A bunch of people mentioned that Jacob Collier already talked about triple time signatures in the second June Lee theory video, where the third number refers to the subdivision of the pulse, so 5/4/4 would be 4/4, but the quarter notes are divided into quintuplets - I can see that being useful too! We might even take it a step further - QUADRUPLE time signatures! One of the extra numbers refers to the hypermeter, and the other refers to the subdivision. so 5/4/4/5 would be 5 measures of 4/4 subdivided into quintuplets. This is totally stupid and impractical, but we're about the memes here, so enjoy.
@Cachorro Velho " Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit. I’ve heard alcoholic snowplow drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons. It doesn’t matter if you’re James Jones, John Cheever, or a stewbum snoozing in Penn Station; for an addict, the right to the drink or drug of choice must be preserved at all costs. Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn’t drink because they were creative, alienated, or morally weak. They drank because it’s what alkies are wired up to do. Creative people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism and addiction than those in some other jobs, but so what? We all look pretty much the same when we’re puking in the gutter." -Stephen King also
+maxxramman I don't think he was claiming it's necessary. I think he was referring to the fact that Stephen King wrote four books in under a year, fueled by tons of cocaine. Later, he couldn't remember the majority of what he wrote, so when people came asking for movie rights, he had to read them to remember what they were trying to buy!
Just wanna say - Thank you for all the consistently relevent, easily digestible and informative content, Adam. I wouldn't have started my journey into music theory in general if it weren't for you, so cheers from South Africa. Keep it up man. B A S S!
I mean, Adam's videos are so infrequent and of such high quality that it doesn't need any type of eye-catching tricks to stand out among all the videos.
@@ltu42 I know. I was taught to capitalise all but the small words (of, the, and, by etc.) so as not to impede the reader's eye. That seems to have turned into blanket capitalising of every word, which is cumbersome.
Jacob Collier once talked about how he adds another number onto time signatures to show how each beat is subdivided. For example, 5/4/4 would be a normal bar of 4/4 with each beat divided into 5 equal subdivisions (quintuplets.) I'll edit this when I find the video he talks about it on.
@@justusotter5388 16/20 doesn't exist. Collier's notation helps if the whole song has 4/4 divided into quintuplets and therefore makes it easier to notate and read than 4 mesures of 5/16 since they go by so fast
Yes! Otherwise I would have been so offended that I wouldn't have been able to comprehend the music analysis! But since I now know that he understands that "colored person" is very racist and "person of color" is very respectful, it is clear that he isn't a neo-nazi and his music analysis is now appreciable by me. This is VERY important in music!
@@Ryan-dg5mt well I dont want to hear a nazis opinion on music as they are fuckin dumb in at least one aspect of their thought process. Edit: and their musical taste is shit
@@layladystay I don't know, WWII German military marches are pretty good, honestly. But otherwise, that's a pretty narrow thing to say. What if someone you'd call a neo-nazi liked the same music as you? Would that mean that you also have bad taste?
As an Irishman, I'm thrilled to see Japanese people enjoying Irish music, and I'd like to think they'd enjoy seeing a western musician using the Kumoi and Hirajoshi scales. It's nice when people embrace different cultures.
I love that you are very thoughtful to your approach on things that may be considered offensive to others. True in the end a word is just a tool, but the misuse of a tool is another thing entirely. You don't use a hammer to force someone to agree by wacking them over the head with it. Instead you build a bridge with that hammer and encourage them into a mutually equitable trade agreement.
"Knowledge rationing" happens in many jobs as well. People fear if they teach someone how to do a job, then the person doing said job becomes less valued
@@Faulheit asking someone that made a one word reply to elaborate is funny :) In answer to your question I think distortion heavy bass players are great as long as their playing style fits the music/song and the other musicians/fans like it. Your question is so loose that the one word answer is appropriate, btw. You should refine your question if you want more detailed answers.( I am giving this detail because I found your and Agustins interaction very funny and wanted to make myself a part of it). To elaborate, the two examples you give are of successful musicians - what ANYONE will think is "fair play to them, they found a style they liked and it worked for them". If you are asking about ALL bass players in the WORLD that are "distortion heavy" your question becomes slightly different.. in regard to those players I think they should explore the enormous world of "no distortion" bass. You really should define "distortion heavy"... do you mean "too much distortion at a given time" or do you mean "too regular use of distortion in general". Now, perhaps you see what I saw and the joke that Agustin reply is actually perfect. Is Agustin telling you they think the two players suck? The "style" sucks"? Or that YOUR QUESTION "Sucks"
One word negative answers are usually the tool of the troll. If the person had any meaning or feeling behind what they were saying they would have said it in the initial reply. "I don't like it because you lose some of the tone of the bass" or "I feel like it muddies the foundation of the music" or something. Personally, I love the sound of it as a rule, but it if it doesn't fit the song or the style that the band is playing it can sound 'forced', if that makes sense. I've heard live bands where a distorted bass just kinda deadens the rest of the band and makes it all kinda meh.
Practicing hard is important, but it’s more important to practice correctly and effectively. I have wasted countless hours practicing badly, or even learning things incorrectly and then having to unlearn and relearn. So work hard - but make sure you are working effectively. I know teachers who say that for every time you play something wrong, you have to play it correctly at least twice: your time playing correctly should exceed your time playing incorrectly. Many players - including me for a long time - do the opposite. I would hack at something 50 times, get it right once or twice and think “Ok, now I’ve got it”. Then I’d blow it in performance (surprise!). Hard work is essential, but it can be counterproductive if misapplied, and unlearning is much harder than learning. (Try unlearning your native language, for example).
Hey Adam, could you makes your video “Writing in Sibelius for 10 minutes” into a series or at least an expanded topic video on notation software and how it’s best used to make music in this growing world of internet composers? I ask this not only for others by myself because I have been jumping from free trials with Dorico and Musescore trying to find my way but not really knowing what to do and which software is best. The input would help.
