@@LizordSword nah irish. We just had tin whistles, but when you got to 3rd class you pick another instrument like a concertina or a bodhran. I tried playing the violin but that was hard and I didn't like it so I just picked a bodhran, which is basically just a single drum. It's a very simple instrument to play, I've almost fallen asleep playing it a few times
Re: The fact that a D neutral chord sounds like a car horn: In Europe, ambulances and other sirens are two alternating notes a tritone apart. A tritone on top of a tritone is an octave, a perfect interval. A neutral 3rd on top of a neutral 3rd is a perfect 5th.
IMO he's referring to timbre, not intervals. Mechanical/electric horns tend to contain strong inharmonic partials. That's what makes them sound "harsh" and stand out, thereby grabbing your attention.
@@karawethan Even though, the parallels are interesting. (And I've read somewhere that most car horns -- maybe just in the United States -- are in the key of F major.)
Did anyone else have a weird kinda subverted expectation thing? Like, when "is it major? *chord*" brain was like "fukno too dark", then "is it minor? *same damned chord*" brain "oh so bright it's like my future *puts on sunglasses at night*"
Normal Musicians: I wrote this weird progression. Is this a thing? Jazz Musicians: Not only is that a thing, but we have a name for a it, theory that covers it, and a nickname for it.
@@leethejailer9195 th-cam.com/video/YCVFkircZUg/w-d-xo.html not a song example, but this video shows the difference between Arabic, Persian, and turkish microtunes
That would be a Nathan K3L. It’s designed to play just a D Minor chord, but Nathan’s early horns always have fucked tuning. The 2 bell is weird. An example of this is in the Round Tag K5HLs where the 1L was supposed to sound a perfect C4, but Nathan Airchime’s a dumbass so it was like a C Quarter-Flat. They fixed it in the Square Tag Late K5HLs though.
I was just at a music camp and I convinced one of the composers there to end his piece on a neutral triad, I was laughing so hard after the performance
i'm not saying anime is the peak of music, but japanese studio musicians really deserve some credit. some anime have amazing OST albums, character songs, songs from the show itself(like K-On). there are 12-episode anime with a disproportionally large catalogs of music, that span every genre you can think of. you have to admire how prolific and versatile some of these studio guys are, they are machines.
I have perfect pitch, and to me it's like the color turquoise. Is it a blue or is it a green? Well It sounds more like an F than an F-sharp to me, but like a very out of tune one.
Sounds like the theortical physicist turned university manager I once talked to. @@sunfish9341 "The End of Musical History" by Francis Fuckyoumama P.S.: Since the video referenced Fukuyama... I mean Futurama... *Tasticles™*
Hey adam! I'm a lebanese musician, in our "arabic music" the neutral chord sounds just fine, although we don't focus on harmony, but it exists, because, instead of having 2 main scales (major and minor) we have 8 main scales, including many quarter notes
I think the reason the neutral third sounds like a car horn is because it is the same interval as an 11:9 in the harmonic series. If you listen to a train whistle or a car horn, there are very strong 7th and 11th partials present in the sound! This is my best take on it anyway :)))
@@AtomizedSound A major third, but affected by doppler effect assuming the train is moving. So if the train is coming towards you it would make that third somewhat flat, if going away it would make it somewhat sharp. I'm not sure what pitches a train horn generally is, but I could see a moving train coming towards you getting into the neighborhood of the interval from this video.
I was wondering What keys these Primus songs are in: “Tommy The Cat,” “Jerry Was A Race car Driver” and “My Name Is mud” It’s obviously very dissonant and spicy. What scales and or modes are they using?
Watching Adam Neely reminds me simultaneously why I love music and why changed majors from music. I enjoy listening to music and I find it fascinating to learn about music theory (classical music theory and otherwise), BUT I hate playing music (or at least I hate playing the trumpet, theoretically I could try to pick up piano but I think my main problem is that my fingers are just bad and dumb). Playing music almost made me despise it to some degree. It’s better that me and her just know each other casually now.
A neutral triad could sound major or minor at different times depending on the context. E.g. if you compare a neutral triad against a supermajor triad then the neutral can feel like minor. Or if you compare it against subminor it can feel major. Music is trippy like that
He only played one version of that chord though, right? It could sound more interesting if another inversion or even stretch chord. If that natural third was in the bass we would feel it different. Edit - Felt more of a diminished sound to me
The half sharp third reminds me of a baby tritone because it's also exactly in the middle of two tonal markers. In this case, those markers just happen to be a root and a fifth instead of a root and an octave. Music ideas? Half-sharp substitutions, half-sharp blues, etc.
6:09 It increases about 3dB for every player doing the same thing at the same distance to the listener. It happens because even though the acoustic pressure is actually doubled, our ears percieve intensity logarithmically, not in a linear way. Awesome video as always btw!
Hey Adam, potential question for your next q and a. I had an idea for a different way of looking at neutral chords. Chords are typically stacked thirds, which is how we get major and minor. The neutral third feels a bit misnamed here though as the chord itself is theoretically neutral but sonically really at war with itself. I put forth a sort of neutral chord that sounds neutral rather than is theoretical neutral. The root, the fourth, and the octave. A suspended chord with no color if you will. When I heard this, it was the closest musically I've ever come to feeling balanced, a sort of sonic neutrality. It didn't need to go anywhere or do anything, and moving this around you can achieve some really interesting pandiatonic melodies. Thoughts? I do know that this cluster of notes might be hard to justify as a chord given traditional understandings of what a chord is and the functions they serve.
