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Kristoforus Deodato Indra

Holli Moote
Music Theory 9
26 August 2014
Song Analysis
For this song analysis I am going to present a song called Fireflies by a single-lead
project called Owl City. The creator of this project is called Adam Young where the song
Fireflies was created in 2009. The songs duration, according to the official video clip of the
song is 3 minutes 54 seconds. The music elements and a bit of the lyric analyzing that are in this
song will later be included in the next few paragraphs.
The style for this song is electronic pop, because all the instruments used in the song are
powered by electricity, and the way the song goes is like pop. The electronic instruments are
electrical piano, electric guitar which makes the song classifies as the genre electronic pop.
The melody in the song is sing able, because it is mellow and throughout the song it was
major. The flow of the song did not have many combinations because there was the chorus and
the verses where both of them had the same flows. Memorable is also one of the features this
song has. People hearing it just a few times can make them memorize the flow of the song since
it was natural and the song didnt go from major to minor.
This song had the tempo of allegro. It was sort of fast, but not really fast to reach the
tempo of presto. The song also did not have any accelerando or ritardando and was consistent
all the way. At the chorus and the verses, the tempo of the song did not change. The bridge of the
song also did not have a different tempo then most of it. Based on my guess, I think that the song
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had around 117 beats per minute (bpm).
Timbre, which means more to explanation of the instruments, was included in this song
analysis too. The families I hear are percussion and strings. Piano and bells (since the hammers
inside the piano fall onto the strings) belongs to percussion and the electric guitar is on the
family of strings. For the piano, I can hear that there are soft piano pressing and throughout the
song it is probably legato at some points, because I dont hear any breaks when the piano was
playing. For the electric guitar, it sounds as if the strings were jerked softly. Finally, for the bells
at the beginning of the song, they were hit suddenly but soft, like a staccato.
For the harmony of this song, the treble and the bass of the song were both major. This
was for making the sound of the song sound more natural and makes it easier for people to listen.
The electric piano that was playing as the main instrument played the role of a simple major
tune. The electric guitar which was more of a background instrument in this song also played a
simple major tune.
The rhythm of the song is simple and is sometimes repeated because the verses use the
same rhythm. It does change a bit on the chorus and the combination of the notes become a bit
more complex than the chorus.
There were different volumes on the music and in music terms it is usually called
dynamics. For the verses, the volume was probably mezzo piano (mp) for all of them. When it
transitions into the chorus, it gets a bit louder and changes into mezzo forte (mf). Those are for
the first few times they sang the chorus. At the last time of singing the chorus, it gets a bit louder
and changes into forte (f). For the bridge of the song, it returns to its consistent volume, which is
mp. Also, when the song reaches the end, the volume becomes piano (p).
Another important feature of the song that needs to be added is the texture. For this
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particular song, I think that the texture is monophonic. I think this way because I can only hear
one melody in the song, and there was only one voice to be heard. At first I thought it was
nonimatative, but it turns out the second melody I heard wasnt a melody, but a string instrument
playing the bass of the song.
The second last part of the music analyzing and probably and important aspect, which is
the meter. For the meter of this song, I predict that the particular meter that is used in this song is
a simple duple. The reason for this not being complex duple is because the song did not have any
significant changes in the beats and if we forced it to change the song wouldnt sound right. It
wasnt a triple either, because the song would be faster and would change the natural flow of the
song.
The last part of a music analyzing, which is the lyrics, can now be found after this. Since
this is not specifically a lyric analyzing paper, I will not analyze every single detail and meaning
of a stanza, but instead I will explain it generally. For the meaning of the lyrics and the style of
the song, they both fit because the meanings are how tired people cant get to sleep and the style
of the song is like someone who cant sleep (insomniac). The natural pace of the song also
matches the style of the song because of the certain changes at the middle of the song that might
indicate an impatient person who cant go to sleep.
This part of the paragraph explains the lyrics too but the reason is different. Its not for
finding the correlation between the music elements and the lyrics, but find the purpose beneath
the lyrics and why, who and what it was written for. Based on my opinion, I think this song is for
the sad teenagers these days that cant go to sleep because of a rough day. This might also make
people aware that insomniac people have to go through lots of things and they feel that the Earth
turns slowly at night. The people who would listen to this when they are in a state of insomnia or
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those who would want to relax. Adam Young wrote this music piece as his debut in his music
career. This was his first song that went famous to the world. Finally, what makes the song
meaningful is that because this was Owl Citys debut song, and that the song had some messages
for the people who struggle to sleep by looking at the fireflies.
In conclusion, this song was a simple song that had an average duration. The music
elements inside this song were easily recognized, and lyrics are also easy to interpret, since the
vocabulary is not hard. Overall, this was a great piece of music and the style it had was amazing
too.








Owl City iTunes.2009 23 August 2014 <https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/owl-
city/id264481094#fullText>