That's a complex question. In my opinion Finale and Sibelius are both rubbish. Where are the arpeggios? The scales? The modes? Not to mention the slurs that are impossible to drag where you want. Then there's the issue of it becoming a crutch; I uninstalled Finale after 2 years because its chord checker was like a life jacket and I needed to make chords myself. But for some people these programs might do what they want. I just wouldn't pay for this garbage. Finale also decided to become the world's copyright police in its latest version. It removed pdf score scanning.
I currently use Sibelius (as does Adam Neely to the best of my knowledge). It's a very professional program, but has a LOT of wonky bits to it. It takes a little while to get used to it, but once you do, the workflow can be quite fast and you can create very professional looking scores (as in, many professional publishers use Sibelius). However, if I were starting out learning nowadays, I'd go with Dorico. It's much more logically laid out and it quickly becoming favored by many musicians. It's created by many of the original creators of Sibelius, but since it's a new project, it's clear they're considering UI a lot more with Dorico. I imagine by the end of 2019 or shortly thereafter Dorico will be able to do almost anything Finale or Sibelius can do. If money is an issue, though, go for Musescore, I'd say. Many things drive me crazy about Musescore, but there's a lot of support for it and it's free. If you know what you're doing, you can get pretty good results that will suffice for the majority of musicians.
He's said before (don't remember which vid exactly) that he's cool with musescore, and likes it, but he's got the experience and workflow down pat in Sibelius and doesn't see the need to change.
Also he'd still have to keep Sibelius to be able to access his back catalog, so it's not like he'd be getting rid of anything. The file formats of notation software are horribly proprietary (except MuseScore) and not even consistent across versions, so if you switch programs, you leave behind everything you did in the old one. I've even had a problem trying to open Encore 4 created files in Encore 5. Basically, it crashes the program. The only workaround is to install Encore 4.5 -- which only runs on 32-bit Windows, it'll crash and burn on 64-bit Windows -- so you can open all your files and immediately save them again. After that, Encore 5 will be able to successfully read them in. So sometimes notation software isn't even backward compatible with _itself,_ let alone cross-platform. I have an Acer Aspire One from 2009 in my closet for times like these. I don't have 32-bit Windows installed anywhere else.
@Logan Searle Wat. It's popular, sure, but it still uses a proprietary save format by default. MusicXML is the industry standard format for sheet music.
For next Q and A: I play trumpet and I'm currently teaching myself guitar. I enjoy improvising (on trumpet), as jazz is one of my favorite genres. However, when I improvise I find myself using patterns I've used before on previous improv sessions. No one wants to hear the same thing twice. How do I get out of this "loop" of repetition?
Honestly the use of patterns isnt a bad thing, once you know what you're comfortable with try to create slight variations to the idea. Say instead of playing a major pentatonic lick you know really well off the 1 of a maj7 chord, try playing it transposed off the 2 (making a lydian sound) or off the 5 (accenting the maj7th). You can play the same lick in a million different ways and sometimes it leads to the creation of a completely new musical idea.
Say I'm using a blues scale. Bb for example. I seem to do the same thing over and over when i start. It just seems over-repetitive if you get what I mean.
On guitar it becomes very easy to fall into the “boxes” and noodle around in those boxes. Rather than doing this, when you’re practicing your improvisation, try to include all 12 musical notes while still remaining in a certain key. Finding “outside” tones that you like the sound of will help you find your own voice on the instrument, and sometimes the “wrong” note can sound stylish and really cool if you play it with conviction and purpose. Of course, learning new phrases, songs and styles will revolutionize your playing without you even realizing it. If you dive into the blues or jazz or rock or whatever, over time your ear will naturally gravitate toward the phrases that are common in these genres. Anyways, it’s a fun journey so enjoy the process!
I've loved the idea of what he called triple measure and I wrote a song that at one point is in 3/3/4, I called it "super waltz" and it has a really intense sound. Glad to see it discussed
5:46 "People who say that words don't matter deny that words have any meaning at all, which is contrary to the idea of communication." THANK YOU! I've been dying to hear somebody succinctly put this into words.
I am of Romani descent, and we all call ourselves Gypsies. It's not a derogatory term, it's what we call ourselves and what we take pride in. Like you said, context is what's important when using such a word, because anything can be used as an insult. I speak for American Gypsies when I say we much prefer the term "Gypsy" over "Romani" because we never use that word! And it's always nice to hear people talk about us in videos or movies, even if it's being used offensively we laugh about it! You officially have the G-word pass from me, especially since you were speaking about the music genre :D
I have a similar relationship with the word "Polack". My family used it so much to refer to ourselves that I didn't even know it had a pejorative meaning until I was in high school, when I got in trouble for using it (to describe me). However, I am at least two or three generations removed from a time real polish racism was a thing. Now, I'm just basically another white american. The idea of racial prejudice against me is so abstracted that it fails to have a real emotional meaning. So I don't care if people use the term "Polock" or tell polish jokes. However, I'm positive that it'd be different if there _was_ still a strong anti-Polish sentiment, and I actually felt threatened by it.
@@dalegaliniak607 Polak is the polish word for a polish person, though, an autonym. Not quite the same as "gypsy," which is an abbreviations of "Egyptians" from other languages, or "tsigani", coming from Byzantyne Greek for "untouchable". These were originally slurs.
I've personally never heard it used as an insult or slur so that part of the video confused me. Ive only ever had to use gypsy for the music style as well, as there's no one of that decent in my circle of people I know in Louisiana.
It isn't really your permission to give. It's used pejoratively by people still, and maybe other people of your culture won't like this. Maybe nobody you know. Do you speak for your entire culture? Does your entire culture know that you are the one who calls the shots? It's fine to offer individual permission, but trying to offer blanket permission like this never really makes sense.
@@blarghblargh I completely disagree. Words are just words, he wasn't using it in an insulting way. I don't think this kind of fear does anyone any good. Perhaps if it was a fresh wound, but the word and people have been around for a long time now, and he was talking about the genre that is literally called "Gypsy music". Also, there is not and probably never will be a representative body for gypsies! We are spread around the world and have all adapted different cultures. I think this time it all comes down to if you want to use it or not.