When you played the neutral twice with “major?” and “minor?” it genuinely sounded more major when “major?” was shown and vice versa. Musical priming? 🤔
So that “neutral” triad is vertically symmetrical, like a diminished or augmented triad, isn’t it? Meaning that the interval from D to Fhalf# (7 quarter tones) is the same interval from Fhalf# to A.
So I tried* to play a I-vi-ii-V in all neutral triads to hear how it would sound. To my ear, they all sounded like out of tune minor chords, except the V which still sounded major. Which is weird that the I would sound minor to me in such a common chord progression where it’s major. (*If you’re interested in how I did it, I tuned my guitar’s B string down half way between Bb and B, and just used the D G & B strings to play the triads by barring. I played it in D, so it was frets 7 - 4 - 9 - 2. Who knows if my ear would have heard it differently if they weren’t all parallel 2nd-inversion chords.)
It's a bit like playing on a equal tempered scale with 24 different notes. I could imagine there might be some contexts in which it sounds a bit less wonky, maybe akin to what playing chords built on 4ths sounds like to a western ear.
@@mingnrich Okay, I just tried it with my uke. Same idea, detuned the E string to be roughly half a semitone flat, and played barres on the C, E and G. I too thought the V sounded more major-y than the rest. Weird!
Well, the "neutral" third is a half fifth the same way the tritonus is a half octave. A regular third, be it big or small, does at least have some approximate harmonic relation to one of the other tones in the triad.
Question for Q+A: I've met people who CLAIM to be able to tell, just by listening, whether a song is written in F# major or Gb major. It's one thing to have perfect pitch, but deducing the exact enharmonic spelling of the key signature the composer intended... seems farfetched. Is there any truth to this ability? Thanks!
Do they perhaps mean when the piece is played in just intonation? Because that's certainly possible, as the enharmonic pitches reveal their differences in just intonation.
In historic meantone tunings, which would nowadays correspond to 19-TET, 50-TET, 31-TET, and 43-TET, sharps sit lower than flats do, and there is a _big_ difference between F♯ and G♭. In fact, for most of the history of music, being able to distinguish between adjacent sharps and flats, by ear, without any assistance, was a fundamental part of musical training, and people back then knew how to do it without any sort of electronic equipment. Most Western musicians nowadays no longer know how to distinguish between adjacent sharps and flats since they've never heard of any tuning other than 12-TET. In 12-TET, from my personal experience if the piece tends more towards sharp keys like B, E, or A, or if you modulated from a sharp key, then it's probably in F♯. If the piece tends more towards the flat keys, or if you modulated from a flat key, it's probably G♭.
For the doubling of loudness, I can say this: when I was in my speech acoustics class, our professor gave us an example with candles. If you have 1 candle, it has a preceived brightness of X. To get to 2X, you would need 3 of these identical candles burning with identical brightness. To double that 2X brightness (and get to 4X) you would need 8 of those candles. Just remembered this example and decided to post it
@@loser1234b that's basically how human brain perceives the light. I'm not really a physicist but the idea seems very logical. I would point you to a Vsause video, because I clearly remember that at least one of them explained the principle much more clearly than I just attempted to, but I, unfortunately, don't quite remember the title.
@@vimtheprotogen2855 I try, but I don't think I do it properly. I've found a couple times that it gets easier in the second session, weeks after the first, but the first session is pretty much always hopeless. I also don't get a lot of opportunities. (I'm always a afraid my grandparents will overhear me screaming my edgy nonsense)
Thank you, Adam. Despite tinkering with music for about 40 years, you have just caused my own Dunning-Kruger moment. I thought I knew a little bit about music.
I love your work, Adam, and it has taught me a lot over the past few years. Thank you very much fot that. For your next Q&A would you consider explaining something that has always been a bit of a mystery to me: What exactly is the diference between 2/4 and 4/4? Or between 6/8 and 12/8, for that matter?
It’s also because in 2/4 the beats go (1)Strong - (2)Weak 4/4 is more like (1)Strong - (2)Weak - (3)slightlyStrong - (4)Weak 6/8 would then be (1)Strong - (2)Weak - (3)Weak - (4)slightlyStrong - (5)Weak - (6)Weak 12/8 I honestly don’t how to describe in this way. Often it can just be thought of as triplet-ed 4/4 or swung 4/4 but that depends on the music
@Gustavo Silveira de Azevedo So 2/4 is just like a slow 4/4? I am not sure that helps. Why does the tempo make a difference, and where is the cut-off point where it turns from 2/4 to 4/4/?
The “neutral” third reminded you of a car horn. It reminded me of the tritone, which would be a neutral third above the neutral third. Could you play a triad of the tonic, neutral third, and tritone? I’m curious if it would give the tritone a more stable sound- or even sound major.
What? A tritone is two minor 3rds stacked and an augmented 5th is two major 3rds stacked. So a neutral 3rd above a neutral 3rd would be a perfect 5th, unless I'm not thinking right...
A great neutral chord is the pure nine, use roots fives and ninth. This can have a majestic feel as a strum. It brings to mind the tolling of a big bell
Here's a link to it: th-cam.com/video/7ziukMrIxok/w-d-xo.html Also since it only has one sided mono audio: you can turn on mono in windows' audio settings (just search for mono in the start menu). Then it plays on both ears.
