Extended Musicology Response

Term 3, 2017
Josh OByrne

Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid are both Disney musicals, and have become extremely well
known in the theatre industry. This is largely due to their musical scores, composed by Richard
Sherman and Alan Menken respectively, and their lyrics, which were written by Robert Sherman and
Howard Ashman. Mary Poppins was released originally as a Disney movie in 1964, before it debuted
in West End, London, in 2004. This is also the story with The Little Mermaid, which was released as a
Disney film in 1989, before it's theatre debut in 2007, in Denver, USA. Throughout the two musicals,
many different styles and genres of music are exhibited, and this is noticeable through the main
musical elements, Expression, Structure, Pitch, Rhythm, Texture and Timbre. As can be noticed in
Mary Poppins' Just a Spoonful of Sugar and The Little Mermaid's Poor Unfortunate Souls, the most
highly contrasted musical elements are pitch and rhythm. Therefore, in both Mary Poppins' Just a
Spoonful of Sugar and in The Little Mermaid's Poor Unfortunate Souls, the musical elements, pitch
and rhythm, has been specifically altered to provide disparate moods and a way for the audience to
determine the different motives of each of the characters.

In this essay, the link between rhythm, pitch and the moods of the characters and the songs they are
performing. As defined by Marriam Webster, rhythm is the aspect of music comprising all the
elements (such as accent, meter, and tempo) that relate to forw ard movement, while
pitch, as defined by the same source, is the quality that allows us to classify a sound as relatively
high or low. Pitch is determined by the frequency of sound wave vibrations. Following the definitions
of the two elements in discussion, we can follow on to the link between the two characters, the two
pieces and the two elements.

The two musical elements in focus, pitch and rhythm, are two heavily utilized musical elements,
which have been used throughout musical history. Each element encompasses many sub-elements.
In this case, rhythms sub-elements include accent, meter and tempo, while pitchs sub-elements
include key signature, range and tonality. Rhythm is considered to be the element of time in music.
When you tap your foot to the music, you are "keeping the beat" or following the structural
rhythmic pulse of the music. Meanwhile, the pitch of a sound is based on the frequency of vibration
and the size of the vibrating object. The slower the vibration and the bigger the vibrating object, the
lower the pitch; the faster the vibration and the smaller the vibrating object, the higher the pitch.

There are two musical performances in focus, and as has been mentioned, they are Just a Spoonful
of Sugar from Mary Poppins and Poor Unfortunate Souls from The Little Mermaid. Mary Poppins is
set in London, Englandcapital of the British Empire and home to any number of cockney street
sweepers and magical nannies. But Poppins isn't set in then-modern day London. It's set in the
Edwardian Era, specifically in 1910, back when King Edward VII was doing his thing. George, the
father of the two children is acting like it's a man's world and he's ruling the roostbut, in reality,
he's not incredibly happy as a junior member of the bank, and his world is changing around him. For
one thing, his wife's become an ardent suffragette. The campaign for gaining women the right to
vote was huge at the time. Winifred mentions one of the other suffragettes chaining herself to the
Prime Minister's carriage and things got intense. Eventually, in 1918, women finally would gain the
right to vote in England towards the end of World War I. The introduction of Mary Poppins provides
a happy route for the film to follow, and it is noticeable how happy and bright the character is given
the contrast of every character and scene within the movie. Just a Spoonful of Sugar is performed
when Mary Poppins is introduced, and is her first scene alone with the children.
The little mermaid is set under the sea in the kingdom of King Triton, a fictional character based on
Poseidon, a Greek god. Ariel, a sixteen-year-old mermaid princess, is dissatisfied with life under the
sea and curious about the human world. With her best fish friend Flounder, Ariel collects human
artifacts and goes to the surface of the ocean to visit Scuttle the seagull, who offers very inaccurate
and comical knowledge of human culture. Ignoring the warnings of her father and court musician
that contact between merpeople and humans is forbidden, Ariel still longs to be part of the human
world; to this end she has filled a secret grotto with all the human artifacts she has found. Sebastian,
who is assigned to watch over Ariel and be sure she does not visit the surface again, tries to convince
her that its better to live under the sea than in the human world. Poor Unfortunate Souls comes
when Ursula makes a deal with Ariel to transform her into a human for three days. Within these
three days, Ariel must receive the 'kiss of true love' from Eric; otherwise, she will transform back into
a mermaid on the third day and belong to Ursula. As payment for legs, Ariel has to give up her voice,
which Ursula takes by magically removing the energy from Ariel's vocal chords and storing it in a
nautilus shell.