Jacob Collier suggests using triple time signatures to denote embedded polyrhythmic tuplets... such as 3/6/4 is a bar of 6/4 but each single quarter note is subdivided into 3.
@@israellai i was writing a reply to you but then noticed that adam neely already basically wrote what i just wrote and commented on his own video so i deleted my comment and wrote this instead
7:30 - "Think about what would happen if the scientific community rationed knowledge in this way." The Western mathematical communities of the 1400s and 1500s actually _did_ ration knowledge, ironically enough, because back then, mathematicians garnered literal fame and fortune from being able to solve problems that no-one else could, and thus were inclined to keep their methods to themselves. Perhaps the most well-known example of this is the "cubic formula", the general solution to cubic equations (cf. quadratic formula providing the solution to quadratic equations), with Zuanne da Coi and Tartaglia actually placing large bets based on who could solve the most cubic equations in a month.
Adam! Question for your next Q&A: I'm coming up to 17 years old, and I'm struggling with listening to music, Everything I listen to is either boring or becomes boring very quickly (after just a couple times listening through) to me. I was wondering if you've either experienced this or have some advice, even just some suggestions for new stuff to listen to would be helpful, I love everything you do, keep it up :)
I have this problem as well. I used to be fascinated and entranced by the music I listen to, now everything just goes right through me and doesn't do much. Adam please help lol
@@bordershader I've tried lots, I loved and still love brass big band music (but Im struggling to find more of that, my favourite is probably youngblood brass band) I've also tried people like snarky puppy and vulfpeck... I'm a fan of all the classic 1920s jazz and also like classical music xx
@@Pheobe2424 it's sometimes so hard to find new stuff, my background is punk/grunge/alt and I got a bit trapped in the past and wanted to know what new directions were afoot. So I bounced around TH-cam and Amazon "if you like that you'll probably like this..." kind of thing and unlocked masses of new stuff. Spent £100 on new music in an afternoon eek! Lol But that was a while ago and I think the algorithms have changed. I'm also very into American country/folk and I got a whole new load of directions from reading the credits and finding collaborators. If you don't have the CDs, Wikipedia can be quite good (to a point). Also now I'm really into the historical context of music. Like the whole Beat scene in 50s/60s America, tempered by (arguably, of course) the Civil Rights movement, post-war whoopee, McCarthyism... this can then lead into finding out who else was on the scene outside of jazz (political folk music, for instance)... looking at the lineage of UK punk is embedded in British politics of the 70s and has seen me develop a new respect not just for those who found a voice and spoke out (in this case, reggae, ska, British folk as well as punk) but also of the history of my own country. Finally I think nothing of connecting with the musicians themselves, asking who their influences are, what they would recommend. Obvs that's not so easy if you're into 20s stuff, but are there specialist record shops or modern-day musicians you can track down? I'm actually reviving much of my interest through discussions with a lecturer on a masters programme at one of our local universities! Good luck, anyway. I'm in my 40s and it's taken me too long to really start pulling together all these different strands; where would I be if I'd done this in my 20s? I'm excited for you!
Other classical musics (other than the western) are often taught under Ethnomusicology. Problem of course is that that's musicology, which is more a cultural study than a music study.
Hey Adam, I hope you read this. Re your last section, specifically: "is it wrong to learn another language? of course it isn't, no" - you really shouldn't write that off so strongly as a question. Language is a part of culture, and embeds cultural knowledge. Perceptions of ownership of knowledge differ between cultures - in some (specifically I'm thinking a few Native American nations), knowledge may be seen as being owned, exclusive to either the nation as a whole or select individuals within it, and language is not an exception. As far as I understand, the Jemez don't allow their language to be written; I am also aware (although I forget which community it was) of a linguist developing a dictionary that the community refused to allow publication of, not wanting the language shared. A concrete example of problems that can arise: there have been cases of traditional knowledge (often encoded in language) about the local environment being exploited by outsiders for e.g. resource plundering, or the creation of patents for traditional medicines. A great article on examples and attempts to explicitly protect exclusive knowledge is in the Pacific Standard ("Breaking a Sacred Trust: On the Exploitation of Traditional Native Knowledge": psmag.com/social-justice/breaking-a-sacred-trust). There's also a small section on the ownership of linguistic and ethnographic data in this paper by Keren Rice (rnld.org/sites/default/files/Rice%202006.pdf). I could go on, but hopefully you get the gist. I am happy to see that at the end you emphasized the importance of seeing if there is a power dynamic at play - certainly in these cases there is, and language cannot be considered as neutral if it is also cultural.
Just wanted to add that an exception to the Western-centric academic agenda that most American music institutions have is California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, CA. Taking world music ensembles and classes is required no matter your degree, and there are world music majors as well, who spend very little time playing any conventional western music. Just thought it was worth sharing!
What do they define as World Music? I know what it was when I worked in a record store. It was largely western artists using the grab bag approach, often mixing influences from several continents. (Think Mickey Hart) And then a few Peruvian pan pipe bands and some Indian Raga. Could a world music major focus on an Indonesian musical subculture? Or traditional Persian music?
@@Markle2k I think the term "world music" has become quite obsolete. Apart from a section at the record store which gets more and more subdivision nowadays. I think with internet, and especially youtube, people are coming to understand that it is not "the world vs western culture". I've studied instruments and music form all around the globe for the last 20 years, still, I never heard myself say I was playing "world music". Let's be the change and show common people the nuances of music from everywhere.
Loved the response to the question about cultural appropriation at the end. The consideration of studying foreign languages was spot on. I agree that there is nothing long with creating something inspired by a tradition that is different from one's own background as long as it is not at the expense of the other culture. In the tradition of Family Feud that was a "Good Answer! Good Answer!"
Ha! My mind went to the same place with the triple time signature, because Hindustani music actually often uses something like this. The most common "time signature" in Hindustani music is a kind of 4/4/4, where melodic themes follow a "cycle" of four bars of four. When first introduced to the concept of Western time signatures, this was a source of confusion to me because it took me a while to understand that the time signature provides no information about the rhythmic structure of the music at any time scale larger than a measure of music. Of course one would have a hard time applying this to other Indian "time signatures", which can contain many bars of varying lengths; in this sense they are probably closer to compound time signatures of the West.