4:14 Sounds like a train horn when youre waiting at the crossing ... Neely says car horn but the car horn interval is just the root 3rd no 5th or octave.
6:09 - in regard to this question (is two of the same instrument playing the same thing at the same time twice as loud as just one?): if I recall correctly, it's a same deal as perceived brightness. If you put two light bulbs together, you have twice as much light - but the two bulbs shining in the same spot isn't twice as bright as shining just ONE bulb on that spot. To properly double the brightness of the spot of light or the volume of the note(s) being played, you'd have to increase it by an order of magnitude. The lesson here is that if you want twice as much bass without distortion, the best solution *isn't* to crank the volume up on your subwoofer: the best solution is to buy *ten subwoofers* (and set them all to the same volume). :D
We use this pitch in Arabic music a lot in scales like (Bayat - sika - rast ...) And it sounds good Here's an example of Bayat maqam (scale) You took (A min) for exp: 🎹 A - B (-50) - C - D - E - F#(-50) - G - A
What's in between Major and Minor chords? In terms of ratios of frequencies, sus4 and sus2 are inbetween, not as basic as the major chord but not as complex as a minor chord. When the tonic is at the root we have, in order of complexity: Major (4 : 5 : 6), sus4 (6 : 8 : 9), sus2 (8 : 9 : 12) and minor (12 : 19 : 24)
For a little more insight on the double loudness question: Our sense of hearing is basically logarithmic by decibels, so 10 trumpets would be twice as loud as a single trumpet, for example.
@@luigivercotti6410 Noah is correct. We generally percieve twice the loudness for every increase of 10dB. In terms of power, an increase of 10dB means 10 times the power, since 10dB=10*log10(10). It therefore takes ten times as much power to sound twice as loud.
Yeah, there is a ton of interesting new music to make with microtonality. The main issue is the barrier to entry, not everyone has an easy way to actually perform microtonal tunings accurately (or if they do, lack the knowledge of how to do it) so there are much fewer people just going in and screwing around to see what they can come up with. Hopefully as technology advances it'll be more accessible but unless we somehow get a legitimately popular microtonal artist or "scene" it'll be slow going, if it ever comes at all.
@@TheSquareOnes You can create tunings in Sevish's 'Scale Workshop', then import them into ThumbJam on the iPad and use that as a midi controller (which exports tuning via pitch bend), I find that's the easiest way to do it :)
No joke im watching this sitting in a parking lot waiting to go into work. When you played that neutral chord I was looking around for someone honking their horn. You kept playing it and thought it was some one wanting me to move.
Magic Sam, the great Chicago bluesman, had a bunch of songs with no thirds in the rhythm guitar or bassline. It’s the lead guitar or vocal that determines the minor/major nature. Very interesting sound.
That neutral chord sounds like when you ask your gf where she wants to go out and she shrugs her shoulders and tells you to pick.
pro gamer move is to insist on a choice you know she hates until she makes up her mind
@@andrasfogarasi5014 This works and I hate how true it is
haha lol xd couldn’t be me haha haha
It's like schrodinger's chord lol
@@andrasfogarasi5014 So basically any place that you would normally choose?
I LITERALLY laughed out loud when you played the d neutral chord at the end of the lick
FKPDI I had to check comments mid vid just to see if anyone had a similar experience lmfao
Yes! I loved it. I love unexpected but related humor.
What minute?
I saw this right as he did it and couldn't help but laugh too
@@darrenbelanger7825
More like 6:04 ?
The feel of 6:04 to 6:08 is like seeing the most beautiful sunset, then getting abruptly run over by a bus.
Its the Most cursed licc I have heard so far
or a train. Kinda sounds like a train
@@celestix_ yeah I thought the same
I wonder if this is how it feels to be isekai'd
I shouldn't laugh 💀
Man, adam making that “repetition legitimizes” joke at every opportunity seems less odd over time. Weird.
That's because it's being legitimized
That, plus this seemed like a shorter, easier to digest joke than the last few. They were pretty long.
haha see what you did there.
@@AlejandroCaicedoPUJ r/thatsthejoke
Man, adam making that “repetition legitimizes” joke at every opportunity seems less odd over time. Weird.
The neutral chord takes me back to our primary school string orchestra. We were very experimental at age 7 lmao
watch out death grips. The 7 year old primary school string orchestra is pulling up 🥶🥶🥶
@@zynel413 you said primary so i assume youre from the UK.
did you guys have the whole ocarina thing?
@@LizordSword nah irish. We just had tin whistles, but when you got to 3rd class you pick another instrument like a concertina or a bodhran. I tried playing the violin but that was hard and I didn't like it so I just picked a bodhran, which is basically just a single drum. It's a very simple instrument to play, I've almost fallen asleep playing it a few times
I'm reminded of the South Park episode where they all recorders 😂
Re: The fact that a D neutral chord sounds like a car horn: In Europe, ambulances and other sirens are two alternating notes a tritone apart. A tritone on top of a tritone is an octave, a perfect interval. A neutral 3rd on top of a neutral 3rd is a perfect 5th.
IMO he's referring to timbre, not intervals. Mechanical/electric horns tend to contain strong inharmonic partials. That's what makes them sound "harsh" and stand out, thereby grabbing your attention.
