"I'll Make It up to You"

In "I'll Make It up to You," the "every"s in the lines "That in every way" and "In each and every way" are sung with three syllables, musically giving a sense of number, and the "way" in "That in every way" is sung with a melisma (G D E), giving a sense of amount.

"The Way You Do the Things You Do"

In "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "bright" in the line "You got a smile so bright" and "rich" in the line "You made my life so rich" are both sung with a melisma (B B), musically giving a sense of degree (for "so").

"Tight" in the line "I'm holding you so tight" is sung with a melisma (B A B D E, I think), also giving a sense of degree.

"Watch Your Step"

In "Watch Your Step," the "away" in the line "Before you go away" is sung with a melisma (C C Eb F G, I think), musically giving a sense of movement.  "Every" and "night" in the line "You gonna miss me every night" are also sung with melismas (G Bb C Eb F Eb and F G respectively), musically giving a sense of number or frequency, and in the following line - "I'm gonna get myself together, and ev'rything gonna be alright" - the "al" of "alright" is sung with a melisma (G F Eb), musically giving a sense of breadth or entirety.

While reviewing the song in order to write this post, I also noticed that "wide" in the line "Keep your eyes open wide" is also sung with a melisma (D C Bb G, I think), musically giving a sense of the word's meaning and that the three syllables of "ev'rything" in the line "I'm gonna get myself together, and ev'rything gonna be alright" are all sung to different pitches (G F Eb) for a sense of breadth.

"Look Away"

At the beginning of "Look Away," the only instrumentation is organ, and the sparseness of the arrangement gives some sense of the solitude of the first line:  "All alone, standing here by myself."

"Alone" in that first line is sung with a melisma (Bb C Bb A G F G) musically giving a sense of the degree of that "all."  In the first line of the second verse - "She's so close, the girl that I knew so well" - "close" is sung with the same melisma for a musical sense of the degree of that "so."  The second "so" there ("so well") is also sung with a melisma (A G F) for a sense of degree.

At least one of the "away"s in the title phrase in the lead vocals (at ~1:47) is sung with a melisma (D D C), musically giving a sense of movement.  The "look away"s in the backing vocals are sung to phrases that move in opposite directions (one descends - C C A; one ascends - E E F), which gives a sense of movement or even of distance.

"Since I Don't Have You"

"Since I Don't Have You" exhibits the rhetorical effect of anaphora - the repeated "I don't have."  This gives a sense of the singer/speaker's utter lack.  In the verses, the backing vocals double only "I don't have," so the lack of the various things that the lead vocal mentions ("plans and schemes... hopes and dreams...") is also represented by their absence.

The three syllables of "anything" in the repeated line "I don't have anything" are all sung to different pitches (G F Db), musically giving a sense of breadth.

While it's probably intended to be causal (in the same way that the title phrase is), the line "Since you walked out on me, oh, in walked old misery" in the bridge could also be understood as temporal.

"Share" in the line "And I don't have love to share" is sung with a melisma (F Db); since the word is sung to two different pitches, there's a musical sense of that "shar[ing]."

"Untie Me"

Earlier this year, I started a blog focused on the Hohner Pianet.  Last month, I posted the notation for the Pianet* part in "Untie Me," so I thought I'd better post it here too.

The Pianet simply doubles selected portions of the piano part.  Throughout the song, there are a handful of single D notes in the lower register (nearly two octaves below middle C), and this phrase is at ~2:20:

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*According to some internet sources, Manfred Mann also played the Hohner Cembalet, but I haven't seen any evidence of this.  As far as I can tell, the only difference between the Cembalet and the Pianet is the range of the keyboard (the Cembalet is C to C where the Pianet is F to F).

"Hoochie Coochie"

In the lines "Ev'rybody knows I'm here" in "Hoochie Coochie," the four syllables of "ev'rybody" are all sung to different pitches, and the notes span a sixth (G D C Bb).  Both of these features give a musical sense of breadth, and both of these are also present (although perhaps slightly different) in Muddy Waters' version.

Introduction

This is the latest in what has become something of a series of projects in which - ostensibly - the overambitious goal is to learn every part to every song by a specific band (or a related group of bands).  In reality, these projects have turned into endless musicological explorations.

The focus of this project is Manfred Mann.  In these early stages, however, I expect the scope to be somewhat limited.  Total, I have only seven albums that fall under this project's banner:

• The Five Faces of Manfred Mann
• Mann Made
• As Is
• Live at the BBC 64-66
• Live at the BBC 66-69
• The Best of Manfred Mann's Earth Band
• Watch [on vinyl]

Four of these I've listened to only once or twice.

Over the course of the next couple months, I'll post the musicological notes I've made so far (many of which are rather low-hanging fruit:  things along the lines of "this phrase about going down is sung to a descending melody").  For now, I'm not going to write about the albums that I haven't yet listened to very much; I want to familiarize myself with them first.

I hope eventually to post recordings of the parts I've learned (although my general rule is that I need to know at least two parts to warrant a recording) and possibly even notation, chord progressions, &c.

Inspired by some of the man(n)-based wordplay on Mann Made, the name of my project is derived from the Latin phrase ecce homo (behold the man).  Initially, I mis-remembered it as ecco, which is actually the Italian word, but this provided an-other pun.  Since this project aims to comment on the Manfreds' music, it is something of an echo.