deep relief
just how little musical sense this song makes. To be fair, this is Eminem post-addiction when he
was still trying to figure out what the fuck he could talk about. He still could rap musically; he just
couldn’t rap poetically. A great example of this is “Drop The Bomb On Em,” from “Relapse,” which
I talk about in-depth here.

To be fair, Eminem’s flow on “Drop The Bomb On Em” is sick — it’s just that his words make no
goddamn sense. At one point, he even ruins a major storyline of the greatest TV show of all time,
“The Wire”, by dropping a major spoiler, without warning. (Don’t look up the lyrics if you plan on
watching the show…which you should.)

But Eminem has since figured this out, of course. All you need to see this is look up his track with
Royce da 5’9, in their group “Bad Meets Evil”, with Bruno Mars, called “Lighters”. As a sampling:

“I love it when I tell em shove it

Cause it wasn’t that long ago when Marshall sat, flustered, lack lustered
Cause he couldn’t cut mustard, muster up nothing
Brain fuzzy, cause he’s buzzin’, woke up from that buzz
Now you wonder why he does it, how he does it
Wasn’t cause he had buzzards circlin’ around his head
Waiting for him to drop dead, was it?”

Damn. That definitely isn’t the tediousness or monotony of the 23 rappers on the “Most Repetitive
Lyricists Ever” list that I compiled and published in another article that you can read here, now, is
it?

Things continue to get more and more concerning though. “Death To My Enemies” is in the same
category as “Bagpipes from Baghdad”, but this time, the production just isn’t there.

“I Get It In”, however, on deep reflection, might be the most worrisome. The song is largely devoid
of the rich variety of musical material that mark the greatest Dre songs (Get You Some, Oh!.)
Instead, things are mostly held together by drum sounds, and again, the rapping simply isn’t there.
Through this last rash of songs, though, is that there is a complete lack of the musical depth that
Dre added to his songs through his techniques of pedals, doubling, structural dividers, interesting
orchestration choices, and, most worrying, musical layering. It is like Dre somehow forgot about
everything he had learned (and taught us) over a career that is now entering it’s 4th decade. Either
that, or he was looking for a way forward, and us mere mortals simply cannot see it.

And so here we are. “Detox” has not been released, and it is fair to guess whether it ever will be at
this point. And yes, this is even after taking into account that Dre takes a while with his albums, or
as Game puts it so eloquently, “I’m the second dopest Compton nigga you’ll ever hear / the first
one only put out albums every 7 years.” I still enjoy listening to 2004’s “Curtains Down” (Eminem)
and 2005’s “Higher” (The Game,) when Dre assures us that Detox is “coming.” So what happened?

Well, let’s take a look at the supposed singles for Detox. First, there was “Kush”, then “I Need A
Doctor,” and now we have Kendrick Lamar’s “The Recipe” (not a single, but still a recent work.) I
swear, on everyone of these songs, Dre was initially listed as the producer, but then after they did
not do well popularly, he was switched with someone else. “Kush” is now supposedly produced by
DJ Khalil, and mixed by Dre. “I Need a Doctor” says it is produced by Alex da Kid, and mixed by Dre.
“The Recipe” is now produced by Scoop Deville, and mixed by Dre.
First off, what the fuck am I gonna be paying money for if Dre isn’t producer? Is he known as the
world’s greatest mixer? I don’t think so. There’s a couple things going on here. First, there is my
initial conspiracy theory, that Dre changes the credits to keep face. Second, and more likely, that
Dre is ghost producing these songs for people. He comes up with the song, gives it to a producer
like Alex Da Kid, and releases it under their name to see how it does. Either way, it doesn’t reflect
well on Dre’s current state of mind artistically.

It’s safe to say that he’s lost confidence in himself as an artist. The thing is he doesn’t have
perspective anymore on just how good he is. We’ve heard it throughout the years: Dre is a
perfectionist. The unique pressures and stresses of working with Dre are evident all over his
industry relationships, from the number of prominent acts who never released any substantial
material on his Aftermath label (Bishop Lamont to start), to the occasional spats that bubble up
(such as when 50 threatened to pre-empt their own single’s release by putting the single out by
himself.) He just doesn’t realize how good he is, and he just doesn’t realize that, at a certain point,
whatever he puts out maybe might not be his 5th classic album, but will be good enough…
although I guess that’s what makes Dr. dre Dr. Dre, and what makes us just us.