@@karawethan Even though, the parallels are interesting.
(And I've read somewhere that most car horns -- maybe just in the United States -- are in the key of F major.)
@@karawethan Technology Connections has a great video about that
even though the sounds of the ambulances in Europe differ from country to country
in Germany it's a 4th
Major: Happy
Minor: Sad
Neutral: Angry
...also panic and fear
Sergio Lázaro Martínez oxymoron
Mayor
Did anyone else have a weird kinda subverted expectation thing? Like, when "is it major? *chord*" brain was like "fukno too dark", then "is it minor? *same damned chord*" brain "oh so bright it's like my future *puts on sunglasses at night*"
@@Googahgee txs dude and sorry, in spanish its the same word, and it's pronounced the same way... Fucking false friends 😂
Normal Musicians: I wrote this weird progression. Is this a thing?
Jazz Musicians: Not only is that a thing, but we have a name for a it, theory that covers it, and a nickname for it.
hey you calling us not normal
We also named it an innuendo. JaZz
@@daybrink1267 you aren't
@@daybrink1267 Come on man please just play the right notes for one smh
*10 nicknames
That neutral sound with micro-tuning is SUPER popular in traditional and even modern middle eastern music. I basically grew up with it lol
Can you link an example
Link an example
@@leethejailer9195 th-cam.com/video/YCVFkircZUg/w-d-xo.html
not a song example, but this video shows the difference between Arabic, Persian, and turkish microtunes
What do your people think of the blocky Western "equal temperament" scale?
That guy: Is high school music theory enough
Me: You're getting music?
SO TRUE 😭
Stephen Scott lucky for me I go to nocca lmao
6:04 When that makes me laugh out loud, I wonder what my sense of humor has become. I do at least know it's ruined lol
frittatasTV you are not alone with that humor, same happened to me 😅
It’s cuz we’re mooooosicians
i'm still laughing because of that
At least not only I am that damaged. The setup was just too perfect.
"Why are you laughing?"
"You wouldn't get it."
hahaha i saw it coming and yet i fucking died when he played the last chord.
That "neutral chord" almost sounded like a massive church bell. It's a bit dissonant but so beautiful in its own way
Glad I'm not the only one who really likes the sound of it!
6:04 - cursed licc
3:55 - The D 'neutral' sounds like a train whistle. Some train whistles are also 6th chords :)
4:36
That would be a Nathan K3L. It’s designed to play just a D Minor chord, but Nathan’s early horns always have fucked tuning. The 2 bell is weird. An example of this is in the Round Tag K5HLs where the 1L was supposed to sound a perfect C4, but Nathan Airchime’s a dumbass so it was like a C Quarter-Flat. They fixed it in the Square Tag Late K5HLs though.
I hear a church bell
Mine is approximately a B° (B diminished) Chord, which so happens to be my favorite.
It'd be interesting to hear music utilizing a "neutral scale", where the third, sixth, and seventh are tuned in between the major/minor notes.
6?
I'm just waiting for a shitposter to make Megalovania in a neutral key.
Middle Eastern music uses this scale. Its called maquam rast
I would pay to not listen to it.
Look up "Xenharmonic music" and you'll probably find something like that
You’ve taught me more than any professor I had at Berklee.
So that's why you started making mashups. God bless that professor at Berklee.
You can't just comment here as if you are not a wanted war criminal
im in love with you
it only makes sense that you watch this channel too
Faxes
"Things come naturally through many years of practice." I'm going to be quoting this for many years to come.
Been practicing through many years and still can't quote it
So you’ll be able to quote it naturally?
Nothing ever came to me naturally, except for a few songs. I always had to rehearse the hell out of it. Mebbe i was never that talented....
Read: A few songs I " wrote "
Repetition legitimizes
I was just at a music camp and I convinced one of the composers there to end his piece on a neutral triad, I was laughing so hard after the performance
That neutral chord sounds like a clock that’s wound down too far trying to chime
That neutral chord sounds exactly like my family's untuned piano when you play anything
"You need organs transported overseas...?"
"I know a guy."
"If you need organs transported, I've got a guy." Haaaaah
That still has me laughing. Hopefully no one approaches him about kidneys.
"Different theme song for every season" Weebs: Amateurs.
personally I liked the Tom Waits version
Marcel Egal that’s why anime is just better
i'm not saying anime is the peak of music, but japanese studio musicians really deserve some credit. some anime have amazing OST albums, character songs, songs from the show itself(like K-On). there are 12-episode anime with a disproportionally large catalogs of music, that span every genre you can think of. you have to admire how prolific and versatile some of these studio guys are, they are machines.
hi i'm a weeb
@@MrMarci878 a weeb who loves monty python
I wonder how those with perfect pitch are affected by the "neutral" note.
I have perfect pitch, and to me it's like the color turquoise. Is it a blue or is it a green?
Well It sounds more like an F than an F-sharp to me, but like a very out of tune one.
@@kalerug that's synesthesia not perfect pitch
@Matt K I agree, it definitely just sounded like a slightly flat F#, couldn’t hear the minor :-)
@@l0serk1d49 Throwing in a six month reply to agree, it just sounds like a flat major chord to me. Definitely can’t feel the minor.
It’s an analogy, because perfect pitch is a sense in the same way not being colour blind is a sense.
