What is Polytonality? | Q+A
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
- Exploring Polytonality, musical memes, and picardy thirds! Answering all of your questions about bass and music in general. BASS
Many thanks to Brendan Hayes, Jeff T, Ike Zhang, Craig Smith, Jack Mahlmann, Emma and James Weidner for their insightful questions.
0:11 What is Polytonality?
6:40 Stop treating music like a meme!
9:05 What is a Picardy Third?
10:30 How do you keep your wrist straight in the lower registers of Bass Guitar?
11:50 How was music a “lingua franca” when you were on tour in Mongolia?
13:18 Aren’t you a cultural imperialist touring for America?
15:08 Why didn’t you go to the University of Maryland?
MOZART A MUSICAL JOKE:
• Mozart - Musical Joke
NYO Canada 2017 Good Foundation Chamberfest, Jun 28
Recital Hall, Wilfrid Laurier University
Heinrich I. F. Biber: Battalia Á 10
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra
• Heinrich I. F. Biber: ...
Stravinsky: Petroesjka / Petrouchka Concertgebouw Orchestra Live concert HD
• Stravinsky: Petroesjka...
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Peace,
Adam
I never sing out of key. My singing is polytonal with respect to the music.
Reminds me of Adam's Elton John story.
I never sing dissonant. I just sing microtonal
Mister Apple oh yeah!
The singing could be also polymicrotonal
If you know enough music theory you never make mistakes. Its all just chromaticism and polyrhythms.
“Two keys at once?!”
My big brain: C# and Db
C# and Db are enharmonic, meaning they sound the same, so it's really just one key
@@kent631420 pretty sure that is the joke
@@andypantz8919 r/wooosh
@@kent631420 dude you were the one who got r/wooshed
@@beckst3r for sure haha
People always ask, “what is jazz?”
but never, “how is jazz?”
How is jazz, Adam?
dying
Human Effigy Maybe, but like.
What isn’t dying?
@@10mimu "Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny." - Frank Zappa
jazz is doing just fine, thank you
Why is jazz?
Can we talk about how hard it is to purposefully sing in a different key than the accompaniment?? That might be the most impressive segment I've seen from you.
Yeahh! I was also wondering how he does that.
while he is also the one playing the accompaniment
Right!!!!
Not quite difficult sir/madam.
Be as tone deaf as I am
all licks in todays episode are in 17-tone equal temperament.
What if next time you alternate between 7 tet and 11 tet
Mega spicy
Mind blown
As if there is any other way.
actually though?
Fun fact: ADAM NYLEE'S WORST TRAINWRECK WAS A POLYTONAL ELTON JOHN COVER AT A WEDDIN
Niamh O'Connor Underrated comment
Polytonality DESTROYED
i'm going to write out a quadritonal Elton John cover to be played at my wedding
@@gilliangilliangillian that's the spirit!
@@AlasdairGR thanks!
The part about “Happy Birthday” always becoming polytonal is so true
didn't used to be. this is what happens when people are no longer encouraged to sing or play an instrument.
@@edwardgivenscomposer lmao shut up
@@edwardgivenscomposer truee
polytonal AND the different keys they're singing in are microtonal as well!
You often hear about the birthday paradox in terms of how likely two people share a birthday. The real birthday paradox is how many people do you think need to be in a room to have all twelve keys covered?
I like how Ives also wrote "actual notes" in the trumpet for The Unanswered Question. Like, no we didn't write this wrong.
Lmao I think the "actual notes" refers to notating in concert pitch, as opposed to traditional notation where a written C would sound as a concert B-flat on the trumpet. I dont think Ives was reassuring anyone that he didn't make a mistake when writing the melody.
@@hengsikai2862 But that interpretation isn't as funny
WHEN I WAS
A YOUNG BOY
MY FATHER
TOOK ME INTO THE CITY
TO SEE 2 MARCHING BANDS AT THE SAME TIME
bad
@@tananansad good
@faraz mediocre
@@Jamie_kemp alright
wow, WHEN I WAS is still kicking around?
Music has always been a meme. Mozart wrote a song called "lick my ass" that he liked so much that he even wrote a sequal.
