MUS 1P • Department of Music • Spring 2018

Introduction to Musical Concepts

LIU Post • Long Island University

Analyzing A Melody

We Can Work It Out (Beatles, 1965)

Listen to Sections:

FORM: AABABA
We have analyzed the form of "We Can Work It Out" and have determined that the record has two distinct sections (A and B). Each section is repeated a number of times in the record, giving the record a form we have diagrammed as "AABABA." This is an example of 32-bar Song Form.

PHRASE ANALYSIS (Section A - abab1cc1; Section B - defdef1)

As we have mentioned in class, notes are put together to make up (motives and) phrases; phrases are put together to make up sections; sections are put together to make up songs (or larger sections.) This is analagous to language where words make up phrases, phrases make up sentences, sentences make up paragraphs, etc.

Listen to Phrases:
In section A, listen to and compare phrases 1 and 3 (the 'a' phrases), phrases 2 and 4 (the 'b' phrases), and phrases 5 and 6 (the 'c' phrases). In Section B, compare phrases 1 and 4 (the 'd' phrases), 2 and 5 (the 'e' phrases), and 3 and 6 (the 'f' phrases).

Can you hear that the melody in each of the comparisons is identical or nearly identical?

After analyzing the "sections of the section," i.e. the phrases of the melody, we determined that section A has six phrases which we analyzed as abab1cc1 and section B also has six phrases which we labeled defdef1

(Remember we use uppercase letters when analyzing form, lowercase letters when analyzing melody.)

Analyzing a record this way should give you a good idea how music, or more specifically, a popular song is constructed and how repetition, contrast and variation work together to form a cohesive piece of music.

Here's an MP3 version of this lesson. It was created for a previous class but is still applicable for what we're doing. [Experimental. Work-in-progress]