Miles Styles essays

Miles Styles essays transcription and analysis by Bart Marantz Miles Davis' original tune So What was first recorded in 1959 on his album Kind of Blue (Columbia CS-8163) with the famed " 56 Quintet". For purposes of comparison, this 1959 debut studio recording and a subsequent 1961 live performance recording of the same tune will be transcribed and analyzed. The conservative tempo of = 138 lends itself well to the cool icy-blue sound of Miles Davis' playing and to the smooth simplicity of statement he observes in this rendition of So What. (The music is available for viewing at the end of the article) Measures 1-10, including the pick-up beat, firmly establish the tone E, which appears one or more times in every measure except measure 6. Even later in measure 14, where he ventures into polytonality by ascending to the eleventh, he still ends the phrase in measure 15 on the tonic. Despite the danger of too much tonic repetition, Miles manages to camouflage and integrate it into a masterful melodic line. In the first five measures of the B section, beginning at measure 17, Miles uses this same technique of emphasizing the tonic to declare the key change to F dorian. In measure 23, he sets up an anticipation of the return to E dorian with the chromatic interplay of Eb and E. However, in this last A section of chorus one, beginning in measure 25, he places less emphasis on tonic E than before and uses, instead, a B on the phrase endings, serving as a smoother transition to the new polytonal sound (D major over E minor) of chorus two. Chorus two is also distinguished by a rhythmic change from the moving eighth note line of chorus one B section to a triadic line marked by half and whole notes. Measures 41-47 are similar in style to measures 1-4. Measure 48, like measure 56, is just another example of a Miles Davis trademark with its anticipation note(s) preceded by silence. The major over minor tonality in measures 48-49 (Eb descending...