Mozart was a massive scatophile. And one of the greatest composers who ever lived. And also died young.
What a dude
@@lifeontheledgerlines8394 he also wrote lyrics like: "sleep well and stretch your ass to the mouth" :D
ps. It's actually leck mich im arsch
pps. mozart karaoke is a BASSing great idea😂
@@ingwerschorle_ Dammit, I was so close!
@@ingwerschorle_ I'd edit my comment, but it's TH-cam isn't letting me edit my comment. Argh, what is happening with this platform?
@@ingwerschorle_ Okay, thanks for the correction! I can finally fix it (edit is now working again).
The fact that you can sing happy birthday in f# while accompanying yourself in c. You are truly incredible
Music can be a joke if it wants, we dont progress at anything if we're stifled over convention
Underrated comment 10/10
Noise can be music!
And so can polytonality.
Too bad the joke is on the listeners.
"Q+A" to "New Horizons in Music" is the same as how "Michaels Toys" is to "Vsauce"
r/unexpectedshowerthought
😂
Q. How the hell did you sing in a different key?
th-cam.com/video/5Ju8Wxmrk3s/w-d-xo.html
Same question here
Practice vocal lessons to get familiar with he scale and notes
@@larrymm1963 I've actually just tried it and it definitely sounds a lot harder than it is. As long as you can listen to the whole thing out in both keys ahead of time it's easy to not get mixed up.
@@mullhaupt4977 What if you have headphones on and go directly into the board with the instrument as to be able to lower either volume also read the instrument lines
No, I'm not tone deaf! I just sing with
✨ *P o l y t o n a l i t y* ✨
During worship rehearsals, I've gotten pretty good at throwing off the lead vocalist by harmonizing the melody a half step below.
I'm now better at that than actually singing a melody
I do this in school band ensembles to see if the director notices
absolute madlad
I'm actually taking a certain musical meme very seriously in my next musical composition. I must be the future (-:
The lick!!!!!!!!
Or Rickroll!!!!!!
Mozart had a lot of memes in his music (a musical joke, and of course, the classic leck mich im arsch). Haydn in his 6th symphony gives the horn a two-bar solo, most likely as an inside joke with his horn player. Bach inserted folk songs into his Goldberg Variations. Bold of you to assume musicians ever did treat music seriously, Jeff T.
Yep. And sometimes they even added easter eggs and references in their pieces. Like tristan chord in Debussy's opera before phrase 'je suis triste'.
Right! And in fact A Musical Joke was one of the first big examples of polytonality too
@@gypsytabor1675 wasn't the Tristan chord Wagner?
The more you learn about mozart, the more you realize he was pretty much a living meme
Yes, that's the point.
Debussy used it right before phrase "je suis triste" which sounds a bit like Tristan. So he cleverly referenced Wagner in his piece. Kind of inner joke. These nerds ))
The unanswered question from Charles Ives is a genius masterpiece.
HOLY CRAP YES
I used the picardy third ending in a thrash mental song about a wizard (written with a bunch of elementary school grade 4 kids for an engagement program I ran), because the suddenly happy ending sounded medieval to me. They dug it
With all this spice you'll need to start your own version of Hot Ones where you expose people to denser and denser polytonality until they cry.
King Pleb Pure genius
hot (T)ones
Jonathan Sadler wow
Sheer brilliance
I would love to see this.
Alright, which tuning system are you doing the lick on today
Yes.
A= 420 BLAZE IT
I'm guessing the timbres are messed up, warping the overtones to be off the harmonic series
17-tet
a = 378
“ A trumpet playing some weird stuff.” Welcome to 4th grade trumpet lessons
Beats the hell outta 3rd grade recorder class. Lol
Gets copyrighted for happy bday*
Should have came in with the claps and the sparklers!
Can't, it entered the public domain recently
@@PackerFanGamer Happy Birthday has always being in the public domain, it just took a bit of money to prove that in court.. The original copyright was for one piano arrangement of the song, nothing more.
