Which sentences in this excerpt from Ernest Shackleton's South! suggest that the author is writing a memoir? The outlook was dis
appointing. I looked down a sheer precipice to a chaos of crumpled ice 1500 ft. below. There was no way down for us. The country to the east was a great snow upland, sloping upwards for a distance of seven or eight miles to a height of over 4000 ft. To the north it fell away steeply in glaciers into the bays, and to the south it was broken by huge outfalls from the inland ice-sheet. Our path lay between the glaciers and the outfalls, but first we had to descend from the ridge on which we stood. Cutting steps with the adze, we moved in a lateral direction round the base of a dolomite, which blocked our view to the north. The same precipice confronted us. Away to the north-east there appeared to be a snow-slope that might give a path to the lower country, and so we retraced our steps down the long slope that had taken us three hours to climb. We were at the bottom in an hour. We were now feeling the strain of the unaccustomed marching. We had done little walking since January and our muscles were out of tune. Skirting the base of the mountain above us, we came to a gigantic bergschrund, a mile and a half long and 1000 ft. deep. This tremendous gully, cut in the snow and ice by the fierce winds blowing round the mountain, was semicircular in form, and it ended in a gentle incline. We passed through it, under the towering precipice of ice, and at the far end we had another meal and a short rest. This was at 12:30 p.m. Half a pot of steaming Bovril ration warmed us up, and when we marched again ice-inclines at angles of 45 degrees did not look quite as formidable as before.
" The outlook was disappointing, <em>I </em>looked down....." ; " There was no way....<em>for</em> <em>us.</em>" ; " <em>Our </em>path lay......<em>we</em> stood."; " Cutting steps......, <em>we</em> moved.........north."; " The same precipice confronted <em>us</em>."; " Away to the north......., and so <em>we </em>retracted <em>our</em> steps.....climb." ; " <em>We</em> were at the bottom......";
All the sentences that include the first person singular and the first person plural tell the excerpt is a memoir.
Songs usually build energy as they proceed. Whether by using instrumentation, melodic range, dynamics (i.e., loudness), tempo, and rhythmic intensity, the end of your song should usually come across as more energetic than the beginning.
A song’s chord progressions should proceed from fragile to strong. A fragile progression is one that is perhaps tonally ambiguous or meandering, while a strong progression is one that clearly points to a tonic note and chord. Verse and bridge progressions can be fragile, but chorus progressions should be short and strong.
A song should show a steady harmonic rhythm. The term harmonic rhythm refers to how long you play a chord before moving on to the next one. Most songs will keep that pattern fairly steady, changing chords every 4 or 8 beats.
A song should show a strong relationship between melodic shape, lyrics and chords. When a melody rises to a high point, it’s usually for a good reason: you want to highlight something significant in the lyric. Good songs show a clear and important relationship between all components, to get the message across.
A song’s chorus will feature the tonic note and chord more often than the verse. The tonic note is the one that represents the key your song is in. It acts as a strong sense of “home”, and so chorus melodies are usually written to place special significance on that note and its accompanying chord. Verses can wander a bit more, avoiding the tonic note. But choruses need to feature that note as an important goal.
Chorus melodies usually sit higher in pitch than verse melodies. That’s because the human voice generates more energy in its upper range, and we obviously want more energy to occur in a chorus than in a verse.
