Unfortunately This Is My Life Now

unfortunately this is my life now

It's the minor plagal cadences! They're at the end of each couplet and make you want to fall into the sun!! :)

honestly the intro already gets me all teary

Unnatural Selection-Muse; Harmonic Analysis

This is essentially just going to be a music theory word vomit BUT hopefully it makes sense. I'm gonna put it under the cut bc it's probably gonna be quite long.

I'm so sorry guys, this is pretty terminology heavy. I hope it all makes sense, but if anything doesn't, please let me know and I'll do my best to explain!

A few notes: -I use roman numerals to indicate chord positions in relation to the key. Capitals are used for major chords, lower case for minor chords and (not relevant here) lower case italics for diminished chords. -A perfect cadence is literally just V-I or V-i in any key. It's a pretty key component in classical music and Matt Bellamy uses them frequently in his writing. There are other types of cadence as well, but they're not relevant here (feel free to ask if you're curious though! I'm more than happy to explain). -A crotchet is a quarter note and a quaver is an eighth note. I'm British and that's what we call them here idk what to say. -I've made comparisons to what is generally done in Western Classical Tradition because I know that Matt Bellamy takes a fair amount of inspiration from classical music, and the harmony he uses is often what would be considered 'functional' in the WCT.

Intro:

-Begins with strongly implied E minor key. -Approximately 125-130bpm -Em |Am |D7 |G |C A/C# |D B/D# |Em C D |G | This is a really nice little chord sequence. It starts with a diatonic circle of fifths until we get to the C major chord in bar 5, and then we start moving up a chromatic bassline. The chromaticism is highlighted by putting the non-diatonic notes in the bass (in this case, the A# of the A major chord and the D# of the B major chord). This builds to an E minor chord, which is immediately followed by a IV-V-I perfect cadence in G major, which solidifies the key. G major is the relative major of E minor, where we started. This is a typically classical place to modulate to.

Verse:

-Begins in Gm. No prepared modulation, just moves straight from G major to G minor. Perhaps surprisingly, this is a reasonably common occurrence in classical music; for the intro to be in the tonic major/minor of the main key. An example of this can be seen in Haydn's symphony 104, where the intro is in Dm and the main symphony/first movement is in D major. -Gm |D7 :| x4 The verse chords are the tonic (first) and dominant (fifth) chords repeated 4 times. This creates a cycle of perfect cadences, as well as a perfect cadence going into the pre-chorus. However, the movement in the bassline guides the listener to only really hear the finality of the cadence every 4 bars rather than every 2 bars. -Tempo change! We've moved from 125-130bpm in the intro to around 160bpm. This is the tempo for the rest of the song aside from the bridge.

Pre-Chorus:

-Aforementioned perfect cadence from the end of the verse into the start of the pre-chorus. -Gm |Bb |Cm |F |Bb |Gm |Dsus4 |D7 |Gm |D7 | Here, the chord sequence kind of flirts with the relative major key of Gm, which is Bb major. This can be seen from bars 3-5, where we have what could be read as a ii-V-I perfect cadence in Bb major. However, we are immediately dragged back into Gm, with a build up to the chorus, and some nice tension created with the Dsus4 chord. We finish on a D7, which can then act as a perfect cadence into the chorus.

Chorus:

-Perfect cadence from end of pre-chorus into the chorus places us in G minor. -Gm |Cm |F7 |Bb |Eb C/E |F D/F# |Gm Eb F |Bb | Lots going on here! If it looks similar that's because it is! It has the exact same harmonic function as the intro, just in a different key. At the start of the chorus we are solidly in Gm, with the same diatonic circle of fifths, followed by the same chromatic rising bass and then the same IV-V-I perfect cadence in the relative major, Bb. This means by the end of the chorus we are in Bb, which is a pretty classical standard classical place to modulate. However we do move pretty much immediately to Gm as we move into the next verse/bridge. -A thing I think is interesting to note is that the diatonic circle of fifths takes the 'dark' direction a circle of fifths can take (essentially towards flat keys/chords). I think this really fits the vibe of the song and also provides a nice contrast against the rising chromatic bass in the following bars.

Bridge:

-Metric modulation! We have changed from 4/4 to 6/8 or 12/8 (depending on how you want to divide it). We have also changed tempo, to approximately 37 DOTTED crotchet beats per minute. We use a dotted crotchet here because we're in compound time rather than simple time (4/4 is simple time, which is why we used undotted crotchet bpm there). Creates a very different vibe to both the intro and the rest of the song. This is not something that is particularly common in Muse songs (or most songs tbh). -Gm Dm |Eb Cm |Bb Bbm |D D7 :| x6 Here we are pretty solidly in Gm throughout. There are D/D7 chords at the end of the sequence which repeats back to create perfect cadences with the Gm at the start of the sequence. The Bb to Bbm creates some nice contrast to what is otherwise a very diatonically Gm (harmonic scale) chord sequence, as the Db in a Bbm chord is not diatonic to the key of Gm. I do think having the III become minor is a very interesting decision and not one I've seen before.

Music practice is not all glimmer glammer. Sometimes you forget but it’s about maddeningly repeating one single bar over and over and over again. It will drive you insane. But. The next day you’ll be able to play that fucking bar and you will be exhilarated beyond belief. You will feel a snoozing corner of your brain suddenly wake up and focus. Feel sharp. And it will be the strangest, most wonderful feeling in the world. And then, my dear musicblr friend, you will encounter The Second Bar

Undisclosed Desires (Backing Vocals/Whispers+Vocoder) // Muse