Edexcel GCSE Music Area of Study 2: Vocal Music overview

What this area of study demands

Area of Study 2 is Vocal Music, a deliberately broad topic. The two set works span three centuries, Purcell's Baroque song and Queen's rock song, but share the principle of setting words for solo voice with accompaniment. You need the shared ideas (word-setting, word-painting, voice and accompaniment) so you can analyse both and compare them. This overview ties together the four dot-point pages.

Word-setting and word-painting

Word-setting describes how syllables match notes: syllabic (one note per syllable, clear) or melismatic (a melisma, many notes per syllable, decorative). Word-painting (text-painting) is when the music illustrates the meaning of the words, a rising melody on "ascend", a long melisma on "eternal", a dissonance on "pain". Both songs mix syllabic and melismatic writing, and Purcell uses vivid word-painting.

Purcell: Music for a While

Purcell's song (around 1692) is a Baroque piece for solo high voice and basso continuo, in A minor. Its foundation is a ground bass (basso ostinato) repeated continuously, over which the voice sings changing, often melismatic lines, with the ground modulating at the climax. Purcell paints the text: a melisma on "eternal", falling repeated notes on "drop", dissonance on painful words. The texture is contrapuntal over the continuo.

Queen: Killer Queen

Queen's song (1974, from Sheer Heart Attack) is a rock song in verse-chorus form. It uses a solo lead vocal with elaborate multitracked, close-harmony backing vocals and a harmonised guitar solo, built with studio production (multitracking, overdubbing, panning, reverb). The forces are a rock band (guitars, bass, drums, piano). The word-setting is mostly syllabic (clear, witty lyrics), in a sophisticated, mainly major harmonic language.

Comparing the two set works

Both set words for a solo voice with accompaniment and mix syllabic and melismatic writing, but they differ in style (Baroque versus rock), accompaniment (basso continuo over a ground bass versus a band with multitracked vocals), production (acoustic/live versus studio construction), structure (ground bass/ternary versus verse-chorus) and tonality (A minor versus mainly major).

Check your knowledge

1. What is a ground bass, and which set work uses one? (2 marks)
2. Give one example of word-painting in Music for a While. (1 mark)
3. What structure does Killer Queen use? (1 mark)
4. Name two studio techniques used in Killer Queen. (2 marks)
5. Give one similarity between the two vocal set works. (1 mark)