In the US Armed Forces, military cadences are called “jodies”, and usually entail call-and-response melodies sung by soldiers while marching to a cut time beat. Left-right-left, like boom-pah-boom.
Sometimes jodies are dirty as is the case in Full Metal Jacket. Ronald Lee Ermey, who played the Drill Sergeant in the film, was an actual Drill Sergeant in Vietnam, and improvised many of his classic lines. We can assume the jody below was based on a real American jody.
Note: This widget contains profanity, misogyny, and racism, and is therefore not suitable for work, however, very much suitable for the internet. Point and click these bars.
The antecedent phrase has a symmetrical melody as can be seen in the top two bars, while the consequent resolves back to the tonic. Each phrase is echoed by infantry in unison. This particular jody is in the key of D Major Pentatonic. The above notation is more of a fakebook version; the real one has a swing and the notes are not quite exact in the 3rd bar.
Do you have any favorite jodies? Please put them in the comments section.
