“One” being:
- the first beat of the track
- the word “should” (”if you liked it then you should have…. )
- where the majority of the chords land

At the point (bridge?) “Don’t treat me to these things…” (the most powerful and most “musical” section, IMO) a quarter note is dropped and the groove becomes:
b b . . b . . . b . . b . . s .
for 12 bars, but then returns back to the other groove without dropping or adding any beats

I would speculate that this second groove was the original, and the first thing laid down to build upon as the compositional adventure began, but it was displaced by choice, except for this one bridge passage.

Very interesting track… way out of my element musically, but kinda infectious, as is Beyonce herself.

Think about it. An A Melodic Minor goes:
A B C D E F# G# A

The chorus consists of four repeats of a descending vocal line, each one is “one measure” long in terms of the tempo in this article. The notes (in the first, unaccompanied chorus) melody are B, A, G#, F# (re mi fa sol in E). The third time through there’s a rythmic shift on the third note, but I don’t think there’s a pitch change–this is important though because it’s an important moment in the accompanied chorus.

Unaccompanied, this appears to just be riffing on the V.

Once the accompaniment starts, it goes like this: first measure, B on & of “1 and”, C on 2; second measure, B on 1, A on 2; third measure B on 1, C on 2, fourth measure, B on 1, A on 2.

Oddly, the analysis offered here stops after two measures, when the most dramatic chord seems to me to be the one in the third measure on 2, but I’m not sure exactly how it’s different from the first measure.

There’s also harmony in the vocals of the accompanied choruses, which means there’s more than two notes determining the chords. However, my ear isn’t sufficient to figure out what those notes are or how they contribute.

(There’s also also a synth line doubling the bass, but I can’t tell for sure if it’s strictly (many) octaves above or somehow varying a bit; it becomes more prominent in the third measure.)

The most interesting thing to me in listening to it and playing along to it is that the B in the bass feels like it ought to be a passing tone, but it lasts just long enough and (especially) is so much more consonant than the surrounding chords that it’s “forced” to serve actual harmonic duty.

See saw beginning
E, A 3x

Verse

Em, A 3x then does a Em, A, B, G#, F#

Chours (if you like it then…)

B, A, G#, F#

Oh oh oh part.

B, A, E, —- not sure.

Does this sound right to anyone?

Very good analysis! I am so amazed by this!!!

I don’t care for this music in my opinion, just not for me. But to the authors… keep up the good work. I would find it more beneficial to me though if the notation you used was more clear. Why not just use commercial chord symbols? The roman numerals are great even for the laymen to understand. Those of us who have been programmed to think of music in terms of functional harmony should be able to see and hear that whilst looking at the commercial chords. Not only that but it’s a lot less confusing. Even when the chords are missing pitches… you can put “omit 3″ or when it’s A-minor first inversion = A-/C rather than IV-/b3…(there’s lots of debate concerning redundancy). I think putting the commercial chords with your functional roman analysis would be awesome! But that’s my opinion…after all… simple music like this… isn’t so simple now is it? Especially when something so “simple” has the ability to captivate massive hordes of people. Is the music simple? Or is the the listener who is simple?

Thanks for the blog…. i look forward to seeing more since this one just popped my cherry.

-shasty