@@PackerFanGamer and its just a joke
@@benhawkes7503 yes and the joke wasn't logical
8:17 For real tho, Mozart and Haydn are the two memelords of the classical music canon. After listening to their music you get the feeling that neither of them took life that seriously. No wonder they were best friends.
PROTIP make sure the synth and the vocals are in the SAME KEY
I love that meme
Diego Rodriguez that comment was from 7 years ago lol
Holy shit this comment is so funny oh my fucking god nice one dude!
Close enough for jazz
This is the comment we all knew was somewhere around here 😉
you could’ve used a song that isn’t happy birthday
one’s ears are trained to accept happy birthday being sung in all 12 keys
Edit: nevermind he made fun of it in the video
And Warner Chappell have probably claimed him now
This is why you watch the whole video before commenting. A rule which I'm breaking right now.
You act like its only sung in 12 keys, not counting microtonal music
@@johnwiese6760 Yeah I was singing it this one time in class and I swear that one guy was singing in some sort of e half sharp key or something
@@plexquared1877 X e n h a r m o n i c
What is lost in translation is often regained through interpretation.
Nobody:
14-year olds who know more than one Nirvana song: 6:47
Even if Nirvana is a meme
@@abcrx32j ur a meme
@@theknifesedge57 Yeah, maybe memes are too relevant to compare them to Nirvana, my bad. The are more like an old shitty movie that a lot of people make references of
@@abcrx32j i kinda like them but i see where you're coming from
Ricardo Rodríguez Edgy CONTRARIAN 14 year old who knows one Nirvana song.
I just want to say the thumbnail is not clickbaity enough. May I recommend something more along the lines of "TWO keys at ONCE? Experiment gone WRONG (I DIED)"
Add "Red hot spicy, hydraulic press"
Compose a piece with polytonality. The treble clef will play in F# major scale while the bass cle will play in the key of Gb major. Let's see if that'll annoy the pianist. 🤣🤣
Composer: *hands pianist sheet music* Here's the new piece for the concert.
Pianist: *starts visibly shaking at seeing that its in Gb and F# at the same time*
C: What's wrong?
P: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Prokofiev kind of did that with the third piece of Sarcasms (1912). Right hand starts in f# and left hand in f. Three sharps on the top staff and five flats on the bottom
@@emmetharrigan5234 don't know that piece,, but f#/f is *actual* polytonality, as opposed to F#/Gb which is the same thing just written differently, not two entirely different keys, and wouldn't throw a professional much because both hands have the same muscle memory of that sound (F#/Gb)...it's more just a visual irritation that you can get around by knowing the sound that's supposed to happen.
Polytonality: “A musical joke” - W.A. Mozart
not nearly as good as "lick my ass", also by mozart
House of cards, holding A minor on your left hand feels kind of wrong, hmmmmm
😂😂😂
"but I thought, that's just Frank"
It's the best comment, You made me laugh so hard. Thank you !!! :))))
You win the internet for today.
(Implicitly saying) *...I mean yeah, she's a hot piece of ass, but it's just agonist the law!*
“We get the woodwinds coming at you with… some more weird stuff” sounds like my highschool concert band lol😂
Crunchy weird stuff* haha
man, that interpretation of the trumpet asking the question gave me the chills! Thank you opening my mind to this beautiful and intriguing kind of music
Same. Awesomely Inspired
6:42
> transhumanism avatar
> disgusted at playful experimentation with weird ideas to achieve new sensations
pshhhhhh
Trans-what? That looks more like the hewlett packard logo to me
@@luigivercotti6410 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
It's a philosophical movement which believes humans will reach the next stage in evolution through technology and exploring new ideas. The h+ logo is one of its symbols, as I recall.
fakie lol
An interesting theory about the Picardy third is that because the major 3rd occurs so strongly in the overtone series that when choral music was sung in a cathedral, say the Amiens cathedral in Picardy, France, that when you ended a piece on a minor chord the minor third would clash with the overtone major 3rd of the fundamental. The Picardy 3rd was the solution to that and it kind of stuck.