Glad to hear you're open to non-Western traditions, Adam. A good intro to Byzantine chant/theory can be found here: stanthonysmonastery.org/music/Index.html It's far from a complete explanation, but a good primer. My textbook was primarily Basilos Psilacos' technical exercise book. He has other books for people who haven't had instructors.
Jacob Collier has an inverse answer to the title question of this video that he addresses in an interview (interview part 2 i think?), where the 3rd number in the time signature denotes the number of subdivisions of each note, which i think is more interesting and versatile than using it for hypermeasures. there's a ton of interesting ways to nest tuplets that are very easy to express using that kind of time signature
yeah, it's the June Lee interview part 2, he starts talking about it around 11 minutes in, specifically he uses it as a way to notate the idea of "playing drunk" that you talked about recently, making more loose feeling grooves with unusual subdivisions.
It seems easier and more standard to just write in "with a septuplet drunk-feel" over the staff. There's no need to propose new notation for a fairly obscure/idiosyncratic way of performing.
As an English speaker from Britain, the existence of American English and International Business English both irritate me. You don't utilize, you use. A nouned-verb (utility) should not beget verbed-nouned-verbs. Just use the base verb, dammit. "Do the needful and revert" implies they're going to undo what I've asked for after they've done it, even though I know in IBE "revert" also means to report back.
Adam is wrong about talent. Many musicians (like me) who have very little talent, but who worked hard to get to where they are don't like believing in natural aptitude, because there is a perception that it diminishes all the work you've put in through school to get the outcomes you have. It doesn't, but that's irrelevant. Upbringing is a good argument, but my dad's a classical musician, who showed me notation flashcards before he showed me words. I've played piano from 4 and moved to bass from 14 and I've played enthusiastically my whole life since doing my best to understand music. Fifteen years later, I'm 'good' at bass purely because when you've been doing something forever, you become competent, but I still understand music pretty poorly, and nobody I know would ever refer to me as talented. Compare this to the sax player in my band who works as a tradesperson, doesn't have a single musical family member, and can just feel his instrument in ways I can't follow. He is (and I say this out of love) not a high-intellect person, but he can reproduce anything he hears on his intrument. Any riff, any hook, and he can improvise super-well for someone with zero theory at all other than knowing what key something is in. He never plays his instrument at home either, because he doesn't have to. How can it be possible that he and I both have the same talent level? It just doesn't add up. Some people are objectively more talented than others. It doesn't mean some people can't do music, but it does mean some people are going to excel faster than others.
I suggest you give a second listening of what Adam says about talent. Although I don't agree 100%, it seems there are some subtleties you may have missed. For example, he says "is talent necessary for success?". Well, first we have to define success. Let's say it is success in a career in music, I would say that even if music is natural for somebody doesn't mean he or she has the skills to manage a career (booking gigs, organize rehearsals, do p.r, choosing repertoire, writing charts, etc) IMO, aptitude in music is an irrelevant idea. It is more a package deal of many aptitudes. Like dexterity, capacity to learn a language, memory skills, passion, patience, imagination, tenacity, communication, organization, ear perception, curiosity, and so on. These are all skills or aptitude that we have at a certain degree that will mostly define what kind of musician we can become. So being good at music is not limited to being good on your instrument. Let's say you put those in order of importance (for you), you may see it differently, see better what are your strengths. For example, if your best aptitude is organization, then you are better than many to put up a band and setup a tour, and that is a rare talent among musicians. My point is, it all depends on what you compare yourself to in terms of aptitudes. If you compare yourself with the virtuose part of music, you are probably screwed. Learn how to make profit of your strengths, this is where you will get the more satisfaction for being a musician. Personally, I have not much difficulty learning an instrument. The result is I work less, I am a lazy musician. So when it is time to get gigs, I am often left behind. I envy less "talented" musicians who have way more success than just because they are good at business or at making contacts. Anyways, I hops this gives you another perspective on the matter.
Hey @Adam Neely We looked at triple time signatures, and negative time signatures, but what about negative triple time signatures? Or even, quadruple time signatures and their negatives?
Appropriation, to my uses, isn't copying or borrowing but instead the obfuscation of the original by the copy. E.g. Japanese whiskey isn't cultural appropriation of the Irish because everyone knows which is the copy and that the original exists. If the copy's identity overrides the original to the point that either the original is unknown or not recognized as genuine, that's appropriation. And I think that aligns nicely with the concept of harm. I would say similar to the difference between piracy and theft, only the latter is subtractive. Knowledge rationing can be beneficial in situations where knowledge gained out of order can be harmful. E.g. a beginning math student may be denied a calculator (temporarily) to be forced to endure an educational constraint. If someone hands you all at once abag of musical bird parts you might be tempted to construct your peacock by the feathers first and not on top of well-placed bones.
Japanese whisky (they don't use the "e") distilleries long ago sent their crews to Scotland to train with the masters. Those masters knew exactly what they were going to do with it, which was to make a Japanese whisky reminiscent of and also _as good as_ the original. By the look of reviews in the last 10 or 15 years, I'd have to say they succeeded. The notion of "teaching the fundamentals" is a valid one for those who are actually going deeper into the field, but it's kinda overkill for someone who just wants to strum three chord songs by a campfire, or needs to know how to make change for a dollar.
You're such a kind and thoughtful person, Adam. Even though your channel is focused on music, you have a way of making it far more relevant and appealing to human experience and life than just "here are some cool theory nuggets. Enjoy and practice." I hope if we ever get the chance to meet I can buy you a beverage of your choice and pick your brain a bit. Cheers!
Hey Adam. I'm a guitarist and i want to record some stuff on my own. I want there to be fretless bass on it. Should i get into playing bass on a fretted or a fretless bass?
@@SkeledroMan If that sound inspires you, go for it, but be prepared to have to work harder to get something recorded, because having to intonate is an additional thing to pay attention to.
