Musical Language In John Legend’s “All Of Me”

Muscal Language in John Legend’s “All of me” Your Name Month Day, Year Part 1 John Legend ft Lindsey Stirling in “All of me” is a soul R&B song with legend on the piano/keyboard and singing while Stirling plays the violin. The ballad is more like a love poem, and has the same melody throughout the song. In the sound, the combination of the instruments and the voice follows the same pattern, and this is a soft sound, where the introduction of the song is monophonic, and this is mostly maintained throughout the song. However, when the first verse starts Legend’s voice is slightly more high pitched than the piano. In the case of harmony the voice and the instruments flow together, and there is also slow progression of the chords that remains constant. The song’s texture is thin and despite two instrument accompaniment in the form of piano and violin it is homophonic since it is set with the piano chord frames and melody presented with the piano, with only Legend’s voice singing (Legend & Stirling, 2013). The sound is consonance as it is nice and gentle, which is a common feature of the R & B songs and the neo soul songs. The melodic-harmonic relationship influences the choice of the tonic notes, whereby the song is fluid and integrates various ranged pitches, and the song is sung in a series of notes that form a coherent unit. There is no major transformation in the rhythm since there is a slow tempo throughout the song and while there is a crescendo for the song’s the chorus the rhythm is maintained as the song progresses to the verse. Verse one and two were similar as there was a consistent range of notes, and the keys in the introduction are repeated in the second verse. The vocals and instruments are aligned in the two verses and rhythm is constant. In contrast, there were changes in the bridge as the rhythm is less stable, and there are changes in the chorus as there are notes that are different than the verses and bridge and there notes are in a different pattern. Part 2 The melody and harmony interact in the song, and the harmony is structured in the blues progression, but it is the melody progressions that make the piece unique such that it is possible to integrate various instruments. This is further made possible by the tempo of the song, and despite repeating the melody the song allows improvisation and as the original composition was played on the piano integrating the violin shows that the song’s structure is suited for the instrument improvisation. Even as the harmony is similar to blues and jazz music, legend uses a melodic range that are combined to achieve, which is appropriate for a ballad that is five minutes and 12 seconds long. Hijleh (2016) argued that the 5 five music elements can be applied in non western music to understand how people perceive different music. There is interplay between contemporary R & B and pop compared to earlier decades when R & B was based on blues rhyme, harmonies, and melodies.  Understanding the musical features such as the melody, harmony, and rhythm allows one to understand the arrangement while listening and distinguishing how these el...