L3 - Melody and Rhythm

Lesson 3 Samba Em Preludio

Lesson Objectives:

To learn the main melodic features of ‘Samba Em Preludio’
To examine the melodic structure of the two main melodies as well as the guitar and bass solos.
To learn about the main rhythmic features of ‘Samba Em Preludio’
To learn about the Bossa Nova rhythm and it’s use of syncopation
To understand what cross rhythms are and examples of them in the piece.

Melody and Rhythm Summary

Here is a summary of the melodic features before we look at them in more detail.

1. The melody is mainly syllabic (should always be your first thought!)

2. The vocal melody covers a range of a 10th

3. The opening section moves by leaps, singing ascending broken chords.

4. From the second section (the Bossa-nova) the melody moves mainly by step.

5. The melody often contains the top notes of extended chords

6. Notes in the melody occasionally clash with the harmony, creating dissonance.

7. The notes of the melody are in the lowest part of Spalding’s voice. We say this is in her low tessitura. This darker sound helps convey the longing of the lyrics.

Melodic Structure

There are two main melodies in ‘Samba Em Preludio. You can these in the table

Melody A

∙ The melody here is based on 4 ascending notes, which are broken chords (chords played note by note)

∙ Each one, apart from the very first, has a range of a 7th.

∙ Each broken chord descends by step from B to A# to A etc.

When this melody is played by the bass (bar 88) it is augmented (notes are twice as long)

Melody B

∙ Unlike melody A, melody B moves almost entirely by step.

∙ It is made up of three 4 bar descending phrases (bars 23—34)

∙ There then follows a 2 bar descending sequence (bars 34-38)

∙ Note the melody line takes the top note of the extended chords—F is the top note of a G#dim7 and E is the top note of a G13.

∙ Notes in the melodic line sometimes ‘clash’ with the bass line creating fleeting dissonance

Introducing Bass Melody

∙ This has an improvised feel with a very free tempo (try tapping your foot to it and you’ll see what I mean!)

∙ There are large leaps of more than an octave in places.

∙ This is again full of broken chords (bar 3 and 4) which are repeated later accompanying the vocal line (bar 7 and bar 15 where the rhythm is changed)

Guitar Solo

∙ This is an improvised melody over the 16 bar chord sequence, which is played twice (32 bars)

∙ It is based on Melody B, though is so decorated and changed that it is hard to hear any of the original melody!

∙ The solo shows off the full range of the guitar, especially it’s highest register.

∙ If you listen carefully, you can hear the use of fingered tremolo at 2 minutes 53 and 3 minutes 25. This has the same effect as the string tremolo in ‘Defying Gravity’

Melody A + B

∙ After the guitar solo, Spalding sings a simplified version of Melody B, whilst playing an augmented version of Melody A on the bass—beautiful!

Rhythmic Features

Here is a summary of the rhythmic features before we look at them in more detail.

The tempo is free in the introduction and verse 1.

There is much use of rubato in this opening section. Rubato is an Italian word meaning ‘robbed or stolen time’. Musically this means slightly slowing down and then slightly speeding up to allow for more expression.

The Bossa Nova 2 bar rhythm

Use of syncopation throughout (also heard in ‘Killer Queen’ and ‘Defying Gravity’)

Use of cross rhythms (Do you remember looking at this in ‘Defying Gravity’?)

Bossa Nova Rhythm

The rhythm of ‘Samba Em Preludio’ is based on a Bossa Nova groove, which enters at bar 19.

Due to the stripped down instrumentation (bass and guitar) and lack of percussion, it is implied rather than clearly stated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5QfXjsoNe4

To understand the features of the Bossa Nova rhythm, it might be more helpful to listen to the most famous of all Boass Nova songs—The Girl From Ipanema by Brazilian composer Antonis Carlos Jobim with lyrics also by Vinicius de Moraes.

This underlying 2 bar Bossa Nova rhythm is present throughout.

Heavy syncopation is present throughout with often only the first note of the bar being on the beat. This gives emphasis to the offbeats.

Cross Rhythms

Free Tempo

When you look at the score for the opening 4 bar introduction for the acoustic bass guitar, it looks complicated with a metre change from 4/4 to 5/4.

This is a way of notating the free rhythm of the opening improvised bars as are the use of pauses

The introduction and first verse (Melody A) don’t have a strict sense of pulse, which is why it says free tempo at the beginning.

There is plenty of rubato, allowing Spalding to be very expressive with the words.

It is actually quite difficult to be free with tempo. It is as if we are programmed to play or sing to a strict pulse!

Review Questions:

1) How many different melodies are there in ‘Samba Em Preludio’?

2) Give two melodic features of the first melody

3) Give two melodic features of the melody heard when the Bossa Nova groove starts

4) Describe what happens melodically after the guitar solo

5) Give three ways the rhythm differs from the opening introduction and verse 1 to verse 2

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