If Philip Glass was a Film (2019) [video]
Seems like even for the HN intelligencia it can be insightful to read YT comments ...<p>--<p>Dembai 3 years ago<p>To anybody who&#x27;s wondering why they chose these specific words and the specific repeats: they&#x27;re actually doing a musical analysis on the phrasing that he&#x27;s using in the chords.<p>I&#x27;m a bit Rusty with analysis, but basically glass is constantly shifting between what we call tonic, dominant and sub-dominant functions.<p>A subdominant function is a chord that adds tension, demanding to be resolved. It is like a question. The next chord is the dominant function...pointing back to the tonic as an answer.<p>So Glass starts on the tonic but moves to a subdominant (a question) which recieves a dominant moment (an answer) which turns back into the tonic for just a moment....before sliding back into a sub-dominant question.<p>It never feels resolved because every resolution lasts only a moment before turning back into a question.<p>The music was already doing this. They just added lyrics, so to speak.