Gabriel van Oordt
3B-2
Oddities in Music: the Unorthodox Use of Instruments How does an artist successfully entrance his or her audience into watching and hearing their music video repeatedly again, and again, and again? Several artists handle their publicity differently. Some run large promotional campaigns to get their music out there in a way in which the average person cannot truly avoid their work. Others have their work passed around by their viewers for a multitude of reasons. In order to accomplish the second form of publicity, artists have to put a lot of work into the specific piece that they are releasing. There are specific ways for a musician to capture and enthrall their audience. They have to target their audience specifically …show more content…
Instruments are in charge of setting a melody, accompaniment, beat/percussion, counter melody, bass line, harmony, accent, and drone in a song. Generally, chordophones are used to establish the melody, countermelody, accompaniment, and harmony. Membranophones are used in beat/percussion. The tuba, double bass, and bass guiter are used to create a bassline. Finally, instruments with a sustained pitch such as the banjo are used to make a drone. Going through this list, one can easily that a chordophone such as a guitar should be used for the counter melody or a membranophone like a drum can only be used to create a beat through percussion. By establishing certain instruments into certain roles in music, we create a ?norm?. As an audience, we get used to seeing drums used for beat and guitars utilized for counter melody. Because it is the ?norm?, the use of these instruments in this manner is expecting, and is therefore, boring. By not using an instrument in the ?normal? way, a musician can set aside his work to his audience as exciting or unique. However, instruments have a ?normal? use for a reason. These roles are established because a certain instrument excels at creating a certain part of a song. Therefore, by changing an instrument?s role, an artist could potentially damage their piece, and their …show more content…
Both songs were huge hits with Cups achieving 249,440,541[footnoteRef:1]views on YouTube as of November 22nd, and Safe and Sound obtaining 231,276,245[footnoteRef:2] views on YouTube as of November 22nd. These numbers are very high for a YouTube music video, since the average amount of views a music video gets on YouTube is 26,000 views[footnoteRef:3]. Obviously, the artists were successful in forging an excellent music video, but what made these specific songs surpass the average music video in views? What set these songs apart from the ?norm?? [1: Cups, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmSbXsFE3l8] [2: Safe and Sound, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47dtFZ8CFo8] [3:
3B-2
Oddities in Music: the Unorthodox Use of Instruments How does an artist successfully entrance his or her audience into watching and hearing their music video repeatedly again, and again, and again? Several artists handle their publicity differently. Some run large promotional campaigns to get their music out there in a way in which the average person cannot truly avoid their work. Others have their work passed around by their viewers for a multitude of reasons. In order to accomplish the second form of publicity, artists have to put a lot of work into the specific piece that they are releasing. There are specific ways for a musician to capture and enthrall their audience. They have to target their audience specifically …show more content…
Instruments are in charge of setting a melody, accompaniment, beat/percussion, counter melody, bass line, harmony, accent, and drone in a song. Generally, chordophones are used to establish the melody, countermelody, accompaniment, and harmony. Membranophones are used in beat/percussion. The tuba, double bass, and bass guiter are used to create a bassline. Finally, instruments with a sustained pitch such as the banjo are used to make a drone. Going through this list, one can easily that a chordophone such as a guitar should be used for the counter melody or a membranophone like a drum can only be used to create a beat through percussion. By establishing certain instruments into certain roles in music, we create a ?norm?. As an audience, we get used to seeing drums used for beat and guitars utilized for counter melody. Because it is the ?norm?, the use of these instruments in this manner is expecting, and is therefore, boring. By not using an instrument in the ?normal? way, a musician can set aside his work to his audience as exciting or unique. However, instruments have a ?normal? use for a reason. These roles are established because a certain instrument excels at creating a certain part of a song. Therefore, by changing an instrument?s role, an artist could potentially damage their piece, and their …show more content…
Both songs were huge hits with Cups achieving 249,440,541[footnoteRef:1]views on YouTube as of November 22nd, and Safe and Sound obtaining 231,276,245[footnoteRef:2] views on YouTube as of November 22nd. These numbers are very high for a YouTube music video, since the average amount of views a music video gets on YouTube is 26,000 views[footnoteRef:3]. Obviously, the artists were successful in forging an excellent music video, but what made these specific songs surpass the average music video in views? What set these songs apart from the ?norm?? [1: Cups, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmSbXsFE3l8] [2: Safe and Sound, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47dtFZ8CFo8] [3: