Just A Song Sunday: Random Numbers and My Music Library

It is Sunday again, and I am sitting here at my computer, trying my best to be interested in anything that I have to do today. I have slipped into a strange emotion of not wanting to do anything but feeling like I have to do something. I have not left my house for most of the week, but the heat and humidity that hurts my lungs and body is abating, so I will go out today and tomorrow to do some things outside. 

Anyway...

It is Sunday which means it is time to find a song for analysis and therapeutic music experience (TME) development.

I have not been listening to music much this week, so I really don't have a song at the ready. When this happens, I go to my music library and find something to look at. Today, I went to my iTunes account, scrolled to the count of sixteen (why sixteen? No clue, just felt right), and then clicked on the album icon. Disney's Greatest Hits, Vol. 3. Twenty songs. So, I then asked a random number generator to tell me which song to focus on, and I was told to look at number 10. Number 10 is Part of Your World by Jodi Benson and from the movie, The Little Mermaid.

Score!! I know this song really well, but I haven't sung it for a long time because my most recent clients are not as familiar with this music as my former students. Even the live action The Little Mermaid did not make as much of an impression on my most recent clients as the first movie did with my former clients. I had to act this one out over and over again for one of my very first clients, and I will never forget acting out the motions of this song every time she came to individual music therapy. In fact, this song was at the center of my first client mystery - same client. No one knew why she was putting herself in the corner during the song. I figured out she was acting out all the movements. There you go.

Anyway, Part of Your World was composed by Alan Menken and the lyrics were written by Harold Ashman. It was part of the movie, The Little Mermaid, released in 1989.

Instead of doing my own chart analysis (because I am just not interested in doing that right now), I decided to try some song analyzer sites rather than figuring it out myself. Let me tell you, things just did not work out well, but I am sticking to it because I just don't want to do the work. (Can you tell I am in my summer SAD?? I certainly can!)

So, SONOTELLER.AI states that the song is set at 208 BPM (I disagree with this!) and is in the key of F Major (yuck! I disagree with that as well!). I like the thematic focus of this site, so I may continue to use it, but I disagree with the analysis of the musical elements. It also doesn't go far enough into the analysis of the different musical elements that I find important when working with the song in therapy sessions.

Heading over to Wikipedia, I see that that analysis sets the BPM at 135 BPM, and the key is F Major (though it really doesn't seem to match that as I play along on my keyboard - I still think it is G Major, and other recordings are indeed in that key). Isn't it strange that I trust Wikipedia more than SONOTELLER.AI?? Wikipedia was always held up as incorrect when I was in school (grad school, NOT my undergraduate coursework - Wikipedia and the internet was not around then. Yep, I am THAT old!!), but I trust it more than AI generated information - 208 BPM?? Really?

So, these lyrics cover yearning and hopes for the future. Lyric analysis is a great way to start the process of developing TMEs. What types of things do I yearn for? What are my questions about the world outside of my current life? How can I get to my next destination? Where am I on my journey?

These are my current questions for my own life, so having this song in my focus at the moment is a bit challenging.

Isn't that great? It is amazing how songs come into your life when you need them the most.

I will try to get back to my own analysis next week, but who knows??

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