Musical description
Structure
The structure is:
- introduction
- verse 1
- break
- verse 2
- solos
- verse 3
- drum break and build
- outro
Release has a collection of 28 loopA small section of music, usually between four and eight bars, that is continually repeated. that are all eight bars long. Not all of the loops play at the same time.
Melody
The female vocalThe voice as a musical instrument. melody is a two-bar descending phraseA short section of music, normally a melody, that could be thought of as a musical sentence. Phrases are like building blocks in music. that starts on the second beat of the bar and is repeated four times. The range of the melody is a major 6th, with the first note of phrase starting on a G and falling down to a low B鈾, before resolving up to the tonic note of C minor (C).
The male vocal melody takes on the female鈥檚 vocal part and repeats the opening phrase twice in a rising melodic sequence, resolving towards the dominant note of the C minor scale (G).
The instrumental solo melodies are influenced by Irish folk musicTraditional music from a particular country.聽 and this is demonstrated in the semiquaver rhythms. The uilleann pipesSimilar to Scottish bagpipes, but air is stored in small bellows rather than blown through a pipe. and low whistle solos have a mixture of conjunctA melody that moves by step. and disjunctMoves in leaps. movement, but the low whistle solo includes shorter rhythms including tripletA group of three equal length notes played in the space of two, eg three quavers played in the space of two quavers.. The hurdy gurdy solo includes much wider leaps including octaveInterval of eight notes, eg middle C to the C above. in the melody.
Rhythm
The bodhr谩n performs a syncopationRhythm patterns where stressed notes are placed off the beat. and swingA jazz style in which notes are always syncopated rather than played evenly. ostinatoA musical phrase which repeats. that starts on the strong beat but is syncopated on beat 4.
Different instruments performing layered contrasting rhythms at the same time creates a polyrhythmConflicting rhythms being played at the same time. effect. A cross-rhythm An effect created when two or more conflicting rhythms are heard at the same time. Eg one may be in simple time and another in triple time. can be heard when the tambourine plays continuous semiquavers at the same time as the fiddle plays triplet semiquavers. The effect of both two-semiquaver against three-semiquaver rhythms being played at the same time creates the cross-rhythm.
Listen to how the third and fourth bars of this extract sounds different by laying of loops with different rhythms
Metre
The song starts without a regular metreRegular pattern of beats and is indicated by a time signature. so it is in free timeMusic without a time signature or clear first beat in a bar.. However, when the shaker enters, followed by the bodhr谩n, a strict four-beats-in-a-bar pulse it nurtured.
Instrumentation
Loops fade in and out of Release gradually, and not all at the same time. This is possible through the use of 尘耻濒迟颈迟谤补肠办颈苍驳听Separate lines of music that can be mixed together so that all lines are heard at the same time. and music technology. The same technology is also used to determine the volume of each loop. For example, when the instrumental solos take place, their part comes to the front of the mixThe balancing of volumes of the tracks in a recording..
Texture
The texture is melody and accompanimentA type of texture where there is only one clear melody and an accompaniment that plays different notes and rhythms but is supporting the melody..
heterophonicMultiple variations of the same melody heard simultaneously. is a key feature, which involves variations of a single melodic line.
Tonality and harmony
Release is in C minor, but without the usual raised seventh tone. This makes the music modalA sequence of notes that have varying intervals between each degree of the sequence. . Modes are sequenceA pattern of musical notes that are repeated moving up or down the scale. of pitchThe frequency of a sound. Sounds with a high pitch have a high frequency. that are a different pattern to major and minor scales. Release is almost always in the aeolian modeA scale with the intervals, T-st-T-T-st-st-T (T represents tone interval and st represents a semitone interval). , except for the uilleann pipesSimilar to Scottish bagpipes, but air is stored in small bellows rather than blown through a pipe. solo where it is in dorian modeA scale with the intervals, T, st, T, T, T, st, T (T represents tone interval and st represents a semitone interval). .
The harmony is staticA lack of movement. It means inactivity or stillness. in that all of the harmonies move around the C minor chord, which is reinforced by the C-pitched droneTwo notes sounded together as an accompaniment, often a 5th apart..