Who: American Marines, Engineer, Vietnamese girls, Kim
When: May 1975, just before the fall of Saigon
Where: A club, owned by French-Vietnamese Engineer
What: The American Marines are out at the club. They know that America is losing the war and want to spend their last days having fun before returning home to America. The Vietnamese prostitutes take turns to flaunt themselves at the Marines, each hoping to win the title of “Miss Saigon”. The winner gets to spend the night with a Marine, who is picked through a raffle. Fantasies of being taken to America by her American man, where a better life awaits, make competition among the girls all the more tight. Despite having his pick of other more experienced girls, Chris, a US Marine, notices Kim, and is captured by her innocence and inexperience. Gigi, the sexiest dancer is crowned “Miss Saigon” and is the prize for Marine “number 66”. As they leave together for the night, Gigi begs the Marine to take her back to America, but he refuses and is clearly annoyed at her persistence.
Form:
This number is clearly in the rondo form. The outlines of each section, as well as the singers, are as follows:
A (Americans)
A (Chris, John, Engineer)
Interlude 1
B (Gigi,Yvette)
A’ (Americans)
B’ (Gigi)
A’ (Chris)
B’’ (Kim)
A’ (Americans)
C (Americans)
Interlude 2
A’ (Americans)
Rhythm:
Performance directions on the score indicate to the musicians to play with a ‘driving beat’. Vocal parts taken by the Americans begin on a weak beat, thus giving the music a nice groove. Off-beat rhythms are a distinct feature, giving the music a rhythmic drive that clearly reflects the Americans’ excitement and sense of anticipation as they check out the pretty girls.
Miss Saigon, together with other musicals such as Rent and Les Misarables in the 1980s, 1990s era belongs to a group commonly known as ‘pop musicals’. Such musicals feature a very much pop influenced score as well as large casts. From the example of The Heat is on in Saigon, one can see that the rhythm is typical of pop music.
Melody:
The first thing that captured my attention when I heard this song was not only the rhythm one can groove to, but also the catchy melody. Upon closer inspection of the score, I found out that the melody consists of mainly chromatic lines, not very tuneful if heard on its own.
However, having learnt about counterpoint during Music class, it led me to further examine why professional compositions sound “good”. Aesthetic goals such as good melodic lines, independent of lines, good combination of relative motions and a euphonious sound world, all contribute to good counterpoint writing. Some of these aesthetic goals are met in this piece.
Here are the chord progressions in the key of Eb major (in case you can't see them). I've also included the harmonic function regions. Please refer to the score as well.
Eb Eb7/G Ab
Eb Eb7/G Ab
Eb Eb7/G
*Tonic (expanded)*
Ab Abm
*Pre-Dominant*
Bb
*Dominant*
Eb Eb7/G Ab
*Tonic (expanded)*
The figure above shows the opening vocal lines sung by the Americans and the bass line. They can be heard moving in contrary motion, which contributes to good counterpoint. Although this vocal line moves chromatically, and is not much of an interest on its own, the rhythmic and more active bass line compensate it. Variety is added to the melodic line too when notes a 3rd above it are added.Harmony:
Another aspect of the music that gives it its forward drive is the use of harmony. The harmony moves from I – Ib- IV in the opening vocal parts ( refer to figure above again ). It swings back to this progression again before it finally seems to have more forward drive with I – Ib- IV- iv-V, but later ending with I – Ib- IV, at the end of the phrase. This is an interesting feature of this piece as we normally associate the end of a phrase with a perfect or imperfect cadence. However, the cadence at the end of a phrase here cannot be said to be perfect or imperfect. ( I think it's like the example we saw in our first Bach Chorale ) The word ‘cadence’ comes with a new meaning now to me as it is not only classified by its chords, but also on the general feel of the musical line.
*So do you guys agree with what's going on in the harmony?*
12 comments:
Hi Jean, although the key signature says Eb Maj, I thought it sounded more like Ab Maj.
In that case, I see all the Eb Eb7/G Ab progressions as V-V7-I instead. It sounded like a perfect cadence too.
I would take the Cb note in bar6 as a non-harmony note. I'm not too sure about bar7 though.
Tell me what you think. Thanks.
Joyce
Hi all!
Yes, though the chord progressions make more sense in Ab major, i.e. V-V7-I, I would still think it's in Eb major. I would take the Db note in the melody as chromatic decoration, and take that whole progression generally as I-IV (in Eb maj).
As for the Cb in bar 6, it's just a chromatically altered chord IV, which is quite common in music.
In the book "Melody & Harmony Bk 3" by Stewart Macpherson, he gives a list of common chromatically altered chords in the major key. One of the examples he quoted is the subdominant triad of a major key with a lowered third. This example can be seen in bar 6 of my example.
And in bar 7, a Bb7 chord is heard i.e. V7 chord in Eb maj, firmly establishing the key of Eb major in bar 8.
Yep, that's what I think it should be. Thanks for your comments Joyce!
Hi Jeanette and Joyce, good discussion here. Depending on how you look at this, both of you are right in a way. I'm going to keep you (and the rest) in suspense a little here and discuss this in class next week. This is such a great example to introduce what I will be teaching--thanks!
Hi all,
I have a question. Is it unusual that tonicisation takes place at the beginning of the music? From what I know, composers would want to firmly establish the home key at the beginning, and not throw the listener off-course at the start.
hey jean!
Perhaps the composer wants to add an element of suprise, since this piece of music in itself is a very catchy and cheeky sort of feel. I feel that if he establishes a home key the music would seem a little dull. I suppose in more upbeat types of music this would not be unsual. Or this maybe a characteristic of miss Saigon's music. I'll keep this in mind while looking at your next analysis!
yif
ok.. my comments seem to have disappeared all together..
Hey jean,
It's interesting how the composer uses a basic chord progression of I-Ib-IV in the phrases. Perhaps this is an example of how punctuation in music can be achieved by other aspects such as melodic contour / rhythmic factor rather than the harmonic progression?
JR
Indeed, composers typically establish the key at the beginning (at least this is what we are commonly told by our teachers) but hey remember no compositional rules are absolute, so it is not surprising that Romantic composers (Beethoven being one of the first) began to play with off-tonic beginnings, which eventually led to what is referred to as progressive tonality (i.e. beginning in one key and ending in another! -- Schubert led the way here).
Coming back to "The Heat", I suspect there is another motivation, I'll let yif (or anyone else) discover it as you examine the other musical numbers. It is actually quite obvious when you listen to musical.
Hi all,
So now, the new chord analysis would be (Eb maj):
I V7/IV IV
I V7/IV IV
I V7/IV IV iv V
I V7/IV IV
Yea, like JR said, punctuation in music can be achieved by other aspects. I think the melodic contour illustrates this.
Bars 1 and 2 consist of a descending melodic line, which is repeated in bars 3-4. I guess the descending melodic line plays a part in the punctuation aurally?
Ok, since we had a lecture on phrase structure, let's see how this phrase works out to be very quickly.
2+2+5
Continue later. Gotta work on something else now!
Hello Jean,
Going back to your question about tonicization taking place at the start of the music, it doesn't seem unusual to me because it has sort of just a passing function, unlike a modulation. And the home key can still be established.
Jean,
Thanks for your tip about the chromatically altered chord IV!
Jeannette,
Your revised harmonic analysis is basically correct now. As for your phrase analysis, in terms of harmonic phrase, it is 2+2+5 (no cadence at b. 6) though the melodic phrases appears to be 2+2+2+3. Also, the entire 9 bars seems open-ended, one wonders what actually follows...
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