Hey Adam, question for your next Q+A:
Musical storytelling is heavily influenced by the notions of tension and release, which in academical music are realized by harmonic tools (chords, progressions, etc). But as you mentioned in some of your videos, other styles of music use other devices: EDM has buildups and drops, extreme metal has breakdowns and so on.
If harmony creates tensions/releases because of dissonant and consonant sounds, what is explanation behind drops and breakdowns? Does our ear prefer slower parts, or is it because of passing from dense parts to more saturated ones?
As usual, great content!
Sounds like how you would sing Happy Birthday at a funeral.
Diaghilev: How much longer will it go on like that?
Stravisnky: Till the end, my dear fellow
*out comes the Rite of Spring*
Yesterday, I converted one of my melodies into a polytonal one. Originally, it was in E major, but I made a version in F major and C sharp major. When I first heard it, I thought "This sounds ugly but I like it". Since then, I've listened to it several times and I've gotten desensitized to it so it doesn't actually sound bad anymore.
Hi Adam!
I keep hearing the question: "does it djent?", but I have yet to discover HOW something djents. Could you elucidate how a monotonic, syncopated, percussive guitar riff can be so intriguing?
Here, I am not referring to the origin of the term, which is, as far as I know, essentially just an onomatopoeia misheard by an interviewer of Fredrik Thordendal.
Thank you!
Can't tell if you're fucking around, you are making a sincere question or both
@@eliasmg9144 can you tell if does he djent?
@@TheStuF no
If it makes your head bob, it djents
I didn't know my life was missing a Djent form of the lick but now I do. Stevie T, where you at?
The solo in periphery's graveless, check it out
Multiple Adam Neely's singing Happy Birthday polytonically is one of my favourite clips now.
I quite like the fact that today is my birthday and Adam just played this amazingly spicy 'happy birthday'🌶😂
question for q and a - "is 1/1 the best time signature?"
Thanks for great videos, adam :)
Question for your next Q & A: Is there a way of accurately transcribing ambient and glitch music? The artists like William Basinski or Tim Hecker are amongst my favorites and it makes me curious about the theory behind it all.
Yes, it is, but you would certainly need software more advanced than MuseScore
Bartok uses a lot of polytonality in many of his seminal works like Dance Suite, Wooden Prince, The Miraculous Mandarin, Concerto for Orchestra and some of his chamber music.
You might mention it, but I might forget to write, so.
I'm thinking about "F sharp" by Tim Minchin.
I was hoping you’d say Happy Birthday, Canada on the happy birthday song!
"a djent version of the lick" Now that needs to happen like rn
Thank you so much for these videos, Adam. My school background in (English) composition and teaching, not music-But the pandemic has me spending a lot of time with my guitar now, trying to understand music from the building-blocks up.
I’ve had trouble finding references that do this-but you are always willing to go deep and explain things to the root. I’ve so much appreciation for your knowledge, experience, perspective, humor and morals. Thank you for continuing to share
Question for your next Q&A;
Hello Adam, What do you think about playing chords on bass as a 'flavor enhancer"? As someone who plays prog-rock and alternative, I like to throw chords in sometimes, but these are genres were this is more acceptable. I know that bass "is not supposed to do that", but, I feel that they could have some really nice effects on traditional pop and or Jazz music. Thoughts :)
Not Adam, but might have a bit of an answer! I think one of the reasons bass chords are frowned upon is more a scientific thing than a genre thing.Because the notes on a bass all have a fairly low frequency, when chords on the bass are played those frequencies are a lot closer together then if you played a chord on a guitar. As harmonies begin to have smaller distance between frequencies, the overall quality of the harmony starts to get a lot muddier and less distinct. A major triad on a guitar for example, sounds much cleaner and richer than a bass as well due to this, while a triad at the high end of a piano sounds overly bright and empty. The clashy, muddy sound of a bass chord struggles to find a place in very 'clean' genres like pop music, while genres like metal and prog embrace the clash a lot more. Hope this brings some light to things.
Taeo Life yes
i love bringing in major thirds on the A and D string while slapping, it's super spicy and funky and works fairly well, fifths and minor thirds too, whole chords are problematic though
@@XENOGOD Yeah I'm not a fan of full triads on bass but man 5ths and octaves can be KILLER when used well.
