Lady Gaga's MIXED METER Star Spangled Banner?!

all right so yesterday at joe biden's inauguration uh lady gaga debuted the mixed meter version of this star-spangled banner why was she using a mixed meter arrangement you normally associate mixed meters with like math rock not like presidential inaugurations which was supposed to be really stately why did she use a combination of four four and three for well i transcribed the arrangement and i think there's some really interesting things that she and her music director did to kind of nod to whitney houston's version and john clayton's arrangement that they used in the 1994 super bowl but also created this this kind of new approach to the national anthem that i think is kind of sorely needed so let's check it out [Music] so we start out here in 4-4 and there's a long history of the song being rendered in 4-4 versus 3-4 john philip sousa actually did an arrangement of the star-spangled banner back in 1918 in 4-4 [Music] and you know marvin gaye jennifer hudson whitney houston they all did it in 4-4 because it's a great way of taking the star-spangled banner and appropriating it in popular styles but here we got like a more formal martial start to it with the the percussion and the wind ensemble playing in the key of g flat so we start with a g flat major triad we go up to the v chord over its third the d flat over f and then we have a nice e flat minor all triads all very simple very stately very strong none of that jazz nonsense great stuff this is simple but really effective we go to the sixth chord in the key of d flat e flat minor then to the five of five the a flat chord which time size is d flat we got the sus4 resolving that 4-3 suspension beautiful all very straightforward so far but check out what happens next [Music] on the page that looks simple but in context it sounds kind of strange almost kind of jarring in fact and the reason for that is because she is singing a syncopation she's anticipating that second note that rhythm of three eighth notes plus three eighth notes plus two eighth notes is called the traceo rhythm it's very common in many kinds of dance styles around the world but in this particular context it sticks out a little bit and it's so subtle and it's so simple but it's so effective it really kind of draws your attention in it makes you think like wait what was that there's also this really nice moment where she's singing the word hailed on the note f and the d flat seven sus4 and the harmony kind of almost contradicts it that dissonance between the g flat the sus4 of the d flat seven sus4 but it's so subtle and so soft in the orchestration that your ear doesn't really notice it it's kind of more of a like this color it's nice very subtle [Music] so what we have here at the beginning of the i guess the second line is a re-harmonization we have slightly different chords but the melody is the same we start on the six the relative minor in the key of d-flat followed by g flat over d-flat the one chord over its fifth and then followed by this really nice chord a g-flat over c-flat and i love the sound of this chord this is the first like jazz chord that we have so far it's a chord which um there's so much power to it i'm pretty sure that this chord the tonic triad over the four in the key which kind of sounds like a c flat major 7 without its third it's very nice is a nod to john clayton's arrangement of whitney houston singing the star-spangled banner [Music] god so good oh my god these these chords are just unbelievable i know charles cornell has already made a video gushing over the whitney houston arrangement but it it's just it's the best [Music] anyway lady gaga lady gaga's is also good let's keep listening [Music] so so far and with the exception of that tracio that happened earlier lady gaga is singing this very straightforward she is not including any of that melismatic singing yet that is typically representative of star-spangled banner arrangements done in contemporary styles in 4-4 in this case we have lots of the basic triads but also a lot of great voice leading between chords with inversions so we have this g flat over b flat going to a c flat diminished chord which resolves very very nicely to a g flat or d flat the one chord over its fifth which then goes very nicely to a b flat over d which is such a beautiful progression which would presumably resolve the e flat minor it's i guess what you might call churchy i don't know i just get a church vibe to it a gospel vibe to it it's it's nice anyway the real cool stuff has yet to happen uh let's keep listening all right wow it sounds like she's singing the word glare for a very very long time and the reason for that is because she starts singing as if it's in 3 4. even though the rest of the band is in 4 4 she starts arriving on the note glare one beat earlier than where she has been finishing her phrases glare appears on beat four and to me it has that same kind of off-kilter feeling that the tracio rhythm had earlier on in the arrangement it's very intentional the rest of the band has this harmonization and this harmonic rhythm which supports the arrival of glare on beat four we got g flat a flat minor b flat minor seven flat five e flat seven flat nine sharp excuse me e flat seven e e flat seven sus four flat nine resolving to e flat seven which sets up the beginning of the next phrase where she's going to do that same metric trick again [Music] so yeah she's setting up 3-4 before we actually arrive to 3-4 it's just that there's these very long gaps in the phrase that you really feel there's almost i want to say an awkward energy about it but i think it's very intentional to get you to that place which just wants you to arrive at the beginning of the next phrase like for example in the harmony we're in this like c-flat minor territory for quite a long time and by the way yes that is a c flat minor over e double flat music is weird sometimes anyway let's keep listening [Music] so now we get to the meat of the matter when lady gaga gestures to the flags of the 400 000 americans that have been killed because of the novel coronavirus it happens on the phrase the flag was still