Term 3 - Song Analysis

The Veronicas - Untouched

This is the song I will be talking about which is Untouched by The Veronicas and in my opinion this song is all about the instruments and what each of them are doing.

Instrumentation:

• Cellos
• Violins
• Electric Guitar
• Electric Bass
• Drums Kit
• Vocals

About the Song

The Instruments opening the song are the Cellos and the Violins, both instruments are playing the same thing at the same time. The chords they are playing lasts for 2 seconds but then when they play the chords there are a reverberation going on which lasts for 3 seconds till they repeat the chords again.

Then the instruments joining the intro are the Electric Drums kit and the Synth and they come in in the intro at the same time. What the Synth is doing is just playing single notes which are:

C#-G-G#-G-C#

C-G-G#-G-C

D#-G-G#-G-C#

C#-G-G#-G-G#-G-C#

The synth keep playing that same counter melody in some of the parts of the song, for example, in the intro, verses and middle 8. In the middle 8, the Synth gains a solo part which lasts for few seconds and what it is doing is just playing the same counter melody till the end of the middle 8.

The beats of the drums and the counter melody of the Synth gives the intro a different feel to it because before when there were just the strings (Cellos and Violins) playing you feel like it's going to be a goth song because of the style of the music video, but after the Drums and Synth joins it, the song starts changing and sounding more Electropop specially seconds later when the electric instruments such as Electric guitar and Electric bass joins it to give more feel to it.

At 0:33 the vocals are added to the song and that's when the verse starts. Listening to the vocals you will notice that there's a bit of echo in it which makes the song sound more interesting, specially because it is a Electropop song because in Electro songs most of the artists and bands add effect to their vocals to fit with the music they are playing.

In the end of the verse they add a effect to it which I can't explain what it is but it makes the vocals and the instruments sound more clear and the effect focus more on the vocals which puts it in the front of the instruments.

In chorus of the song there is not much to say because there isn't any effect in the vocals or in the instruments.

Things you will notice in the song are: 
• from the Intro of the song to the last chorus the electric drums kit does not change what he is playing, so he keeps playing the same things all the way through.

• The Electric guitar and the Electric don't change what the playing, they just keep repeating the same chords in the chorus the only time they change is in the Outro which is just the instruments.

In my opinion the song is more about the instrumentation than the lyrics and that is because of the counter melody coming from the Synth which is really important in the song because if they didn't have it, the song would just sound boring so it makes a difference, also the Cellos and Violins are very important in this music piece because of the melody phrase in the intro, they keep repeating it in some parts of they song which fills in the empty spaces.

Functions of a keyboard (2)

Q1: Briefly describe the functions of the three pedals you would find on a grand piano.

There are three pedals on a grand piano. One of the pedals is called 'Una corda' which is the one on the right side then we have the 'Sostenuto pedal' which is the one in the middle and the 'Sustaining pedal' which is the on the left.

• Una Corda: It makes the sound quitter, it dampens the sound.
• Sostenuto Pedal: It hits one note, letting the others strings vibrate and resonate.
• Sustaining Pedal: it makes the notes vibrate and resonate. It brings the hammers up.

Q2: Give three differences between a grand piano and an upright piano.

One of the differences between the grand piano and the upright piano is that the Grand piano is more expensive than the upright piano and the grand piano is more resonate, bigger sounding. The way you press the keys on the upright piano it doesn't give you a full range of characteristics of dynamics than a grand piano.

Q3: What parameters can you control with the keys of a midi keyboard?

The parameters you can control if you are on a Midi keyboard is that you can be able to change the volume of it because all Midi keyboard has a botton when you can change th volume up and down, you can also control the modulation and bending the pitch of it. 

Q4: If you use a sustaining pedal on an electric keyboard or with a midi controller keyboard, what does it do? What does it not do which a real sustaing pedal does?

Q5: What are the advantages/disadvantages of shaping midi data using a keyboard? Give some examples of when using the software interface may be better.