Sly – The Cat Empire - Harmony

Sly – The Cat Empire - Harmony

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Chemistry 101

I body is sort of based on three chords...E...A...B, but really what we’re hearing is a repeated bass pattern doubled by the guitar and electric piano. Here’s the notes, but you really should listen to it to hear what’s going on…

E...G#...A...G#...A

A...B...A...B

...over and over. So the harmony of the verse is created by a melody of the instruments, which is playing under the melody of the singer! You have this lower melody (of the instruments) playing and flirting with the main melody of the singer and lyrics. Hmmm? What’s the song about? Flirting! Isn’t that great prosody? It gets better!

[Side note]

My senior year I worked at Pizza Inn in Las Vegas. It was the best. All my friends worked there. We ran the place. Imagine that, a bunch of 18 year olds. Someday I’ll tell you about how I was the worst delivery driver ever, and how I sucked up  the French dressing with the central vacuum system, but today is not that day.

I was driving to work when I pulled up at a light next to a cute girl from my high school...actually, she had graduated a year earlier, an OLDER woman.  I was totally looking cool [Hair: feathered? Check!] in my inherited Datsun B210 (that Brian Walker nicknamed “Fluffy”).  She, in a yellow Camaro. I yelled out my window* “Hey, wanna trade?” She rolled down her window, “What?” I repeated, “Wanna Trade?” You know what happened? She laughed, not in a blow me off laugh, but in a cute, feathered hair kind of laugh. Game on, I thought.

I continued yelling, “Wanna Pizza?”

“A what?”

“A pizza! You know, crust, cheese, sauce.”

“A pizza?”

“Yeah...Pizza Inn...Boulder Highway...by Payless.”

“Oh...uh...why not?”

Can you believe that? She said “why not”!

We drove side by side. Kind of eye flirting at each other in our cars. Her V6 rumbling. Me being extra careful with the gas so it wouldn’t spew blue smoke. We pulled into the parking lot in front of the Pizza Inn. I couldn’t believe it. She laughed kind of sheepishly, I invited her inside. We found a table.

“Uh...I gotta go clock in. What kind of pizza do you want?”

“Clock in?”

“Yeah, my shift just started”.

“You work here?”

“Yeah...pepperoni? Canadian bacon? Pan?”

“Actually...” [Insert sound of yellow Camaro revving up...backing up cautiously...burning tread out of the lot.]

-----------------------

Chemistry – Continued...

Okay, that didn’t work out the way I had hoped. But for fifteen minutes we had something going. Anticipation, the unknown, the mystery of possibility...that is EXACTLY what is going on between the two melodies of this song, except in the song, the guy is actually smooth.

Chemistry 201

The first time we actually hear an honest-to-goodness chord is when (in the lyrics) the guy actually introduces himself to the girl (Aye...it’s a pleasure to meet ya, you look like one incredible creature...etc). Think about that for a moment. The entire verse is two melodies flirting together and playing off of each other and then BAM! They actually talk and...HARMONY!

Here’s the chords for those keeping score...

F#m.................................................A...................................B.........

Aye, it’s a pleasure to meet ya, you look like one incredible creature

A.......................................Bb...............................B......................................

Want to treat ya fine, let’s dance and grind, get so funk-inflicted it’s a crime

B...................................................................................

You’re divine, you’re sublime, and well, ya blow my mind

Here’s a couple of cool things about this section. First, notice how long they stay on the B chord. B, being the V chord, has a tremendous amount of tension. The V chord desperately wants resolution, and what wants resolution more than a guy trying to pick up a girl? Nothing. :)

Secondly, I love the little prosody smack on the Bb chord. Bb is non-diatonic, meaning it normally doesn’t belong in the key that the song’s in (the key of E, in case you’re wondering). Introducing a Bb in this key, at that moment, creates a brilliant little moment of friction...and what’s the lyric about at that exact moment? Dancing and grinding! What causes grinding? Yep...friction! Brilliant, eh?

Whether they did that on purpose or not is not the point. It still happened. That chord still sticks out at that moment. The question is whether YOU will choose to use a non-diatonic chord in a moment of YOUR song when YOUR lyric says something about friction, or tension, or grinding, or you just want to create a momentary speedbump of attention in your song. Yes, I am extremely happy about the two melodies finally coming together and becoming chords in this song (musically representing the two characters...blah, blah, blah). I get MORE excited knowing that we can use that type of technique in OUR songs.

Looking for way to breathe life into your music? There’s a freebie for you. Now, give me a second to send a waitress out. I’ll be in the back rolling pizza dough. By the way, stay far away from the French dressing.

Go write something with a non-diatonic chord.

~Shane