Pop, As Digested by a Classical Musician
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ค. 2024
- 00:00 Intro
00:34 A Look at Pop Song Intros
00:45 Vanessa Carlton / A Thousand Miles
02:42 Made-up Intro #1
03:22 Adele / Someone Like You
04:27 Made-up Intro #2
05:07 Pop Music Characteristics (Conversation with Andrew Huang)
08:23 Lewis Capaldi / Someone You Loved
08:58 Pop Meter and Changing Styles
10:46 Writing a Pop-ish Piece
13:23 Original Pop-Influenced Composition "Passing Thoughts"
15:11 Final Thoughts
➡ Someone You Loved in different styles (extended clips): • Pop Song Re-Imagined i...
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Sorry it's been a while! Feels great to get back into the "As Digested by..." videos. All year I've been working on my (debut) album of original works for keyboard titled "Alice in Wonderland." It's out on Bandcamp: nahresol.bandcamp.com/releases
Looking forward to the album!👍
Hey your the greatest piano player obviously and these vids have great value in their analysis of various genres and facilitates their constant evolution and borrowing from one another. However I don't sense the sometimes abnormal emotionality that I feel is the seedbed for the kind of creativity that it takes to create music. I sometimes want to shake you in order to turn you into someone more passionate; to make you feel all the feelings of these musicians you speak of. You don't seem emotionally unbalanced enough to be truly creative in a way that grabs others hearts. But I know I'm wrong. I don't even know you and its not my job to say what you should be. I'm just sharing some of the weird thoughts that go through my mind when I watch your videos. I feel that many who've had a classical music upbringing have a profound handicap of too much mind and not enough heart to play with complete abandon. At the opposite end of the spectrum I see the likes of Sly of the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix, etc.
String Traveler
Classical heart is different. I”m reasonably sure that if you heard Nahre play Brahms you wouldn’t conclude that she didn’t have heart in a million years and, by the way, if you have any sense - or heart - you’ll apologize to her for that. That’s not something you say to an artist, which Nahre certainly is, and especially not to an artist you respect, which I can tell you do.
I have a reasonable amount of experience on classical piano (emphatically amateur but with some conservatory training) but I also play bar rock’n’roll and blues isn’t foreign to me either. You’re talking about abandon. With classical piano that’s hard to do because you’re doing so much at once and every note you play (the vast majority of the time) is either written or wrong. If you’re playing in a rhythm section laying down a repetitive groove or even if you have the luxury of a rhythm section behind you - which Hendrix certainly did and Sly did way more - you have some room to relax and play with it and against it because you’re not responsible for generating all of it yourself with two hands. If you decide to invert a chord, no one will usually notice. If you feel like putting in a fill, if you’re not in the studio you can often do that, and sometimes you can do it in the studio. She’s generally not playing dance music, and abandon is more likely when associated with dance because someone’s whole body is involved and musicians approach what they’re doing in that context.
And that’s what’s going on here. Pop is usually dance music and Nahre isn’t yet tapping into that. That’s why so many of us told her that this sounds like soundtrack music more than pop. Watch any boy band. What are they doing?
I suppose we could look at this from a blues perspective but again there’s so much freedom inherent in the form and the coolest parts come from that freedom. And so much of that freedom is not just melodic and harmonic but rhythmic, in blues a ton of it is out of time altogether.
@@NahreSol Just did! I didn't know that was possible. I discovered your channel only recently thanks to "the algorithm", and have been really loving it, especially this "as digested" series
Math rock/Post-rock, As Digested by a Classical Musician
It sounded like a soundtrack more than pop. 'A foreign exchange student arrives in a small upstate New York town, she challenges the dynamics of her host family's relationships and alters their lives forever' kind of thing.
Hahaa this is amazing
Yes I felt that too. Somehow I was reminded of Ramin Djawadi's compositions for the tv show Westworld. I'm no expert but from what I've listened so far with pop and OST music, It feels as though - if the piece was less lyrical, it would sound more like pop.
It could easily sound more pop tho, with the addition of synthetic beats and an impassioned vocal, singing silly lyrics.
and of course, a strong bass line.
@@KreatorX1029 and @nahre Sol it actually sounds more like Thomas Newman, especially because of the Dorian and the 5ths pattern in the bass at the chorus. Nice!
@@edylan7176 The ending was very Newman-esque
This might sound silly, but this video kind of reminds me of how SpongeBob draws a circle by first drawing an amazing face and then erased everything until it was just a simple circle left
Description on point
truee
That's such an accurate analogy, lol
Yessss hahaha
HAHAHAAHA perfect.
"if it sounds familiar, it's because it's only one chord away from Pachelbel's canon". Sorry nahre, but for regular people it sounds familiar because it's in literally every pop song that exists
Circle of fifths haha
"for regular people it sounds familiar because it's in literally every pop song that exists"
Don't get Rick Beato started on that subject.
