The Music Theory of Jumper Explained in 6 Minutes

[00:00:00]In listening to the Waterflame song Jumper while editing the previous Geometry Dash video, I couldn't help but just feel happy listening to it. The comments on the song's official YouTube video agree. Upbeat, happy, lively, bouncy, jumpy are all words that describe the song very well. But why?

[00:00:22]Well, it's a combination of Water Flame's choice of meter, key, and harmony. What the song uses in each of these three areas makes for a song that sounds very happy and bouncy. Let's start with meter. The way I'm defining it here, this refers to anything that affects how you count and feel the song.

[00:00:35]So that includes time signature and tempo, etc. The time signature is 44, the simplest time signature, and the tempo is quarter note equals about 180.

[00:00:43]And with swung eighth notes, swung eighth notes means that instead of counting it like 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and very evenly spaced, you count it as 1 a 2 a 3 a four uh which is the first and third note of a triplet.

[00:01:06]Despite the fast tempo, the song is very light and therefore doesn't exactly feel fast. That is unless you actually count the beats out.

[00:01:17]At least that's what I think is the best way to notate it. Every good arranger knows that the first thing you do is look on Musecore and see if anyone else has already made a transcription or arrangement. In preparing this transcription for this video, I found some interesting interpretations. 1216.

[00:01:31]I mean, I'm all for wacky time signatures, but not when there's clearly a better alternative. This one in 128 is a little better, but notating it as swung eighths is still much easier to read in my opinion. So, when you have a swing feel, you can divide quarter notes into the first and third note of a triplet, but you can also include the second note of the triplet in the background of the song, mostly at the beginning, you can hear these full triplets.

[00:01:54]So then, is it swung or is it 128? Well, it's just a matter of preference. So this 128 notation and even the 1216 one, they aren't technically wrong, but I just think swung eighths is the best way.

[00:02:06]This song is in the key of C major. Now, what does that mean exactly? The C means that C, this pitch is the tonic, which means it's our home base. You'll see this note appear many times throughout the melody. And if you play the song while hearing C as a drone, the drone sounds in tune and at home.

[00:02:24]Except this isn't C. The pitch C is officially defined as the frequency 261.63 hertz. And the tonic of jumper is slightly higher, though not high enough to beat the note C sharp.

[00:02:38]Why is the song pitched slightly up? I don't know, but we're still going to notate it by rounding it to C. And besides, being pitched slightly up is only something you'd notice if you have perfect pitch. Next, and more importantly, is the major part of C major. This means that the whole song is based on the notes of the C major scale, which is the scale that starts on C and then goes up intervals that define a major scale, which would be whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. A minor scale works similarly, except it's a different combination of whole steps and half steps and results in the third, sixth, and seventh scale degrees being the notes that differentiate the two.

[00:03:12]Major is famously the happy one, and minor is the sad one. So, Jumper sounds happy by using lots of E, A's, and B's, especially E, which is the third scale degree. It also has a lot of step-wise melodies, meaning you'll hear it just go up and down the familiar major scale a lot.

[00:03:41]So, the C major scale is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. If we stack two thirds on top of each note of a major scale to make triads, we'll get one major, two minor, three minor, four major, five major, six minor, seven diminished. These are known as the diietonic chords because they can be made using only the notes of the scale and don't require accidentals.

[00:04:02]Simple chord progressions in major keys primarily use 1, four, five, and six. So doing so further contributes to the major sound. The entirety of Jumper uses a four measure chord progression loop that goes C major, C major over E, F major, G major.

[00:04:28]It not only sticks to these typical major key chords, but it doesn't use any minor chord at all. In fact, it solely uses major chords. I also think the second chord of the loop, the C major over E, is a particularly clever choice.

[00:04:39]We want to stick to the major diietonic chords, of which there are only three, but there are four measures to fill. We could just put another C major as the second chord, but then there's no harmonic motion going into the second measure.

[00:04:52]So, what if we make it C major over E?

[00:04:55]That allows the baseline to ascend each measure while still avoiding any minor chords.

[00:05:05]So with this as the chord loop, the melody and harmony of this entire song is just major major major. Like there's literally nothing minor in the entire song. Thus, it sounds as major things do very happy.

[00:05:21]In summary, by using a fast, light and swung or triplet meter, a major key with lots of third, sixth, and seventh scale degrees, and a simple diietonic major chord loop, we get something very happy and bouncy.

[00:05:34]Are there any other songs out there that use similar compositional techniques to achieve a similar result? Yes. My own song, Success.mpp3, checks all the boxes here.

[00:05:59]but in classic RER Studios fashion, we throw a key change in there.

[00:06:11]Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one and have a great