4. Brain DamageThe approximate elapsed time for these pieces is just over 15 minutes.<br />While working on The Dark Side of the Moon the whole band felt like they were all in on the exploration and collaboration because they all felt good about where it was going. Not to mention besides that fact that it’s concepts were relative to them at that point in their lives but also because honestly they were still hoping to become rich and famous. This album is commonly referred to as a “concept album” but it is still thick with variety.<br />Breathe – “A lot of the musical ideas just came up from jamming in rehearsal rooms, CITATION Eag03 1033 (Ltd.)” remarked David Gilmour. The main staple to this song came from basically just jamming the chords E-minor and A. They stuck to a float like feeling of the song and Roger mixed the lyrics right in to that same feel. The lyrics convey a “live as you care CITATION Eag03 1033 (Ltd.)” attitude and Roger felt surprised later that he got away with it. They had been playing an unkempt version of the song live for just under a year before it was ever recorded, refined and placed onto the album.<br />On The Run – This is an instrumental piece between Breathe and Time on the album. The band had been doing a short jam session live of a similar piece that they were referring to as on the run at the time. The band in a whole though had often felt dissatisfied with it. The band had a synthesizer in the studio with a build in keyboard and sequencer. David started messing with it one day plugging in little sequences. This got Roger excited and so they started messing with it together. They came across a short sequence they liked and sped it up. All that was left to do was add in a less prominent second synthesizer and some scattered sound effects and the track was complete basically in their eyes.<br />The Great Gig in the Sky – Is another instrumental piece on the album. Richard had this to say about the song, “The band basically wanted another 4-5 minutes of music and we thought it could be an instrumental. I think I just as I always had done just sat at the piano… CITATION Eag03 1033 (Ltd.)” The main bulk of this song is what Richard came up with there at the piano. In talking about the vocals on the song Roger could not remember whose idea it was to have a female singer come on and improvise over the music but their producer suggested that they try out a singer named Clare Torry for the role. Once they were hip on the idea of having a female singer just improvise over the music they told her, “…think about death, think about horror and whatever and just go and sing. CITATION Eag03 1033 (Ltd.)” So she went out into the studio, sang, came back in and said to them that she was really embarrassed but everyone listening just thought it was marvelous and brilliant.<br />Brain damage – “I definitely think it has to do with Syd and a bit about defending the notion of being different, CITATION Eag03 1033 (Ltd.)” stated Roger. He recalled thinking about a piece or grass and how ridiculous it is when people try to keep others off of it and that its almost insane for a man to consider enjoying the grass by walking on it or playing with a ball on it etc. Roger analogized it with society in a whole how it seems that we tend to try to steer people into a certain way of thinking and being and that there is something bizarre about the person who would think to play on the grass that has been the reputation as untouchable. <br />Bibliography BIBLIOGRAPHY Harris, John. The Dark Side of the Moon - The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece. Da Capo Press, 2005.Povey, Glenn. Echoes - The Complete History of Pink Floyd. Chicago: Mind Head Publishing, 2006, 2008, 2010.The Dark Side of the Moon. Dir. Mathew Longfellow. Perf. Eagle Rock Entertainment Ltd. 2003.<br />Listening Guide<br />On this album there are a lot of sound effects, empty space and background voices. I will do my best to describe just the music portions with little reference to the other sounds.<br />Breathe:<br />This song is in 2/4 time.<br />0:00-1:13 heartbeats, motors, people talking, office equipment noises, laughter, etc.<br />1:13 Intro: The intro begins with a mellow 2/4 rhythm. There is a simple but fairly unpredictable drum beat with a generous picking on a sustained guitar. There is a small range melody being played at this point on the bass guitar just flowing along with the rest of the groove.