R & B Song 'Turn Your Love Around' By George Benson

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Scoring and Arranging Analysis In this essay, I will be analysing the song ‘Turn Your Love Around’ by George Benson. I will analyse the structure of the song, the harmonies used as well as the instrumentation and how they are used to establish the features found in the same genre of music as ‘Turn Your Love Around’ ‘Turn Your Love Around’ is a contemporary R&B song written by Bill Champlin, Steve Lukather and Jay Graydon, and was released in 1981. The song was originally intended to be filler material and was one of two new songs intended for ‘The George Benson Collection’ but the song was a commercial success, reaching number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 1 on the U.S. Billboard R&B, as well as being the 27th most successful chart …show more content…

Every note, bar a B, in sung in the verse. The verse melody is very simplistic, making it very memorable. “Any melody that you could play with your nose on piano will be memorable”. Whilst the song is in the key of C major, the chords in the verse alternate primarily between Dm9 and Gmaj. The first use of a C, is at the end of the verse on the word ‘Love’, this is effective as it is though the verse is resolving, allowing the music to progress. The verse chords ending with a perfect cadence, 2(D)-5(G)-1(C), also emphasise the resolving feeling. The use of the C at the end of the verse, also makes the word ‘Love’ stand out, the word associated with the overall theme of the song. One instance where the notes are not diatonic to the key is during the pre-chorus. The words ‘I remember’ are sung over an A7, which contains a C#, creating tension before resolving into Fmaj. The chorus starts on Amin, the relative minor of Cmaj, yet doesn’t sound minor as the chords of Fmaj, Cmaj. Like the verse, the chorus contains every note bar a B. In the call and response section, the vocals sing D, E, F, G and the horns, A, C, E, G. The vocal melody notes are more in line with the verse key, Cmaj and the horn melody is more closely related to the chorus key,

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