@@jankafka7330 lol what does he say
Beethoven had wrote all modern metall. Pachelbel and Vivaldi had wrote all modern pop 😋
@@worstelldaniel no. Go and google what circle of fifths is.
I really thought your original piece could be the theme for a pixar film! movie scores here we come!
Exactly!
i was thinking anime. this could be used in like fma
It's funny you say that, I was thinking sort of Joe Hisashi, the main composer for Studio Ghibli, so similar territory! Lovely piece anyway.
100th leik
This sounds like movie music more than pop. I can imagine it behind a movie scene very easily but I can’t imagine it being sung. If the melody exists, I doubt it exists with these changes so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Thank you!!
@@cabal4171 Yeah I think that's it. Something with how the accompaniment to the melody is almost a part of the melody makes it sound more like a soundtrack whereas a pop song would separate those. I prefer the integrated melody into the accompaniment and it gives me some sort of sense of being more neat and intelligent but yeah, not as pop-y
Your graphics are always so on point... plus piano skill plus talking plus...
Thank you!! 🙃🙏
Nyes
She really is the full package 🥰
The comment is on point
Plus she pwetty..
I was trying to figure out why your piece doesn't sound so much like pop to me, and I realized that another thing that could define pop is largely the lack of dynamics. Pop music is so compressed that it doesn't really play with expression through changing dynamics. Your piece, and classical music, packs a lot more expression into the piece using dynamics.
That’s interesting and totally wrong- pop music usually relies much more on dynamics than classical music. Think about the drop in pop music- it’s usually very specifically done to allow for a moment of silence before a heavy part. Pop is simple is some ways- but I think the mistake of many a classical musician is the idea that it’s approachable for them. It uses a lot of different ideas and structures at its core than classical music- less of a reliance on chord changes to achieve different feel and a larger reliance on chordal richness/ drums to add dynamic and feel. It’s a really odd genre to work in if you’ve never done it
@@joshuamiddlebrooks3981 the second part of what your saying is an interesting analysis. One of the reasons I love pop music is because of the different textures and layers
The trick to pop music is simplicity without being boring. Make it too complex and it loses its mass appeal so you have to find this middle ground where it’s interesting and captivating all the while so simple a child could learn it. Its learning how to use repetition strategically.
The chords/note choices in your composition have a bit more dissonance and warmth (which for me I like) than what you would hear in most pop music - especially in the beginning
Thank you for the comment!!
Agree with this. But it sounded to me like something a more experimental pop artist might write -- someone like Thom Yorke maybe? It still definitely seems like a pop song to me, and I think that's mostly the form and the melody-focus.
@@samlichtenstein I had the EXACT same thought. Thom Yorke, radiohead piano ballad. However pop those are, that's how pop I think this is :)
Just to add another name to this list, the composition really reminded me of Adam Tell and his piano-only stuff. Absolutely lovely composition.
Eloquen I haven’t heard of him but I’ll check him out!
We need "Rock, As Digested by a Classical Musician"
Heavy metal, too.
Rock is pop most of the time.
@@epsyplus Well, I disagree but even if that would be true, this video still doesn't contain anything that is even close to being rock.
@@Aurora-oe2qp that is true but if we follow the definitions that Andrew Huang has given, then rock is just a subgenre of pop. Most rock songs also have the same structure and chord progressions as pop songs. From what I can tell, the only thing that defines rock is the instrumentation and the arrangement of the songs.
@@Aurora-oe2qp what do you refer to when you say rock? Can you name a well known song or band so I can get an exact idea of what your talking about?
As someone who spent most of the last 20 years primarily interested in classical, jazz, and rock/metal, I too have developed an interest in pop in the last several years. One thing I'd say is that your sampling of pop is fairly atypical. All those artists are more like adult alternative artists that just happened to have pop-level success. It would be a bit like trying to learn pop by listening to popular rock artists. If you want more typical pop I think artists like Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, Justin Bieber, One Direction, etc. are more representative. If I had to try to boil pop down it would be these elements:
1. Strong, emphatic rhythms, usually danceable.
2. Short, simple (often no more than two notes), catchy melodies.
3. Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus structure.
4. Emphasis on production techniques to produce the sounds/style.
5. 3-4 chord progression that's typically looped.
It's hard to make pop that's too simple, but I think what pop loses to other genres in musical complexity it often makes up for in subtlety. If you listen closely with an attentive ear to pop production you'll often hear a lot of sound layering that can get quite complex in itself, and it's often very subtle the ways in which pop will introduce or reduce production elements to signal transitions between its sections. The same is true for vocal styles on top of that production.
