I just mindlessly clicked on this thinking "how did I miss this one during the pandemic?" just to realize it was posted 6 minutes ago. So happy to see more of these.
As a metal head I agree, Sungazer's music is very well suited to metal concerts. Thank you so much for lots of knowledge and music over the years, dude. Much love from Leipzig 💚
In teaching English as a second language, a common technique to teach the rhythm of the language is jazz chants. It's also great if you snap your fingers or tap your toes, then you also activate your motor cortex in addition to music and speech processing in the brain.
mmm... it's not a thing actually. It was debunked about 50 years ago, and, for example, in modern "phonetcis bible" it's specifically said that the theory was discresdited. However, non-linguist ...and actually a lot of language teachers use that thing. I mean, it's a conceptiont that is easy to understand even if it's wrong
@@VivianWasntHere I started out on Musescore when it was in beta, version 0.8.0. I then tried to learn Finale but yeah, even the early version of Musescore was more intuitive. I think I looked at Sibelius once and decided it wasn't for me.
As someone who grew up going to St. Thomas Church every weekend and singing these songs you mentioned, seeing you, as a person who I very much look up to, go there and speak so positively of this place, makes me feel so warm and really shows me to what lengths you go to try and understand music as best as possible. It's amazing.
Your first point about subdivisions feels similar to how i tell my piano students to freeze and keep their fingers down, plan what theyre going to do next and very slowly, and with direct focus, change their fingers and repeat. Ive always felt that muscle memory doesn't care about how long you take to do an action, but if they just rush through and make mistakes, that can become a sticking point or trouble spot. But i wonder, does muscle memory care about the time between actions, or am I on to something about making conscious and deliberate actions in sequence yet out of time.
You're on to something well proven by this point. If you want to do something well, make sure you do it well and speed will sort of come naturally. Another thing is focusing on the parts you can't get right yet. No good practicing the whole 5min song every time to try to nail down that 2 measure fill you can't get right. Practice those 2 measure's a bunch of times, then practice the other 2 measures around it and go back to the whole thing. Now it should all sound better. Especially because you may be nailing the timing for the whole song except those 2 measures, so you _need_ to practice them more slowly than the rest. If you just rush through because you can play the whole piece in full tempo, you'll never play those 2 measures well enough. A random abstract example, but hopefully a good one. Neurosciences have studied this thoroughly in the last few decades.
@@drakonyanazkar we just had a lesson last week on just this, but you tell a room with 27 high school piano students (I swear they're trying to make my job impossible) to primarily focus on meticulous, dedicated work on what is the worst aspect of their current skill level, then when it's better, switch to the next or newest thing they're bad at, and they balk. It's like saying, ok, take the thing you hate the most about your playing, and do that until it's better than the next thing you suck at, then switch to thinking all about what else do you suck at. Rinse and repeat. Musicians all talk about how much time they hit the woodshed, but no kid finds that fun or engaging. God forbid I suggest watching the music, or using their thumbs or pinkies. It's absolutely verboten to them, and I can kinda see why. Excellent example. Thank you.
@@itsmikehayden Absolutely, my dude. Absolutely. I myself only started learning an instrument at the ripe age of 22. So I no longer had *that* level of impatience (though I was clearly impatient with myself at the time). I know the challenges of teaching 20-40 students, but that's for History lessons and adjacent topics. I can only imagine what it is to teach piano playing to more than one or two students at a time. What a nightmare. But I can see you are dedicated to your work. Keep it up, comrade.
I'm always telling my students that they'll feel stupid counting out loud, but that's because it's making them smarter. I wish I could explain this as succinctly as you do in this video, but I guess life doesn't come with Final Cut Pro 😂
Thank you for including Bach in this video. My favorite composer. Listening to him everyday at least an hour. Started learn to play the piano because of his Heaven Music.
Thank you so much for your CLEAR explanation of counting rhythm out loud while playing. I’m an amateur pianist and currently struggling to learn Arlington Jones’ Wrongfully Accused - a smash of a jazz piece! This is SO handy.
So true that hearing music in its native land is different. Hearing baroque concerti in the courtyard of a villa in Florence was a totally different experience from hearing them in the US. The Florence Chamber Orchestra made more mistakes than I’ve heard in a professional performance. But it was also so much more musical and joyful it was astonishing.
been following you for a long time. am a metal fan much more than a jazz fan. I'd think you'd be surprised how many of us like the type of music you make
I made the switch Finale to Dorico last year, working on a pit score. The first number was a slog, but by the time I got to the 40th number I was grooving faster than I ever was with Finale. It can be done!
That second question was mine! Thank you so much for including it and answering :) As a Swede, it feels better to know that I don't necessarily have to spend a fortune and go to NYC to study this music when the tuition here in the EU is free lol (even though I understand it most probably would be best to study in the ''jazz-mecca'') Looking forward to my eventual trip to New York though!
