For this blog, I would like to choose the song “Halo” by Beyonce Knowles. This song was officially released on January 20, 2009, and falls under the R&B and Pop genre categories. Beyonce Knowles rose to fame in the 1990s as the lead singer of an R&B girl group known as Destiny’s Child. Eventually, she began to release solo albums and became well known for her powerful voice. The song “Halo” addresses the emotions of being heartbroken and the idea of giving love a second chance. Personally, I have always enjoyed listening to this song because of the calm melody and soothing instruments involved.
The timbre of the song includes strings such as the violin and cello, percussions such as the piano and drums, and electrophone such as an electric piano. The song instantly begins with a combination of clapping beats, and a peaceful melody played by the piano and violin. The clapping beats and piano melody continues repeatedly throughout the entire song as Beyonce is singing the lyrics. I would consider this a consonant harmony since a pleasant sound is created by those two pitches occurring at the same time. Beyonce sings “Halo” with longer spaces between the notes causing it to be a slow song. Therefore, the song has a disjunct melody because there is a long distance between the pitches. The entire song is primarily soft, however, when Beyonce begins to sing the chorus, her voice gets louder and stronger. The beginning of the song to the chorus is classified as a crescendo because the volume increases from soft to loud. After the chorus is over, Beyonce returns to a softer volume, which is classified as a decrescendo because the volume decreases from loud to soft.
First and foremost I would like to point out that you have good listening ears. Even if I was to listen to this video couple of times I could have never pointed out so many instruments. I agree with you about it being a consonant harmony because there is definitely a pleasant sound which is created during the pitches. Lastly, I also picked up the tone of her voice during the crescendo. Currently, we have a lot pop artist with this familiar crescendo start of their music video.
First of all, great song choice! I’ve loved this song from the moment it was released. I also really liked your explanation of the different elements of this song. Personally I’ve been having a bit of trouble understanding the concept of timbre, but your explanation and examples from this song really did help me a lot. The beat and the combination of different instruments and sounds do give the song a nice sound and catchy rhythm. I also really love the moments in the song when she applies the crescendo because it shows just how amazing, powerful, and full of emotion her voice is!
Hey, you’ve got great taste in music! This is probably my favorite songs of hers. Before reading your comment, I never noticed the violin or the cello or anything, really. But now that you’ve pointed those instruments out, I can hear them more clearly. And, I agree with you on the fact that the song is mostly crescendo and then descends to decrescendo as it nears the end.