A key element, though, is how the emphatic rhythms combine with the vocal melodies to create hooks. To me, your composition focuses more on melody, but a hook typically makes the rhythm a stronger element. Think of the difference between Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, which is melodic, VS his 5th symphony, which is rhythmic. In fact, the famous motif from Beethoven's 5th is a good template for how to construct pop material: two different notes, two different note values, structured into a 4-note phrase. Listen to something like last year's biggest hit, Billie Eilish's Bad Guy and how its verse vocal hook is a similar concept: two different notes, two different note values, in which the different note/note-value comes at the very end of the phrase. That's an easy way in which to line up rhythmic/note changes to make them memorable, and it's a very common technique in pop that's little commented on.
This is very interesting but I still find its tone pejorative and/or condescending?
@@James-nr9gm I'm not sure what you found pejorative about my tone, it was meant to be educational...
@@James-nr9gm What do you think is pejorative in the comment?
The issue I take with it is that it highlights nothing the content creator did correctly, or why any of it might have been worthwhile. I feel like I'm reading a lengthy, informative version of "you're wrong."
While I agree that major differences in pop music come from careful layering, different timbres, cueing the listener, emphatic rhythms, etc, I still think there was value in exploring how these pieces of music compare to classical style. Keep in mind the creator was handed pieces of music, which became the source for this project. I also think it's useful to make a very direct comparison - i.e., piano music to piano music, to highlight certain specific differences that arise. Focusing too heavily on timbre, production, and even vocals can cause people to miss important aspects of the comparison. An oversimplified version would come off somewhat like "the difference between these two pieces is that one is played on a clarinet and the other on a trumpet." That doesn't highlight certain important structural differences between common aspects of the music.
Another part of the value is in seeing how a particular individual perceives music. It makes sense to me that a huge emphasis of a her attention was melody. I've been studying classical guitar for (only) nearly a year, and my ear has become so attuned to melody that when internet radio sneaks in a contemporary, song-form, instrumental tune amidst classical pieces, I get immediately bored and have to skip the track. The way she discusses and explores pieces seems to fit how my brain is changing with respect to sound. (And yes, there are some pop tracks I absolutely love).
I would need to sit down and do some serious listening before making an informed comment on the Beethoven/Billie Eilish comparison, so I won't here, but I'm honestly not that sold on the tagline.
TL;DR, I found the exploration interesting and valuable, even if it wasn't fully comprehensive, and felt like this comment gave it absolutely zero credit.
@@James-nr9gm The bulk of my post was giving my own perspective/analysis on what I see to be the key/core elements of pop music. I didn't say much about the original video other than that I didn't think Nahre's examples were very representative of the pop genre, but sounded more like adult alternative. I think her own piece was a good imitation of adult alternative, but not really of pop music, and I think I covered why in my post.
I also don't think even the original video covered much about any "overlap" between pop and classical. For one, there isn't much, as even classical songs/lieder are very different in form and style to modern pop. I certainly think it's valuable to study other genres no matter what genre you happen to play/prefer, but if you're going to do that it's hard with just a few examples. I don't know how much pop Nahre has heard, but it certainly seems like she spent more time/effort studying and practicing jazz. I understand why musicians can find pop music boring because it typically doesn't challenge their technical or interpretative abilities, but what pop should challenge is one's songwriting abilities. If the latter was easy then there would be more Max Martin's out there.
Sure, it was cool to see what elements she took from these pieces of music and how she translated that to her own effort but, again, my primary complaint was that she wasn't really doing pop. I don't see how noting that, or analyzing most pop music, was pejorative in any way. Maybe I wasn't lauding the original video, but I certainly wasn't bashing it. I generally really appreciate Nahre's video and her willingness to step out of her comfort zone musically and explore.
My Beethoven/Eilish comparison was very limited and I assure you that it's accurate. Now, Beethoven does a great deal with that simple motif in terms of instrumentation, variation, and development, but the fundamental motif itself is like a blueprint for how to write modern pop hooks. I'd be surprised if I'm the first person to point this general similarity out because it's pretty obvious. In a way, the Eilish verse is slightly more complex (again, only if we're comparing the initial motif) given that it actually syncopates its first note to the offbeats before the change.
My thoughts on this:
In pop songs it's often the case that the lyrics of the verse describe a specific situation, and the chorus describes the broad-strokes emotion of that moment that can be shared by many others. This is reflected in the music in that the verses are often more muted, and then for the chorus the music blooms and spreads.
In your piece, the verse melody has already some rather dramatic intervals. Purely stylistically I'd expect to see this more often in a ballad by a diva style singer, like Celine Dion or similar. Your chorus however is rather restricted in its movement. To be completely honest, to me it felt more like a pre-chorus that was using the static melody to build tension towards an exploding chorus.
But good work! I'd love to hear more if you try to explore further in that direction.
Yes, sophisticated diva ballad was exactly what popped into my mind too.