Non-jazz musicians: We like to create new stuff.
Jazz musicians: Impossible, since 1968, everything has been tried out.
music ended with the release of Bitches Brew, 1970. There shall never ever be any new music or concepts, as they have all been thought of already.
Sounds like the theortical physicist turned university manager I once talked to.
@@sunfish9341 "The End of Musical History" by Francis Fuckyoumama
P.S.: Since the video referenced Fukuyama... I mean Futurama...
*Tasticles™*
@@sunfish9341 In 12 tone equal temprement, that is.
Not with microtonal music
make microtonal music then
6:04 I've never laughed this hard in a while, thank you Adam, your musical memes never fail to make me laugh.
Jibster you’ve “never” laughed... “in a while”? Wtf does that mean
D neutral is like Schrödingers D: both major and minor until it is observed
Schrödingers D ;)
I read this as Schrödinger’s sad face
@@Ticktok_of_Oz hahaha
Haha hahahaha ..
Well, we are observing it, it's neither.
Hey adam! I'm a lebanese musician, in our "arabic music" the neutral chord sounds just fine, although we don't focus on harmony, but it exists, because, instead of having 2 main scales (major and minor) we have 8 main scales, including many quarter notes
Lesbian mucisician
I also read lesbian musician
i don't like gay music
@@mcbrodz1663 I shouldn't laugh at this, but I do.
shoutout to fellow Lebanese musicians in here :)
If major chords are "happy" and minor chords are "sad", then neutral chords are "angry"
Passive aggressive
They have no strong feelings one way or another.
and/or T R A I N
@@andyblanton6570 said every centrist ever
@@andyblanton6570 _Wild applause_
“I’m not a ukulele player”
Proceeds to professionally play ukulele*
Duval Geddie if you can on guitar...
That's not playing the ukele like a professional does.
@@uncomfortableshirt well, he's getting paid to play it on a video therefore he is a professional
@@kleinefuchsdrachen3621 good answer
That's like being surprised that an artist who professionally draws with a pencil also draws pretty well with a charcoal
One interesting thing about Barbershop (and one reason it has *that* sound): no vibrato.
I think the reason the neutral third sounds like a car horn is because it is the same interval as an 11:9 in the harmonic series. If you listen to a train whistle or a car horn, there are very strong 7th and 11th partials present in the sound! This is my best take on it anyway :)))
I tried this on musescore with a bagpipe it sounded like a car horn
"it sound kinda like a car horn"
Who knew the Vengaboys were such an avant garde act.
"Teacher, what is between Major and minor chords?"
"We don't play polytonal instruments in my classroom."
Violin, cello, trombone players:
*gulp*
Polytonal? Polytonal just means it can play multiple tones at once, most popular instruments are.
@@achilles872 nah thats polyphonic i think, polytonal is a piece that is in more than one key at once
Tuba players: FUSION!
you mean microtonal?
The neutral chord sounds EXACTLY like a train horn it's scary
That's what I thought!
That would make it a major third as perceived then as that’s what usually they are tuned to
its beautiful! it sounds like morning in the city
@@AtomizedSound A major third, but affected by doppler effect assuming the train is moving. So if the train is coming towards you it would make that third somewhat flat, if going away it would make it somewhat sharp. I'm not sure what pitches a train horn generally is, but I could see a moving train coming towards you getting into the neighborhood of the interval from this video.
I guess horns are designed like that on purpose
Adam: The wire is the best because it had a different intro for each season.
Adam that is called anime.
JJBA: Those are rookie numbers you need to pump those numbers up.
Princess Rainbovvs X Musashi SODA!
No, the wire is the best, because the wire is the fucking best.
Anime is that lazy?
To me, the "neutral" chord sounds like a major and minor third played at the same time, but without the acoustic beat that would result from that.
"Think about when you're talking with another person. Are consciously thinking of every word that you're saying?"
*Nervous sweat*
"You can't get bullied by bassists when there is no bass!"
- Metallica, around 1988
(sry I thought it would fit in here)
Lmao
You can't be bullied by bassists when everyone is a bassist.
-Meshuggah
But if there's no bassist, wouldn't the lowest sounding instrument become the actual bass? I mean, that's what happens in classical music.
@@BaroqueKeyboardist I suppose you're right. I guess this means James Hetfield is now a bass player.
@@EdBoi18 Also black tounge, glass cloud and emmure
I was wondering What keys these Primus songs are in: “Tommy The Cat,” “Jerry Was A Race car Driver” and “My Name Is mud” It’s obviously very dissonant and spicy. What scales and or modes are they using?
Scale of absurdity, mode of bass god
Most Primus songs aren't in any key and don't use any scale
4:23 when you're a minor trying to buy beer and try to convince the seller to just sell it to you
Oh, damn... when he did the neutral chord at the end of the lick, I felt like a speeding train was about to hit me.
You just chilling on a supposed unused train track and then- *holy SHIT*
Watching Adam Neely reminds me simultaneously why I love music and why changed majors from music. I enjoy listening to music and I find it fascinating to learn about music theory (classical music theory and otherwise), BUT I hate playing music (or at least I hate playing the trumpet, theoretically I could try to pick up piano but I think my main problem is that my fingers are just bad and dumb). Playing music almost made me despise it to some degree. It’s better that me and her just know each other casually now.
