Miles Davis’ Milestones

One truly interesting genre of medication which is as popular before as it is today is Jazz. Jazz is often termed as the music of the soul, and it tends to show in words and melody the feelings of the heart. This music branched as early as the 1800, with the birth of the blues by the African-American community. The blues, which are songs that are derived from hymns and work songs, became the foundation of get along. The full-blown birth of hit the sack came about at around 1900 at New Orleans.Jazz in here is depicted as a locomote of different types of music opera, military bands, church music, ragtime, African drumming, and even whatever dance styles (Marsalis, 2008). Through the time, issue has evolved in itself, giving birth to a number of sub-styles such as bebop, dixieland, swing, and modern jazz. This evolution too brought about a number of great composers, and hundreds of great songs.Miles Davis is one of these composers. He was a pioneer in cool jazz, a type of exp erimental jazz which involves voices unfamiliar to traditional jazz. One of his famous songs holds his put up in it Milestones. This track was recorded at around 1958, and is an advent on Miles take on operative with modal jazz an opposite type of jazz ( recital, 2005). In this essay, I will try to magnify more on this recording by discussing some important elements found in it, namely its melody, unity, and beatnik and how they blend together to form a jazz sound.Read also aboutColeman HawkinsMelody is hardly defined as a flow of notes, a flow of tones which sounds pleasing to the ear. In regular jazz music, there are usually ii kinds of melody. One is melody creation played at the start and end of pieces. These are usually notated, and strictly followed.The second one is the melody produced when a exclusivelyists improvises. Improvisation is very(prenominal) important in jazz, and the melody produced in here must be exciting at the alike(p) time pleasant to listen to. It should not be boring and must never outshine the other instruments too much. In the song Milestones, there is a distinct difference heard between these two melodies. Its first melody flows smoothly, creating a feeling of easiness, being subsided by notes. Then, the solo kicks in with a serial publication notes alternating between fast and in arrears speeds. These contrasting melodic patterns give a great fare of interest for the listener. It creates a relaxed sensation at one moment then gives a slight stress at another.If melody is the horizontal aspect of music, harmony is its vertical thinkerpart. It comprises of notes being played together, such as triads, major chords, fourth and other intervals. In the song Milestones, harmony is best described as an concomitant effect to the soloist. Better known as comping, this provides a bed on which the soloist improvises on. The songs harmony has a very strong and tight feeling. This is due to the modal take of the song, wherein the song uses a iodin scale.Thus, both the soloists melody and the harmony of the other players fit perfectly with each other. Also, the harmony is not only played as strict flow, but it is constantly modified. For example, it plays on counts 2 and 4 for some bar, and then suddenly shifts to 1 and 3. The harmony also plays syncopated notes, notes that are off beat the pattern wheel. This gives an additional excitement to the overall feeling of the song. But most importantly, it supports the soloists and never tries to overpower it.Milestones also stage another important element common to jazz takes its swinging rhythm. This is usually attained by the rhythm section by playing triplets, or three notes at a count, and omitting the middle note. This rhythm gives a forward feeling and tends to move along that direction. It is very different from common contemporary songs, where the downbeat or the tooshie note is very much accented.In Milestones, the downbeat is almost lost in fac t the first count of every bar is usually unaccented both by the rhythm section and the soloist. In a whole, the rhythm of the song produces a slightly danceable feeling, but in a cool and slow way. The songs tempo is not that fast, but the swinging rhythm gives it a kind of clit that tends to create a continuous flow of music.These elements give the song a traditionalistic view since it holds the very foundation of jazz music. The swinging rhythm, the accompanying harmony, and the soloists melody are the main components of a tidy jazz song. Miles Davis expanded more on this by creating a much more intricate solo filled with varying tempos and dynamics. The other band members were also able to add to the flavor of the song by playing their parts in a very interesting manner yet still being in perfect fit with each other. In a nutshell, Miles Davis was able to fuse traditional jazz elements with a great deal of experimentation, producing the masterpiece Milestones.ReferencesMarsali s, M. (2008) History of Jazz/Black History in America. Retrieved February 22, 2008 from http//teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/history_of_jazz.htmMiles Davis Biography (2007), retrieved February 22, 2008 from http//www.milesdavis.com/bio.asp