Ray Charles - Mess Around

The instruments used in this piece are commonly used in jazz music in the 20th century. Especially the jazz bass and the saxophone. These instruments are quiet different to each other offering a wide range of variety to sounds. The piano carries the main tune with the saxophone emphasising the main melody parts. The main tune is heard at the beginning of the song at 0:06. The bass and drum kit are used to keep the other instruments in time as well as making the song have a fuller feel to it. In the piano solo at 1:17 there is loads of trills in the right hand and block chords in the left hand. The saxophone solo at 1:36 is basic just keeping in time of the beats of the bar with some improvisation playing. The song is melody and accompaniment the whole way through.


The recording sounds like it was recorded with one microphone at the front recording all of the instruments at the same time, with a separate microphone for the lyrics. This means that some instruments such as the drum are quiet as they are further away from the microphone. I would have close miced the drum kit and had the bass and saxophone and piano on its own separate microphones. This would mean that all instruments are equally loud and you would have more control over how loud you want each instrument. If you were using just the two microphones with one for the vocals and the rest for the instruments then it would mean that if you wanted one instrument higher than the rest you would either have to raise the gain on the microphone which would increase every other instrument as well or use EQ to raise certain frequencies to make a certain instrument louder. This would however mean that other instruments that have similar frequencies would be louder as well.