The Music of Peter Gabriel, Research Paper Example

In April 2014 my uncle took me to the local movie theater to see a documentary concert film entitled Back to Front: The 25^th Anniversary “So” Tour. The film was compiled from two performances by musician Peter Gabriel at London’s O2 Arena in December 2012. As Gabriel himself noted in an interview where he discussed the tour, he was actually celebrating a year late, as his most successful solo album entitled So was released in 1986, making 2011 the album’s actual 25^th anniversary year (Hamilton, 2014). Despite the discrepancy with the date, Gabriel launched a world tour to celebrate the album, and during each show he and his band (which was comprised of the same musicians who had played with him on the original So tour in 1986 and 1987) performed the album in its entirety, along with a selection of songs from his other albums. My uncle, who has been a fan of Peter Gabriel’s music for decades, asked me to accompany him to see the film, which was only playing for one night in theaters around the country and around the world. Before I was invited to see Back to Front I was completely unfamiliar with Peter Gabriel’s music, but I enjoyed the film so much that it inspired me to learn more about him and his music. The following paper provides an overview of the Back to Front concert tourand a discussion about the musical performances included in the documentary film.

Background and Overview

My uncle is a musician who plays several different instruments, and he often makes suggestions to me about musicians he thinks I should listen to. I have often heard him discussing Peter Gabriel’s music, and have occasionally heard some of the music, although I did not pay much attention to it before we decided to see the film. The Back to Front documentary was shown in theaters for a single night in April 2014, before being released on DVD in July. After inviting me to see the film, my uncle compiled a mix CD of songs from various Peter Gabriel albums along with a complete copy of the So album. When I first listened to So I realized that I was familiar with one of the songs, a composition entitled “Sledgehammer.” As I listened to that song, I remembered seeing the music video that was made to accompany it; the video used “claymation “ –a stop-motion film technique- to create special effects that included Gabriel’s face melting, morphing into various objects, and other powerful images (Levy, n.d.). After seeing the film I later learned that the “Sledgehammer”video is considered to be one of the greatest music videos of all time, and it won a number of awards for the impressive technical aspects of the claymation and other film techniques it incorporated (Levy).  By the time we went to see the film I was starting to become familiar with Gabriel’s music, though I still had no idea what to expect from the actual performance.

The Back to Front Film

In order to write a review of a contemporary rock music or pop music concert, it is impossible to do so without discussing the visual impact of the performance along with the music. Since seeing the film, I obtained a copy of the DVD, so some of my analysis of the concert is based on having watched the DVD while considering the concepts and ideas we learned in Music Appreciation class. The Back to Front film contained interview segments between many of the songs where the individual members of the band would comment on various aspects of the sings, reminisce about what it was like to record the album twenty-five years ago, or discuss their thoughts on working with Gabriel again after so many years. The first interview clip was from Gabriel himself, who commented that putting on a concert was, for him like putting on masks and costumes and playing characters to give a voice to each of the songs. After this first clip, the concert began with Gabriel and bass player Tony Levin walking on to the stage to perform a duet with upright bass and piano. This first song, “Daddy Long Legs,” was introduced by Gabriel as an unfinished work-in-progress, and he performed it with just piano and bass to give the audience a sense of what it was like for him in the recording studio as he worked on new songs.

As each subsequent song was performed, one after another of the remaining band members entered the stage and joined in. This approach made it easy for me to really hear what each musician was doing, and once the full band was on stage, I was able to tune in to each instrument in a way that might not have been possible if the concert had started with everyone playing together. The music incorporated a lot of special-effects sounds and unusual instruments sounds, and I was able to figure out which sounds were being created by which players. Gabriel sometimes sat at a piano, and at other times he walked to the front of the stage with just a microphone. There was another keyboard player, David Sancious, who played various electronic keyboards and synthesizers. I quickly determined that most of the odd and unique sounds –the sounds that were not being played on the guitar, for example- were being played by Sancious.

Along with Gabriel, Levin, and Sancious, the band included a guitarist named David Rhodes and two female singers named Jennie Abrahamson and Linnea Olson. Almost every song incorporated multi-part harmonies sung by the female vocalists and by Levin and Rhodes. While I have obviously heard music with vocal harmonies before I saw this film, there is no question that the insights I have gained by taking a Music Appreciation course have allowed me to have a deeper understating of the concept of harmony, which has in fact given me a greater appreciation for the performances given by these singers. As I watched the film for a second and third time on DVD, I found myself analyzing what the singers were doing, and I was able to pay more attention to each performer and to hear how they contributed to the overall performance of each song.