@@wingracer1614 they can be used in a mellow setting, like cliff burton in "Orion", I really recommend you try it out because it's soooo fun
for your next Q&A:
what makes good free jazz?
Adam Excellent content again. Thanks for highlighting "The Unanswered Question" from Charles Ives. I had never heard it. I like haunting music and the dissonance from the trumpets and woodwinds in this piece definitely invoke a strong emotional response. Pure gold thanks...
The Twilight Zone theme was actually composed by Marius Constant. Herrmann wrote an earlier theme for Twilight Zone that was replaced.
"The Unanswered Question" is one of the eeriest things I've ever heard.
Does the happy birthday polytonality example have anything to do with Nahre Sol's wired video that was uploaded like 3 hours before this video?
My birthday is tomorrow. Missed the Neely Polytonal Happy Birthday by one day :c
this coincedence is literally insane
Happy Birthday has been public domain for a few years now. Before that you had to pay royalities to use it in media. That's why in movies and tv shows published before the 2010s every birthday scene just has the last two words "... tooo youuuuu!!". It might be one of the best known musical pieces on earth and has a very easy to understand musical structure, so it's perfect for musical examples. Almost everybody can (kind of sing it). It's like a children song or a folk song, but not just for just one language/region/country but all of them.
Adam going straight to level 14!
Rónán McIntyre my question exactly
Wow, Picardy third, that thing Sui Generis did at the end of "Cuando comenzamos a nacer", a very grounded raw dramatic representation of life's darkest aspects, which uses a minor scale to acompany the sadness and depression of the themes it describes only to finish in a major version of the tonic chord. I always ended the song on the minor chord and never adhered to the original composer's use of Picardy. Never knew it had a name, either.
This video is pure gold with the Amadeus edit and the fact that the lick transitions are all polytonal
July 1st is Sufjan Stevens’ birthday and I take the fact that you didn’t mention him personally
Come on, the fourth of July is only three days away and I'm already crying!
Fanny Evelina Poor Subaru’s probably gonna write a song about it now
He's shit anyway
I truly learn a lot from your videos. I love cramming all the musical brain food in to my face holes. Thanks for being a crazy awesome human being.
A simple fan comment. Adam your stuff is great. Keep up the good work!
Just adding to the Bernard Hermann lovefest: his last and most violent-sounding score, due to its lack of strings, Taxi Driver. It's one of the best accompaniments to a dramatic story I've ever heard. RIP
Question for the next QnA: Im curious, because your band makes EDM, what are some interesting bits of music theory that appear in the genre?
Sounds interesting!
I can immediately think of the 3:4 polyrhythms, ratchets, frequency modulation, non-diatonic basslines. There’s probably more.
@@red13emerald but all of those things happen outside EDM...
and?
@@ace-smith so it wouldn't be a video about music theory in EDM, it would just be a video about theory.
Which is all of his videos
Hey Adam, so I’ve noticed while listening to instrumental arrangements of songs that vocal melodies can often sound kinda lame when played on an instrument. A particularly good example of this is on the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s arrangement of 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson. The song starts with a loud and powerful intro and leads to an almost comically underwhelming clarinet solo of the vocal melody. I found this strange because on the original track the vocals are so powerful. I assume it has something to do with the vocal inflections that an instrument can’t reproduce, but maybe you can shed some more light on it.
TL;DR why do certain vocal melodies sound lame when played on instruments?
I think I've got an explanation on that. Vocal melodies (at least in contemporary music) tend to have less intervals between notes and some words are sang in unison. This isn't a problem with vocals as you sing different words per note. However all acoustic instruments can only produce one sound per note. So it sounds quite and very boring.
I blame them for soloing a clarinet to do vocals. In my experience, an instrumental version of vocals (for most male singers) is best on violas or French horns.
Sean McLaughlin I always understood this in terms of how vocal lines are designed to work with lyrical information. If a melody is complete in itself it can be syrupy and over-the-top when you add words. On the other hand, an excellent vocal line can seem trite and incomplete when you take away the words.