Word. I was hearing the chorus as a pre-chorus too! I was like waiting for Godot, cuz the chorus never arrived! 😂😂😂
Came here to comment exactly the same thing about the chorus/pre-chorus, sounds like it's building tension rather than releasing it. I guess with dynamics and instrumentation you could make a version of the verse into a chorus though.
Make a video yourself. Show us how it’s done.
Pliny Elder dude, he’s not disparaging her video by giving critique. i don’t like when people are dicks about compositions either but she even asks for criticisms in the video and this person gave it in a concise, well worded, and genuine way unlike your passive aggressive comment.
Brilliant! There is always a tendency to over complicate or over analyse something, but Nahre always seems to delicately balance her analytical classical mind with her love of pop music, and gives it a human touch. Another superb video Nahre!
Thank you for such a nice compliment!! 🙏
This picture of poppies popping up when Andrew said "poppiness" made me exhale swiftly out of my nose
😂
Aren't you supposed to inhale?
Nffffhh
@@jankafka7330 As I understand it, you're supposed to do both, that's what I've been doing and it's worked for me so far
@@Floobie2956 Like, at the same time?
Pop music reminds me of minimalist art. It is music boiled down to the most fundamental ideas and then polished so much that it can still be enjoyed. Because it is so fundamental, it can be enjoyed by a much wider audience.
I guess what this demonstrates is that pop music is often “simpler” in theory to make way for the emotional narrative in the lyrics, but “simpler” in theory doesn’t mean less thought through or less well crafted to it’s purpose! Thank you Nahre this is an amazing video 👍
yeah, it's a shift away from harmony and towards production
@@JA-xx7vw I dont agree, that shouldnt really apply to music since its abstract, and not objective as spoken languages.
The composition you came up with gives me such movie soundtrack vibes! Say in the Avengers, or the Harry Potter movies, there's a main theme song that gets reworked and shifted to help tell the story. And tbh I feel like a lot of pop songs aren't resolved so fading out works lol
"And tbh I feel like a lot of pop songs aren't resolved so fading out works lol"
If I recall correctly, Brian Eno thought of fade outs as one more hook...Always leave them wanting more, I guess.
I’m impressed you could make a 16 minute video about a genre dominated by 4 chord progressions!
Your original piece sounds so much like a piece of Ludovico Einaudi. The genre he plays is classical and minimalistic and are often used in movies!
I thought the same thing! Or some other kind of 'classical piano for the masses' type composer.
Perfect fit … just couldn’t quite place it thanx
This sounds very adult contemporary-ish, which is... pop, basically, just aimed at a more adult audience, I'd say, not as dancey and electronic. It gave me Tori Amos vibes -- and Tori is a prime example of piano pop excellence!
Great job, great visuals, great content as usual. I love your "as digested by a classical musician" series, keep it up!
Which makes a lot of sense since Tori is classically trained too!
If the aim was to write something catchy you definitely succeeded, I can't get the melody out of my head now - I guess that means it get's a Pop Pass
Thank you!! 😂
Wait, you're the guy that makes Revue Starlight piano cover! This is my first time seeing you here
Valis Kanzen oh nice! I sure am (not a guy tho lol)
@@Caliko Ah sorry for assuming. I really enjoy your stuff. I still sometime watch your covers for inspiration.
Loved this! As many pointed out it sounds more like a soundtrack than pop, and the biggest reason for that (in my opinion) is that the melody wasn't written as a song. I know it's very singable, because it's a very distinct and simple melody, but it doesn't feel like it was made with lyrics and sentences in mind, at least in english. I can imagine some kind of Japanese anime song with this melody though.
Either way, really liked how you try to understand and analyse, and finally use the learnings to create something of your own! I learnt a bunch of stuff myself from just watching!
Much agreed, it's more of a melodic hook that would go between the vocal parts or near the end of the verse over a sustained vocal note. I think singing at least a simple sentence or gibberish helps dial in the right tempo and how busy to let the arrangement get.
when you spread your hands apart it sounds like the piano players at nordstrom that cover john legend songs
i've never actually considered what makes pop piano accompaniment 'pop' - this is an awesome topic! it's also fun to see how much harder it is to define pop as opposed to say, ragtime or bossa nova
the ending piece was so strange to listen to - im not sure when was the last time i heard so much restraint from somebody who knows so much about music HAHAH
oh yeah and:
the verse and comp pattern reminds me of the doll piece from Debussy's Children's Corner suite, and maybe even parts of doctor gradus too (the dreamy bit with the melody played by crossing hands) th-cam.com/video/AOde_-nmoiw/w-d-xo.html
the chorus reminds me of symphony 40 because lol descending semitone
😅😅😅
I don’t know if I can see that as being pop tho, maybe if there was a singer it’d be easier to tell xd
13:23 - 15:10 Sounds like Ludovico Einaudi. I dig it.
