Listening Journal: August 15, 2011

Today I had to opportunity to listen to Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti "Round and Round." When the song first began there were many thoughts going through my head. Will I enjoy this song? Will it go somewhere, musically? Yes it did. One interesting aspect of this particular song is the dynamic changes. Coming from the dance world a song has to either be artistically interesting, or musically intriguing, to grab my attention and keep hold of it. As the song went on I lost a little bit of an interest because there wasn't as many accents as I would have liked. They dynamics of the song influenced my opinion in the sense of I went from being bored in my chair to thinking this could work, the slow moments and then the quicker ones really mesh nicely. Also the end of the song the music faded as the singer or singers continued to sing and it had this breathless feel to it. The breathless feel influenced my opinion of the song slightly. It goes back to the dynamics, it flowed seamlessly. I do have a listening bias because at dance competitions you hear a lot of music. I am a huge accent person, the occasional unexpected crack or pop is defiantly something I look for in music. Naturally I am drawn to songs full of accents because it is easier to choreograph for, but there are always songs that surprise you.