Unit 14 Listening Skills Task 1

In this assignment I will be discussing the musical faults in the live performance of ‘Barking’ by a UK artist called Ramz at the Capital Summertime Ball.  

Rhythm – this is a strong, regular repeated pattern of movement or sound 

During the performance Ramz had his track being played in the background throughout the entire song. The backing track has simple time (4/4). The main notes being played are crochets and quavers. This is a convention of hip-hop music. The rhythm is a regular pattern as it’s the same throughout the entire song. However, Ramz comes in after the first beat making the performance sounding delayed. This could have been fixed by the technicians increasing the volume of the fold-back speakers to allow the singer to hear the backing track while performing as he had his earpiece out.  

Melody and Harmony- this is a structure of notes being played together in order to create a satisfying tune 

As soon as the song starts playing, a lot of people already are aware of what song it is due to its distinctive bell melody being played at the start. The melody is being played in the scale of Gminor. Ramz’ voice compliments the melody.  Harmony is when a combination of musical notes is being played simultaneously to create a pleasing melody. During the performamce Ramz’ voice fails to harmonize with the melody. The harmony sounded unpleasant since Ramz was out of key. The performance would have been even better if the backing track did not have his auto-tuned vocals therefore making the artist sound out of tune.  

Tempo – this is the speed of a song and it is measured in beats per minute (BPM). 

The tempo for this song was 137 bpm. This gives an up-beat tempo to the song.  

 Tonality – this is the scale or key of which the song is being played in 

This song is played in the key of G minor. This gives off a smooth sound. However, in this performance due to his lack of auto tune it was out of key. This is another problem that could have been fixed by using an instrumental instead of using the original song since Ramz failed to sing along in the key of the original track, which had been auto-tuned.  

Styles of music 

This song is in the genre of hip-hop. We know this as it follows the conventions of hip-hop such as the tempo of hip-hop is usually 140bpm and this song is 137bpm. It also follows a 4/4 time signature; this is the same in the majority of hip-hop songs. Time signature is the number of beats that are in a bar. Artists such as Travis Scott, Future and Big Sean have instrumentals that are 140bpm. 

Timbre – the quality of sound 

The sound of the song in the beginning is quite hollow as there is just a piano and bells in the beginning to introduce the faults. The texture of the song changes when Ramz comes in, this is because more instruments come in the track creating a more full sound. Texture is how the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are combined in a composition.  The texture of the performance sounded very unpleasant and unorganized. This was due to the out of pitch and out of time singing. This could have been improved by the artist having more time to rehearse his performance. There could also have been a better sound check before his performance to ensure that he was able to sing in time of the track.  

Articulation and Dynamics – this is how loud or quiet the sound of the music is.  

There is a variety of dynamics within the song. In the beginning its starts off quiet with the bells and piano and as soon as Ramz starts singing the dynamics gets louder. During his second verse the dynamics decrease and it slowly fades out during the ending with only the bells and piano like it was played in the beginning. Variations of dynamics has been used in this song to highlight certain parts of the song e.g. verse, chorus and bridge. However, there were not any drastic changes when the dynamics changed as the melody of the song was quite repetitive.   

Simple and Compound Time 

Simple - this is when the beat of a music can be broken in to two part rhythms (e.g. 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 3/8, and 2/2).  

Compound – this is when the beat is broken down into three part rhythms (e.g. 6/8, 12/8, and 9/4).  

This song is being played in simple time as its played in 4/4.  

Syncopation – this is when a variety of rhythms make a part or all of a tune off-beat. However, in this track there seems to be no syncopation.  

Musical Faults 

Incorrect notes and pitch: when the performance had begun the singer failed to sing and maintain the original key and pitch of the backing track that was being played. The artist chose to speak the lyrics instead of singing them like he did in the song, which meant that the overall performance did not sound good and was quite disappointing. In order to have avoided this, Ramz could have just stuck to singing the song like he did in the track to give a more enjoyable performance.  

Variations in tempo and timing: during the entire performance Ramz was unable to keep in time with the track and was always a beat behind the original track that was being played. This made the performance look as if he did not rehearse it well enough. On stage, alongside Ramz there was also his MC and both of their lyrics had clashed during the performance, which made the vocals sound even more out of beat making the overall presentation of the song unpleasant.  This could have been avoided by the MC’s microphone not being as loud as Ramz’ microphone as he is the lead singer. Another alternative could have been the MC not being there at all since the original track did not have a MC and did not really require one in the live performance.