Song: Don’t Forget Your Roots

Artist: Six60

Songwriters: Ji Fraser, Matiu Walters

Album: Six60 

Release date: 2010

Genre: Pop/Reggae

Key: F Lydian

Chords in Key:

Don’t Forget Your Roots is written for vocals, guitar, bass and drums. It uses a four chord pattern throughout the whole song, so harmonically could be considered an AAA Format Song.

It begins with the bass and guitar playing a melody in unison one octave apart, followed by a lead guitar coming in with a counter-melody, which could be considered an example of polyphony. When the verse vocals come in, the bass melody switches to playing mainly the root note and 5th of each chord (with some elaboration), and the guitar plays the chords with a reggae strum. The chorus uses the title of the song over and over, to emphasise the message of the song. Interest is kept up throughout the song by using guitar ad libs, a guitar solo and dynamics (e.g. the chorus before the solo has the beat drop out and become more sparse). The outro is created by dropping out the drums and simplifying the guitar and bass parts while the chorus lyric is repeated.

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