One of your comments on the second "intro cousin" was "consistent and predictable"; that is huge in pop music. (Not that pop music cannot have a surprise here and there, and sometimes that "surprise" is what sets the tune apart making it into a hit.) To me, the "fancier" your variations get, the more "move soundtrack" they sound to me. Amazing playing as always. and a very fun video!
With vocals and good lyrics, your piece could be a pop hit, I think. I hear... "It could have happened last night... and where would we be this day..." then "It should have happened last night, I should have asked you to stay..." then "when would we, when could we, maybe then there would be... there would be love... then we would be in love." Or, blah blah blah... but lyrics, perhaps not mine, can pick the whole thing up into some other realm which amplifies that musical idea. Fun video!
I think that's the most important facet. That, and "immediate appeal." It can have layers that reveal themselves on further listens, but really, I can't think of a pop song that wasn't written with the purpose of being enjoyable (not necessarily fun, I don't think) on a first listen or two.
When she took out the syncopation for her version of A Thousand Miles it almost sounded like a Ghibli film score melody
Nahre: *puts Adele's Someone Like You and Lewis Capaldi's Someone You Loved in one video*
Todd in the Shadows: *TRIGGERED*
😂😂, joking aside I like the Bossa Nova tweak on SYL 😃, made it breezier and still a tinge melancholic 🎹
😅😂
"Nahre: puts Adele's Someone Like You and Lewis Capaldi's Someone You Loved in one video"
As many of us do, I like to think of myself as broad-minded, especially when when it comes to music. As it really is: I'd never before heard either of those songs and had only just heard of Adele (mostly because I had to do research to find out who it was butchering The Cure's "Lovesong" on the muzak at my work). Thanks for the reality check, Ms. Sol.
@@jankafka7330 can you imagine some people think that adele's version is better?
Can i just say, the editing in this video is really great!
Thank you!!
11:29 The cutest "oh no" I've ever heard 🤣
Your arrangement sounded really beautiful ❤. Great work! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The payoff of that A Major chord at the beginning of the bridge genuinely gave me goosebumps. I could listen to your composition forever!
that was very effective for me, too!
This was so interesting to watch!
I noticed that your sense of simplicity is still complex to mine. I’d say your rhythmic pattern and harmonies still include elements that’d be irritating / hard to follow / hard to set in musical context for a less musical trained ear.
This might make it less accessible for “the average ear” and therefore less of a pop song - since it’s intentionally made for a bride spectrum of people.
I’d place the song more in the yellowish-greenish section of the Pop Meter. Which just shows how we as listeners can understand music on different levels, which is fascinating!
I really loved watching you experiment with these different parameters and approaches of understanding music.
And also you just proofed how complex and impressive your understanding of music is in the sweetest way possible!
Thank you for putting in so much work into the videos. It really feels like you care for the audience and that fills the audience with gratitude!
Wow, the composition that you came up with is really lovely! ♥
Classical musicians: So, I've heard there's this thing called "pop" that you kids are listening to?
Looking at the chord progressions that get lumped into "pop progressions rarely found in classical", I think it's interesting how some Scandinavian classical music seems to have 'pop' quality to it due to the chord progressions that may be found more in western pop than classical. Composers like Alfven, Gjeilo, or heck even Grieg sometimes, have these qualities which can make it accessible to students (every youth choir I've played for has loved Gjeilo 😉) even though it's part of the "Classical Tradition"™️ of Norway or Sweden or wherever. And yes of course I have the recent Neely video on the brain 😂
For real, when I was playing Greg's 1st String Quartet, I was surprised by how 'Pop-y' the chords felt in the first movement (during the allegro section)
Always interesting to hear of classical music not from the German, Italian, and French tradition that gets most of the attention
Maybe thats why so much so much of the good pop music is made by swedish producers and in sweden
Great work! Sounds very beautiful😍
Another great vid! Love the self-deprecating self-editing graphics. they not only keep the content moving, keep it relatable and humorous, as in from a real multi dimensional person. but they also bring us into the mind of the artist, where we sit in on the editing process, and in the distance between the live content and the later-added graphics, there is a growth. as there is in the distance between thesis and antithesis. the finished work is the result: synthesis. nice format. can hardly wait for more.
This series alone and the fact that as a musician you actually put in this amount of time and energy to do something this awesome is pretty epic even if it was all you did, but the fact that it's just one small part of how much you've got going for you pretty amazing
Thanks for you, Nahre.😎
best example of pop is Elton John's original 1968 Skyline Pigeon version versus the 1972 version
same song, same singer, totally different arrangements
first one is not pop at all, very weird and experimental
second song is a much traditional pop piano ballad and no surprise, is the version that everybody knows
Elton John's music weird and experimental? You must not have listened to any experimental song at all
The '72 version (a.k.a. "piano version") is definitely a pop ballad; simple drums in 4/4, no complex fills, left-hand piano just follows a chord progression with some ornamentation in right-hand.
