Moby - Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? - Revision Cards in GCSE Music

Context and Background

Club dance music refers to the electronic music tpically played in nightclubs.
Originated in 1970s.
Key features incude:
- A 4/4 metre and a steady tempo.
- A prominent use of electronic sounds.
- A strong beat, emphasised by the drums and bass.
- Short phrases and repetitive, looped sections.
'Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?' comes from the album Play, released in 1999.
Play has 18 tracks.
Others include:
- Porcelain.
- South Side.
- Natural Blues.

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Song is based on 2 samples taken from a recording made in 1953 of a gospel choir.
First sample (A) is sung by a male singer and is used in the verses.
Second sample (B) is sung by a female singer and is used in the choruses.
Both samples have been manipulated to change the meaning of the words.
They have a vintage feel because Moby hasn't cleaned up the surface noise on the recording.
These samples are looped to create the melody, which as a result is simple and repetitive.

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The song is based on a verse-chorus structure.
The samples are looped to create the verses and choruses.
After the second verse there is a breakdown - one bar's silence.
The texture is built up as individual tracks are introduced one by one.
After the breakdown, the texture becomes thinner as the piano and drums drop out.
They re-enter for the next eight bars, then drop out until the end.
Contrasts in texture are provided by:
- Varying instrumentation for each 8-bar section.
- The use of silence.
- Sections with just staatic chords for the accompaniment.

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Moby used the following equipment to produce this track:
- Synthesisers - to produce the string, bass and piano sounds.
- Sampler - used for the vocal samples, as well as the breakbeat rhythm on the drum track.
- Drum machine - to create the drum track.
- Sequencer - to trigger the sampler and synthesizers.
Various effects have been applied to the music, for example:
- Panning is used to place sounds in the stereo field.
- There are 'electronic ghostings' on the male vocal sample when it first comes in - these are remnants of the backing singers in the original sample.
- Reverb and dealy are used throughout the track.
- In the second verse, echoes of the voice are created through delay.
- The echoes have been processed with EQ to remove the lower frequencies.

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The harmony is entirely diatonic, made up of three simple, repeated chord progressions.
The first sample is set to the chord sequence Am, Em, G, D.
The second sample is harmonised in two different ways: firstly to C, Am, C, Am, an then to the chords F,C,F,C.
We can describe the verses as being in the Dorian mode on A, and the choruses as being in C major.

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