How would dissect this song?

[e8ndave]

Hi all,

Just starting to get to the point where I feel comfortable with all my gear after a 20+ year layoff. I want to move on to the next level of figuring out how to dissect keyboard parts within a song and how to go about doing that. I'm pretty decent about figuring out the older school stuff with basic synth parts or piano/organ type of stuff but some of the newer stuff with multiple parts has be puzzled as to where to start. I'm not just looking for the "sounds" that are used but how do you pull it apart to figure it out.

This is a song by P!nk that has a bunch of different stuff going on.



How would you go about figuring out the parts on it?

-Dave

[mjbrands]

Are you familiar with how a digital audio workstation (DAW) roughly works? I think this song was carefully crafted in a DAW, with her voice as maybe one of the few elements that was left relatively untouched (as far as I know, she steers clear of auto-tune like it is the plague).

I would probably load the song in a DAW (Ableton Live in my case) and do the following:

• Determine BPM and time signature (probably 4/4)
• See if I can chop the song up in measures (bars)
• Determine the songs elements (verse, chorus, etc.)
• Per measure, figure out what's actually in it

I'm pretty sure I'd have my hands full with this and this probably isn't the best way to approach it, but this is how I'd approach it.

I would expect a live version to sound quite a bit different (simpler, less polished).

Btw. I must the video surprises me a bit. She must've had some bruises (it seems to be a mixture of modern dance and rugby) and I'm sure she could totally kick my rear-end.

[e8ndave]

Well, you picked a great song for sure! Pink is at the top of her game and the top of the charts.

With modern Top 40. there are a lot going on, so the best place to start is to figure out what is being played by keyboards. There is a piano in the intro, then the first verse is guitar, bass, and drums. At the end of the first verse there is a synth/string swell and the piano from the beginning comes in over that.

Just listen to each verse, chorus, bridge, and isolate the keyboard sounds. It is likely that one person will not be able to cover all the sounds in a single song, so pick the ones that are the most important, the signature sounds, and program patches to cover those.

Have fun-

-dj