(The words are also often pretty trite when you take away the music)
That’s how it makes sense to me, anyhow.
I used to use the piccardy third to end "breaking the girl" in a band I had back in the day. fun way to spice up a song that had a minor fade out
Bernard Herrmann's theme for the Twilight Zone was only used in season one; the theme you played in the video was composed by Marius Constant and was used for the rest of the series.
That explains a lot, was looking it up now... that sounds more like him. Even though the Bernard Hermann one is also using polytonality, maybe even better than the later one.
PROTIP make sure the key and the key are in the SAME KEY
PROTIP make Shure the key And the synth are in the same vocals
XD
"Djent version of the lick" Where's @Kmac2021 when you need him?
_Misha Mansoor has entered the chat_
I cannot describe how much I love ur channel... Thank u
Fantastic Teacher guides his students literally thru the entire Cosmos of Music.
This Dude is an extremely talented high performing VJ and content creator blessed with a beautiful, perfectly modulating maskulin kind of voice, which but only to listen to is a already a perfect treat….!
[long post and no patato + English is not my mother tongue = i'm sorry. But the music list is worth it ! ]
I've been tracking down songs that seem to have at some point a tone in both major and minor, like Jeff Beal's House of Cards theme (which btw was the last title I added to that list).
Here it goes:
- The (quite long) outro of NIN's cover of Gary Numan's Metal (it gets very clear at around 4:45) [ th-cam.com/video/B-qPWh_jDLA/w-d-xo.html ]
- in Radiohead's Daydreaming, the sudden modulation in A major at 3:56 is accompanied by Thom's backward high pitch voice hitting a C natural at 3:59 [ th-cam.com/video/TTAU7lLDZYU/w-d-xo.html ]
- in Tangerine Dream's "Resurection", from their album Electronic Meditation, you can hear a G natural played throughout, while the harmonies shime and change. At 1:05, a D sharp minor comes in, while the G natural remains. This is a great one. [ th-cam.com/video/egqNokZNXgY/w-d-xo.html ]
- in Harry Smith's 1952 "Anthology of American Folk Music" famous compilation, you can hear a tune called "Wake Up Jacob" by a band called "Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers". The tune has a violin riff in E minor playing upon a guitar strumming an E major. This is socially interesting, and must certainly be linked to the "blue note". [ th-cam.com/video/B0wMJBpAoMQ/w-d-xo.html ]
- in Robert Cray's last album, there's a lovely soul song called "The Way We Are", with a clean guitar solo, as you should expect. At 2:59, Robert hits an A natural on a F# major chord. I suppose this is classic blue note and it blends in quite naturally. [ th-cam.com/video/4rL8K63wjqo/w-d-xo.html ]
- NIN (again) has a beautiful "quiet" version of "The Day The World Went Away" on the album "Halo 13 - The Day the World Went Away". From 4:43 on, giving free way to his habit of repeating a musical phrase while the harmonies change, Trent has the piano playing a melody that starts in F#, E, B... . Every first chord of the progression is a muffled C# major, making the piano's B very spicy. This is a great example, as I believe it to be a very conscious choice, quite similar to Jeff Beal's. [ th-cam.com/video/gWDnbyiMhaU/w-d-xo.html ]
- The song that triggered my attention was William Sheller's beautiful song "La Navale", which has some lovely unexpected maj7 chords scattered here and there. In the solo, you can hear the guitarist hit an ugly (not spicy, ugly) C natural at 4:45 while the rest of the band is playing a conclusive A major. This is the one case I just can get used to. [ th-cam.com/video/KiC3XS036RM/w-d-xo.html ]
- I used it in a soundtrack I wrote to a friend of mine's play, so I guess this is a good opportunity for sharing a piece of my music, so I guess this is a "wanna check my SoundCloud?" time : soundcloud.com/maxke/06-le-survivant-fait-un-mauvais-reve The "spicy part" is obvious and starts at 3:55. The play is about to survivors that need to share whatever is left of livable space and end up in confrontation. This tune is about a dream the main character has. I wanted to express the gap between reality as it was and our memories of it.