Just a Spoonful of Sugar is the first song sung by the character of Mary Poppins in the play, Mary
Poppins. As her introductory song, it seems fitting to play a light, happy and fun song, as Mary
Poppins is portrayed as this throughout the entirety of the musical. The song is performed when the
two children in the play, Michael and Jane, are meant to be cleaning up. Mary Poppins' performance
represents, as she quotes, "an element of fun". Throughout this song, the rhythm and therefore
melody stays relatively constant, as does the pitch. As can be noticed when studying the score, the
pitch is in a major key, which gives the sense of happiness and light. Although related to the musical
element expression, it can be noticed that stacattos are used throughout the song, not necessarily in
the vocals, but in the score, which again is reminiscent of a lighter, happier overall tone. When
relating to rhythm, it can be understood that the three main sub-elements of rhythm, accent, meter
and tempo, also corroborate the happy tone of the piece. The happy atmosphere is evident in the
tempo, which is moderately fast and upbeat, which is necessary for a happy and upbeat song. The
meter is also related to the happy feeling, as it is a simple meter. This relates to the happy tone as if
it were a mixed meter, it could be assumed that the soloist could be confused, which is not the case
in this song. Finally, accent, where it isnt noticeable, is evident. There are accents after regular
intervals, which again relates to the stately, happy feeling in this piece.

The second piece in study is Poor Unfortunate Souls, which can be noticed to have a huge contrast to
Just a Spoonful of Sugar. It is sung by the character, Ursula, in the musical The Little Mermaid.
Ursula is an evil character, who throughout the musical, broods anger and hate. This song is
performed in a threatening manner towards the beginning of the musical, and provides an insight
into the character of Ursula. Compared to the bright and happy tone of Just a Spoonful of Sugar,
Poor Unfortunate Souls provides an evil and perhaps mysterious tone, which is a stark contrast to
the happiness portrayed in Mary Poppins song. The melody varies and rhythm does not stay the
same throughout, which provides a sense of uneasiness, which relates to the evil sense in which this
song is performed. The contrasted elements, pitch and rhythm are thoroughly dissimilar. In rhythm,
the contrast can be noticed through its relatively slow tempo, which is contrasted to the upbeat
manner in which Just a Spoonful of Sugar is played. It can be said that a slower tempo conveys a
more meaningful sentiment, in this case anger and/or hate. Accents are heavily used at uneven
intervals, which corroborates the evil sense within the song in two ways; accents, when used often,
provide an angry and perhaps scary mood. The angry mood can also be mentioned where accents,
used at uneven intervals provides an uneasiness and perhaps mysteriousness. The meter is mixed,
which means that it changes, again providing an uneasiness, which, as mentioned above, provides
that the soloist could be angry or confused. Finally, the element, pitch, contrasts that of Just a
Spoonful of Sugar in that its in a minor key, which contrasts the major key in which Just a Spoonful
of Sugar is performed. Once again, this relates to the angry and brooding mood which Poor
Unfortunate Souls is performed in.

In conclusion, it can be noticed that in fact there is a correlation between the application of different
musical elements in solo performances and the emotions the soloists are trying to convey. As was
mentioned, rhythm and pitch are two starkly contrasted musical elements in Just a Spoonful of
Sugar and in Poor Unfortunate Souls. Their application of sub-elements such as accent, key signature
and tempo. Therefore, to finalise, after conducting research on these two musicals, it can be
thoroughly concluded that the musical elements pitch and rhythm assist in conveying an emotional
message to the audience across any musical genre in the world.