It became clear to me that even though the two female vocalists were mostly singing harmonies, Jennie Abrahamson was the more prominent of the two. Linnea Olson mostly sang the highest parts, while Abrahamson sang the harmony parts that were closer in range to the lead vocal melodies being sung by Gabriel. Abrahamson also sang slightly louder and more forcefully; in many of the parts she was singing at the same volume as Gabriel was singing. My uncle explained to me that part of the volume of Abrahamson’s voice was determined by the sound engineer who operated the mixing board during the concert, as this engineer is responsible for adjusting the overall volume of the band as well as individually adjusting the volume of each instrument and voice relative to all the other instruments and voices. As he explained this, I considered how this would have differed from traditional classical music concerts in the periods we studied in Music Appreciation class. Although contemporary orchestras may use microphones and PA systems in some settings, the historical tradition would obviously have made it so that the volume of each instrument was determined by how loudly each player performed, while the conductor would provide the direction to the players in the orchestra to control the dynamics of their playing.

Even though the music in Back to Front would be considered rock music, much of it was surprisingly quiet and contained a lot of dynamics. Almost every song had at least one part that was fairly quiet, and in discussions with my uncle he explained that most of Gabriel’s songs contained a section known as the bridge. As we discussed the way that each song was arranged, I was able to consider the terms he mentioned and the ideas he talked about in the context of the concepts we learned in Music Appreciation class. Many of the pieces of music we studied in class are fairly complex, and contain many different sections where the dynamics get louder or quieter, the rhythms speed up or slow down, or the melodies and harmonies change and evolve over the course of the entire piece (Kernan& Tomlinson, 2012), . The songs performed by Gabriel and his band, by contrast, were typically much shorter than the classical pieces we studied, but I found that many of the same general concepts were applicable.

One example of a song that made me think of the classical pieces we studied was entitled “Family Snapshot.” I have not learned the lyrics to the song well enough to describe them here, but the instrumental components of the song made me think of some of the classical music we studied.  “Family Snapshot” begins very quietly, with Gabriel playing a chord progression on the piano as the other instruments remain silent. As he nears the end of the first verse, Gabriel begins to play much more forcefully as he gradually speeds up the tempo to a faster rhythm. As the first verse ends and the second verse begins the rest of the band joins in and the music suddenly becomes very loud and powerful. The instruments may be different, but the basic idea of building up dynamics and having the entire band or entire orchestra join in to create a dramatic, emotional effect is virtually the same. Then, just like a classical piece, the song moves from one section to the next, building on the melodies from the first verse or shifting to a  contrasting melody in the bridge before concluding on a repeating vocal chorus.

In subsequent conversations with my uncle about the film and about the music of Peter Gabriel I learned that Gabriel is well-known for incorporating musical ideas and instruments from non-Western music; for example, on the song “In Your Eyes” the drum and percussion parts use rhythms and drums adapted from traditions that originated in Africa, and the performance of this song features a guest appearance by a singer from the African nation of Senegal (Hamilton). Throughout his career, Gabriel has utilized music and instruments from many different parts of the world, including countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and South America. As I considered this information, I realized that I could hear these influences in his music, especially in the rhythms and drums (Hamilton). I then reflected on the history of jazz music that we studied in Music Appreciation class, and how the musical and cultural traditions of African slaves merged with Western musical influences to create a new genre of music. In a sense, Gabriel has done the same thing, though in a much shorter time frame: he has blended the musical traditions of rock and pop music with influences of music from other cultures to create his own unique style of music.

The first time I saw the Back to Front film I certainly enjoyed it, even though much of it was unfamiliar to me. At the same time, however, some of it sounded so different from the kind of music I usually listen to that I found it to almost be confusing. After taking the course on Music Appreciation, and after watching the DVD several times, I came to realize that when I first saw the film in April I simply did not have the knowledge or experience to fully appreciate the music. Because it was unfamiliar, some of it was difficult to listen to or to follow. With the skills and information I learned in the course, however, I now have a better sense of the basic elements of music, and I have come to realize that I can apply this understanding to any genre of music. Even if I am not familiar with a song or a musical performance, I can now listen for the main melody, the harmonies, the rhythms, and the song structure. The most important lesson I have learned is that the differences between different forms of musical expression do not have to be intimidating, and I can now apply what I have learned not just to listen to music, but to more fully appreciate it.

References

Kerman, J. and Tomlinson, G. (2012). Listen. 7th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Levy, G. (2014). Peter Gabriel, ‘Sledgehammer’ (1986) | The 30 All-TIME Best Music Videos | TIME.com.TIME.com. Retrieved 15 July 2014, from http://entertainment.time.com/2011/07/28/the-30-all-time-best-music-videos/slide/peter-gabriel-sledgehammer-1986/

Hamilton, H. (2014). Peter Gabriel: Back to Front. London, UK.