The '68 version is baroque harpsichord, no obvious chord progression to the layman. Frankly unappealing to most because of the harpsichord alone. Definitely not "experimental" though.
you all must think that experimental music must sound weird 🙄
Imagine gatekeeping experimental music 😔
@@dimitreze, "Experimental music is a general label for any music that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions." Established baroque composition isn't experimental in any sense of the word. Experimental music is almost weird by definition.
It's just so much fun to see you play with music... thank you!
Love your insight and perspective in these type of videos.
One of the more fascinating things to me when it comes to studying pop is that 'line' Andrew mentioned between what makes a pop song. As he said, some artists also borrow aspects from other genres or time periods in music, to make their music more memorable. It's this concept, in my mind, that is the driving force to why pop keeps changing in sound, making it harder to study as time goes by.
Although I don't listen to pop frequently, my favorite artist has got to be Charlie Puth for two things mentioned in the video. It's apparent he borrows from other styles of music, so the sound of his work makes it unique to other famous pop artists. But what I truly enjoy with his music is how he handles the bridge, leaving the key entirely, giving the ear new flavors to taste. You also applied this in your piece at the end, which I enjoyed.
Thanks Nahre, for another great video! I can't wait for the next one.
Thank you!!
I was going to comment something similar to you about other artists using some modal mixture in the bridge. You mentioned Charlie Puth specifically, but I've noticed it across a range of different pop artists.
Genesis are a particularly interesting study of this line between pop and not-pop (or even conventional rock song vs something more complex and prog). They were always capable of writing a catchy melody, but usually sabotaged its popiness with more complex rhythms or harmonies, extended instrumental sections, and in the earlier years, non-pop-like lyrics. In the 80s they leaned more unabashedly in the direction of pop with the increasing confidence of Phil Collins in exerting his pop sensibility on the songwriting.
(See my “best Genesis songs” playlist: m.th-cam.com/play/PLUGKAa6KeDajufZBkOO__TUZCQ0XtE10X.html)
To me, your piece sounded almost like an "alternative/pop/rock" band playing a "sad" song. So, I think, it was interpreted and done quite well. Of course, everything is subjective. Fantastic content as always.
wow, usually when you do the digested videos, you end up putting a lot of your classical feel in the final piece, but this time you nailed it!! Very poppy indeed, and very melancholic, nice work!!
This is my favorite thing you've done so far!!
Please, metal as digested by a classical musician.
It's gonna get her constipated
The thing is a lot of metal is a lot closer to jazz and classical music than people think :) so it would be very interesting to see her interpretation
@@robinbruce7838 Exactly. Metallica is basically just Bach with Distortion.
@@florianmanz8040 Yeah, and Bach is just Metallica without distortion! Yep! :D
@@florianmanz8040 I really hope you're being sarcastic...
The chorus section somewhat reminds me of Indian cinema music, which is the 'POP'ular music here, especially Tamil language (since it's my language:) )
Here all the movies have 4 or 5 four minute songs...
The format is like, Intro - Chorus -Interlude music 1 - verse - Chorus - Interlude 2 - verse -Chorus - end
In the interlude we have just instruments, so every song has vocals and instrumentals
But we do have symphonic elements too in the songs...
For example , songs in Marathi movie Sairat all have symphonic orchestra playing Indian style music
I´m really happy to find you, Nahre. You make so easy to explain the music, the structure, the genders, and everything sounds so beautiful... Thank you, I meant it
I love how you try so many different styles! Brilliant! Thanks, Nahre!
can't wait for "salsa/timba as digested by a classical musician"
c'mon people, just imagine nahre sol doing some montunos. if that doesn't make your day, i don't know what will"
I would love to hear vocals over your arrangement
Seriously glad I randomly landed on your channel. Your flamenco video was just amazing! Keep it up!
This serie of videos is so interesting ! Made-up Intro #2 is beautiful !
You know, I had a really interesting idea when I was listening: I think pacing might be really important when making pop music. My experience listening the "verse," and "chorus" kind of merged into the same sort of bigger phrase in my brain, and the first real noticeable contrast came from the bridge section. I guess I learned that I expect the different sections between pop songs to be longer and similarly repetitive throughout--compressing the form the way you have made it feel less "poppy" to me. Also, i think that maybe that a big part of modern pop music is the "rise" and the "drop" that you will find before a chorus section. But still the effectiveness of that gesture is really affected by its length. Don't get me wrong though, I absolutely love the ideas you're exploring! And seeing what that process means to you taught me something about how I experience music! And I just wanted to share that with you :D
Very interesting observation, but it's possible to make something sound poppy while still being compressed in form if you're just coming from a pop foundation to begin with. I feel like this composition's starting point simply wasn't really in the pop genre, from the very first few notes of the melody. It's a really cool composition though, even if it doesn't sound pop to me.