<br />1:29 A slide guitar starts at a low pitch and gradually slides to a relatively high pitch in about 3 measures.<br />2:13 the music slightly changes here, it almost seems to change to 4/4 time (but I could be wrong) as we get a short verse intro<br />2:29 Verse 1: The music goes back to basically all that was happening from 1:13-2:13 except now we have vocals. The Melody on the verse has a small note range and is executed at a mid range pitch and volume. The intervals in the Melody are definitely conjunct.<br />2:58 Chorus: The music as well as the vocals at this point gives the illusion of slowing down and drooping. If fact the melody does descend at this point until it goes into the second verse.<br />3:14 Verse 2: follows right along with verse 1, only difference are the lyrics.<br />3:43 Chorus 2: matches chorus 1 just about the same.<br />3:58 The song has no outro and it just goes right in to the next song. Which we will look at now called “On the Run.”<br />On the Run:<br />Instrumental<br />This song is in 2/4 time.<br />0:01 This song starts off with a swift repetitive tapping on the hit-hat at what I would guess is a 16th note a measure and cut time pace.<br />0:14 We start hearing a looped sequence of notes, that has been sped up, slowly increasing in volume.<br />0:33-1:11 I will call this section Verse 1 since it will repeat again later. There are various sounds taking place at different times, they are: someone running, a woman talking over a PA, a propeller ran airplane flying by, etc.<br />1:11 There is a second sequenced pattern that swiftly gets louder in volume and then back out again.<br />1:20 – 1:59 Verse 2: Random sounds played just like what I called the first verse.<br />3:05 The outro of this song is the sound of an exploding plane.<br />The Great Gig in the Sky:<br />This song is in 4/4 time.<br />0:00-0:17 Intro: The intro to this song is played on a piano. Mostly just chords being played with a few pick up notes in-between.<br />0:18 There is a slide guitar here starting in a medium range playing an inverted arch type accompaniment going back up at 0:22. Then repeated at 0:28-0:35 and repeated a few more time leading up to the verse.<br />1:00 Theme intro: Here enters the drums and piano basically just to play a few pick-up beats into the verse.<br />- This song is really hard for me to know what to call each movement because this piece of music is set as an improv. <br />1:08 Enter Vocals. There are no lyrics. It is just a vocal solo improved over the music and I shall do my best to describe what happens in the music and in the vocals. <br />1:08-2:21 The accompaniment stays relatively the same during this portion while the vocals leave hardly any gaps from one to the next. Her vocal range is very wide and disjunct. The volume to her voice goes up and down while the accompaniment stays the same.<br />2:21 The accompaniment mirrors that of the Intro to the song at this point. The vocals are less pronounced and more conjunct with a more narrow range in her melody.<br />2:47 The female vocalist begins to sing more conjunct as her range begins to slowly increase and she starts to tease the listener by quickly leading into a crescendo and then pulls back into a decrescendo. She also starts to take her range to the height of her ability being that she sounds to be an Alto. <br />4:10-4:45 The music and vocalist begin to fade slowly out while she continues to sing high conjunct pitches.<br />Brain Damage: <br />This song is in 4/4 time.<br />0:00-0:15 Intro: There is a simple rhythmatic hi-hat being played with a picked guitar accompaniment with slight sustain. <br />0:16 Verse 1: Narrow melody range being sang. The second half of the Verse rises up to the harmony and keeps a narrow range there before slowly descending back to where it was at the start of the verse.<br />0:44 Verse 2: Just a repeat of the first verse but with different lyrics and same concept.<br />1:13 Chorus 1: The chorus rises in pitch but stays fairly similar to that of the verse except there is more going on. The drummer gets a little more technical and we get some back-up singers singing the harmony.<br />1:48 Verse 3: Same as Verses 1 & 2<br />2:31 Chorus 2: Same as Chorus 2, but different lyrics and more back-up singers.<br />3:07 Outro: Follows the same pattern and melody of the intro but we have an electric sounding synthesizer playing the harmonic chords of each measure at the beginning of each measure. Repeated until the song ends at 3:51.<br />