Four Mystery Tracks
Meero Yeu
Music 105; Section 3486
Due: 3/10/2009
Mus 105 Meero Yeu
Professor Sirotta
An Analysis of the Four Mystery Tracks
Mystery Track 1:
The digital sound of Mystery Track 1 has three different timbres. I heard a triangle, which is an idiophone; an accordion, which is an aerophone in the reed family; and a harmonica, which is also an aerophone in the reed family. The tuning system appears to be in the 12 tone equal-temperament tuning system, which means it belongs on the chromatic scale. I came to this deduction because the instruments used in this track also appear in Western music. I wish I could literate which scale the notes were played, but I’m tone-deaf and cannot distinguish the differing modes.
Mystery Track 1 has tonality, meaning it had a “sense of departure and a return to the root note during its composition.” (Professor M. Sirotta: Syllabus and Supplemental Materials, Page 7) The harmonic color of the track felt happy and joyous, but when I asked the boyfriend for his opinion, he stated that the singing sounded melancholy. He literally stated that the singer sounded as if he was singing about a girlfriend who had left him, and took his dog as well. This statement got me to construe that there might be microtonalism in regards to the instruments being played and the singer.
This pulsitile track consisted of a compound meter. The triangle kept a triple meter, and the harmonica and accordion was in accordance to a duple meter. The tempo remained constant throughout the whole composition. The voice of this track was made by the human voice, and the instruments had the tonal texture of homophony. The form of this composition was repetition. The same notes, as well as the lyrics played again and again.
I felt that this track consisted of composed and improvised music. The instruments were the composed part, and the singing could’ve been improvised. If a different singer was singing, he...