pop music glossary

riff/ostinato

melody

• a repeated melodic and/ or rhythmic pattern.

• often found in the bass line

• synonymous with ostinato, riff is just used as the term for pop/jazz

• normally quite short, 1-4 bars

• many songs rely heavily on riffs, e.g. ‘superstition’

• funk genre often uses riffs in multiple layers

pitch bend + glissando/slide

melody

• glissando - literally sliding from note to note, pitch rises or falls in a completely smooth line.

• fretless string instruments + trombones are capable of very effective glissandos.

• on guitar, perfectly possible but often produces a slightly uneven sound due to frets

• on other wind instruments, good embouchure and throat control, gradual covering of tone holes ( clarinet + saxophone) or half-valving (trumpet) can overcome the fact that pitches are normally produced in semitones

• on keyboard instruments a glissando is a very rapid scale, executed by a sweeping motion.

• used in the bass synthesizer and heard very clearly near the start of ‘maybe your baby’

pitch bend - related to glissando and consists of moving away and then usually back to the original pitch of a note using a small version of a glissando, over a small interval. this is very effective on the guitar. on a modern electric keyboard or synth pitch bend can be controlled by a dial, wheel or toggle

melismatic/syllabic

melody

• vocal word setting

• syllabic - each syllable of a lyric sang to a separate note

• melismatic - syllables may be extended over several notes.

• melisma is a feature of slow expressive vocal music, especially typical of contemporary R&B, where performers often improvise elaborate, usually descending melismas at the end of a phrase

• e.g. countdown, impressive virtuosic rising melisma heard in ‘countdown’

hook

melody

• a memorable melodic fragment use to capture the listener attention

e.g. two bar sampled instrumental riff used in ‘crazy in love’

blues notes and blues scale

melody

• distinctive style of vocal music developed in the southern USA as the descendants of the black slave population sang improvised melodies using the ‘minor’ version of the pentatonic scale against basically major harmonies. resulting mixture of different chromatic versions of the same scale degrees

  • major/minor 3rd and major/minor 7th

  sounded particularly expressive and became associated with the blues genre.

• flattened 7th and flattened 3rd came to be known as blue notes.

pentatonic scale

harmony and tonality

• 5 note scale, usually found in the form C D E G A (major form) or

• A C D E G (minor form)

• this scale is found in ancient societies all over the world, and plays a vital part in the origins of western popular music because it is present both in the folk tradition of western europe and those of west africa, slave trade.

modes

harmony and tonality

• alternative scale formations to the standard major/minor scales of western classical music. seven modes have been used since ancient Greek times and were the principal method of categorizing melody in the medieval period. each of them corresponds to a white note scale on a keyboard, so they have the same notes as a c major scale, but different tonics, so a different pattern of tones and semitones.

• transposable to start on any note

• Dorian and aeolian modes are closely related to the minor pentatonic scale as they use the minor 3rd and minor 7th. both are frequently encountered in European folk music and blues influenced music, there common in pop melodic styles.

• Stevie wonder songs in the funk genre often use the Dorian mode transposed up a semitone to e flat (superstition, I wish)

• the vocal melody of Beyonce’s ‘crazy in love’ is essentially in the Dorian mode

tone-semitone breakdown

Ionian - t-t-s-t-t-t-s

Dorian - t-s-t-t-t-s-t

Phrygian - s-t-t-t-s-t-t

Lydian - t-t-t-s-t-t-s

Mixolodian - t-t-s-t-t-s-t

Aeloian - t-s-t-t-s-t-t

Locrian - s-t-t-s-t-t-t

chord extensions and additions

harmony and tonality

bpm and mm

tempo, metre, rhythm,

backbeat

tempo, metre, rhythm

• a feature of various types of popular music from the 1940s onwards. consists of a strong accent on the 2nd and 4th beats of a 4/4 bar, which are classically thought of as the weak beats. in pop music, it is often emphasized by a loud snare drum stoke on beats 2 and 4 (usually alternating with bass drum on beats 1 and 3)

irregular metre

tempo, metre, rhythm

• vast majority of popular music is written in 4/4, some musicians, especially those influenced by the progressive rock movement of the late 19060s and early 19079s have experimented with asymmetrical or changing metres.

• e.g. Stevie wonder’s living for the city, wordless interlude first heard at 1:10 - 1:25 includes several changes between 2/4,3/4 and 4/4 to bring some variety