Music and the Fictive Stories: Tangled

The Movie Tangled:  Tangled is an animated film released in 2010 by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Rapunzel is the main character with over 70 feet of hair! The other characters I find to be important are Flynn Ryder (also known as Eugine), Pascal, and Mother Gothel. In this movie, Mother Gothel is the main antagonist. It is essential to note this because she took away Rapunzel at birth and kept her in a tower away from everyone until one day.  

"I See the Light": This song can tell us the story by only the lyrics. We can see Rapunzel sings about seeing the light, but it goes deeper; she has been stuck in a tower for 16 years, and she is seeing everything clearly. This song sets the tone for the entire movie, even the end when she sees her real parents and the environment she was meant to grow up in. But most of all, Rapunzel is singing this about her relationship with Flynn Ryder, which I think also foreshadows her upcoming relationship with her real mom. We all see the environment of this song and the lights in the background. The lights were her dream, and she chased her dream to get to them.

Social Commentary: The moral message of "I See the Light" is seeing another perspective and breaking free or having that freedom again. It also shows us how Rapunzel takes action and goes after her life again by making a change. As she begins to understand the world, and she can have connections, as we can see when she meets Flynn Ryder. The song "I See the Light" is uplifting and involves deep thought. The background shows a gentle guitar playing and the environment of just them two alone with floating lanterns.

My opinion: I really like this song. I actually just played this song while I was walking down the aisle last week! But, the harmony is impressive in this song; all the notes together really set the environment and show us the emotion of Rapunzel during this time. The timbre also really sets the tone, we can see how she uplifts her song and how we can see her love for Flynn.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILRs2r6lcHY

"I See the Light": By Mandy Moore & Zachary Levi (Tangled)

Sources: 

Roni Conli. Featured Films "Tangled". Walt Disney Animation Studios. https://disneyanimation.com/films/tangled/
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILRs2r6lcHY

PD Music. "Meaning of "I See the Light" by Mandy Moore". Public Domain Music, 2024. https://www.pdmusic.org/meaning-of-the-song-i-see-the-light-by-mandy-moore/
mythoughtsondisneymusic. "I See the Light" by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, Tumblr. June, 2013. https://www.tumblr.com/mythoughtsondisneymusic/53982487626/i-see-the-light-by-mandy-moore-and-zachary-levi

Role of the perfromer. ft. Ariana Grande

Who is Ariana Grande?

 We have probably all heard one of her songs at some point, maybe not knowing it was her singing or maybe you knew! She was born in 1993 and born in Florida. Ariana's musical journey began in 2011, she got to this point through her acting in Nickelodeon and growing up around Broadway production.

Her journey all started in 2011 with her first song track in the show, Victorious. Later, in 2011, she published her "first" song, "Putting Your Hearts Up".And ever since then, she has done many music performances. She started her music career by recording herself singing soundtracks and uploading them to YouTube! Ariana's first duo performance was with Mac Miller in 2013, and was number 9 in the top 100 songs played at the time! I feel like this really helped her career get that push. But throughout the years, she has worked with several other musical performers as well like, Nikki Minaj, The Weekend, Lizzy, and so many others. 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl1aHhXnN1k

"Thank You Next" was written by Tommy Brown, Justin Tranter, and Njomza. The role of Ariana Grande in this song was to perform and sing this song. I think this a very good song for her because she was able to sing about Mac Miller, who passed away, and also because overall she performs so well, in my opinion. The music video background is based inside a school and about her past exes, and because she has past relationships, I think this suits her performance well. But also, her songwriters help set her up for success by bringing in her ideas, and they are allowed to get creative from those! Two musical elements I spot in from Ariana in this song are Loudness and Tempo. I chose Loudness because I feel like most of her songs are loud, but this one is more of a soft loudness, which I think shows greatly in her performance. Tempo is also shown in this song at a speed of 107, which shows the song can be danceable, as shown in her performance.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0nZ5EGoJ0

I chose this song because I think this performance is amazing. You have three different voices, and although this song ft. Ariana Grande, I still think this is one of her amazing performances. The songwriters for the song "Bang Bang" are Rickard G., Savan K., Max M., and Nikki Minaj. With these songwriters' creativity, we see three powerful voices, an empowered woman moment, and each performer's musical elements being shown through the songwriter's lyrics. One element is Ariana's pitch, we can see in certain parts that she has a higher pitch when singing in the background. Another element would be Tempo; she shows a high Tempo in this song, which shows us the high energy in the song "Bang Bang".

Sources:

Emma Dodds. Rayo, Ariana Grande's Career. Sept. 24th, 2024. https://hellorayo.co.uk/kiss/entertainment/music/ariana-grande-career/

Biography.com editors, Catherine Caruso. Ariana Grande. May 17th, 2021. https://www.biography.com/musicians/ariana-grande

Alex Ross. Rayo. Ariana Grande's Biggest Collabs. Oct. 16th, 2024. https://hellorayo.co.uk/kiss/entertainment/music/ariana-grande-collaborations/#

Joshua B., Jacqueline R., Fengxue Z. NPR, "Thank You Next" Ariana Grande collaborators break down. Feb. 9th, 2019.  https://www.npr.org/2019/02/09/691376280/thank-u-text-ariana-grandes-collaborators-break-down-the-artist-s-latest-album

Song BPM. "Thank You Next", Ariana Grande. https://songbpm.com/@ariana-grande/thank-u-next#:~:text=Song%20Metrics&text=thank%20u%2C%20next%20is%20a,signature%20of%20beats%20per%20bar%20.