Man... only 3 minutes in and I gotta say you just hit the nail in the head. This explanation would have saved me years of sight reading practice, the concept has never been explained in a way that mattered to me, or at least made sense. Truly thank you, truly an inspiration and always appreciate your work. Thank you for blessing us with your time, patience and in depth look. Thank you for involving the community and I thank that community for supporting you as well for so many years. Keep shining!
I just realised, while working through that syncopated counting exercise, that popping and clicking with my lips and tongue (I won't call what I do beatboxing) while humming and/or playing the tune is infinitely easier than saying the words "one, two, three, four" while playing. So, at least for me, mouth sounds are not lingual brain(!) for me until I actually have to say a *word*. and thank you for the reminder to be honest with ourselves that good time is hard and takes work!
Thank you for the short little history of double bass drum! That was something that I was interested in for a while. Makes sense that it would be a "solo" or "show-off" drummer who first came up with it. Also really funny that it came from Jazz, like so much else in metal.
The way you describe learning to play and count The Chicken is exactly what I have to do to learn to play and sing a song. I can't learn each separately and put them together, I have to figure out slowly where the syllables and notes coincide (or don't) treating the voice and guitar as a single instrument.
During Covid I dedicated myself to really learning how to sing and play at the same time. I think it really improved my rhythm. As an English teacher for non-natives, this all makes sense as I'd never really made the connection until now. Very helpful, as usual. Thanks.
This is how I've tried to learn to sing while playing. It's insanely hard, I can't understand how people do it. Adding not only more rhythmic links, but also specific words to every rhythm and then adding pitch and tone nuances to the words. "You didn't even exist back then" "Lady, how many centuries old are you?" Shoutouts to Sibelius for few reasons: that's what I encountered in high school in a local music technology school course, as well as the national composer here in Finland. I was kinda excited to see if Sibelius would come up in the discussion and it almost didn't, but then you got me at the end. I must say I approved using freaking Guitar Pro over Sibelius on my first try, so I probably second your opinion. Ironically I think often times it really does come down to efficiency. You can have the fanciest sugar coated UI and deluxe options, but if something gets your work done noticeably faster, is just really efficient for your work flow, you end up using it. So they probably had the development focus in the right place and it was some engineer who made it. But would it be too much to ask for for them to improve some things without hurting the efficiency? Talking about metal festivals, I don't know how but this Finnish joke humppa band Eläkeläiset has been getting on metal festivals, not only in Finland but all the way to Wacken. I believe metal people are oddly receptive to unorthodox or funny stuff. Oh how I wish restaurants these days had a smooth live band that doesn't get in the way of conversation yet still live music.
Very interesting about practicing the counting out of time. My drum tutor used to tell me to do this during lessons and I never really understood why, but I noticed the patterns and limb independence improving as a result. This explains it
Dude, great to see your success since high school! The algorithm put this video on my front page. Another Rackey alum building their place in the performance art community with this channel.
Damn... that short Nessun Dorma improv... it sounds so warm like someone just jamming at a fireplace whilst the sun rises again, after a long and intense night
I’m very happy and relieved right now to be an exclusive Sibelius user. There are things about the software the frustrate me, but it’s the only software I’ve ever used aside from dabbling with Logic’s built-in notation function. Since I don’t know any better, I’m satisfied.
I regularly count out loud if I'm playing a drum cover and there's a tricky part that needs to be broken down a bit (such as some of those juicy stops in Steely Dan songs). It's super helpful. I also jam with some friends and have been teaching myself to talk in my natural rhythm *while* still playing. It definitely has been improving my timing!
I got the idea of counting out loud from Benny Greb, I’m not a drummer but this exercise has helped me immensely regardless of the instrument, it’s how I practice everything now..
00-04.00. You're describing my experience of playing tricky guitar parts while singing a rhythmically-unrelated vocal. It's like having a stroke, but without the headache.
As a brass player your advice at the beginning was very interesting because while my mouth is obstructed when playing, I use the same type of process when thinking the counts in my head. I have always been taught to speak out the rhythm in a similar manner and internalize it as a conscious thought while I’m playing. So it has gotten to the point where I am processing the notes and a voice counting in my head
Back in the 80s/90s in The Netherlands we had a nighttime radio show, hosted by saxophone player Hans Dulfer (father of Candy Dulfer, who a.o. played in Prince' band), and he would play Sonny Rollins back-to-back with Slayer etc. explaining the similarities between styles. I loved that show. No surprise Sun Gazer does well on a metal festival.