Hey Adam, question for the next Q/A: I've seen mentions of the term "equal-temperament" and how most modern music is recorded in it, and how live performances tend to not be in it. What exactly is temperament? I understand it as some sort of behavior between different tones, but I would like to hear your explanation. Saludos.
Hey Adam, love the videos you make! I'm always waiting in anticipation for the next one haha. Anyway I've got a question for your next Q&A: what makes a song "jazz". Is it the use of chord extensions like 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, flat 5s? Surely just this alone can make a song more jazzy. Like I often hear people wanting to make a song more jazzy and they say "just add some 7ths" but I just feel like there must be more to it than that. Thank you for your time :)
Gypsy is not a slur.Some don't like being called Roma people and refer to themselves as gypsies (cigani),others don't like being called that.In general it doesn't even matter. I'm from Bulgaria :D
Gypsy is a misnomer (they don't come from Egypt), but I'd say there are two things that could make it a slur: 1) It's not a term the people use to describe themselves (caveat, unless it was established as a slur then reappropriated, see also "queer" and "N.... Ope, I'm not going to type that one out. 2) It is used exclusively or primarily to refer to those people in a derogatory manner
It's a fact that most of the population in the Balkan don't like them for the majority. It could be used to describe them in a bad way but often it's justified with their deeds. There are exceptions of course but so is the case with all people. In general I'm sick of SJW. Thank you
@@InverseAgonist I'm not a native English speaker but where I'm from, in Spain, gypsy is not derogatory... is the only word to describe the culture of those people who btw are as Spanish as myself, have shape our culture and no longer have anything to do with Romanians
I have a question: why do people most often say that the bottom number of a time signature is "the type of beat" this is not quite correct. I would say that the bottom number of the time signature is a space in time, which can be summed up by using different types of notes. It is NOT just saying that you must use 4 quarter notes in, for example 4/4 (and straight, without tuplet time or any of that fuzz.)
When you see folks blatantly roll their eyes at anything dealing with notion of cultural appropriation there should be a red flag. It's not that it doesn't exist. As you said, you don't want to use the advantages of your cultural background to take credit for the traditions of others. I recently played guitar with along with a Konnakkol video. Konnakkol is the art of performing percussion syllables vocally in South Indian Carnatic music and is a rich tradition that is thousands of years old. I did NOT want to tread lightly. I sought approval from the original authors of the video and spent over a 100 hours on it, like literally, watch it. I think it's quite apparent I approached their tradition with respect and dignity, along with utter awe and reverence. It's such a rich and beautiful language, I don't think I could have executed the video in the way I did without this underlying respect. Yes I believe cultural appropriation is real. No I don't think that means we should live on isolated, cultural islands.
Cultural appropriation is a rather young debate. So it still needs time to be digested and nuanced. There are an infinite number of exceptions. Indian music is a good example of the will to share a culture with the world, but still keep a certain control and credit over it. You cannot just go and decide to make a career in carnatic music. The years of work, studies and the efforts it takes to play even the simplest composition acts as a natural filter over appropriation. It's like you cannot evolve in this path without facing the idea of respect for the masters and for the culture. Quite the opposite of what's happening with yoga in America.
@@hnatyshyn I had a friend that wanted to get some cheap tablas from Musiciansfriend for a hundred bucks to use for a part on his record. My other friend who studied percussion in Brazil made a poignant observation that I won't ever forget. With that tradition there's 'no shallow end of the pool'. It's a very distinct sound that's underrepresented in western music and people dedicate their whole lives to it. My friend decided against what he ultimately realized would be a fast food version of tabla playing in favor of hiring one a few the tabla players around. Yes you could buy cheap tablas and beat on them, and yes people will roll their eyes at you and accuse of presenting something with a rich history you know nothing about.
@@koalanights Boy! Some lesson there. I whish someday those ideas will be part of the basic musical education. Instruments of other culture for one thing, but also the big scam of cheap instruments dealers. I feel lucky I always had nice opportunity and guidance to get many decent instruments at good price.
8:40 my dad is the head of my school's music department and takes the stance that it's more important to understand music from around the world in the current musical world because of how it influences music throughout history and he believes that listening to Eurocentric music should be secondary in music education. In the first 3 years of high school, we all study gamelan, Latin American and African music before we study classical music and so far, it has led to the best results in the UK for a state school. I think this approach would work so much better in the curriculum as a whole.
I am a danish musician, who has spend some time in Turkey studying the Turkish Makam music, and my teacher recommended me the book "Turkish Music Makam Guide" by Murat Aydemir and Erman Dirikcan. That is a very good introduction including 2 CDs for referencing the different makams.
+FacePomagranate So does making the phrase markings a little more squared off than slurs. Or, slurs should look like a wet noodle, and phrase marks should look like bent paperclips. Besides, if it's that ambiguous, i'll usually throw in double bars between phrases just to make it really clear without cluttering the page.
In support of natural "talent," at the risk of sounding like an arrogant prick: my parents tell me I was singing before I was talking (and I started talking at an average age). Singing at a level equal to or better than my peers, some of whom put in much more work, always came naturally to me. Consequently, I have always found it difficult to explain and teach my technique to others. My parents are both amateur musicians and music lovers, and they started me singing in choirs at age 5, so that certainly had an effect on my musical development. Nevertheless, I always seemed to have a leg-up on my fellow choristers, even from a young age. I put in very little work and got great results. I can only attribute this to something innate, a kind of musical intuition.
5:17 "Context does matter when using certain words" This. Intent also matters. If someone doesn't mean to be hateful or derogatory, they're not being hateful or derogatory.
Here's a case of "the joke is on me": I learned in high school Spanish class that "I don't understand" is expressed as "no comprendo." But on a trip to Mexico, when the kids in the street talked too fast, I told them "no comprendo," which put them in convulsive laughter. I later learned that on the street, "I don't understand" is expressed as "no entiendo"; "no comprendo" means "I'm an idiot"! No offense taken.
