Pitch, tempo, structure etc in music - help?

My 12 year old daughter has a music assignment for school. I am not really into music and am having some difficulty helping her answer the questions for her chosen song so thought I would enlist the help of all the smart people on yahoo answers.





Her chosen song is 'Fireflies' by Owl City and she needs to describe the following elements:


*Pitch


*Duration: 3 mins and 48 seconds


*Tempo: Andante - 90 bpm


*Text


*Structure


*Timbre: We have put something about the 'feel' of the song here but not sure if it is right


*Silence


*Dynamics





Can you guys help us?|||Wow, tough work for a 12-year-old. I think I know this song. Maybe, and sorry if its not the right song. Is it the one with: "I'd like to make myself believe, that planet Earth turns slowly" in the chorus. This is what im answering for :)





Pitch: is it high or low. I think Fireflies is quite high, especially the main vocals





Duration: yes





Tempo: yes





Text: the lyrics, what are they about? they are a bit surreal, a bit dreamy, and match the style of song





Structure: this refers to verses and choruses. I couldn't be bothered listening and counting right now for you, but listen to the song, then write the order of verses, choruses and the brigde. You can, if you want, represent A as the verse, B as the chorus and C as the bridge in your answer





Timbre: this is the tone or colour of the song. So, Fireflies is light, dreamy and airy. Thats what i think anyways. Its also quite mellow





Silence: what? i don't know... um, is there any silenses or quiet moments you can make note of





Dynamics: loud or soft. The song is quite soft, however it has its loud moments|||Luckily for you I'm doing music for my HSC so I know plenty about the concepts/elements. I don't know the song too well, but I'll give you a rundown of the kind of stuff you can say about each element, or, as they're now called, Concepts. This is really off the top of my head so you don't need to use all of it, but feel free to include any of this stuff. Any questions or stuff you don't understand, just let me know.



To clarify, Duration is NOT how long the song goes for. It means you need to discuss what the notes are like, what kind of beats are created etc.



Duration: Moderate/Andante tempo in simple quadruple, or 4/4 time. Rhythm is also rhythmic devices. The bell-sounding instruments in the intro sound like they're played in an additive rhythm while the main keyboard theme is just straight semiquavers. The Bassline in the verses also play an additive rhythm. Rock beat in the chorus, accented backbeat/snare. There's also a big contrast between the really short keyboard notes in the intro and verse and the long, "Augmented" notes in the chorus.



Pitch: Divide pitch into melody and harmony. Say that in terms of tonality, the song's chords are predominantly diatonic (Basically, no weird stuff.)



Melody: High register, fairly smooth (No big leaps in notes in the melody of the verse.) The chorus has more leaps and the notes are further apart, which is what makes the chorus seem to open up. At the end of the song, interestingly, he sings the same melody an octave down, which demonstrates a pretty wide vocal range.

The strings also play a melodic passage in the final verse, which you can talk about in Texture.



harmony:Talk about the rate of harmonic change. Do the chords change quickly? Or does the song stay on one chord for a long time? (The Chords change much quicker in the chorus than in the verses.) No modulations or key changes (You know how the last chorus to some songs is a bit higher? Doesn't happen here.)







Texture: In terms of layers, there's, for the most part, one melodic line, the voice and, by extension, the texture is Homophonic (A melody with an accompaniment.) The intro is monophonic because the keyboard is by itself. Then, the Keyboard plays broken chords most of the first verse so it isn't really a melody. Towards the end of the song though the strings play a melody under the vocals, so you could say the texture becomes polyphonic. Also in terms of density, the sound is much thicker in the 2nd and 3rd choruses (solid chords, no rests etc)



Structure: This is a hard one. Not much to say really - standard pop structure/verse %26amp; chorus form (Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro)



Dynamics: There's no substantial volume change, aside from a crescendo leading into the chorus before the chord structures really open their voicing and you get this wall of sound. The rock beat helps to shape the phrasing, and that doesn't change for the whole song.No tempo changes. There's no real ornamentation of any kind because this guy doesn't really do much with his voice. Electronic manipulation, I suppose, is a kind of expressive technique, so you could say that. Expressive techs fall under dynamics.



Timbre is also called Tone Colour. This is probably the hardest one to talk about. Talk about the role of each instrument and the sound they make (The piano/keyboard accompaniment, plus vocals, bass, and drums) and how each sound is made. Eg the piano is a percussive instrument, but it makes notes. You play it by playing the keys and it's used in many pop songs as a sort of chordal anchor/accompaniment to the song. The song features many other synthesized keyboard sounds which communicate a generally pleasing electronic wall of sound, yet still dominated by the easily recognisable tonal qualities of a piano. Furthermore, the bass is a fairly standard, "warm" sounding bass line most likely played with the fingers. The drums are also synthesized and a number of different drum sounds are explored throughout the sound. Basically, for timbre, use a word to describe the sound of an instrument. A cymbal sounds brassy, bright, clear, Etc".



I am not so sure about Silence... definitely not a concept. But, I hope this helped!