Consistent physical movement (like marching) can be another great way to improve your rhythm. I've done literally the exact same process you described here to figure out where each of my steps should hit in more complex passages. Check out a few top DCI or BOA groups to see some actual rhythmic insanity. You don't even need to play for this to work either. Just singing the part while you walk can be incredibly helpful.
the Digitech Bass Synth Wah is also the pedal that Daft Punk used extensively on their album Human After All. It's how they achieved all of that album's signature sounds
I miss this type of content. Doesn't even need to be the Q+A although the breadth of topics is nice. But a bit of the old neuroscience with the timing portion, then we got a bit of world culture and jazz history. Nice
as a bassist/guitarist and finger tapping enthusiast: its kinda crazy how much easier it is for me to tap that syncopated rhythm with one hand and the beat with the other hand, than it is to tap the rhythm and Count the beat Out Loud. It's like I can feel a different part of my brain turning on when i start counting. I've always heard from music teachers that counting out loud is important, but its nice to be reminded Why that is lol
I *immediately* went to using the Voice Metronome on my synth drums. It's NOT as good as me counting off myself, but it's way better than clicks, taps, or beeps (1/8 does "1 and 2 and 3 and 4", so that's cool).
I bought an Ibanez Volo to use with a high C string, and you're right, it's still a bass. But having the extra range (with a 2-octave neck, too) is just lovely when I want to just play a melody. I don't have to struggle to get it heard; it's already in the range for a melody to be heard. It's fun for chord, as you note, but I find I have to step carefully with that on most of the gigs I play. It is awfully handy for reading gigs, too -- less shifting for the high notes!
The Books is a music project that did an incredible job highlighting the rhyms of the English language. The backbone of many of their songs is found audio recordings from thrift stores of people talking, then they then deduce the rhythms of the speech and add beautiful guitar and cello, and DIY percussion like PVC pipe drums. It's hard to describe, sort of like an intricate musical collage, but very engrossing, emotional and beautiful, sometimes pretty strange
Ive also visited Leipzig for Bach, and it cemented what I already fully understood and grasped about his music. My autistic brain was already tuned to understanding his much was about community and about bringing people together
Nice to hear that intro music again. Like a dear old friend reaching out. I consider my brain my most important muscle. And like all muscles it needs exercising. So I try to go to the brain gym as often as possible. Repetition not only legitimises, it also strengthens the synapses needed to retain and know where to find the things I learn. Thank you for being my personal trainer😎 If you'd like to understand more about Bach's music, check out people like Christopher Hogwood and the Early Music Consort. They used period correct instruments tuned to the standard pitch and temperament of the time. It is a very different listening experience. They also recorded works of other baroque composers using the same concept. On the double bass drums you didn't mention Keith Moon. There is very little focus on the hi-hat in The Who's music. He was too busy with the bass drums and the toms. Of course I watched this on Nebula. A perfect platform for long form deep dive videos without the need of a clickbait strategy.
Delighted to see Sungazer is touring the States, and, yes! coming to Phoenix, BUT, so sad it's on December 17th, the same night BEAT's playing in Tucson. Adam and Shawn, please do another stateside tour soon and, please, please, please, next time come to Tucson! We'd love to have you.
Prog metalhead here: most of us love fusion especially if it has some oomph like you do and Sungazer pops regularly in forums/reddit recommendations. You don't have to feel out of place in festivals ;)
The ability for English to be talked with a rythym is pretty handy for someone like myself who has a stutter, because stutterers don't stutter while singing (or following any kind of rhythm), so I can just imagine a rhythm in my head and keep from stuttering.
I make all of my students do a series of rhythms, and step 1 is always "subdivide with your voice while clapping the rhythm." They all sound like Adam at 2:43, but they can almost all do it. It's great to know there's a neurological reason it works! (I also make them "ta" while tapping their foot, and eventually "ta" while conducting; it's amazing how many kids can eventually do all of it, almost all of them unless they have learning differences.)
Former classical musician turned jazz violinist. For various compelling reasons that I won’t go into here, rhythm and counting were a weak link for me. I’ve decided to do a self-designed homestudy I call “remedial rhythm studies”. It’s helping a lot, but I appreciate your experience and suggestions for how to go about metronome weaning and replace that reliance with your own internal rhythm abilities.
When I was a young kid, my mom had my siblings and me name dishes rhythmically, each person could pick any dish, and we all said them simultaneously and in time. That’s how I as a very small child learned about polyrhythm. It’s a lot more fun than you’d think!
4:10 about comprehending a certain style of music. What I have studied and analyzing by listening to various type of genres such as bolero, son, salsa, jazz, funk, bossa and so, the most important thing in any genre is rhythm. let me elaborate. If you want to play bossa, you need to analyze or understand the rhythm and how the musicians phrase it. you can do it by transcribing and playing with the recordings. its very important to understand how musicians phrase and articulate the rhythm because that is the root for playing any genre
super good tip to count out loud and leverage speech rhythm🔥an old trick from my piano conservatory days was to also count at smaller divisions (sixteenths instead of eighths for instance) since it reduces some uncertainty
Bro I was just thinking about this while listening to Whalefall from the newest album, I figured out that it was in 5/4 pretty quick and it was fun to try to stay with it through the song
I've had one of those Digitech synth bass wah pedals kicking around since early on in high school when I had my first bass, I love that it has some real useful tone for stuff like you do!
