Tuesday, September 10, 2013

When I'm Sixty Four by The Beatles



Trying to find a song that ends a thought with a half cadence and later ending with a PAC was very tricky to find but I was able to find a song by one of my all time favorite bands, THE BEATLES! I found that their song, "When I'm Sixty Four" begins a period (or thought) with a half cadence, before ending it with a PAC (or a complete thought). 

I performed this song with my high school's all male acapella group, the Bro-Squad (cool name, I know), and I found that with each thought that the melody presented with first start off unresolved in both the melody (Solo) and accompanying parts (in this case the Tenor 1, Tenor 2, Baritone, and Bass part). 

Looking at the first thought:
When I get older, losing my hair / Many year from now. 
This is the end of the first thought. Listening to the first note that the melody sings, one can compare the beginning now (when), to the last note (now) and notice that it is the dominant. For all the music theory students in the class, the key that this song is in is E Major so the tonic triad/chord will be E-G-B (Do-Mi-Sol). Now looking at the last note, now, we can tell that it is not the tonic of the scale. Instead, the song ended on Ti, which is in the dominant V of the key (Sol-Ti-Re), concluding that his phrase ends on the dominant chord. 

Continuing with the phrase: 
Will you still be sending me a Valentine / Birthday greetings bottle of wine? 
This phrase starts exactly where the last one ended, with the Ti of the scale. Continuing to the end of the phrase, it sounds complete towards the end, making it a PAC. Some might think that the end might not end of the tonic but I believe, since it is ending as a question, it sounds complete. 

Listen to the rest of the song and listen out for the many thoughts the originally end with a half cadence and later end with a PAC. 

1 comment:

  1. This blog post actually helped me understand the cadences a little bit more! With the Beatles being one of my favorite bands, it was interesting to actually analyze one of my favorite songs by them. Explaining exactly what notes were related to the tonic and dominant cords on the scales helped me identify where the cadences landed throughout the song. Something that I have trouble with, since I'm not a music student, is figuring out what key a song is in, so thank you for clarifying that to make the identifying of the cords easier on my brain. I enjoyed this post very much and now even understand the concept a little but more because of it! :)

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