Something Coming was a vocal composed for the musical West Side Story. based on a modern version of “Romeo and Juliet” It was written in 1958. The music in West Side Story reflects the manners of this age- bebop wind and the blues. fused with several Latin American dance beat and thoughts from opera. The Key of the piece is D major with transitions to C major. Blue notes are used. The meter is? . although sometimes it has cross beat which create irregular speech patterns and syncopes. this makes it sound like the meter is 6/8. The pacing is a fast one-in-a-bar pacing of 176 hook beats per minute.
The piece has a wind based harmoniousness in which conventional chords have “blue” notes and other disagreements. Tritone chords are used which is besides called an Augmented 4th or “diabolous” which means Satan. There is a tritone in the first chord used. the tritone gives sound awkward and assist make tenseness by giving it an high-strung. unpredictable feel. An illustration of a Triton used is G # to D. Tritones are used both harmonically and melodically The texture is homophonic- tune and concomitant. The tune is sung by the voice with orchestral concomitant.
The orchestra accompanies utilizing chiefly ostinati. There are superimposed textures of independent parts in the orchestra. In the piano the LH plays hooks whilst the right manus plays quavers. A full 31-piece orchestra is used to attach to the tenor voice solo. The word scene is syllabic with speech patterns off beats for illustration in “could be” and “who knows? ” The vocal does non follow a conventional verse-chorus construction. The construction is debut. subdivision A. subdivision B. subdivision B1. subdivision A1. outro. The debut sets the breathy and excited temper in the perennial Riff of the concomitant.
Features of this Riff are the tritone. syncopated beat. wind inspired harmoniousness and a three note ostinato bass. Section A Begins piano which so crescendos into a fast loud phrase. Towards the terminal of Section B there is an expansive lyrical subdivision marked “warmly. freely” A1 and B1 are alterations of A and B. The outro is a simple “ad lib fade” . There is extended usage of short Riffs such as in “something due any twenty-four hours. I will cognize right away” and “only merely out of range. down the block. on a beach” . A combination of short snappish phrases like “cannon balling down through the sky” and long sustained notes like “coming to me! ” are used.