My steel band director uses phrases to match with common rhythms that we play. Matching a memorable phrase is another way to remember and accurately play back a rhythm, because it matches the rhythm in your speech!
There are a couple of mindblowing Hal Galper masterclass videos on TH-cam that talks about using the physical sound of the instrument-instead of a metronome-to build your relationship with rhythm and time while at the same time getting to know your instrument better.
i apologize, my generation is responsible for recycling existing ideas and rebranding it as something original, like how they think “cancel culture” is a new thing and “boycotting” is just a word that will offend blue haired lesbians
Here's a good way to practice your time by yourself: March. Yes. Put on some music on your headphones and walk to the beat. Your whole body has to feel the beat and you'll get better.
yes! rhythm is VERY connected with movement. dancing will help you with rhythm too. eurythmics used to be a part of music school curriculum and i wish it would come back. a lot of people who seriously study music shy away from dance/movement and they could make their lives easier (and more fun) if they did not.
@@vivsavagexI was in a garage band with some guys in the 80s, one of whom marched to and from school every day with his Walkman. He kept better time than the drum machine we had. 😂
![กี่หมื่นฟ้า | Your Sky Series EP.1 [1/4]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vLGjxFL6U_I/mqdefault.jpg)
I just mindlessly clicked on this thinking "how did I miss this one during the pandemic?" just to realize it was posted 6 minutes ago. So happy to see more of these.
Yesss, finally more Q&A's! 🥳
A very old school Adam Neely thumbnail
He's done quite a few in the past year or so
Same!
NO WAY COZ I SAW THIS IN THE MORNING AND THOUGHT I HAVE SEEN IT BEFORE
Not only a great drummer, his head is incredibly shiny too. There might be a correlation.
Unlike Adam, he never got big enough on TH-cam to afford hair
@@DSteinman Nice beard, though.
So many great prog drummers are bald.
As a metal head I agree, Sungazer's music is very well suited to metal concerts. Thank you so much for lots of knowledge and music over the years, dude. Much love from Leipzig 💚
Also, the fact that they toured with Plini certainly gave them some metal cred already.
I think it makes sense, prog is the metal genre that has the most clear jazz influences
@@kevinsundelin8639I recently heard "Why didn't Americans have a prog rock scene in the 60s and 70s? Because they had jazz fusion." Made sense to me.
@@KyleBGangeragreed.
@@digitaljanus Yeah that makes sense to me too
The hauk "sigh" 😂
The brainrot has got to him
Greatest ad cut ever
I blushed and I'm not even an english speaking person xD
Can someone explain the joke? My decrepid old man brain isn’t what it used to be.
@@ddragonwhistler Google "hawk tuah" and I'm sorry
12:46 Adam! We need you to finish this cover of Nessun Dorma! It's too beautiful to not be heard!
I have an album I recently recorded with Lau Noah where we do it, it needs to be mixed, but it’ll come out soon!
And here I got all excited ‘cause I thought you were singing it…ok your bass rendition is nice, I guess.😁
@@AdamNeelycan't wait for this!
I was just going to say the same thing!
it really is beautiful
I've heard people talk about "stress-timed languages" for years now, but I've never actually understood it until today. Great example
In teaching English as a second language, a common technique to teach the rhythm of the language is jazz chants. It's also great if you snap your fingers or tap your toes, then you also activate your motor cortex in addition to music and speech processing in the brain.
mmm... it's not a thing actually. It was debunked about 50 years ago, and, for example, in modern "phonetcis bible" it's specifically said that the theory was discresdited.
However, non-linguist ...and actually a lot of language teachers use that thing. I mean, it's a conceptiont that is easy to understand even if it's wrong
Mary Spender be like "Baroque Obama."
For the longest time, the BBC news team pronounced his name like "barracks" without the S. And Obama was like "a bomber".
@@steveloomis1 : "Jewa Lipa"
Came for the Q+A, stayed for Mary Spender absolutely cooking Adam over the pronunciation of baroque lmao
If it ain't baroque, don't fix it 👍
MARYLAND MENTIONED 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 0:28
Proud marylander 💪💪💪
Adam fake Myrrhlinur confirmed, no old bay in the background of the shot.
Baltimore here :))
@@huntersoth3502 born in Baltimore and raised in Baltimore/annapolis
If only we had an old bay emote
I’m thankful to an early drum instructor of mine who insisted I.e. required me to count out loud. He referred to it as developing 5-way independence.