Honestly, I think he’s got enough material for several albums (several sources corroborate this.)
And he was set to release something, but then Kanye’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”
happened. (I talk about “what happened” in a whole article I wrote entirely about his awesome
MBDTF song “Monster,” which you can read here; I also wrote about that album’s extended pop
song structures at an article available right here.)

The level that MBDTF raised the bar to is simply incomprehensible. The scope of its musical quality
is breathtaking. The sweeping, innovative structural forms , the introspective look into subjects
that rap has rarely touched before (“Blame Game”), sweeping, 9 minute opuses like “Runaway”
(which Vox Media interviewed me about in one of their videos here,) the deft use of skilled
instrumentalists (guitar solo in Devil In A New Dress), the perfect matching of differing style of
music (Bon Hiver’s work on the album…) it’s huge. Dre lost his confidence in himself when he saw
that.

So what should he do? First off, stop worrying about the fucking headphones. This man is already
paid many times over, in all senses of the word. I think he’s distracted himself from what got him
in the position to sell headphones with that business enterprise. Second, go back and take a look
at his own work. It’s fire man. There’s no doubting it. I can listen to these works over, and over
again. Just like every great artistic evolution, he has to build on what he used before. I don’t know
why he abandoned his techniques like doubling, pedaling, structural dividers, and musical layering.
But it’s what got him there in the first place.

Please Dre. Please release Detox.

Best Regards,

Martin Connor

(You’re biggest fan — is there any doubt about anymore?)

UPDATE — 2/3/2017: Oh, and Dr. Dre? Make sure you do as many songs as possible with Kendrick
Lamar. Why? Because of what I say in my articles on Kendrick’s “good kid, m.A.A.d. city”
album here, or my “To Pimp A Butterfly” album review here.

It’s time for another rap music analysis. However, instead of taking a look at a
rapper’s verse, we’ll be taking a look at a producer’s entire song. The song is “Oh!”,
off Obie Trice’s album “Cheers”, featuring Busta Rhymes and Dr. Dre on the beat.
We’ll be doing harmonic/melodic analysis only insomuch as it furthers our
discussion of what I really what to get at here: the proportion/balancing of all the
different parts in this song. When one takes a look at how many different musical
ideas in the song, and the fact that they are all balanced perfectly together so that the
listener’s ear is not overwhelmed but greatly pleased, it is quite amazing. (A couple
quick administrative things: I’ve tabbed out the song in its entire form, but I’ll be
breaking it down into all of the different musical ideas, of which there are many
more than in the typical rap song. I’ve declined to tab out Obie’s verses, as it
would’ve taken too long. We’ll look at Busta Rhymes choruses instead, as it’ll be
enough for our purposes here. Thus, a stave for vocals is omitted in the sections
marked “Verses”, but just imagine one being there. Finally, you can hear the
song here. I’ve also included midi recordings of each idea isolated right after the
sheet music of them, because posting the entire sheet music for the song would be
too much – it’s 16 pages long.)

We’ll begin by considering each musical idea separately, starting from the highest
idea (in pitch) and then moving down to the bass. Let’s start with this idea:

This idea is in Eb minor, as is the entire song. This melodic idea in the high strings
that opens the song outlines the tonic chord (the chord that feels like “home”), by
mentioning the Eb, Gb, and Bb, before returning to Eb at the end. It is an interesting
idea, with a good amount of melodic (a wide number of different notes that aren’t
part of the underlying chord, a smooth up and down contour/shape)_ and rhythmic
action (sixteenth note syncopations, and off-beat rhythms.) It is also worth noting
that this idea repeats every two bars. Let’s consider the idea just below that one:
Consider how this idea (played by bells) contrasts with the one we just looked at.
It’s much simpler: there are only quarter notes occurring right on each beat, and the
melodic content is all by stepwise motion (all of the notes are right next to each.) It
outlines a 3 – 2 – 1 scale degree motion in Eb minor’s relative major key, Gb. This
contrasts with the general Eb feeling of the rest of the ideas. This idea also repeats
every 2 bars. I would consider this idea as a mixture of melody (forming the
foreground of the music) and the accompaniment (which can be thought of as the
background of the music.) This is because it plays only one line at a time, but the
idea is not strong enough to stand on its own. We’ll return to how all of these ideas
interact together once we’ve gone through all of them.