15:34 "If it already exists, it's probably just subconscious regurgitation." I have experienced this so much; you don't even know!!! I was fooling around on my classical guitar one time just picking away at an arpeggiated D major chord, and I decided to have a little fun over one chord and start changing the bass note like a melody. Well, I find myself intuitively finding the next note that I think sounds great, and now I've got this cool bass melody over a D major chord. Well... There's one problem. I WAS JUST PLAYING MOONLIGHT SONATA'S INTRO TRANSPOSED UP BY A HALF STEP. This has also happened when coming up with metal riffs. Usually something that I come up with will be derivative of something that I'd listened to around that time.
ALSO I'd LOVE do see your take on METAL. Though that one may be a bit tough as there's a lot of styles of metal as it is, so you'd have to either narrow it down to one genre or distill them to their similarities while keeping note of the things that make them different from each other. I'd honestly love to hear thrash metal or death metal combined with your unique style of piano playing.
Your videos might be the most inspiring here on yt! Hearing you talk about compositional approaches is so interesting and provoking. As for this specific video, I think it really goes to show how intrinsic your influences are. This comes out through the variations and arrangement of the piece which made it so much more than a pop song, and I say that as a good thing. To me, pop song are even simpler than this. So well done. Every aspect of your production! The video and graphics, the music itself. Your character. Keep up the great content!
I really love absolutely all your videos. Thank you very much for this.
funny how hard it seems to be to get a grasp on the poppy feel
pleaseee do "Bossa Nova, as digested by a classical musician"
great video and analysis, really enjoyed this video
This is so interesting! I think what makes it hard to really distinguish pop is how it burrows from all kinds of different genres and fuses everything into a simplistic, industrial form that's easy on the ears but still effectively engages the mind and emotions, and this is how it achieves this fast appeal, and why when we listen to a catchy pop song we feel like the melody is familiar and welcome and hence it sticks with us.
Your original piece is sooo beautiful!! Sounds like it can fit in a historical/autobiographical movie (The Imitation Game came to mind as I was listening for some reason)
This was my introduction to your channel thanks to the algorithms, and I'm here to stay!
It would be amazing to see if Andrew Huang could attempt to reverse-engineer the "original" pop song that this would be a "piano cover" of...
It's always interesting to see where you end up when you mix what you learned from a genre with your own style. Here it sounded more indie/alt rockish to me, like a piano cover of a Radiohead or alt-J song. I think that mainly has to do with your chord progression. On piano, I think you need to stick to a more traditional I V vi IV or similar to keep the poppy feel.
I learn a lot from this video. Thank you, Nahre Sol!
Incredible Nahre. Thsnk you soooo much !!
That was a cool little piece!
At the start, it felt very much more classical than pop - I think the melody didn't feel distinct within the arrangement? - but somewhere in the second verse or second chorus, I think the melodies begin to stand out more and the structure became clear. By the end, it felt a little ... I don't know, Suzanne Vega-ish? It felt like complicated pop - like someone bringing classical or jazz technique into pop.
The fadeout was great. I thought that worked extremely well.
Brilliant!
Thank you!!
This video is so so good and helpful I really appreciate the effort that goes into it all
I just discovered your channel today and I’m officially hooked! Love the content !❣️
Whenever I think about pop, I think it's wrong to define it as a genre in by sheer popularity as populary stems from the relationship with the audience and thus cannot applied in composition (only once the piece is composed that the world can know about it and like it). However you could define it by "actively trying to be popular". That doesn't imply any stylistic choice per se, by try and mistake you could eventually infer them - if you define pop that way that would mean that in pop, style is an "emergent" property rather than defining trait of the genre. That makes it resilient and impermanent at the same time.
Throughout the years there were many kinds of pop music, but even so it's not impossible to acknowledge the most resilient emergent stylistic choices; duration, time signatures, harmony... But of all those traits, there is a single biggest one. To me this is "the line": the impossibility to fully convey your lyrical statement in the music form, and thus resorting to other mediums, most often literature and imagery (lyrics and theatrics/movies). And that is expected right? You want people to be tribally hooked to your music, so you need all the symbolism you can find. I particularly like that "line" because it implies that lady gaga, kiss, and opera are all somewhere in pop-spectrum and I think that that's about right.
9:38 If this sounds a little familiar, I think it's because it's the same chord pattern use in EVERY POP SONG EVER. Lol
This is one of my happy place channels. Great to see it I can learn a lot from you as a bassist and diverse viewpoints keep everything fresh. Plus I love your style
Great video in all senses. Very inspiring. Thank you!
The only trope you missed is the one half step higher modulated chorus at the end.
4:27 THIS sample is beautiful and I want this as a full 5 minute song now, please! Anyone...!
Absolutely! I loved that, especially the last part. Completely sounded like the start of a wonderful pop song!
