Samba Em Prelúdio
Features a female alto voice (uses her chest register), acoustic guitar, and acoustic bass guitar
Female vocalist plays and sings the bass guitar, however there is no credit for a second acoustic guitar player
A second acoustic guitar player is featured in the guitar solo, however in live performances it is simplified to just one guitar (acoustic bass) part.
Female vocalist covers a range of a minor tenth (from E bellow middle C to G above)
Vocal line is set syllabically, containing many leaps and complex rhythms: triplets, semiquavers.
Female vocalists uses Rubato in performances whilst keeping mostly to the score.
Bass part is very active: piece opens with a virtuosic bass solo featuring double stops, rapid semi-quaver passages, wide leaps, a mordant, and a harmonic.
In places during verse 1 (before the entrance of acoustic guitar) the bass guitar appears to be playing two parts at once, with lower bass notes contrasting higher chords
Acoustic guitar enters in bar 23 onwards and play a virtuosi solo from verse 2 to bar 89
As an accompaniment, the acoustic guitar plays plucked chords and small melodic passages
The acoustic guitar imitates vocal line (25-27 “que vonta de de ver”)
Key of the piece is in B minor
A minor key is typical of Bossa Nova’s
Despite complexity of the harmony, the song does not modulate
Introduction is homophonic, apart from the occasional double stops (2+ notes played at once)
The majority of the piece is homophonic, however at times the acoustic bass guitar becomes so complicated it could be its own melody
Passage at bars 89-104 is polyphonic as the two melodies of the piece are combined
Harmonies are tonal
Complexity of harmonies inspired from Jazz and American pop
Frequent chord extensions - extra thirds piled up on the triads to produce sevenths, ninths, elevenths, thirteenths
Features diminished sevenths (bar 35)
Flattened fifth chords (bar 44)
Chromatic chords - C#7 (bar 31), C and F major chords (bar 27/28)
Cadences not used in typical way - however most phrases tend to end on V (bar 11), or on tonic with a more conventional V-I perfect cadence (bar 52-3 “nin guém”)
Descending chromatic chord progressions seen in bass line (bar30-38)
Two main melodies heard first then combined (bar 89-104):
Eight bar idea (4-11) which is repeated from 12-19 with developed rhythmic changes and a different ending
A series of phrases linked together by common rising arpeggios “(Eh sem voce”)
Long downwards sequence effect - each phrase starts a semitone lower than the previous
Unusually, melody line moves by leaps (disjunct) of thirds and occasionally sevenths (8-9)
All phrases have span of a seventh, except the first which has span of a minor sixth
Melody changes in bar 18 where a jazz-like flattened fifth is used to descent to the tonic
Increase in tempo at bar 19 causes value of each note to double
Similar to (A), a 16 bar idea is heard from 23-38, and then repeated from 39-54 with different endings
Contrasting (A), melody is entirely conjunct in this movement
Sequence in bars 23-26, which is then heard again in bars 31-34 a fourth lower
Bars 34-35 repeat flattened fifth idea twice, the second time being a note lower to move away from the tonic to set up a repeat
Tempo in bars 1-3 is very free, difficult to recognise a stable tempo
Verse 1 has a slow tempo with a lot of rhythmic rubato
Bar 19 bass guitar begins Bossa Nova tempo and overall tempo almost doubles
Free tempo returns at 88
The piece is wholly in 4/4 quadruple time, but from bar 19 there is a 2/2 feel to the piece whilst still being in 4/4
Vocal melody is extremely complicated yet still stays on beat
Phrases separated by triplets and rests
Bass part has a more complex part than vocal in Verse 1 using a lot of syncopation, only occasionally using Bossa Nova type rhythms
Verse 2 vocal note consists of typically longer note values, except for the ends of the phrases which tend to be syncopated
Verse 1 contains more triplet rhythms than verse 2
From bar 23 onward, bass part plays more typical Bosa Nova rhythms (dotted crotchet and quaver pairs) whilst still keeping some element of syncopation
Guitar part features syncopation to add interest
Features a female alto voice (uses her chest register), acoustic guitar, and acoustic bass guitar
Female vocalist plays and sings the bass guitar, however there is no credit for a second acoustic guitar player
A second acoustic guitar player is featured in the guitar solo, however in live performances it is simplified to just one guitar (acoustic bass) part.