I had "did you seriously not play the lick on the ukulele?" all typed out...
6:08
As soon as I saw the uke, I knew the lick was coming.
@@saulo4302 yeah i know. that's what i meant by my post. i had it all typed out... then he played the lick. ;)
It's funny, when you asked if the "neutral tone" sounded major I thought it sounded more minor and vice versa. Maybe I'm just a contrarian.
waterguyroks I felt that too!
I feel like that's bc you go Is it major-y? Well... no. Is it minor-y? Well... no
Same
A neutral triad could sound major or minor at different times depending on the context. E.g. if you compare a neutral triad against a supermajor triad then the neutral can feel like minor. Or if you compare it against subminor it can feel major. Music is trippy like that
He only played one version of that chord though, right? It could sound more interesting if another inversion or even stretch chord. If that natural third was in the bass we would feel it different.
Edit - Felt more of a diminished sound to me
you are honestly one of the most impressive working musicians I have never even met.
Adam: Uploads super fast instagram q+a
Me: *Clicks super fast*
My brain just makes that "in-between" chord "major".
I think of it as "wannabe major" because usually when a piano gets out of tune it's in the flat direction.
Mine just screamed “my piano is out of tune! “
The half sharp third reminds me of a baby tritone because it's also exactly in the middle of two tonal markers. In this case, those markers just happen to be a root and a fifth instead of a root and an octave. Music ideas? Half-sharp substitutions, half-sharp blues, etc.
Mini diminished lick, I'd like to hear that on a guitar with some sweep picking techniques just to hear how jarring it would sound.
half-sharp subs are gonna be standard curriculum in 2050
@@aaronfast I dunno, you could always mess with it now and see if you can come up with anything Utilizing it.
Start a new movement of music using it.
Half-sharp substitutions you say? *Jacob Collier intensifies*
Matt's got them big brain Collier plays
Seriously though, that's not a bad idea. You should test that out!
":Are you consciously thinking about every word as you say it?'
Yes. A not insignificant percentage of the time. Yes.
Adam Quaranteely.
That is all.
Quarantine is separating sick people.
Separating healthy people? That's government.
@@Charles.Wright bruh
6:09 It increases about 3dB for every player doing the same thing at the same distance to the listener. It happens because even though the acoustic pressure is actually doubled, our ears percieve intensity logarithmically, not in a linear way.
Awesome video as always btw!
Almost, it increases by about 3dB when you go from 1 to 2 players at the same distance to the listener, then when you go from 2 to 4, 4 to 8, etc.
well. it's legit just 10x more instruments, 2x louder, 100x more instruments, 4x louder
@@possible-realities You're right! I should have said ~3dB every time you double the performers at the same distance.
Thanks for the comment. :D
Keep in mind that the question and Adam's answer talk about loudness, not acoustic pressure. Different metrics for different purposes.
Hey Adam, potential question for your next q and a.
I had an idea for a different way of looking at neutral chords. Chords are typically stacked thirds, which is how we get major and minor. The neutral third feels a bit misnamed here though as the chord itself is theoretically neutral but sonically really at war with itself. I put forth a sort of neutral chord that sounds neutral rather than is theoretical neutral.
The root, the fourth, and the octave. A suspended chord with no color if you will. When I heard this, it was the closest musically I've ever come to feeling balanced, a sort of sonic neutrality. It didn't need to go anywhere or do anything, and moving this around you can achieve some really interesting pandiatonic melodies. Thoughts? I do know that this cluster of notes might be hard to justify as a chord given traditional understandings of what a chord is and the functions they serve.
"I talked about this in my TedX Talk"
I hope we can all strive to be that humble
Me: I can play an E Chord on guitar in E standart.
Adam: Shreds saxy solo on ukulele.
I took part in a 24 hour comic once, and it was an incredible experience. I heartily recommend doing any creative 24 hour thing.
6:08 I said no out loud to this most cursed licc
yep, same
That licc thicc tho
The neutral chord at the end of the theme at 6:09! Brilliant!
When you played the neutral twice with “major?” and “minor?” it genuinely sounded more major when “major?” was shown and vice versa. Musical priming? 🤔
I had the opposite reaction, and I'm a well known contrarian piece of shit, so that sounds reasonable.
@@0000Sierra117 Fair enough
So that “neutral” triad is vertically symmetrical, like a diminished or augmented triad, isn’t it? Meaning that the interval from D to Fhalf# (7 quarter tones) is the same interval from Fhalf# to A.
So I tried* to play a I-vi-ii-V in all neutral triads to hear how it would sound. To my ear, they all sounded like out of tune minor chords, except the V which still sounded major. Which is weird that the I would sound minor to me in such a common chord progression where it’s major. (*If you’re interested in how I did it, I tuned my guitar’s B string down half way between Bb and B, and just used the D G & B strings to play the triads by barring. I played it in D, so it was frets 7 - 4 - 9 - 2. Who knows if my ear would have heard it differently if they weren’t all parallel 2nd-inversion chords.)
It's a bit like playing on a equal tempered scale with 24 different notes. I could imagine there might be some contexts in which it sounds a bit less wonky, maybe akin to what playing chords built on 4ths sounds like to a western ear.
@@mingnrich Okay, I just tried it with my uke. Same idea, detuned the E string to be roughly half a semitone flat, and played barres on the C, E and G. I too thought the V sounded more major-y than the rest. Weird!
