Pitch Structure in Rap Flow

7. Rhyme and Pitch

The examples I introduced so far are the ones that keeps a specific tone for a relatively long term. This is solely because it must be easier to compare the tone characters. But rappers usually combine many tones to form various flows.

Especially it matters a lot how the pitches around rhymes are designed. There’re several basic parameters to be considered.

Let’s analyze some examples!

Post Malone – Psycho ft. Ty Dolla $ign

This is almost like a singing melody rather than a rap flow, but anyway listen to the part from 0:42 (“I tell that four-five…”). The target tone here is re, an unstable tone, and it resolves up to mi on rhyming.

As already seen in the previous page, this is a very basic strategy of incorporating traditional tension-release mechanism into rap flow.

DDG – Moonwalking in Calabasas Remix (feat. Blueface)

Well, this case is the total reversal—The target tone is la, the most stable tone, and it goes up to ti on rhymes. A strong point of this form is that it can make rhymes stand out and let them linger on. Musical tension generated from these unstable tones will be released at the head of the next phrase.

(BTW, from 1:56– you can listen to a rare case where ti is set as the target tone. Worth listening its peculiar instability.)

Jay Z ft Rihanna and Kanye West – Run This Town

Another good strategy to highlight rhymes is to use a technique unique to rap—Pitch bending.

Listen to the second verse (“We are…”). Here the flow leaps up and down iteratively. The upper pitch clearly targets la, the most stable tone. On the other hand, the lower pitch bends up from around lower do, by which rhymes are explicitly highlighted.

8. Flows in Harmony

Now it becomes crystal-clear that rappers construct beautiful harmony with tracks (when they’d like to do so). Then, what happens if multiple rappers sing at a time?—Surely they’re in harmony with each other.

Fugees – Fu-Gee-La

This is a live version of “Fu-Gee-La” by Fugees. At first the flow of Wyclef, showered with a bottle of water and jumping so hard, fluctuates strongly (whereas Lauryn politely targets at mi from the start). From around 8:33 do is gradually set as the target.

And listen to 8:50! Do by Wyclef and mi by Lauryn create a perfect harmony, which is further colorized later (8:55) with so added by Pras.

at “Stevie Wonder…”

Technically, they form a chord called a “minor seventh chord”. Also after that they construct several harmonies in similar ways.

This is not a coincident, or something unique to Fugees. Looking at other songs like “If I Ruled The World” (15:28-), NAS sets mi as the target and in many scenes other clues make harmonies with do or la. Analyzing with the scope of “target tones” make you notice that there’s no difference from traditional vocal melodies in this regard!

What is Not Discussed Here

In this article, I discussed the relative pitches to the key. Another important element is relative position to a chord, which will be explained in the chapter II.

9. Conclusion

Summing up, the choice of tones in rap flow can be illustrated like following:

Literally a “flow” chart

Choosing scale tones as targets will make flows sit in with tracks, whereas choosing non-scale tones or somewhere outside 12 tones will make flows stand out. In the chart I called it “anarchy” or “risky” but don’t take this the wrong way—It is never an “incorrect” way of singing. On the contrary, it is one of the essence of hip-hop. It seems that rappers often choose to sing in a slightly off-tuned pitch in order to make it less like traditional melodies.

Reverse Calculation

So remember that you cannot stay ignorant of keys of tracks like “oh key doesn’t matter to me ’cause rap is not melody”. It’s not true. If your favorite pitch for rap is, let’s say, G, rap on an C^♯ minor key track is troublesome since you cannot choose the favorite tone as long as you want to keep consonant with the track. Or it’s virtually unfeasible to set la as the main target because it’s far away from the favorite pitch.

Key settings determine your destiny

Is Rap Music?

Through the article you can see that rap flow has many parameters regarding pitch, which is controlled sometimes by design, other times by instinct. And the combination of the parameters produces many types of flow—Some are melodic, others are like spoken words, still others are like sound effects. Flow is an inclusive concept that encompasses all of them.

It is just one of the various options for rap flow to be “melodic”. So it’s not wrong to say some rap may not fall under what is called a melody, depending on how one defines it. But it is a silly misconception to think that rap is not music.

Some might say somthing like “Music has three elements: Rhythm, melody and harmony. And rap has only one of them…” but this is too stupid a thesis to argue. As you’ve seen above, rap has melody and harmony. In the first place, such concept of “three elements” is defined just by some Western music theory and you already well learned in the introduction part that these creeds are applicable only to some specific genres. What matters in hip-hop is not the three elements, but the “four elements”, right?😏

Rap is just a new type of music that the conventional Western music theory can’t handle properly. On analyzing rap flow, the ideas explained in this article will help you a lot.

Summary

• Pitch in rap flow can be modeled by two parameters, target tones and fluctuation.
• Whether a target tone is set at one of the tones in the key (scale) is the important dividing line to make it like a traditional melody or outlaw rap.
• Utilizing the characteristics of each tone (especially “stable” or “unstable”) is a basic technique to construct musical story in rap flow.
• Pitch design around rhymes is especially crucial to make flow impressive.

Congratulations! You complete the Melody part chapter I. You can go to the next chapter or switch to different parts, or it’s really good to spend some time studying existing songs. Take it nice and slow. Cheers!

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*Cover picture made by Macrovector