The first song we will analyze is Optimistic by Radiohead.
The first 30 seconds of Optimistic
For the first 30 seconds or so, the intro plays out. The drums start the rhythm they will largely take throughout the song, and the guitar begins its kind-of-pineful wails.
Of note is the voice of Thom Yorke. You can see that he “smoothly” changes the pitch up and down, but then does abrupt pitch changes. It’s interesting to see these smooth changes reflected by the spectrogram.
40-85 seconds of Optimistic
The main bits of the song truly start at about 40 seconds. You can see that the drum beat is different than the first 30 seconds, but the guitar remains the same. Even though the lyrics are different between the 40-65 second mark, they remain at roughly the same pitch and tone due to the poetic requirements of the lyrics.
If that makes sense.
At the ~65 second mark, the song undergoes what I like to call a “theme change”. The drums change back to the original rhythm, and the guitar changes to the second rhythm. The vocals also change to a higher pitch and different lyrics. At around the 300Hz range, you can see the guitar do a little crescendo of pitch. It’s quite neat.
85-135 seconds of Optimistic
For purposes of explanation, we can see a “theme change” at the 93 second mark. The main star of this spectrogram is the synth that’s playing. It ranges from 440-600Hz, and it only goes down. The obvious rhythm and pattern of the synth is shown throughout, but the real interesting part of the synth is its merging with Thom Yorke’s voice. At the 120 second mark, Thom’s voice merges with the synth at the magical frequency of 440Hz, or the A above Middle C.
After that merging, roughly beginning at the 125-second mark, we can see that there is a leadup to another theme change. The spectrogram here fits with the rest of the image, but it’s also quite strange. It fits, but it doesn’t fit.
130-177 seconds of Optimistic
This spectrogram overlaps with the previous to accentuate the weirdnesses of the repeated “Theme Three”. It’s Theme Three, but it’s not Theme Three at the same time. Most notable is the theme change at 156 seconds.
Here, Thom Yorke’s voice is so loud that it reverberates throughout the spectrogram. At the same time, the synth is playing, but it doesn’t compete or merge with Thom’s voice. Instead, it forms a chord between man and machine. If I knew more technical music theory, I could tell you what chord it is.
The guitar in this new theme also becomes quiet for the first time since the start of the song. The drums, as always, keep on doing their thing.
175-220 seconds of Optimistic
This section is more interesting than the previous ones. We see three theme changes and Theme Three again. But, this time around, Theme Three is slightly corrupted by…
Erratic drums. We can see that the drums have changed for the first time in about two or three minutes. It’s erratic, but it also changes between rhythms twice. Interesting!
220-260 seconds of Optimistic
Here, we see a theme change at the 237-second mark, and the reintroduction of the synth, and the removal of the guitar. This is, once again, just a repitition of previous themes. The drums seem to be getting a bit erratic and hectic. Getting closer to the end!
The Last 60 seconds of Optimistic
The last 60 seconds of Optimistic can be considered a lot different from the rest. Here, the drums undergo arrhythmia, the voice gets a bit weird, and the lead-in to the next song, In Limbo, occurs.
What I really like about the spectrogram is the little “Synthesized Voice Change” at the 290 second mark. If you will notice, the voice in the rest of the song always oscillates when it changes pitch, due to the natural awesomeness of the human voice. Here, however, it goes up and down smoothly, indicating that it was changed via computer methods.
I hope you enjoyed this first spectrogram analysis of Optimistic. Hopefully, I’ve kept any attention you might have, and raised your interest in the science of sound analysis. Tune back every now and then to see more spectrogram analyses! Feedback is greatly appreciated!
As always, Goldwave was used to convert songs into .WAV files, and Spectrogram v1.6 by Visualization Software LLC was used to create the spectrograms.
