I don't post often, but I check the site and the boards several times a week and enjoy a lot of the discussions on here.

Anyway, I am in a music in culture class, where we have to do presentations on different eras of American music. My final presentation this semester is on 80's music, so of course I'll be doing a Prince song. I narrowed it down to The Beautiful Ones or The Ballad of Dorothy Parker. I think I'll do The Beautiful Ones–even though Dorothy Parker might be more interesting musically–but I need some help on some of the technical elements of this song.

Any help would be greatly appreciated–form/structure, meter, chords, key, texture, melody, etc.

Thank You

jus711 said:

the Beautiful Ones is a song in the key of F:

verse: F6/9
Bb6

Bridge: Ab/c-Ab/c-Eb-Eb
Ab-Ab-Ab-Ab

Vamp at the end: F-F-F-F
Bbm/Db-Bbm/Db-Eb-Eb

I have this great songbook, called "Purple Rain: Off the record", which has every instrument noted down, with comments on how to play, how to get the sound. I'd scan The Beautiful Ones for you, if you'd like.

calldapplwondery83 said:

Yes, please if you could.

Thank you both for the swift responses.

calldapplwondery83 said:

Oh man!
Isn't that like superrare.
You're lucky to have that.
I've been looking all over for that.

Meter: 4/4
Key: F
Chords: See Captian Jack's post
Texture: Homophonic
Melody: Not sure what you want to know, but when I did music at school we just had to write down which instrument carried the melody which in this song is voice.

Again, thanks for all the help.

Finished product:

4/17/06
Prince/The Beautiful Ones
If the story of rock’n’roll in the 50’s and 60’s was the integration of Black and White American music styles, by the early ‘80’s the two couldn’t have been more separated. Rock’n’roll had become the exclusive dominion of White artists, to the point where Black artists were looked at conspicuously when they experimented with the genre. However, one Black artist that continuously bucked this trend and refused to stay within any race-defined musical category was Prince. His breakthrough album–Purple Rain–was unquestionably rock’n’roll, but also funk, r&b, pop and several other styles combined. This album not only defined his career, but also was a seminal work that influenced popular music for years.
One song from the album that is indicative of Prince’s ability to blend together many different styles and sounds into one song is the haunting, “The Beautiful Ones.” The song builds from a light synthesizer-based piano ballad to a pounding hard-rock/heavy metal crescendo.
Yet, as with many of the songs on the album–and songs of the 80’s in general–the instrumentation is very minimalist. The song begins with a somewhat robotic drumbeat–supplied by a drum machine–a piano, an eerie computer synth line, and Prince’s falsetto vocal. Here, we are introduced to the simple-duple meter of the beat, while Prince and the piano play a homophonic melody. The synthesizer gives the track a cold background that in many ways belies the power of the lyrics. This technique along with faint high-pitched keyboard dabs is reminiscent of the “new wave” style that was popular during this time.
Lyrically, the song is in strophic form, but there is no real chorus, and this is odd for a pop song. Also, Prince does not stay with the same lyrical form throughout the track, as it seems the second part of the song is mostly ad-libbed. Still, no matter the idiosyncrasy of the form, the theme of the lyrics is very familiar. Prince is singing from the persona of a scorned lover pleading to have the return of his loss. From this standpoint, it is Prince’s impassioned vocal that conveys the raw emotion of the song. His falsetto has a very sweet timbre, while in the second half of the song he sings–and screams–in his normal tone which becomes much more harsh and biting.
The music follows this abrupt change as now hard-rock sounding electric guitars are brought way up in the mix, playing in a call-and-response form with Prince’s screams. This dynamic range of both Prince’s vocal and the accompanying music brings the listener in and allows him/her to really feel what’s going on.
“The Beautiful Ones” is one of my favorite songs by one of my all-time favorite artists. As with most of Prince’s music, it is hard to imagine it coming from anyone else–which in Prince’s case is a good thing.

Nice read! Unfortunately, the scans I wanted to send you, didn't work. Something about the scanner, don't know. But I see you're finished anyway!

Hey, sounds good! Definitly worth presenting your teacher and fellow students! Are you going to perform it too?