St Paul's Music

Bernstein - Something's coming from

West side story

 

Background

Something's coming is solo piece from the Musical "West side story" which is based on the story of Romeo and Juliet. The song centres around the Tony who feels something good is going to happen to him very soon. The style of music is a fusion of jazz and latin music styles

 

Stylistic features

Jazz: syncopated rhythms, use of trumpets, use of jazz harmony (7th and 9th chords)

Latin: latin percussion

Somethings coming fits in more with the jazz style as Tony is a jet which is an american character so the music makes use of the american music style.

 

Structure

A B B1 A1   

Ternary form

 

Instruments

Tenor vocals, strings, clarinet, flute, oboe, bass clarinet, double bass, drum kit using brushes, muted trumpet, and if you listen very carefully in section B there is a guitar.

 

 

Harmony/chords

Use of tritone, perfect cadence to change key back to D major from C major

 

Melody

Tenor, sustained notes, use of tritone interval, very last note uses octave. 

Word painting

syllabic

 

Tonality/key signature

Dmajor with modulation (change of key) to Cmajor in some places

 

Texture

homophonic

 

Rhythm/metre

3/4 and 2/4

Push rhythm on beat 3 (beat is accentuated)

syncopated

 

Dynamics

Dynamics are generally quite quiet so the vocals can be heard.