Female vocalist covers a range of a minor tenth (from E bellow middle C to G above)
Vocal line is set syllabically, containing many leaps and complex rhythms: triplets, semiquavers.
Female vocalists uses Rubato in performances whilst keeping mostly to the score.
Bass part is very active: piece opens with a virtuosic bass solo featuring double stops, rapid semi-quaver passages, wide leaps, a mordant, and a harmonic.
In places during verse 1 (before the entrance of acoustic guitar) the bass guitar appears to be playing two parts at once, with lower bass notes contrasting higher chords
Acoustic guitar enters in bar 23 onwards and play a virtuosi solo from verse 2 to bar 89
As an accompaniment, the acoustic guitar plays plucked chords and small melodic passages
The acoustic guitar imitates vocal line (25-27 “que vonta de de ver”)
Key of the piece is in B minor
A minor key is typical of Bossa Nova’s
Despite complexity of the harmony, the song does not modulate
Introduction is homophonic, apart from the occasional double stops (2+ notes played at once)
The majority of the piece is homophonic, however at times the acoustic bass guitar becomes so complicated it could be its own melody
Passage at bars 89-104 is polyphonic as the two melodies of the piece are combined
Harmonies are tonal
Complexity of harmonies inspired from Jazz and American pop
Frequent chord extensions - extra thirds piled up on the triads to produce sevenths, ninths, elevenths, thirteenths
Features diminished sevenths (bar 35)
Flattened fifth chords (bar 44)
Chromatic chords - C#7 (bar 31), C and F major chords (bar 27/28)
Cadences not used in typical way - however most phrases tend to end on V (bar 11), or on tonic with a more conventional V-I perfect cadence (bar 52-3 “nin guém”)
Descending chromatic chord progressions seen in bass line (bar30-38)
Two main melodies heard first then combined (bar 89-104):
Eight bar idea (4-11) which is repeated from 12-19 with developed rhythmic changes and a different ending
A series of phrases linked together by common rising arpeggios “(Eh sem voce”)
Long downwards sequence effect - each phrase starts a semitone lower than the previous
Unusually, melody line moves by leaps (disjunct) of thirds and occasionally sevenths (8-9)
All phrases have span of a seventh, except the first which has span of a minor sixth
Melody changes in bar 18 where a jazz-like flattened fifth is used to descent to the tonic
Increase in tempo at bar 19 causes value of each note to double
Similar to (A), a 16 bar idea is heard from 23-38, and then repeated from 39-54 with different endings
Contrasting (A), melody is entirely conjunct in this movement
Sequence in bars 23-26, which is then heard again in bars 31-34 a fourth lower
Bars 34-35 repeat flattened fifth idea twice, the second time being a note lower to move away from the tonic to set up a repeat
Tempo in bars 1-3 is very free, difficult to recognise a stable tempo
Verse 1 has a slow tempo with a lot of rhythmic rubato
Bar 19 bass guitar begins Bossa Nova tempo and overall tempo almost doubles
Free tempo returns at 88
The piece is wholly in 4/4 quadruple time, but from bar 19 there is a 2/2 feel to the piece whilst still being in 4/4
Vocal melody is extremely complicated yet still stays on beat
Phrases separated by triplets and rests
Bass part has a more complex part than vocal in Verse 1 using a lot of syncopation, only occasionally using Bossa Nova type rhythms
Verse 2 vocal note consists of typically longer note values, except for the ends of the phrases which tend to be syncopated
Verse 1 contains more triplet rhythms than verse 2
From bar 23 onward, bass part plays more typical Bosa Nova rhythms (dotted crotchet and quaver pairs) whilst still keeping some element of syncopation
Guitar part features syncopation to add interest