This piano part provides a large amount of our harmonic information in the song. It
is a iv – i motion, Ab minor chord – Eb minor chord, in Eb minor (if that doesn’t
mean anything to you, don’t worry about it for now.) This idea likewise repeats
every 2 bars. It contrasts with both ideas that precede this one because it is a
completely accompanimental idea. It is not in the foreground of the music. So count
all of the different instruments used so far: bells, piano, and violin strings. We’re
slowly unearthing what makes this song remarkable. Moving along:

This idea, played by a cello, is also strongly rooted in Eb. You can see how the line
begins on Eb and ends on Eb. This idea is important because it repeats every 8 bars
(imagine that there are 6 blank bars after the last bar in the image above; also note
that that last Eb staccato completely alone in the 2nd bar starts the beginning of the
new section; the 8 notes in the bar before it are pick-up notes to it.) We’ll return to
why exactly this makes the idea important. This also feels like a return to Eb.

Finally, we reach the drum idea. Note that this drum idea is rather simple. It lacks
other elements that might make it more sophisticated, such as hi-hat hits, or a more
complex bass kick rhythm. This idea repeats once every bar.

These are the first 5 ideas that are presented in the song. They all start playing
together in the first 8 bars of the song, before the Obie Trice verse starts. Let’s see
how they are all perfectly balanced with each other, and support the rapper’s
rhythms. We’ll consider how all of these ideas when placed together are balanced
both vertically and horizontally. When we say they are balanced vertically, we will
be considering where each idea falls in the range of pitch, whether they are low in
pitch, in the middle in pitch, or high in pitch. Let’s go through in the same order that
we first went through them. The idea in the violins is very high. The idea in the bells
and the idea in the piano are in the middle. Meanwhile, the cello is in the low part of
the range. Note how the ideas are spread out equally across the entire rage. If you
were to take the highest and lowest notes of each idea and place them all on the
same piano stave, it would look like this:

The range of each idea is beamed together. That is, the two highest notes (Eb to Bb)
are the range of the violin strings, the Bb to Gb below that is the bells, the Eb to Cb
below that is the piano’s range, and the Eb to Eb below that is the cello staccato
idea. You can see that the whole range of pitch is covered, and it is covered in a very
spread out and balanced manner. None of the ideas overlap, and none of the ideas
are ever more than a perfect fifth interval away from each other. In doing so, the ear
can handle so many different ideas at once. They won’t confuse each other because
their ranges are spread-out, and different instruments play them. With this many
different musical ideas, we can understand why Dre decided to keep the drum
pattern simple (I haven’t considered the drums in the range of pitches because the
drum and snare sound are of unspecific pitch, while the instruments are all of
specific pitches. Thus they can be considered as being in different spheres, at least
for our purposes here.) Anything more complex would have overburdened the
listener’s ear. Now consider the function of all the ideas together. You have an
interesting melodic idea in the high strings; an arpeggio-like idea in the bells below
that is less interesting, and half-melodic half-accompaniment; you have the piano
idea below that, that is all accompaniment; and then you have a bass line that
provides harmonic motion (even it is comparatively simple harmonic motion.) There
is a definite hierarchy of which ideas are in the foreground and which are in the
background, which ideas are more interesting and which ideas are less interesting.
No two ideas, both being very interesting, are competing to be heard over each
other. Thus we see another example of Dre’s balancing of the music. Now we can
look at how these ideas ultimately support the rapper’s words by looking at the ideas
horizontally (that is, the additive effect of their rhythms.)
You can see that none of the ideas are very rhythmically complex. Yes, there are
ideas that are more complex and less complex, but they are nothing compared to
how complex the rapper’s voice is (we are now considering the interaction of these 5
ideas with the rapper’s words – also a musical idea – in the chorus section.) The
rapper’s voice include lots of sixteenth notes, as well as strong syncopation (more in
Obie Trice’s verse than Busta’s chorus.) By being on the simpler side generally,
these musical ideas clear out horizontal (rhythmic) space for the complexity of the
rapper’s words. Once again, we see that no one idea competes with the rapper’s
words for the same musical space (just as the 5 ideas considered at first did not
compete for the same musical space). In this way the musical ideas let the rapper’s
words take forefront, as they should. It focuses the listener’s attention on the lyrics.

