Andrew Nguyen 001430-010 1

Musical Links Investigation Western Romantic Era Art Music and Indie Folk
Music
How in the world am I going to finish this? thought Andy, as he ashamedly pulled open
his laptop. And with good reason it certainly did not seem likely that he would manage to
complete an entire musical investigation in the few hours of darkness that he had left. It was due
in the morning; the sun would rise, school would begin, and he would have nothing complete to
show for his efforts
Shut up. Shut UP. I cant afford to be defeatist right now.
He settled himself down and listened again to his pieces of choice the Romantic era
Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy, and the 2005 indie folk song First Day of My Life by the band
Bright Eyes. At first listen they had little in common. Thank God this isnt my first listen, then.
However, once they were broken apart, one link was immediately evident the textures of the
two pieces.
While listening to it, Andy noticed that Clair de Lune could be broken up, roughly, into a
ternary form. The break between a section A and B could be observed at measure 27, where the
block chords and eighth note triplets of the section As theme became the sixteenth note triplets
and slower right hand melody of section B. The texture here is a homophonic one, because the
sixteenth note triplets of the left hand provide an arpeggiated chordal accompaniment to the right
hand. The acoustic guitars in First Day of my Life provide a similar effect through
fingerpicking, a similar arpeggiated texture is produced. The result is a delicate homophony in
the background dominated by the melody, which exists in both pieces, though moreso in section
B for Debussys. However, the texture was still thicker in Claire de Lune because of its

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Andy listened again to First Day of my Life and noted its structure. Binary form, AB,
repeated twice so that the song went ABAB. Structure, then, was something they did share, in
that they both conformed to a model of sections divided into As and Bs.
Rhythms and meter are of note too, Andy thought. He could not really link the meter, but
he could contrast them First Day of my Life had a clear duple meter, and helpfully accented
notes on the first beat of each measure helped to define that meter. However, Clair de Lunes
triple meter was not so clearly defined, because many of the melodys notes were played on offbeats and then tied over the beat, such that sometimes the beat was not marked by any notes. In
addition, in the section As, because of a lack of a steady left hand rhythm marking the beats, the
sparse right hand melody is free to be interpreted rubato, further deemphasizing the meter.
Lastly, many of the first beats of the measures the beat most normally stressed in any time
signature1 are marked with a low, soft left hand chord that is less stressed than the melodies
above it, This is in contrast to the steady strum of one of the two guitars in First Day of my Life.
However, Andy thought that the rhythms could be linked because of their use of
syncopation. Syncopation was actually used to a heavy degree in the Debussy piece, as in this
measure:

1 "Untitled." Untitled. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. <http://www.musicmind.com/Music/mpage3.HTM>

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This is an example of suspension, where the notes are tied so that beat two is not missed
but rather notes are sustained over it. Andy thought, also, that the off beat of 1 is also an example
of syncopation, because although the first beat is sounded by the low note it is so much more
subdued compared to the subsequent two handed chord, which is helped by a natural tonic accent
and the written tenuto mark.
Though syncopation did exist in First Day of my Life, it was observed only rarely in the
melody, such as on the ends of verses in First Day of my Life, as in the word home on come
home, or the final me at the end of the song. However, the acoustic guitar accompaniment had
quite a lot of syncopation, though subtle the finger picking was played in sixteenth notes,
occasionally leaving out the sixteenth note that would normally fall upon the beat.
Andy scratched his head. However, attention had to be drawn to the lack of triplet
rhythms in First Day of my Life. This was quite in line with its pop music culture just as a
duple meter is more common and more accessible, so are eighth and sixteenth-note rhythms. In
contrast, Debussys use of rubato triplet rhythms serves only to heighten the ethereal quality of
the piece, which was indicative of Romanticism.
The clock was ticking much too fast. Already 5:30 in the morning. Only the thought of
the IB Diploma kept him going, but why did it even matter now? He had been accepted to a
couple universities already, and right now, that was all he cared about.
Push those thoughts away, Andy, youve got work to do!
Andy got up to wash his face and resumed contemplation. The harmonic aspects of the
pieces were quite different, too, Andy thought. Both pieces, typical of western music, had
homophonic texture and were built on tertian chords, but this did not preclude great differences
on how those chords are used; indeed Debussy strayed from the triad model with some of his

