Music Theory behind Grunge Music

by Katharine Conory

Title of this Milestone

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Abstract

The objective of this Milestone is to take all that I have learned from my prior milestone and analysis the music under the lense of music theory. I hope to be able to see a defined pattern to creating a grunge song by analysis several grunge songs according to chord progressions, melody, meter etc. In the conclusion I hope to be able to produce a guide to writing a song with a grunge feel. past experience... (needs to be a lot more concise, still a work in progress)

Introduction

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As you continue to think about your project milestones, reread the "Goals" narrative on defining project milestones from the HU2900 syllabus. Remember: the idea is to have equip your milestone with a really solid background and then some sort of "thing that you do". You'll need to add in some narrative to describe why you did the "thing that you did", which you'd probably want to do anyway. You can make it easy for your advisors to give you a high grade by ensuring that your project milestone work reflects careful, considerate, and comprehensive thought and effort in terms of your background review, and insightful, cumulative, and methodical approaches toward the creative components of your project milestone deliverables.

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Section 1: Background

Grunge was a style choice, a cultural movement and most importantly a music style that appeared in the late 1980’s to the early 1990’s, which songs had focused on topics of a taboo nature such as alienation, depression, and suicide. The movement focused on using their music to enlighten those around them about the problems that they were suffering from, which resonated very well with the youth who were also facing many of those issues. Grunge music is considered to be a subgenera of rock with heavy overlap with other rock subgenres such as alternative, metal, and punk .The music contained a dirty and raw sound guitar sound, which gave grunge its name. This music has a significant effect on the culture of the Seattle area where is was started, which is no surprise due to the fact that music has always been a major component of cultural changes in society. There have been many scholarly articles citing its importance and during this time there was a major shift in attitudes towards the world and the people who lived in it, which emphasized the feelings correlated to alienation, depression, and suicide. However one may ask how music, subtracting the lyrics, could evoke such feelings, which in fact brings me to the focus of this capstone; the music theory behind grunge music that gave it its unique sound.

The music theory behind grunge music will explain how this music became so unique, but this calls into question of the definition music. In the most literal idea, one can see music as “vibrations in the air that are observed by us and then interpreted as sounds. These sounds play out over time, meaning that music is, therefore, sound over time” . However, that is way too literal and would infer that all sounds are music like all paintings are works of art. Music is way more sophisticated and can be seen as “multi-dimensional (and a) multimedia phenomenon’’ . Therefore music is grouped into seven different elements, which are rhythm, dynamics, melody, harmony, tone color, texture, and form to help identify the key differences between grunge music and say rap. Below I have chosen four elements that I feel are most important to distinguish this genera of music and create feeling that the artists want to portray.

Musical Elements

Rhythm

In music, the rhythm of a song is the time in which a song is played. This can be seen when a person is tapping one’s foot to the beat. The rhythm of the song is very important in creating the emotions of the song due to the fact that it determines how fast the piece is going to be. Encompassed in rhythm are sub-topics of duration, tempo, and meter, which helps the listener and musician to follow the structure of the piece. Rhythm tends to be more the technical part of the song but it carries much importance because without it the song would be a mess of lyrics and instruments without direction. So the duration is the length of time between each note or silence. It is used to bring attention to a certain section of the song because a very long note or silence is jarring to the listener. A silence can bring emphasis to the next note and add a complexity to the tempo of the song. The meter of the song is the repetition of accents and stresses that are arranged into the recognizable beat of the song. In a song, the accented notes tend to be the first note of the measure, however, to create more drama many artists utilize syncopation or the putting of accents on off-beats. The meter is emphasized by the song’s tempo or speed at which the beat is played. It is often known as beats per minute (bpm). The tempo of the song determines the level of excitement and mood of the song. Slow blues music tends to be around the 60 bpm and rock and roll music tends to be about 175 bpm.

Grunge music is all about the aesthetic of the music and many times it is difficult to derive the meaning of the lyrics due to the vocal quality or symbolic meaning of the lyrics. So it’s imperative to set the right tone via the rhythm because without that the song could be changed from a very dark and emotional piece to one that sounds happy and light. Therefore, the duration of the notes and silences have to create drama and angst. The meter must accentuate the right beat and word of the lyrics to make them pop. It also creates the structure to the song. Without that the song has very similar and boring notes with no structure. The tempo has to give the song the right attitude. Grunge artists wanted a tempo to reflect sadness and depression that they often felt but they but they wanted to be interesting and attention grabbing. Rhythm is only one of these important elements and already one can see its importance to the music.

Dynamics

The dynamics of a song is the loudness and or softness at which the song is played at. A song can be played very loudly, fortissimo, or very softly, pianissimo, and it would create a different interpretation of the song. Some genres of music tend to produce quieter music while others like to blast their audience with their music. An artist can also have a range of volumes with many choosing sections of their song to be quieter to emphasize the words or the music’s complexity and others sections being softer to portray emotions. Sometimes the artist wants to create a buildup of tension in the song so he or she will use a crescendo, getting louder, or a decrescendo, getting softer to achieve it. Another part of dynamics, which was touched on in rhythm, is accenting a note or “leaning into a note” and it creates a unique sound. It is important to use dynamics because it keeps the music interesting Dynamics are an important part of the music creation process due to the fact that a combination of these dynamics creates the genre's signature style. Hardcore rock is known to bombard their audience with sound while other genres such as country tend to have a moderate volume. Dynamics are important in grunge music because it can be used as an emphasis on particular parts of the song. The song could go from a verse of quite reflection to a chorus of raging anger. This element is interlinked with all of the other elements to create the song the way that artist meant to portray it.

Form

In music, the element of form is a combination of the repetition, contrast and continuity that creates a song’s uniqueness. Form is very dependent on the other elements of music because it is the way the music is arranged with the lyrics. There is a mixture of musical ideas that are carefully arranged to create the meaning behind the music. To differentiate diversions in music, letters such as, A, B, C, are used, which determine the slight variation in musical patterns. Often in form, repetition is utilized to set the theme of the song. This is seen when the chorus is repeated or the verse lyrics change but the music stays the same. Repetition in music is known to create continuity and is usually done with a catchy chorus. However, where there is a change or contrast in music There are a few main types of forms which include the strophic, binary, verse/chorus song, and ternary forms.

Form is important in grunge music because of the (still working)

Section 2: Elements to writing a grunge song

Musical analysis of songs

Taking what has been learned about harmony, rhythm, dynamics, and form and its importance to grunge music now lets look at some songs created in the "grunge" music style. Find out more about grunge music and its history here.

scope="row" Grunge Music of the Late 1980's - Mid 1990's
Musical Elements	Heart Shaped Box	Black Hole Sun	Creep	Glycerine	Man in the Box
Artist	Nirvana	Soundgarden	Radiohead	Bush	Alice in Chains
Rhythm
Harmony
Dynamics
Form	.

Additional Image

In this section, provide your contribution, creative element, assessment, or observation with regard to your background research. This could be a new derivative work based on previous research, or some parallel to other events. In this section, describe the relationship between your background review and your deliverable; make the connection between the two clear.

Rhythm

...use as many subsections or main sections as you need to support the claims for why what you did related to your Background section...

Harmony

...use as many subsections or main sections as you need to support the claims for why what you did related to your Background section...

Dynamics

...and so on and so forth...

Form

...and so on and so forth...

Gallery

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Conclusion

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External Links

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Image Gallery

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