there we're in 3 4 now she is phrasing it in groups of two so the groupings are over the bar line there's still this feeling of like being unmore this feeling of wanting to get to the next place because the meter has been played with has been toyed with so much up until this point and yeah to me it's kind of an affecting moment for some people these dramatic pauses that go against perception of meter might feel awkward or cringe and i understand that but i think it's because lady gaga is affecting more of a broadway aesthetic than a pop r b aesthetic that we typically expect with soloist performers of the star-spangled banner at major events if you try and remove this arrangement from its cultural baggage of whitney houston because honestly whitney houston's saying it the best that anybody's ever going to sing it in that style it's like not even a question you can never sing it as good as whitney houston [Music] oh my god if you try and start thinking of it more as like the storytelling kind of song that you would hear in les mis for example or anything out of american musical theater you start hearing it in a little bit of a different light that's i think what lady gaga and her arranger are doing here this is like the big number at the end of act one i dreamed a dream like i could imagine more and more counterpoint getting added to this the way that she's singing and the way that she's interpreting it and i think that i don't know i like it it works for me anyway this by the way is very different from how lady gaga sang it at the 2016 super bowl where she's singing at 1 3 4 but also with a lot more of the pop styling and the melismatic kind of singing by turning it into a musical theater song a song of contemporary opera let's be honest she's meeting the gravity of the situation and i think it works anyway let's keep listening [Music] it wouldn't be the american national anthem without just you know a little bit of riffing we'll give her that it's been very regal it's been very reserved so far so she's earned that little bit i think all right so now we're really into 3 4 territory we're picking up the phrasing the mixed meter now has the effect of making everything feel a lot faster than it was before even though the tempo has stayed exactly the same there's like a lot more forward momentum here it's telling a story the harmony and the orchestration support this forward momentum by having a new chord on every beat like we got oh say does that star [Music] spangled there's just like a lot of harmony coming at you too so we started in 4-4 we transitioned to 3-4 and now the meters are gonna get a little bit more [Music] loose okay there's a couple interesting things here first she doesn't sing the high note on the word free she doesn't go up to the higher octave which is what so many singers typically do she did it in the 2016 super bowl but she didn't do it here and i think it was very intentional also very interesting on the word land it sounds like she runs out of breath she breaks up the word land into land and but the orchestration also pauses at the exact moment where it sounds like she runs out of breath so that was definitely an intentional call there a strange choice but too much of a choice for it to be an accident anyway let's keep listening so this is interesting she's singing it as if it's in three four it almost sounds like she's rushing of the but the rest of the band is playing it in four four and i'm not sure if this is a choice or not but she is singing and arriving on the note the a full beat before the rest of the band does listen to it [Music] and then of course we end on a classic four minor resolving to one although it's over the root in the bass [Music] such a nice sound it's a little bit different than the john clayton what i would call the mario cadence that ends whitney houston's arrangement of the star-spangled banner but it has a similar kind of vibe because the four minor six chord has the flat six the flat sixth scale degree of the key which just has a really nice resolution down to the fifth scale degree which is part of the one chord similar a little bit different of course at the very end she throws in just a little bit of that riff but to me it sounds like it's classic american broadway at least how she's approaching singing this arrangement you know i think it's super interesting how lady gaga approached using mixed meters alongside her musical director michael bearden she really told a story we started in 4-4 with this very strong stately regal arrangement and then with these very subtle twists even still within 4 4 we got this off kilter feeling we got this uneasy feeling we got this kind of awkward feeling but also exciting feeling that told us that we were going to some place new we didn't know exactly where but it kept us on the edge of our seats you know this was very well thought out by everybody involved the meters served to tell a story and tell a new story and i think that's important for us when we're listening to the united states national anthem we've been hearing the same story over and over again and i think what's so interesting about the star-spangled banner is that for americans we need to hear our story spoken by an individual who at big events like the inauguration or the super bowl serves as kind of an avatar for everything that we might be feeling and there's this like lightning rod that surrounds the individual as they are singing it [Music] anyway so the point is i like the arrangement it was cool there's a lot of cool little things in there thanks guys so much for watching if you like what i do here on this channel please comment like and subscribe and thank you to my patrons which make videos like this possible shout out to the patrons it's you guys who are the real mvps mvps mvps of this channel appreciate you guys until next time

Channel: Adam Neely

Views: 862,389

Keywords: adam, neely, jazz, fusion, bass, guitar, lesson, theory, music

Id: Y_GY3DB8pL4

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/DasND]

Lady Gaga has a great range. All the way from Ra-Ra-Umama to this.

The arrangement reminds me of christmas music somehow, it's nice!