The vocal harmonies during the chorus is an example of a repeated use of parallel harmony. There are several examples of parallel harmonies in this song. The added voices change the song from one guy lusting after this girl to all of the guys lusting after her. The harmonies in Girl are short, but they make a huge impact on the song as a whole. Throughout the song, there is minimal accompaniment and the focus is put on the characters and the singing voices. It is during this song that Valjean promises Fantine that he will be there for Cosette, and Javert swears that he will be 'there,' hunting Valjean to bring him to justice. This is the basis for the rest of the play. During this part of the song, a lot of plot happens, so it has to be clear to the listener.Ģ:07 - 2:18 - Both singers sing the same words at the same time ('I swear to you, I will be there,') putting huge emphasis on them. Both of them speak one at a time, bringing the texture back to homophony. No voices during this time, and only one instrument, making the texture monophonic.ġ:50 - 2:07 - Javert 'talks' to Valjean while Valjean 'talks' to both Javert and Fantine. At 1:28, there is a very brief moment of homophony when both characters should 'Javert!' at the same time, accenting both singers.ġ:38 - 1:50 - Musical interlude. Character development happens in this part of the song. As the verses progress, they switch back and forth between who is singing louder, putting slightly more focus on one character or the other, but the difference in their dynamic level is never enough to drown one of them out. They are both singing different melodies, but with effectively no overlap, making this part of the song homophonic, once you take the accompaniment into account.Ġ:54 - 1:38 - Javert and Valjean begin to each sing their own melodies at the same time and at the same volume. This piece was actually incredibly fun to break down:Ġ:00 - 0:54 - Two singers, playing Javert and Valjean, begin singing. The Les Misérables 10th Anniversary Concert at London's Royal Albert Technology is a major focal point of the game, so having acoustic instruments for the song-while it may sound nice-would not fit in with the theme of the game.įor this analysis, I used the 10th Anniversary edition, with Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean and Philip Quast as Inspector Javert for

It could easily be assumed that the game takes place in the future, but it never explicitly stated. The premise of the game is that you, the player, are in a large building that is only inhabited by GLaD0S and other, non-sentient, robots. The instruments in this song are all very specifically electronic instruments. I was writing based on my mp3 of the song, and the YouTube version has six seconds of set-up before the music starts.)Ġ:00 - GLaD0S's voice enters by itself and the song is briefly monophonicĠ:01 - Electric (possibly synthesized?) harp entersĠ:45 - Electric bass enters, bells replace harpĠ:53 - bells exit, leaving voice, bass, drums and shakersġ:23 - Electric guitar enters and becomes lead instrument, synthesizer entersġ:45 - Synthesizer, guitar and bass exit, leaving voice, harp and shakers (NOTE: my times are off about six seconds on this timeline.

There is only once singing voice in Still Alive, for example, so the texture of this piece is based almost entirely on the instruments. Still Alive is very different from The Confrontation. The rapid speed of the song and changing notes indicates that well enough, but many of the notes are also accented with vibrato. This melody was not meant to be sung, but rather it was meant to be played in the guitar or something similar.Ĭontrary to Will I, Cliffs of Dover is all about embellishment and showing off. The notes come out very rapidly and in very long phrases, and they also change pitch very rapidly. While singing something based on this melody would probably be fairly easy, due in part to the generally smooth contour, trying to sing every note in the actual melody of this song would probably be a nightmare. While there are some very obviously jarring and disjunct notes, the song as a whole has a very smooth contour, sliding easily up and down in pitch.

Also, since guitars obviously don't need to breathe, the phrases are quite long. Since it is played by guitar and does not need to worry about the human vocal range like many melodies in popular music, Cliffs of Dover has a very wide range, going from very low to very high. The melody does not actually start until 0:26. In this version of the song, it opens with feedback and generally improvised plucking. Cliffs of Dover is a piece of music without any vocals, played almost entirely on guitar.

Cliffs of dover guitar mp3