My soul lifted from my body with that arrangement of "Nessun Dorma" 12:47 sooooooooo gooood, I'll never play a 5 string bass with a low b again
Out of nowhere with the awesome riff
Mine is in drop A 😅😅
I switched from Sibelius to Musescore. There was some growing pains, but I’m glad I did at this point. Now I can go much faster in Musescore
I love musescore and its a lot more intuitive. Also it crashes constantly so you should feel right at home if you used sibelius
@@VivianWasntHerelmao so true
I haven’t heard of sibelius before?
@@Wreniffer Girl it’s literally the industry standard
@@VivianWasntHereMay the old king die, and the Muse king rise.
@@VivianWasntHere I started out on Musescore when it was in beta, version 0.8.0. I then tried to learn Finale but yeah, even the early version of Musescore was more intuitive. I think I looked at Sibelius once and decided it wasn't for me.
As someone who grew up going to St. Thomas Church every weekend and singing these songs you mentioned, seeing you, as a person who I very much look up to, go there and speak so positively of this place, makes me feel so warm and really shows me to what lengths you go to try and understand music as best as possible. It's amazing.
12:13
That’s me!!
Thanks again for coming to jazz lab, I was one of the electric bassists.
See you at the Sinclair
I missed these Q&A’s so much!!
Your first point about subdivisions feels similar to how i tell my piano students to freeze and keep their fingers down, plan what theyre going to do next and very slowly, and with direct focus, change their fingers and repeat. Ive always felt that muscle memory doesn't care about how long you take to do an action, but if they just rush through and make mistakes, that can become a sticking point or trouble spot.
But i wonder, does muscle memory care about the time between actions, or am I on to something about making conscious and deliberate actions in sequence yet out of time.
You're on to something well proven by this point. If you want to do something well, make sure you do it well and speed will sort of come naturally. Another thing is focusing on the parts you can't get right yet. No good practicing the whole 5min song every time to try to nail down that 2 measure fill you can't get right. Practice those 2 measure's a bunch of times, then practice the other 2 measures around it and go back to the whole thing. Now it should all sound better. Especially because you may be nailing the timing for the whole song except those 2 measures, so you _need_ to practice them more slowly than the rest. If you just rush through because you can play the whole piece in full tempo, you'll never play those 2 measures well enough.
A random abstract example, but hopefully a good one. Neurosciences have studied this thoroughly in the last few decades.
@@drakonyanazkar we just had a lesson last week on just this, but you tell a room with 27 high school piano students (I swear they're trying to make my job impossible) to primarily focus on meticulous, dedicated work on what is the worst aspect of their current skill level, then when it's better, switch to the next or newest thing they're bad at, and they balk.
It's like saying, ok, take the thing you hate the most about your playing, and do that until it's better than the next thing you suck at, then switch to thinking all about what else do you suck at. Rinse and repeat.
Musicians all talk about how much time they hit the woodshed, but no kid finds that fun or engaging. God forbid I suggest watching the music, or using their thumbs or pinkies. It's absolutely verboten to them, and I can kinda see why.
Excellent example. Thank you.
@@itsmikehayden Absolutely, my dude. Absolutely. I myself only started learning an instrument at the ripe age of 22. So I no longer had *that* level of impatience (though I was clearly impatient with myself at the time). I know the challenges of teaching 20-40 students, but that's for History lessons and adjacent topics. I can only imagine what it is to teach piano playing to more than one or two students at a time. What a nightmare. But I can see you are dedicated to your work. Keep it up, comrade.
I love the hawk tuah solo
That's impressive flexibility
Double spit on that thang
I'm always telling my students that they'll feel stupid counting out loud, but that's because it's making them smarter. I wish I could explain this as succinctly as you do in this video, but I guess life doesn't come with Final Cut Pro 😂
Thank you for including Bach in this video. My favorite composer. Listening to him everyday at least an hour. Started learn to play the piano because of his Heaven Music.
Thank you so much for your CLEAR explanation of counting rhythm out loud while playing. I’m an amateur pianist and currently struggling to learn Arlington Jones’ Wrongfully Accused - a smash of a jazz piece! This is SO handy.
So true that hearing music in its native land is different. Hearing baroque concerti in the courtyard of a villa in Florence was a totally different experience from hearing them in the US. The Florence Chamber Orchestra made more mistakes than I’ve heard in a professional performance. But it was also so much more musical and joyful it was astonishing.
no way hawk tuah reached adam neely's channel
Adam Neely Channl for life, I always comeback to it and i never had more the urge to make music after wwatching one o your videos
been following you for a long time. am a metal fan much more than a jazz fan. I'd think you'd be surprised how many of us like the type of music you make
I made the switch Finale to Dorico last year, working on a pit score. The first number was a slog, but by the time I got to the 40th number I was grooving faster than I ever was with Finale. It can be done!