In bonus, two songs that flirt with this process, but instead of superposing the minor third with the major one, they alternate them in a very tricky way:
- Swansea by Joanna Newsom (this one is very subtly written, perhaps closer to a "blue note" you can hear it at 4:40, the melody plays an E natural and is soon after joined by a C# major chord, which is the tone of the song) [ th-cam.com/video/NUpElXWVMj4/w-d-xo.html ]
- The Horrors (man, do I luv'em) in the groovy "Sea Within a Sea": in the lovely and mesmerizing outro (btw just how that intro is blended with the first half of the song must please Tantacrul), Faris Rotter sings a melody in F# that goes C#, A#, B, A#, G#. Now, the outro arpeggiator makes a 3 chords progression that goes F# major, D# minor, G# major. That G# major is very spicy, it comes in just a moment after Rotter hits the B natural. [ th-cam.com/video/4r2KPRYsQSk/w-d-xo.html ]
I think some composers use it more purposefully than others. To me, NIN did particularly good. I mean you would'nt want your strawberry icecream topped with hot Tabasco, right?
Cheers from Belgium
All dislikes are people who got their favorite song ruined by a meme.
The first thing I thought of was Petrushka, a favourite of mine. Thanks for putting some in, and the link to the live performance.
My wife is a music teacher; we are both musicians, but she taught me about the Picardy Third. Now, I can't unhear it. We laugh whenever it comes up. We've noticed that quite a few church pianists/organists will throw it in whether or not the song calls for it.
It actually amazes me how you can sing in another key. I would just now physically be able to :D
*NEW FAVE TOON 2k19*: Happy Birthday in C/F# by Adam Neely #yay
Melon review it already
Question for your next Q&A: How familiar are you with the music theory behind Ska as a genre, and more specifically behind Streetlight Manifesto? I haven't been able to find a lot of in depth conversation about their music that really gets into the theory, and I'm still very much beginning so I don't know exactly what to be looking for. Thanks for all the great content!
Question for QnA: Have you ever accompanied a harp, and if so, how well suited do you think the harp is for jazz performances?
Yes this! (For anyone who has never heard a harpist play jazz, check out Alice Coltrane and Deborah Henson-Conant)
Even the Beatles played with the Picardy Third in "And I Love Her". It's in F#m (and then Gm) and ends on D.
I would say it definitely sounds to be a tonic, so it's as though it was the Dm the whole time instead of F6. So the Gm would actually be a iv. And the D, the tonic.
Roundabout ends on an E maj
You should analyze a black midi song. The band not the genre
That band is too good
I searched for "white midi", "blue midi", "pink midi", and "brown midi", but was disappointed that I only found dresses, instead of more band names.
The genre is fine too. There's a lot of copy-paste patterns for the sake of it, yes. But because the medium is so often played out as a TH-cam piano roll, there is an added level of visual complexity composers can indulge in. And I would go so far to say that watching the roll play is nearly as important as hearing the music itself.
Your mileage, of course, will vary.
Love black midi! Saw that Adam commented on their KEXP performance a couple months back. Remember when I first saw them in April 2018 I didn't know who they were and googled them but didn't find anything. They had no online presence at all and this made them even more interesting to me.
black midi is like eating 200 houndred habaneros at the same time. It's amazing.
Love your channel Adam! thank you!
You are literally talking about really deep melodic music theory mostly in the context of classical music. I am a trap producer who only knows the real basics. Music is awesome, so diverse and different yet so similar at the same time. I love your stuff Adam :)
Not only did I learn Dan Akroyd, Missy Elliot and Liv Tylers birthday but I am now craving spicy food!
Future Q & A Question:
How hard was it to play in C and sing in F#?
That picardy 3rd is just so soothing I've listened to it 200 times at least.
I've been trying to figure out how people get this sound for sooooooo long. Thank you so much Adam this is now my favorite video of yours because now I can finally express myself with the sounds I've always wanted to achieve. Hello pollytonality!
Heinrich Biber
Adam: "muy picante!"
Me: *cries in spanish*
Jajajaja
Lol
I'm gonna have to take these video's one day at a time, I'm afraid it's gonna short the wiring in my head if I marathon em... no matter, awesome work.
