Jazz Song Structure = The Novel's Structure

Typical Jazz song structure

• April 2nd, 2010
 
• Posted in Jazz piano lessons . Jazz song structure
 
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Introductions

Intros are often musical and are generally at the beginning of the song. Listen to a lot of standards and you’ll hear they usually start with a musical introduction that sometimes contain elements of the melody that is about to be introduced.

Reusing elements

Jazz standards sometimes re-use elements of their introduction as an outro to end the song. You might even hear cross-song references. People like Oscar Peterson have been known to play piano licks that will remind you of other famous songs and even contain elements of children’s songs!

Melodies

After the introduction (if there is one), the melody of the song is usually played. If no singer melody often played by another instruments like a piano, the horns or a guitar. Obviously this depends on who is playing in the band! While the melody is being played, the other band members often support it with things like chords. This is usually with instruments that can play chords like a guitar, piano or both. One of these instruments plays the chords to the song with the melody.

Solos

After the melody / melodies have been played, the improvised solos usually begin! Improvisation is what Jazz is all about for many Jazz pianists and musicians, and there’s lots to learn! Despite having stopped playing the melody, the musicians are still playing the same song. The chords are still going on, but a pianist can now their own melodies on the chords of the song!

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                                  Coming Through Slaughter Chapter 1 Structure

4 parts like a Jazz Song.

Introduction: Bolden's Biography. The description of his background.

Melodies: Crowley and Nora's narration. The Present of what is happening to them.

Solo: Bolden's present, what is happening to him.

Reusing Elements:  Coming back to descriptions of his background. Comments of others about Bolden.

Ceaselessly Into The Past.

Literal	Figurative
Boats against the current	Men trying to fight their own present, and fate. Fighting for the past that will never come back

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Pg. 189)

A dream that starts in the past.  Long before us, devoting our lives to it. We try to reach it, try to relive the past to be able to attain it, not moving on towards our future and our truth.

We go against the present, against the straight line of our destined future, by trying to make up for the dreams of our past. Our past becomes our present, but we do not understand that the past is already behind us.

It’s a conclusion to Gatsby’s endeavors, “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he cold hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that is was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (Pg. 189).

Gatsby is the boat, beating all sorts of currents to be able to relive his dreams, which were part of the past. Gatsby symbolizes us, our inability to live day by day without letting the past go. Living the past eschews us to live our present, giving us no reason to look forward for a promising future. 

Change.

"I see them watch their own faces for the twenty minutes they sit below me. Men hate to see themselves change. They laugh nervously.This is the power I live in. I manipulate their looks" (Pg. 48)

It is true that men hate themselves change, especially when they realize they have changed. But why do we fear it so much? Is it because we consider the past as a determinator of who we are? Or simply we are afraid to let go because when we change we do not know what comes before us.  We always change, we are meant to change and experiences and thoughts are the causes of our change. It is a risk we will always have to take. 

Bolden credits himself as the cause for a man's physical change, he sees men changing but he never sees a change in himself. He has the ability to change others but finds himself stuck in his own fate. 

It's as if he were longing a change, but has to see how others go through it and he's simply the same person. Maybe he is who fears his own change, and relies on other means to avoid it, his music and alcohol. His customers mirror his deepest desires and longings, yet he forbids himself to search for a new path and a new way of living.

It's something inevitable we all have to go through, eventually Bolden will find himself mirrored through his own change, longing to go back yet having to face his new fate. 

Alcohol.

"It was a financial tragedy that sleep sobered Bolden up completely, that his mind on waking was clear as an empty road and he began to casually drink again although he never hard now for he played in the evenings" (Pg. 13).

A repetitive cycle, Bolden was an alcoholic. He depended on a beverage to be able to fulfill his everyday duty. Clarity was not an option for Bolden, he feared emptiness and found himself complete once he was under the influence of alcohol.

It was part of his act, to be away from reality, facing life under a substance's influence and not through his own experience and thoughts.

The fact that he did not drink as much during the evenings gives us an insight of the importance of music to Bolden. It kept him distracted and away from his everyday life. When he wasn't playing he was drinking. Always keeping himself company with a bottle of liquor. What made him feel complete was his music and alcohol, it kept him away from his own thoughts and responsibilities, which he feared the most.

Interpretation.

Dear Mr. Fitzgerald,

I was once told in my AP Literature class that to close read is to perform an analysis of a passage. To look beyond the literal meaning and understand what the author really wants to convey. But how can I tell that what I am inferring is really what you wanted to imply? I really don't have the answer to the question, just as we never really have the answer to anything. Everything turns out to be subjective and true depending on one's perspective.

 However, with all due respect, I will attempt to close read a passage of the Great Gatsby to see if at least I understood what you were trying to convey. I am sorry if I disappoint, but let me remind you that I am only a student. 

"'All right', I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool'".  (Pg 21).

A strong quote you got there Mr. Fitzergerald. Clearly you are depicting the stereotypical figure of a woman in the 20th century, with beauty as her main attribute. Not only that, the baby girl symbolizes Daisy's own character and weakness. She is telling her own baby to be a fool because that's what she has been all her life, a dependent woman, who has been living a lie. Her husband only sees her as a joke, only values her appearance, and takes her as a fool by being with another woman. Daisy is telling the little girl the truth of her existence. 

You wanted us to understand how we let ourselves be fooled by our own world. The facade of beauty and superficiality encloses us in a lie, that does not allow us to see beyond our own expectations. A conformist mentality of our conventional world. 

I hope I got the main Idea of what you were trying to say, even if that wasn't what you meant at least that is what I understood and It makes sense to me.

Hope I did not waste your time, 

A dedicated AP Literature Student and a fan of The Great Gatsby.

Symbolism

Buddhist Prayers.

 Dharamsala, India.