That second question was mine! Thank you so much for including it and answering :)
As a Swede, it feels better to know that I don't necessarily have to spend a fortune and go to NYC to study this music when the tuition here in the EU is free lol (even though I understand it most probably would be best to study in the ''jazz-mecca'')
Looking forward to my eventual trip to New York though!
If you have the time, check out New Orleans and Chicago too! They also have jazz traditions that are different from New York.
@@nagaten6350 I will try to, thanks for the tip!
Come to Uruguay! I can guarantee at least 1 fans
Man... only 3 minutes in and I gotta say you just hit the nail in the head. This explanation would have saved me years of sight reading practice, the concept has never been explained in a way that mattered to me, or at least made sense. Truly thank you, truly an inspiration and always appreciate your work. Thank you for blessing us with your time, patience and in depth look. Thank you for involving the community and I thank that community for supporting you as well for so many years. Keep shining!
I just realised, while working through that syncopated counting exercise, that popping and clicking with my lips and tongue (I won't call what I do beatboxing) while humming and/or playing the tune is infinitely easier than saying the words "one, two, three, four" while playing. So, at least for me, mouth sounds are not lingual brain(!) for me until I actually have to say a *word*.
and thank you for the reminder to be honest with ourselves that good time is hard and takes work!
Thank you for the short little history of double bass drum! That was something that I was interested in for a while. Makes sense that it would be a "solo" or "show-off" drummer who first came up with it. Also really funny that it came from Jazz, like so much else in metal.
The way you describe learning to play and count The Chicken is exactly what I have to do to learn to play and sing a song. I can't learn each separately and put them together, I have to figure out slowly where the syllables and notes coincide (or don't) treating the voice and guitar as a single instrument.
During Covid I dedicated myself to really learning how to sing and play at the same time. I think it really improved my rhythm. As an English teacher for non-natives, this all makes sense as I'd never really made the connection until now. Very helpful, as usual. Thanks.
I know it would never happen, but seeing your band in Korea would be a dream.
Omg finally someone validating my high C take! I play a 6 string bass and have it tuned BEADGC because it just makes more sense!
This is how I've tried to learn to sing while playing. It's insanely hard, I can't understand how people do it. Adding not only more rhythmic links, but also specific words to every rhythm and then adding pitch and tone nuances to the words.
"You didn't even exist back then"
"Lady, how many centuries old are you?"
Shoutouts to Sibelius for few reasons: that's what I encountered in high school in a local music technology school course, as well as the national composer here in Finland. I was kinda excited to see if Sibelius would come up in the discussion and it almost didn't, but then you got me at the end. I must say I approved using freaking Guitar Pro over Sibelius on my first try, so I probably second your opinion. Ironically I think often times it really does come down to efficiency. You can have the fanciest sugar coated UI and deluxe options, but if something gets your work done noticeably faster, is just really efficient for your work flow, you end up using it. So they probably had the development focus in the right place and it was some engineer who made it. But would it be too much to ask for for them to improve some things without hurting the efficiency?
Talking about metal festivals, I don't know how but this Finnish joke humppa band Eläkeläiset has been getting on metal festivals, not only in Finland but all the way to Wacken. I believe metal people are oddly receptive to unorthodox or funny stuff.
Oh how I wish restaurants these days had a smooth live band that doesn't get in the way of conversation yet still live music.
Very interesting about practicing the counting out of time. My drum tutor used to tell me to do this during lessons and I never really understood why, but I noticed the patterns and limb independence improving as a result. This explains it
Dude, great to see your success since high school! The algorithm put this video on my front page. Another Rackey alum building their place in the performance art community with this channel.
I really feel your take on Sibelius!
Damn... that short Nessun Dorma improv... it sounds so warm like someone just jamming at a fireplace whilst the sun rises again, after a long and intense night
I’m very happy and relieved right now to be an exclusive Sibelius user. There are things about the software the frustrate me, but it’s the only software I’ve ever used aside from dabbling with Logic’s built-in notation function. Since I don’t know any better, I’m satisfied.
Nessum Dorma on bass was certainly nice!!! Much appreciated, my granddad used to sing it 😄
Loved the bass rendition of Overjoyed at 12:15. :D
I regularly count out loud if I'm playing a drum cover and there's a tricky part that needs to be broken down a bit (such as some of those juicy stops in Steely Dan songs). It's super helpful. I also jam with some friends and have been teaching myself to talk in my natural rhythm *while* still playing. It definitely has been improving my timing!
I got the idea of counting out loud from Benny Greb, I’m not a drummer but this exercise has helped me immensely regardless of the instrument, it’s how I practice everything now..
00-04.00. You're describing my experience of playing tricky guitar parts while singing a rhythmically-unrelated vocal. It's like having a stroke, but without the headache.