I started thinking like, give that to Max Martin or someone who could turn that into a full fledged pop song. I'm not sure if things work that way in practice; and obviously he's a busy man :)
I love your videos Nahre! Well done
Your piano skills are inspiring
I love how you perfectly aligned Andrew Huang video into the background grid :D
and the whole video is awesome off course!
I think the biggest thing separating this from pop is that there was a lot of audible dissonance, both in the third chord and the contrast between the chords and the melody. This gave it sort of a brooding contemplative feel, which, while cool, doesn't quite fit the profile for pop music. You did an awesome job keeping the structure simple and predictable, but I think the next level of the concept is to extend that simplicity to your choice of notes and harmonies.
how about a dissection/digestion of heavy metal music that have obvious classical influence? and maybe some examples of complimentary collaborations between the 2 genres. like Yngwie Malmsteen - Icarus' Dream Suite Op. 4 or pretty much anything by Transiberian Orchestra.
ugh. it makes me SO HAPPY that you and Andrew know one another. that's so cool :3 you're both so nice and so hard working
I love the pop meter effects! :D
Suddenly, researching "micro-slaps" becomes more important than work.
This may not be worth much, coming from a stranger on the web, but I felt compelled to share my thoughts. Pop music does not have a specific, well-followed, formula in terms of style or music theory. In essence, I believe it emerged as a result of a handful of businesses (record labels) looking for a class of music that was highly marketable to the public. This hypothesis would explain why pop music has diversified so much over the years. Andrew Huang mentions some strong points that I agree with. Pop music, in my humble opinion, has always been simplistic; easily replicable and played by a young population, perhaps with very little musical training. I conjecture that the low difficulty contributes to the spread of this type of music amongst young adults because it is easy to share with friends. Perhaps if you approached the task with the goal of writing an enjoyable piece of music for an average high-school band, you would meet with some success. This also lends credence to the argument that pop music is vocal-centric. Most persons, regardless of social or financial status, have a voice to speak or sing with. Singing is free and, if you write lyrics that resound with common fundamental human experiences, you may just find that more people will want to sing those lyrics. Romance and matters of love and sex will always be popular.
I enjoy the content that you output. I would be very interested in seeing this topic revisited if you approached from the perspective of a music industry professional whom was pressured to write a song for a band of 4 or 5 low-skilled teenagers. If you had a month to write and arrange a piece of pop music for your unimpressive teen band that could be played at a stadium in front of a massive audience what would it sound like?
I'd watch this show.
watched the ads because I love your content, editing and the clear effort you put into it. i always learn something every time.
I love watching your hands! Perfect piano posture!!
1:18 "Micro-Slapps"
*Davie504 intensifies
Maybe she's getting ready for the battle. He says he's taking on the Piano Gang next. :P
@@ThatBoomerDude56 OMG
Check mate
All music chanels lead back to Davie
@@alexjaimes8023 And Davie leads to TwoSetViolin. :P
Cool video
Thank you!!
Learned something new today. Thanks Nahre!
I lloooovvveee your show so much! Doesn't matter how long you take to make the episodes, your mind is pure gold!
Chorus just sounds like mozart. The verse (this is a stretch) has elements of a song called "american boy" the dah dahdah part (a _ mer_ rican) just what i hear
It’s simply so inspiring to see someone taking influence from a commonly disregarded idea that’s at the lower end of a somewhat arbitrary hierarchy with such professionalism and impartiality. It was such a beautiful rendition of the conventional pop structure and melody-centric concepts infused with a great sense of personal style.
I love your style so much!
Definitely one of my goals in life is to become in a humble person as you are, Nahre. We need more people like you!!!!
Your original composition sounded like Gary Jules' version of Mad World to me. "All around me are familiar faces". Probably because they both have that Dorian sound, with the major 6th.
Thought the same thing
"Mama" by Genesis was a hit single yet feels almost entirely antithetical to what someone would consider 'pop' music, though it does retain elements of accessibility/immediacy. You should check it out, it's basically Son of "In The Air Tonight"
That's not really fair though lol. Tony Banks is a classically trained pianist masquerading as a pop/rock keyboardist. Firth of Fifth anybody?
Also check out Duchess from Duke. Daddy of In the air tonight :) Also Heathaze or Please Don't Ask or Turn it on Again off the same album. Great piano tunes, but you could say that about 99% of Genesis discography.
@@Aquatarkus96 Fair points! Tony is definitely a huge part of the Genesis "sound".
The Firth of Fifth 'family' of songs are all great as well: Mad Man Moon, One For The Vine, Burning Rope...
I loved seeing your thought process through all of the different experiments! The final song turned out great too. Would be awesome to a collab or you and Andrew turning it into a full fledged radio classic ;)
I love how you improvised the songs to express complex dynamic relationship between different styles music. I really like what you played to “song-ify” a song between pop and classical music.