Week 5: 1970s

Higher Ground is a funk song that was written and produced by Stevie Wonder, it was recorded on the 12^th of May 1973. The song itself was written and recorded within three hours. The album version contains an extra verse and is 30 seconds longer than the single version. There are many unique sounds that were used in this track for the time including a wah-clavinet sound that was created through the use of a Mu-Tron 3 envelope filter pedal and a bass line created by overdubbing Moog synthesizers. Stevie played all instruments on the track including vocals, Hohner clavinet, drums, Moog bass, tambourine and handclaps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Ground_(Stevie_Wonder_song)  & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innervisions). The track is in the key of C sharp at 126 BPM with a time signature of 4/4 (https://findsongtempo.com/artists/stevie-wonder/songs/higher-ground-8668f7c4-8fd0-4c6d-bc7e-f391c3df6ece).

The lyrics focus around Christian morality and other religious practices such as Buddhism,  for example the Samsara is shown through the lyrics “I’m so darn glad he let me try it again, Because my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin” (https://genius.com/Stevie-wonder-higher-ground-lyrics).

The track is in stereo and is quite dense through with a lot happening proved by the screen shot.

All frequencies are fairly evenly represented throughout the duration of this track and this is proved below through the first screenshot, however, during the intro before the Moog bass comes in the mid frequencies are boosted and this is shown below in the second screenshot. The song then evens out but the mid (and sometimes high) frequencies do spike a little bit when Stevie sings his lyrics, shown through the Third Screenshot. The acoustic space here is quite dry and near apart from the Crash cymbal which has been given a far effect to it.  

This track is mixed very high as it is being clipped at the master fader at a lot of points during the duration. When it is not being clipped the track sits around -3.0 dB to -0.1 dB before it clips again. The intro is the quietest part of the track at -4.3 dB before the drums and Moog bass start playing and then clips shortly after this, other than the intro it begins to lower its dB during the fade out of the track. The tone of the track is quite bright with how the Hohner Clavinet is being played gives it a jumpy and funky feel. The lyrics are also cause bright and inspiring and is shown through the lyrics “ ‘Til I reach my highest ground, No one’s going to bring me down” (https://genius.com/Stevie-wonder-higher-ground-lyrics).  

Track panning is quite interesting for this track, in particular the drums. The Vocals are panned to the centre and is the loudest in the mix. The Moog Bass is also panned to the centre and is in the background of the mix. The Clavinet has two parts and each separate part is panned to either the Left channel or the Right channel, the separation between the two parts is clearly highlighted during the intro (0:00- 0:25). For the drums, the snare part is panned a little to the right, the Tambourine and the Hi Hats are panned to the left. The crash is quite interesting as for most of the track it is panned hard to the right and given a “far” acoustic space feel, however there is certain points where it is centred for effect, for example from 01:25 to 01:42, where it alternates between the right channel and both channels, there is also the same centring effect is used for the hi hat as shown at 01:20.