As a brass player your advice at the beginning was very interesting because while my mouth is obstructed when playing, I use the same type of process when thinking the counts in my head. I have always been taught to speak out the rhythm in a similar manner and internalize it as a conscious thought while I’m playing. So it has gotten to the point where I am processing the notes and a voice counting in my head
29 seconds ago uploaded... sick! now i have something to do
Just want to say as a metalhead i absolutely love your music and you're spot on with Sungazer being needed at metal festivals :)
Back in the 80s/90s in The Netherlands we had a nighttime radio show, hosted by saxophone player Hans Dulfer (father of Candy Dulfer, who a.o. played in Prince' band), and he would play Sonny Rollins back-to-back with Slayer etc. explaining the similarities between styles. I loved that show. No surprise Sun Gazer does well on a metal festival.
Consistent physical movement (like marching) can be another great way to improve your rhythm. I've done literally the exact same process you described here to figure out where each of my steps should hit in more complex passages. Check out a few top DCI or BOA groups to see some actual rhythmic insanity.
You don't even need to play for this to work either. Just singing the part while you walk can be incredibly helpful.
the Digitech Bass Synth Wah is also the pedal that Daft Punk used extensively on their album Human After All. It's how they achieved all of that album's signature sounds
Man, I have the same problem with Sibelius, I feel you
I miss this type of content. Doesn't even need to be the Q+A although the breadth of topics is nice. But a bit of the old neuroscience with the timing portion, then we got a bit of world culture and jazz history. Nice
Yesss this is why I love this channel so much. Music, science, history.
This came out as I was struggling to learn my first groove on the drums. Great help!
as a bassist/guitarist and finger tapping enthusiast: its kinda crazy how much easier it is for me to tap that syncopated rhythm with one hand and the beat with the other hand, than it is to tap the rhythm and Count the beat Out Loud. It's like I can feel a different part of my brain turning on when i start counting. I've always heard from music teachers that counting out loud is important, but its nice to be reminded Why that is lol
I *immediately* went to using the Voice Metronome on my synth drums. It's NOT as good as me counting off myself, but it's way better than clicks, taps, or beeps (1/8 does "1 and 2 and 3 and 4", so that's cool).
I bought an Ibanez Volo to use with a high C string, and you're right, it's still a bass. But having the extra range (with a 2-octave neck, too) is just lovely when I want to just play a melody. I don't have to struggle to get it heard; it's already in the range for a melody to be heard. It's fun for chord, as you note, but I find I have to step carefully with that on most of the gigs I play. It is awfully handy for reading gigs, too -- less shifting for the high notes!
The Books is a music project that did an incredible job highlighting the rhyms of the English language. The backbone of many of their songs is found audio recordings from thrift stores of people talking, then they then deduce the rhythms of the speech and add beautiful guitar and cello, and DIY percussion like PVC pipe drums. It's hard to describe, sort of like an intricate musical collage, but very engrossing, emotional and beautiful, sometimes pretty strange
10:45 No joke I still absolutely love your Djazz cover of The Hills and absolutely would shout that album from the hill tops if you made one
Ive also visited Leipzig for Bach, and it cemented what I already fully understood and grasped about his music. My autistic brain was already tuned to understanding his much was about community and about bringing people together
so glad you've been uploading more, your channel is like comfort food in video form
Loved at 1:36 that "Easier said than done" is in reference to literally saying it.
Nice to hear that intro music again.
Like a dear old friend reaching out.
I consider my brain my most important muscle.
And like all muscles it needs exercising.
So I try to go to the brain gym as often as possible.
Repetition not only legitimises,
it also strengthens the synapses needed to retain
and know where to find the things I learn.
Thank you for being my personal trainer😎
If you'd like to understand more about Bach's music,
check out people like Christopher Hogwood
and the Early Music Consort.
They used period correct instruments
tuned to the standard pitch and temperament of the time.
It is a very different listening experience.
They also recorded works of other baroque
composers using the same concept.
On the double bass drums you didn't mention Keith Moon.
There is very little focus on the hi-hat in The Who's music.
He was too busy with the bass drums and the toms.
Of course I watched this on Nebula.
A perfect platform for long form deep dive videos
without the need of a clickbait strategy.
Delighted to see Sungazer is touring the States, and, yes! coming to Phoenix, BUT, so sad it's on December 17th, the same night BEAT's playing in Tucson.
Adam and Shawn, please do another stateside tour soon and, please, please, please, next time come to Tucson! We'd love to have you.
Prog metalhead here: most of us love fusion especially if it has some oomph like you do and Sungazer pops regularly in forums/reddit recommendations. You don't have to feel out of place in festivals ;)
The ability for English to be talked with a rythym is pretty handy for someone like myself who has a stutter, because stutterers don't stutter while singing (or following any kind of rhythm), so I can just imagine a rhythm in my head and keep from stuttering.