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chords. Though both pieces were in a major key, Debussys piece would blur the tonality
somewhat at times, only to later return to it again, such as in measure 33 and 34 in Section B
(which spans from measure 27-50), which raise the Db and Eb to natural notes such that they
form augmented chords with the notes around them; a key change followed in measure 37, and
tonality continued to be unsure up until the return of Section A in measure 51.
In contrast, First Day of my Life never lost its sense of tonality. It did share, however,
Clair de Lunes use of non-diatonic chords to a far lesser degree, as in the III and II chords that
were used to resolve to the vi and V chords a fourth away from them, respectively. In the song,
these were Ab major and Gb major chords, because First Day of my Life was in the key of E. The
use of functional harmony seemed to be more evident in First Day of my Life because of this
firm hold on tonality since it had more diatonic chords, cadences were easily distinguished.
Andys computer froze. He paled. Why did this happen? He had recorded his HL Solos
on this computer, and not saved them oh my god oh my god what the HELL am I going to do
and he sat there shock-still for a moment. Eventually he restarted the computer and found that
Auto-Recover had saved most of his data.
As for the melodic contour of the pieces, Andy supposed they were greatly different. First
of all the tessitura of both the bass and melody of Clair de Lune was wide and expansive, while
in First Day of my Life, the singers range went from only A2 to C#4 a tenth; while the string
bass simply played chord root notes in a similarly narrow range, and the guitars strummed their
chords in what also sounded like a narrow range. Moreover the bass and harmony parts of Clair
de Lune were highly disjunct in character, because they were mostly made up of arpeggios but
Andy had to concede that the melodies of both were melodically conjunct for the most part, even
though Clair de Lune went up and down the keyboard.

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Those were the vertical dimensions but what of the horizontal? Claire de Lune had
long, expressive, drawn-out themes, as opposed to First Day of my Life, which had shorter and
simpler phrases. Moreover, in First Day of my Life notes were sung more rapidly, whereas Claire
de Lunes melody could be stretched out and sustained. Not very similar at all.
Come to think of it, something else Andy thought that the two pieces could be sharing
were timbral characteristics that is to say, use of tone color. Both composers seemed to have
the same intention to produce a calming, sweet piece, and Andy thought that they exploited
tone color to that end. The gentleness of the two guitars playing seemed similar to the gentleness
of the solo piano, not as thick perhaps, but so it was and the singer, too, seemed to be trying to
cultivate a soft and sweet tone. The composers intention in these pieces was reflected not just in
tone color but also in dynamics never did either of the pieces rise above mezzo piano.
Andy woke up. What?
Oh.
He was only 300 words into his musical links investigation. He was supposed to have
been at school an hour ago. He felt drained. Hopeless.
With pursed lips and downcast eyes, he shrugged and said oh well. At least he gave it a
good shot. He had learned all the lessons he had to, so really it did not matter now where he
completed the IB program or not.
Andy set off to school on his bike, but he had a funny feeling he had written his MI even
though he knew he had not.

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Works Cited
"Untitled." Untitled. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. <http://www.musicmind.com/Music/mpage3.HTM>

Discography
Debussy, Claude, Natalie Dessay, Philippe Cassard, Karine Deshayes, Henri Chalet, and
Catherine Michel. Clair De Lune. EMI Music Germany, 2012.

Oberst, Conor. "First Day of My Life." Rec. 21 Mar. 2005. I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. Bright
Eyes. Saddle Creek, 2005. Youtube. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=zwFS69nA-1w>.