Natural talent is definitely a thing, but that doesn’t mean it’s a USEFUL thing. I grew up in a house that had no creative endeavors whatsoever outside of the standard “play with LEGOs and do a coloring book” types of activities. The closest thing I had to direct musical practices were those cheap keyboards my parents would buy every few Xmases, and I would wail on them dissonantly, or create goofy ass soundscapes that remind me of Ross from Friends’ electronic band. I did, however, grow up being EXPOSED to a lot of good music, as my mother was fairly eclectic. Anyways, when I was about 13 I got interested in bass and my love of music exploded when I was exposed to, and finally “got” a lot of underground metal and hardcore, and the precursor to the social late-00s “emo” movement; the “we don’t identify as emo and reject the term” movement of the late 90s. Bands anywhere from like Sunny Day Real Estate, to Mineral, American Football, Piebald, Casket Lottery, just a whole slew of indie-rock-post-punk from all over, as well as all of this new metal and hardcore like Isis and Botch and early Dillinger. So having no musical background and a lot of free time, I’d just sit there and play bass to all these songs I could find on Napster, while voraciously searching for new music. I’d take a few min to figure out how the ending of The Red Sea was played, or the bass part to Black Heart Wench of Death, but I wasn’t doing anything *musically* So my brother lent me his acoustic and told me to learn guitar chords, so that I could be a better bassist and learn key signatures and stuff, be able to improvise and actually write shit. Lo and behold, I was naturally a very good guitarist and took to it immediately. Within hours I was writing music that at 33 I’m still proud of and would share with anyone. But to actually DO anything with that talent, I needed to put in hours and hours and day after day after day of practice and hard work. I threw myself headfirst into it. I’d sit on the toilet with an instrument. I’d watch tv with one. I’d chat with friends on AIM with one. I’d lay in bed with one. I’d keep my mom up by playing until the sun rose. I’d skip school to finish writing a riff. Being poor, I didn’t have a good way to record anything, so I wound up getting one of those tiny cassette dictation devices as a gift, because I would try and make my sister be a human metronome so I could play with meter and polyrhythms lol. Anyways, I never really learned any theory, I never took a lesson, and I never really understood the definition of practice save for just brute forcing things until you got close enough to call it good enough. Because of that, while I can sit in with almost any band and do modestly well, I was completely shunned and shied away from music as a career path based solely on the fact that I relied on natural talent, and didn’t put in enough of the work of “learning the language” of theory. Music is not a meritocracy, just because you’re really good at writing, or really good technically, or just really good overall, it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s all in how you use and hone your talents into being a business. You basically have to be an entrepreneur, and your product is you. If you can sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, you can hustle your way to gigs. I didn’t have that, and still don’t. And the intimidation factor of never being able to read music or learn theory also killed the whole thing for me 🤷🏻♂️ But anyways yeah, natural talent is real. But success from natural talent is wholly rare.
The way you wrote your experience actually gave me an idea. You said "I had to work hard to put my talent to use". People's general perception of talent feels like it could be abbreviated as "You need to have talent to put your hard work to use".
It's a good idea to learn a different language or play a different region of music because it brooding your chance to be good. Let's say for example if you want to learn how to speak Spanish you can start at high school or in college. My point is Adam is why can't a band student in the U.S learn more than just one region of music.
I love you even more the way you handled "opportunities can lead to some advantages for people" and "your words matter." Thank you for not being headstrong/ignorant about important issues like that, especially when that's not a focus of your channel
Funly enough I have been using tripple time signatures in my compositions for a few years now, but not in the sence of saying "5x4/4", but (as an example) "4/3:4/8", so as a more cleare information of an irational time signature, indicating, that there are 4 tripplet eight notes (3:4) in a bar, wich would look like this: 4 3:4 8 (PS: love your videos)
Yes there are DEFINITELY people who have natural MECHANICAL APTUTUDE and people who have natural ability to DIFFERENTIATE AUDIBLE TONES and FOLLOW RHYTHM as well as people who have advanced MANUAL DEXTERITY. I have higher than average natural abilities stated above.... but I rarely practice... so I SUCK to a certain extent. Example, I can pull off Freedom by RATM almost any time I pick up a guitar... but if I havent played in a month, Laid To Rest by Lamb Of God would take me three days to relearn and be able to play the song all on one shot. Having said that... I dont have a natural penchant for a lot of prog/metal type playing and I feel I'd basically be a beginner in trying to enter that genre... ..... regardless...PRACTICE YOUR ASS OFF
For your next Q&A. Hey Adam, I've been listening almost exclusively to Marian Hill for the past few days. I was wondering if you could analyse and explain the crazy jazzy breakdown section at 2:39 of their song "Wasted"? Greetings from Scotland.
Adam, much respect on your response to the Gypsy comment. In today's day and age, it can sometimes be hard to know what is actually appropriate; many people would have responded defensively rather than thoughtfully. It seems that, regardless of modern dialogue on the use of Gypsy to refer to Romani people, genres of music (e.g. Gypsy jazz) and other genre descriptors are seen as historical and inoffensive. I appreciate your willingness to stick to your guns (because you'd actually put some thought into it) and also the value you put into communicating thoughtfully.
cultural appropriation is still okay even if their is some negative market dynamic between the cultures. unless you a exploiting someone directly, using their culture cannot disenfranchise that person. you can be borrowing something from French culture and not be enriching yourself at the detriment to the french. it's not possible to disenfranchise a group of people by adopting something that that group of people do. The idea that culture can't be used by people who have not originally adopted that culture is antithetical to the idea of a culture entirely. culture is meant to be shared. it's how a behavior becomes considered part of a culture to begin with. I don't think anyone can claim the exclusive rights to a natural culture just as no one can claim the exclusive rights to a natural language.
Adopting elements from other cultures in a respectful manner in order to create something new is perfectly fine. But there's a real problem in westerners nitpicking concepts from other cultures and traditions and combining them in a superficial, postmodern manner without actually caring about the deeper aspects of said concepts, their long history, and the unique worldviews that they express.
I dont remember when the attitude qualifier was added to the definition of art. perhaps if you want to take a contrary view to mine, you could address my point so that I can understand your position. otherwise, you look a bit totalitarian. it's not a good look, I assure you.