@@mingnrich I would guess it's our desire to hear that V-I movement (bc it's clearly psychological, there's no difference in quality at all)
Well, the "neutral" third is a half fifth the same way the tritonus is a half octave.
A regular third, be it big or small, does at least have some approximate harmonic relation to one of the other tones in the triad.
6:04 spilled my coffee at that one
Word combinations like “ardent microtonalists” are of the various reasons why I watch this channel. 🙋🏻♂️ @ 4:22
It's hard to use it in your quotidian vernacular, however.
quatricise HAHAHAH nice 😎
@@quatricise i d never heard these words before...
thanks i guess
uh...edit : isnt that reduntant?
@@theali8oras274 adam neely once said this in a video as a synonym for daily speech, i thought that was quite funny
If I fail playing the neutral chord in a song, tell my band leader: “hello”.
4:45
Adam b like "Oh ya I don't really need to practice but lets make up something so youtube dosent feel too bad"
Question for Q+A:
I've met people who CLAIM to be able to tell, just by listening, whether a song is written in F# major or Gb major. It's one thing to have perfect pitch, but deducing the exact enharmonic spelling of the key signature the composer intended... seems farfetched. Is there any truth to this ability? Thanks!
Do they perhaps mean when the piece is played in just intonation? Because that's certainly possible, as the enharmonic pitches reveal their differences in just intonation.
In historic meantone tunings, which would nowadays correspond to 19-TET, 50-TET, 31-TET, and 43-TET, sharps sit lower than flats do, and there is a _big_ difference between F♯ and G♭. In fact, for most of the history of music, being able to distinguish between adjacent sharps and flats, by ear, without any assistance, was a fundamental part of musical training, and people back then knew how to do it without any sort of electronic equipment. Most Western musicians nowadays no longer know how to distinguish between adjacent sharps and flats since they've never heard of any tuning other than 12-TET.
In 12-TET, from my personal experience if the piece tends more towards sharp keys like B, E, or A, or if you modulated from a sharp key, then it's probably in F♯. If the piece tends more towards the flat keys, or if you modulated from a flat key, it's probably G♭.
That D Neutral sounds almost exactly like the horn of the car the Iron Giant bit into and chucked.
For the doubling of loudness, I can say this: when I was in my speech acoustics class, our professor gave us an example with candles. If you have 1 candle, it has a preceived brightness of X. To get to 2X, you would need 3 of these identical candles burning with identical brightness. To double that 2X brightness (and get to 4X) you would need 8 of those candles. Just remembered this example and decided to post it
Why though
@@loser1234b why what?
Why does it take 3 candles to double x when x = 1 candle
Make me small brain think two candles ought to do the trick
@@loser1234b that's basically how human brain perceives the light. I'm not really a physicist but the idea seems very logical. I would point you to a Vsause video, because I clearly remember that at least one of them explained the principle much more clearly than I just attempted to, but I, unfortunately, don't quite remember the title.
Well you're no help at all! Boo fooie
Adam: 11:14
me: * flashbacks to people saying “bass doesn’t matter” * you sure bout that, chief?
In jazz band I can literally make the tempo do anything I want it to and as long as it's subtle enough no one notices but me
And let's not start with the harmony
You can make the neutral chord even spicier with a C half sharp on top to make a D neutral seventh chord.
th-cam.com/video/wGStbygOu94/w-d-xo.html
Example c neutral 7th
Neely: "Do you think every word before saying it?"
Neurodivergent people: Yes.
tfw I suck at remembering lyrics because of this
Do you also practice what you're going to say? I do
@@vimtheprotogen2855 I try, but I don't think I do it properly. I've found a couple times that it gets easier in the second session, weeks after the first, but the first session is pretty much always hopeless. I also don't get a lot of opportunities. (I'm always a afraid my grandparents will overhear me screaming my edgy nonsense)
you should learn to think outside of language. you'll realize your thoughts are no longer linear and exist in entirety without having to have them.
Haha, I was thinking the same thing!
i think adam should be called the internets busiest music nerd, because he's a real music nerd
Thank you, Adam. Despite tinkering with music for about 40 years, you have just caused my own Dunning-Kruger moment. I thought I knew a little bit about music.
I love your work, Adam, and it has taught me a lot over the past few years. Thank you very much fot that.
For your next Q&A would you consider explaining something that has always been a bit of a mystery to me: What exactly is the diference between 2/4 and 4/4? Or between 6/8 and 12/8, for that matter?
It’s also because in 2/4 the beats go (1)Strong - (2)Weak
4/4 is more like (1)Strong - (2)Weak - (3)slightlyStrong - (4)Weak
6/8 would then be (1)Strong - (2)Weak - (3)Weak - (4)slightlyStrong - (5)Weak - (6)Weak
12/8 I honestly don’t how to describe in this way. Often it can just be thought of as triplet-ed 4/4 or swung 4/4 but that depends on the music
@Gustavo Silveira de Azevedo So 2/4 is just like a slow 4/4? I am not sure that helps. Why does the tempo make a difference, and where is the cut-off point where it turns from 2/4 to 4/4/?
The “neutral” third reminded you of a car horn. It reminded me of the tritone, which would be a neutral third above the neutral third. Could you play a triad of the tonic, neutral third, and tritone? I’m curious if it would give the tritone a more stable sound- or even sound major.