Now let’s consider how the different lengths of the musical ideas function
structurally in the song. As we’ve noted, the bell idea and the piano idea all repeat
every 2 bars, while the drums repeat once every bar. These 3 ideas together are the
only ideas constantly heard throughout the whole song. They form the backbone of
everything the listeners hears. The high violin idea repeats every 2 bars as well, but
it comes and goes; it is not playing constantly. Dre inserts the violin idea and takes it
away at structurally important parts in the song: for instance, in verse 1, the high
string idea plays 4 times, in the 2nd third of Obie Trice’s 24 bar first verse. This
adds interest to something that would otherwise sound more boring. The cello idea,
however, is important because it repeats EVERY 8 bars (never coming or going). By
doing so, it is an important structural demarcation line for sections in the song
because all of the sections in the song are based on a number of 4 bars: they consist
of 24, 16, 8, 4 etc., bars. Thus, the cello staccato idea marks the end of one section
and the beginning of another, or the midway section of a section (like the verses.)
Once again we see a hierarchy, this time of structural function. All of these different
aspects of the music (structure, pitch, rhythm) are imbued with a perfect proportion
by Dre. None overpower each other, and they all act in such a way that together they
are more than the sum of their parts.

Now if Dre had stopped there, that would have been enough. But he is a noted
perfectionist, so he takes it to the next level by giving the 2nd and 3rd verses their
own characteristic ideas. In the first 8 bars of the 2nd verse, we get the following
idea played by a guitar:
This guitar is played in standard E tuning of a guitar dropped a semitone, so that the
guitar is then tuned in Eb. This allows the above musical idea to be played on an
open Eb minor chord. This idea, a 4 bar idea that repeats twice, is a true arpeggio of
the tonic Eb minor chord. It covers a much wider range than the other ideas, but
because it is an arpeggio and does not have any notes that aren’t part of the tonic
chord (it’s all Ebs, Gbs, and Bbs) it can fit very easily into the vertical pitch range of
all of the musical ideas over the 2 bar bell idea so that the two do not conflict. This
guitar idea is kept in the higher range so that it’s easier to hear. Furthermore, the
high violin idea is absent, because having both would be an overload of musical
information (note that as soon as the guitar idea ends, the high string idea comes
back in.) This idea differentiates the 2nd verse from both other verses. Dre likewise
differentiates the 3rd verse from the 2nd and 1st with the following idea:

This 4 bar idea is repeated 4 times so that it takes up the entire 16 bar 3rd verse. It is
played by a solo violin. Note how it fits into the vertical range of pitch with the other
ideas: its highest note (Gb) is the lowest note of the bell idea (never overlapping),
while it’s lowest note (the Bb) overlaps by a single semitone the piano idea. Thus,
we see more of the same balancing. This idea too is strongly in Eb.

The one idea we haven’t mentioned is the 8 bar contrabass idea that is a riff on the
rhythm of Busta’s words in the chorus (or the words in the chorus’ rhythm is a riff
on the contrabass idea, whichever you prefer.) The contrabass music fits in with our
earlier theories, in that it’s notes occurs in the octave below the staccato cello,
keeping the range of music still even.

This brings our total number of different ideas to 8 – the piano idea, the staccato
cello idea, the contrabass idea, the high violin idea, the solo violin idea, the acoustic
guitar idea, the bell idea, and the bass/snare drum idea. It is not enough that there are
8 different musical ideas, and that’s what makes this song amazing. It’s that so many
different ideas are in perfect proportion to each other, in terms of pitch range,
rhythm, and structural importance. They do not distract from each other, and the ear
can very easily follow each one. Furthermore, some idea s, like the guitar and solo
violin idea, serve to differentiate each re-iteration of a standard section of a rap song
(verse/chorus) from the others.

I got tired of doing rap verse analyses, so I decided to try something different. I’ve
got some other Dre songs in mind for more musical analyses, so there might be more
of these. Hope you enjoyed this rap music analysis!