@@MatthewsPersonal Sure, then let's look at the example Adam alludes to in his video. Much of early blues rock in mid-20th century America descended from a long jazz tradition led by African-American musicians. As the music industry expanded and profited off of sales of this music, these profits did not go back to those same African-American musicians. In fact, for a long time, their role in building jazz and rock was ignored altogether. The original musicians couldn't compete against the new ones, not because the new musicians played the tunes better or added their own contributions to the lineage, but because the new musicians were white and that's all the public would buy. This is an example of someone, or some industry, managing to "disenfranchise a group of people by adopting something that that group of people do." Your point was that some negative market dynamic is still acceptable. Maybe your point was that what happened to African-American musicians in the 1950s is cultural appropriation, but there is more nuance to the definition than "negative market dynamic." That's fine, but nothing else in the rest of your post suggests this level of nuance. I'm not sure if my view is contrary to yours, since your view isn't particularly clear and doesn't really seem to augment Adam's point like you say. I hope I've addressed your point at least.
Question for your next Q&A I play piano (mostly self taught) and I find that when I practice I have a kind of block at times. Ill be more likely to go over the parts of a piece that i already know rather then actually continue and finish the piece. Any tips or tricks to stop that so i can actually learn the whole piece. Also do you have any helpful tips for getting through really really dense sheet music. Currently I'm trying to learn Chopin's Nocturne op. 48 no.1 and I'm only having trouble with the last section that's really dense with chords everywhere. Any tips for dissecting and practicing that last passage. Thanks I really enjoy learning about music theory from you
"World" music really should be taught more in music schools. Aside from latin music, I was never taught anything but classical and jazz; definitely nothing eastern.
9:23 I saw a tumblr post of someone complaining of "Too many white people learning Spanish" and "they should learn European languages as too not appropriate POC culture" or something like that.
Love your channel and your approach to music, theoretical experiments and novations which could add something new to the modern music All content of your channel covers the immense amount of information that can be useful to absolutely every not indifferent and inquisitive musician. Keep doing what you're doing, Adam
"Giant Steps" may be a rite of passage, sure, but I have my own expectations to compete and keep in perspective. What else is absent from cultural expectation?
Another interesting idea would be to expand the tensor order of the time signature rather than expanding the number of elements in the time signature vector (e.g. adding a third component to the time signature keeps the time signature as a column vector but now adds a third component). Increasing the tensor order would expand the 2x1 column vector that is the traditional time signature into a 2x2 (square) matrix with four elements. In general, matrices can be perceived as a combination column vectors, so perhaps the 2x2 time signature tensor is just a way of writing two time signatures? e.g. a {(7,3),(8,4)} time signature tensor implies that a single bar of music is actually just a bar of 13/8, but the tensor now shows where the accents/subdivisions are. This could be useful to indicate subdivisions, especially if they change. Not saying it would be more useful than having separate bars, or just accents in a bar, but that's one idea of a use for a tensor time signature. What else could it represent? what if we think of it as four independent elements instead of simply two column vectors?
Hey Adam, love your videos. Please tell me your opinion about musicians who claim to play "everything". I'm still 18 but I have already met 4-5 people who said that and they were all extremely bad at their instrument. How would you behave to them, if you got to play together? Thanks!!
Of course, you could also have QUINTUPLE time signatures, such as 3:2/5/5/4/5. 5 measures of 5/4 subdivided into quintuplets, with 5/4 being split into groups of 3 quarter notes and 2 quarter notes. to clarify: *3:2* /5/5/4/5 tells us how to group the beats of the main time signature. 3:2/ *5* /5/4/5 tells us what tuplet the beats are subdivided into. 3:2/5/ *5/4* /5 acts like normal time signatures do, 5 meaning number of beats and 4 meaning length of note. 3:2/5/5/4/ *5* tells us the number of measures it should be thought of in. So in conclusion, a quintuple time signature would tell us how to group the beats of the main time signature, what tuplet the beats are subdivided into, what number of beats is in a measure, how long each beat is (half note, quarter note, eighth note, etc.) and how many measures the song should be thought of in (maybe to measure where the chord progression loops, or for some sort of clarification purposes).
Hey Adam! Question for your next Q+A: As someone who seems welled versed in both jazz and EDM, I wanted your opinion on some troubles I ran into while writing with one of my friends. I've played jazz bass for about 10 years now and he's been DJing and doing his own stuff for about as long. He often get's upset with me for over complicating things with music theory and harmony, but I get upset with him because he keeps adding all these different sounds and not advancing the piece. I'm more concerned with what each instrument is playing and how it will line up, and he is more concerned with what everything sounds like and less focused on exact rhythms or pitches. I like his stuff when it's finished and he likes what I write, but it's a little hard for us to each hop on each other's trains at the same time because we are attacking it from opposing sides. How does your workflow for writing with Ableton work? Are you ever at odds with these conflicting directions yourself, and if so how do you overcome it?
Heya Adam, I’m versed in the video game music industry, and I’m wondering if appropriation applies to the ragtime-ish music composed by nubuo Uematsu for the final fantasy games.. Check any piano collections album for games final fantasy 5-10 and you’ll see a ragtime track. Would that qualify as appropriation of another culture’s music for the benefit of a different art form and (maybe?) more importantly: for profit? Example 2: Wii shop and menu music appropriating Latin rhythms and conventions. Thanks! big fan, violinist at Cornish college of the arts Seattle WA Shout out
For anyone interested, Meshuggah use hyper meters. If you want a full on academic paper on the subject look up 'Re-casting Metal: Rhythm and Meter in the music of Meshuggah' by Johnathon Pieslak. Enjoy! Edit: I see Adam picked up another Meshuggah paper 🤘
Hey Adam, great video as always! One thing that popped into my head was about your comment about "knowledge rationing" in science. I'm a musician and also a science communicator by day job. There's a concept in a lot of science education called the "lie-to-children." For example, we first learn that electrons are little balls that circle an atom like little moons. If we go on in our physics/chemistry education, we then learn that they're actually quantum waves that form particular resonance forms* around atoms. The first can be thought of as an oversimplification, yes, but if we're looking at it more bluntly it's basically a lie to make things easier to understand! On a less prosaic level, of course, there's all kind of interpersonal shittiness in the science world that leads to people hoarding results or techniques to prevent other people from using them or taking credit. So I think this question of when and how to share knowledge, and what kind of knowledge to share, is a really interesting topic across a lot of fields! * On a super geeky note, I'm wondering if you've ever made a video about how the same techniques that are used to analyze music at a sound level, like Fourier analysis, are also used to analyze the underlying nature of reality? There's a ton of really interesting stuff there without getting too much into woo-woo "we're all vibrations, man!" nonsense. Even though we, uh, kind of are.