Adam Neely
Hi,
I’m an a level music student at the moment and I’m struggling quite a bit with essays and understanding terms (still struggling with essays they are so confusing and complicated). However, thanks to your videos I feel like I understand a bit better now. Which is really amazing because I would really like to be better at the subject I want to spend (and have spent) all my life on.
Thanks a lot,
Ethan
Going on a state funded "hearts and minds ops" doesn't ipso facto make you Agents of the Empire. What you do there depends on you, not your government. (It doesn't sound like they made any direct or strong attempt to pull your strings, so the diplomatic aspect would simply boil down the great idea of showing people: "Look, we're just human, too". And don't pretend this is an obvious fact. Yes it ought to be, but history is full of human behaviour based on imagined differences, added to the generally small real differences that make us interesting and not-yet-homogenized.) I can't see how that could be a bad thing. You guys were clearly not patronizing (or painfully over-aware of the possibility that you might do something patronizing etc., which is possibly worse - it's a minefield, this ... perfectness ... people sometimes get all Exigent about.) You guys went and did good, honest, necessary diplomacy. Without your real flesh and blood presence, all that people encounter is stories about you. Hollywood? (And that gets ugly at times. So there's some self-inflicted diplomatic damage in need of repair.)
There. Said it without swearing or insulting anyone.
I have a question (and the only video of this is a fan animation, so it might be a bit distracting) in the Cardiacs song *Mares Nest* the rhythm/s "run at cross purposes" in two places (maybe others, but these are the ones where what I'm talking about should be obvious) from 1:03 to 1:16, and then from about 1:30 to 1:50 . I just wondered whether there's a name for it? I think I've heard it before, but you don't often have clashing rhythms in a song. th-cam.com/video/v9eTa4u2lU4/w-d-xo.html
It's like a musical version of a non-lethal clash. Three groups meet at some crossroads, all doing different things, they jumble a bit there, and then sort themselves out into some kind of combined lockstep, and off they go again. Conflict without war. It sounds like quite a polite clash of rhythms to me. All the different bands saying sorry to each other as they navigate the awkwardness.
I think Cardiacs is quite a good example of a musical joke that is worth paying attention to - with a smile. Sometimes its silly, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's chaotic and a bit ridiculous, and very rarely is it a bit dark and gloomed over. But that's just my opinion.
oh duh ... I just saw the term "Rubato" on a score somewhere else, and realised how this song emerged from my cognitive swamp down there, somewhere ... It's rubato, isn't it? The answer to my question is just one word (which one could ask professor google about, to fill in more details) ... marching bands going past each other. Pretty much exactly what you were describing.
Oh well, I glad that at least it didn't just surface completely randomly.
(I think I forgot to say thanks as usual. It's implied. I just forget, while trying to think of what it is I've just become confused about - or whaddever.)
Hey Adam!
You made clear to us many times that straight wrists are important in regards to preventing injury. As I am transitioning to 6 string bass I am finding it a lot more difficult keeping a straight left wrist especially when playing lower strings. What tips can you recommend for people on 6 string in regards to preventing any injury playing?
That Ives piece is crazy stunning. Wow.
Those first examples of happy birthday sound like the usual renditions you get from your mates down the pub!
But, Mr Neely, massive kudos to you for being able to sing and play like that on purpose! 👍👏
Question for your next Q&A what can you say on music before the classical era? I was wondering what kind of music there was before classical
talking about jokes and music.. maybe Vaporwave ? it all started with Maquintosh Plus (as far as i know), and now it´s totally not a joke.
Anyway lovYourVds
It _WAS_ a joke but then changed into a serious genre with tons of subgenres within it
I really love this channel in explaing hard stuff in easy way
Great video! I live in rural Honduras where often at church services the person leading the singing starts in one key and the accompanying keyboardist has to play the song in several keys until he finds the vocalist's key (who may or may not have modulated to another key) or just settles into whatever key he's most comfortable with. The rest of us get to pick whether we want to follow the vocalist with the microphone or the keyboard.
Also muy picante.