Starving Artistry

No, I’m not implying that women who are single are musical geniuses. And actually, saying that Single Ladies by Beyonce is a work of musical genius is probably going a bit too far. But, I will explain why I dig the song… and no, it’s not because of the female empowerment lyrics.

Actually, for those of you who know me, you’ll know that I’m not much of a lyric listener at all. So that leaves us with the music.

This song is primarily an electronic beat with vocals on top. Since there is no chordal accompaniment to go along with the vocal melody, our brains assemble what we think must be the key in which the song is sung (See my post below about Microsoft Songsmith and Bach). 

Let’s take a look at what happens throughout the structure of the song:
Intro
Okay, so I lied about there being NO chordal accompaniment. Well, actually, this wouldn’t necessarily be referred to as accompaniment, but the intro consists of a call and response section between the lead vocal line and the backup singers. When the backup singers respond, they respond in harmony. The harmony they respond in solidifies the key which Beyonce is setting up with her first note, B.

She sings “all the single ladies” on a B and the backup singers respond with a homophonic melody line of “G# -> F# -> E.” Since E major consists of E F# G# A B C# D#, the notes B (sung by Beyonce), G#, F#, and E suggest that they are singing in the key of E, more specifically, on a I chord (E major). 

The next line they respond in harmony (top voice singing B -> A -> G# while the lower does the G# -> F# -> E again). 

If none of that makes sense to you, you can just take away that already, within 4 seconds of the song, our ears have tuned to the key of E major WITHOUT the support of chords.

Verse
The verse is pretty sparse. Just Beyonce’s solo melody line with some harmony support over one word.  The entire verse is 5 notes -> E, F#, G#, A, and B in various orders. To exemplify how simple this is, a beginner piano player could play the entirety of the melody of “Single Ladies” without having to move their hand from the starting position. Aka, one of my 6 year old piano students could play this song. But, simple definitely does not equate to bad.

Chorus A
Here is the first time we hear the hook “if you like it then you should have put a ring on it.” It’s introduced with a new instrument in the mix, some sort of electronic note hitting an E and then sliding down. The fact that it hits the E just reinforces the key in our ears.

Chorus B
Second hook, the “woh oh oh” part. Still no chordal accompaniment.

Chorus A’
Here’s where I fell in love with the song. She brings back the first chorus hook again, but this time supports it with bass. She brings in the bass on C, then walks it down to A, then back up to C while keeping the melody the exact same. So even though what she’s singing is exactly the same, all of a sudden our ears are thrown for a loop when she introduces a new chord into the mix. If we look back up to my spiel on the Intro, you can see that the note “C” isn’t even in the E major scale, which is the scale we’ve already established that we’re in. You can hear the EXACT same stuff, all she added was one bass line and all of a sudden we’re listening to something completely different!

The song finishes off as follows:

Verse
Chorus A
Chorus B
Chorus A’
Chorus B
Bridge
Re-Intro
Chorus B
Chorus A’

I guess I really like it because it did the unexpected. And the only reason she was able to pull it off the way that she did was by having the song be simple. Like, really simple. I guarantee that if you put that melody line into microsoft songsmith, it wouldn’t pump out an E/C chord. 

Maybe I’ll try that and post what it sounds like.