Oh, nice idea, I will try to make this
5:6:7 is the most stable diminished chord, and it's very resonant
What? A tritone is two minor 3rds stacked and an augmented 5th is two major 3rds stacked. So a neutral 3rd above a neutral 3rd would be a perfect 5th, unless I'm not thinking right...
@@arinetic5538 You are. Or were when you posted that. 350c*2 = 700c =~ 3/2 (perfect fifth)
A great neutral chord is the pure nine, use roots fives and ninth. This can have a majestic feel as a strum. It brings to mind the tolling of a big bell
Me finding out Adam neeley has a Ted talk. 😳
Same
Here's a link to it: th-cam.com/video/7ziukMrIxok/w-d-xo.html
Also since it only has one sided mono audio: you can turn on mono in windows' audio settings (just search for mono in the start menu). Then it plays on both ears.
Adam is getting more chaotic. Just wanna point that out.
Yeah, but he makes it work.
I'm here for it
Yeah so I'm not the only one who noticed that good
My favorite thing about Neely is Adam's casual humble brags are always so subtle, they don't register as annoying.
4:14 Sounds like a train horn when youre waiting at the crossing
... Neely says car horn but the car horn interval is just the root 3rd no 5th or octave.
6:09 - in regard to this question (is two of the same instrument playing the same thing at the same time twice as loud as just one?): if I recall correctly, it's a same deal as perceived brightness.
If you put two light bulbs together, you have twice as much light - but the two bulbs shining in the same spot isn't twice as bright as shining just ONE bulb on that spot.
To properly double the brightness of the spot of light or the volume of the note(s) being played, you'd have to increase it by an order of magnitude.
The lesson here is that if you want twice as much bass without distortion, the best solution *isn't* to crank the volume up on your subwoofer: the best solution is to buy *ten subwoofers* (and set them all to the same volume). :D
We use this pitch in Arabic music a lot in scales like (Bayat - sika - rast ...) And it sounds good
Here's an example of Bayat maqam (scale)
You took (A min) for exp: 🎹
A - B (-50) - C - D - E - F#(-50) - G - A
The "D-Neutral" sounds like a Punch in the nose.
THE RUDY REFERENCE IN THE FIRST QUESTION WAS BEAUTIFUL
Also the new intro isn’t on the level of Bass lessons with Adam Neely, but it was cool
where the worlds collide
What's in between Major and Minor chords? In terms of ratios of frequencies, sus4 and sus2 are inbetween, not as basic as the major chord but not as complex as a minor chord. When the tonic is at the root we have, in order of complexity: Major (4 : 5 : 6), sus4 (6 : 8 : 9), sus2 (8 : 9 : 12) and minor (12 : 19 : 24)
Damn he probably got copyright claimed for that smoke on the water part
For a little more insight on the double loudness question: Our sense of hearing is basically logarithmic by decibels, so 10 trumpets would be twice as loud as a single trumpet, for example.
logarithmic doesn't necessarily mean base 10 logarithmic, you know
@@luigivercotti6410 Noah is correct. We generally percieve twice the loudness for every increase of 10dB. In terms of power, an increase of 10dB means 10 times the power, since 10dB=10*log10(10). It therefore takes ten times as much power to sound twice as loud.
@@P_Ezi oops, you're right, I had forgotten about that, sorry
congrats on 1 million!
I propose the name "Jestor Chord" as the chord has a neutral comedic tone.
"Add in an A jestor chord (Aj) there to make it sound funny"
"You will never stop talking about Breaking Bad or The Wire"
_I will never stop talking about Breaking Bad or The Wirah_
6:08 neutral lick absolutely brilliant adam neely is a treasure
Neutral chords sound so fascinating, I *really* wish more people used them. I'm stuck listening to almost exclusively minor music.
Yeah, there is a ton of interesting new music to make with microtonality. The main issue is the barrier to entry, not everyone has an easy way to actually perform microtonal tunings accurately (or if they do, lack the knowledge of how to do it) so there are much fewer people just going in and screwing around to see what they can come up with. Hopefully as technology advances it'll be more accessible but unless we somehow get a legitimately popular microtonal artist or "scene" it'll be slow going, if it ever comes at all.
@@TheSquareOnes You can create tunings in Sevish's 'Scale Workshop', then import them into ThumbJam on the iPad and use that as a midi controller (which exports tuning via pitch bend), I find that's the easiest way to do it :)
6:04 LMAO
What was it|?
The lick!!
The neutral lick
Lmao the neutral chord
i got baited so hard
No joke im watching this sitting in a parking lot waiting to go into work. When you played that neutral chord I was looking around for someone honking their horn. You kept playing it and thought it was some one wanting me to move.
First question: asks for opinion.
Adam: *sum* *straight* *f* *a* *c* *t* *s*
"Backdoor" to "69" 😏 Wondering if you thought about inserting THE LICC into that joke 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Magic Sam, the great Chicago bluesman, had a bunch of songs with no thirds in the rhythm guitar or bassline. It’s the lead guitar or vocal that determines the minor/major nature. Very interesting sound.
4:09 Well, it sounds like a car horn on mushrooms xdd
edit: nvm you actually pointed it out
"Tell my wife I said F-Half-Sharp"
Question for your next Q&A:
How would you go around notating a brush kit? Is there a standardized way of doing it?