10:45 These bucket hats are incredible
9:36 Tantacrul has been summoned
glad you had fun in serbia, my man. it was great!
I make all of my students do a series of rhythms, and step 1 is always "subdivide with your voice while clapping the rhythm." They all sound like Adam at 2:43, but they can almost all do it. It's great to know there's a neurological reason it works! (I also make them "ta" while tapping their foot, and eventually "ta" while conducting; it's amazing how many kids can eventually do all of it, almost all of them unless they have learning differences.)
Former classical musician turned jazz violinist. For various compelling reasons that I won’t go into here, rhythm and counting were a weak link for me. I’ve decided to do a self-designed homestudy I call “remedial rhythm studies”. It’s helping a lot, but I appreciate your experience and suggestions for how to go about metronome weaning and replace that reliance with your own internal rhythm abilities.
7:48 over the Hawk WHAT?
😂😂😂
When I was a young kid, my mom had my siblings and me name dishes rhythmically, each person could pick any dish, and we all said them simultaneously and in time. That’s how I as a very small child learned about polyrhythm. It’s a lot more fun than you’d think!
4:10 about comprehending a certain style of music. What I have studied and analyzing by listening to various type of genres such as bolero, son, salsa, jazz, funk, bossa and so, the most important thing in any genre is rhythm. let me elaborate. If you want to play bossa, you need to analyze or understand the rhythm and how the musicians phrase it. you can do it by transcribing and playing with the recordings. its very important to understand how musicians phrase and articulate the rhythm because that is the root for playing any genre
You opened this video and just causally blew my god damn mind showing us how rhythmic English is. Good stuff as always, Adam
3:59 It's purely BASS'd
*Cries in syllable-timed French*
Omg so useful! So insightful. Thanks, subscribed to hear more
Thank you for teaching me something new today. I will be implementing the counting out of time with my elementary band kids now!!!
It's sad that the UK can't appreciate the pun "If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it"
Play along to the repeats of a delay using different time settings.
Make them align,syncopate, and dance with each other 🤌
That first answer was so damn helpful to me thank you adam!
I love the amount of metal in this video. 🤘🏼
super good tip to count out loud and leverage speech rhythm🔥an old trick from my piano conservatory days was to also count at smaller divisions (sixteenths instead of eighths for instance) since it reduces some uncertainty
I'm from Belgium and my fondest memory from my trip to New York was the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra at the Village Vanguard :)
BASS SYNTH WAH SETTING 7 GANG! YEEEEESSS!!! But for real, I only use this as my octave. Sold my MXR BOD. Setting 7 is all I need
Thank you for a great concert last night in Vilnius, it was a blast!
Bro I was just thinking about this while listening to Whalefall from the newest album, I figured out that it was in 5/4 pretty quick and it was fun to try to stay with it through the song
Oh man i missed these videos … thank you Adam!
love this about rhythm and metronome!
I've had one of those Digitech synth bass wah pedals kicking around since early on in high school when I had my first bass, I love that it has some real useful tone for stuff like you do!
Looking forward to you coming back to Seattle!
dear god that nessun dorma bit was nice, more plz
My steel band director uses phrases to match with common rhythms that we play. Matching a memorable phrase is another way to remember and accurately play back a rhythm, because it matches the rhythm in your speech!
There are a couple of mindblowing Hal Galper masterclass videos on TH-cam that talks about using the physical sound of the instrument-instead of a metronome-to build your relationship with rhythm and time while at the same time getting to know your instrument better.
You're back! ❤
As an old, the way of writing "Hawk Tuah" is "Hock Ptooey" but I grew up on old 30's animation and comics
i apologize, my generation is responsible for recycling existing ideas and rebranding it as something original, like how they think “cancel culture” is a new thing and “boycotting” is just a word that will offend blue haired lesbians
Ignoring like, half your message, many have thought that “yapping” “slay” “womp womp” “hawk tuah” and many others are somehow new in anyone
@@VivianWasntHere thank god they not in me
That octave tone IS killer
Here's a good way to practice your time by yourself:
March.
Yes. Put on some music on your headphones and walk to the beat. Your whole body has to feel the beat and you'll get better.
yes! rhythm is VERY connected with movement. dancing will help you with rhythm too. eurythmics used to be a part of music school curriculum and i wish it would come back. a lot of people who seriously study music shy away from dance/movement and they could make their lives easier (and more fun) if they did not.
@@vivsavagexI was in a garage band with some guys in the 80s, one of whom marched to and from school every day with his Walkman. He kept better time than the drum machine we had. 😂
The sigh before "the hawk talks" killed me omg this was SO funny
Dang, the Bass Synth Wah has been one of my favorite pedals for more than a decade, got it super cheap used, glad to see it getting some appreciation!