Musical Key Selection and Emotional Expression in Sara Bareilles' Love Song Composition
Overview
This essay analyzes Sara Bareilles' composition process for a record label-mandated love song and examines how different musical keys affect emotional interpretation. The paper argues that D minor is the most appropriate key for conveying the artist's reluctance and emotional distress, contrasting with the original Db major version, and demonstrates how key selection fundamentally shapes a song's emotional impact.
What this essay covers
- Record label pressure and artistic conflict: Sara Bareilles' resistance to writing a love song contrary to her personal style
- Musical version comparison: Analysis of Db major and D minor versions and their distinguishing characteristics
- Key and emotion correlation: Argument that D minor better represents the song's underlying sorrow and discomfort
Preview
Choosing the Best Key
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Choosing the Best Key
The Db version maximizes the emotion of the entire lyrics by having some ambient sound. At some point, this "love song" by Sara Bareilles can be termed a clever song. The record label under which Sara was working had pushed her to write a good love song which Sara found more pressing and harder. By the way, Sara Bareilles was unwilling to write any such kind of song since, according to her, the song was unrelated to her personal style. To Sara, she wanted to express herself in her way and remain true to her style. The label insists she writes a love song so that it can make her breakthrough.
When you listen to all the versions, one may get confused since they almost have a similar key and almost sound the same, but there are differences between them. It is easier to identify the major version in this case if you are experienced. The one in Db is the major and original version since everything follows the lyrics, for instance, low dynamics and medium tempo.
Just like Michael Martinez had interpreted the song, the "right" key to this particular song is the D minor since there is sorrow mood. Sara Bareilles is unhappy with how the label compels her to write a love song contrary to her lifestyle. It is not a happy mood that is in between the two parties.