So I was messing around w/ my keyboard and noticed that E and E flat sound worse together then B and C. I know they are both a half step apart but it's kinda weird. Can u plz explain?
Hey Adam. I love your work! I’ve been a patron for several months. (Coda Calypso) Thanks for touching on the concept I’ve been calling “knowledge hoarding”. This is one of my biggest problems with Van Halen. I respect the musicianship, but the more I hear about the people behind the music, the harder it is to keep my appreciation for the finished product. The artist provides the context through which I receive the art. In your opinion, is that a legitimate mind frame to consume art, or should music be viewed as a pure art form? An independent concept that lives completely divorced from the artist. Thanks for everything you do. Sungazer rocks!
Hey Adam, quick question here: what things or techniques do you use when you try to write music? How do you come up with ideas for melody, harmony, rhythm, etc for your music? And what do you do to get into your creative head space?
Please don't give in to the trend of politicizing everything. People need to grow a thicker skin again. In my opinion, you handled "it" really well in this video. ...and as always: thanks for your content, I really appreciate your work. :)
To figure out compound time signatures in music already written (at least when scored for a symphony/wind ensemble/etc), you can just look at the percussion part to see how many bars are repeated in each section at a time. Ha.
Hi Adam! Is it hard for an international student to apply for a music school on US? I started studying music quite late in my life (about 19 y/o) and although I play guitar ever since I was 14, only in college I actually engaged in a rich musical experience through a bateria (a percussion group made by students that uses samba school drums to play all sorts of arrangements). As a result, I have A LOT to catch up to compared to a lot of international students that study and live music ever since they were kids. Is there an age limit to apply? Best regards from Brazil!
Idk, I find it hard to believe the difference between the likes of Jacob Collier and a very good musician is down to just practice, there are only so many hours in a day. Many people have a very musical family and have become obsessed with music, and granted, these people are probably all good musicians, but there's a difference between being a good musician and achieving the levels of praise Jacob gets, including from highly trained musicians. This is coming from a kinda outsiders perspective tho, so I'd like you to take this with a grain of salt, I'm not that passionate (and consequently, not that good) about music, but I am about other things, and in those my experience indicates a very high importance of talent that I'm kinda just assuming also works for music from the little evidence I see. On a side note: I understand where you're coming from if you wanna discourage people who say stuff like "Oh I'm just not talented". Yes, talent is what will differenciate between people who do put a ton of work, but I'd take a wild guess and say all mentaly healthy people have what it takes in terms of talent to become great musicians.
The closest thing I can think of to a triple time signature is the fourth movement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, where the time signature is 2/8/6/16/3/8 which is conducted in one and has different subdivisions between different members of the orchestra and changes the subdivision you read every few measures without changing the time signature
A bunch of people mentioned that Jacob Collier already talked about triple time signatures in the second June Lee theory video, where the third number refers to the subdivision of the pulse, so 5/4/4 would be 4/4, but the quarter notes are divided into quintuplets - I can see that being useful too! We might even take it a step further - QUADRUPLE time signatures!
One of the extra numbers refers to the hypermeter, and the other refers to the subdivision. so 5/4/4/5 would be 5 measures of 4/4 subdivided into quintuplets.
This is totally stupid and impractical, but we're about the memes here, so enjoy.
Repetition legitimizes
Legitition repetimizes
Joel Gerhardt no.
Legitition repetimizes
Legitition repitemizes, also I love your videos nice job!
Stephen King said something like "talent is a dull knife. You have to put in the work to sharpen it ".
I've tried to read King, we must have different concepts of talent.
@Cachorro Velho " Any claims
that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit. I’ve heard alcoholic snowplow drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons. It doesn’t matter if you’re James Jones, John Cheever, or a stewbum snoozing in Penn Station; for an addict, the right to the drink or drug of choice must be preserved at all costs. Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn’t drink because they were creative, alienated, or morally weak. They drank because it’s what alkies are wired up to do. Creative
people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism and
addiction than those in some other jobs, but so what? We all look pretty much the same when we’re puking in the gutter."
-Stephen King also
+maxxramman
I don't think he was claiming it's necessary. I think he was referring to the fact that Stephen King wrote four books in under a year, fueled by tons of cocaine. Later, he couldn't remember the majority of what he wrote, so when people came asking for movie rights, he had to read them to remember what they were trying to buy!
Spot on!
👏🏾
Just wanna say - Thank you for all the consistently relevent, easily digestible and informative content, Adam. I wouldn't have started my journey into music theory in general if it weren't for you, so cheers from South Africa. Keep it up man. B A S S!
🅱🅰🆂🆂
Omg
I'm also from SA
🅱️🅰️💲💲
When 21/32 with 9 note tuplets isn't enough j a z z
Y O U L I K E J A Z Z
🇮 🇱🇮🇰🇪 🇯🇦🇿🇿
21/32?
(Master of Puppets intensifies)
@@herpderpinson6117 woke
J A Z Z J A Z Z J A Z Z J A Z Z J A Z Z
Repetition legitimizes
Repetition legitimizes
Repetition legitimizes
Repetition legitimizes
Repetition legitimizes
not if you ask all the Lego Star Wars fans on penguinz0's channel, it doesn't
no
Legetition repitimizes
@@gxexrxmxaxnx : Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho
X88X these are the lyrics of a wise man.
Re: anti-clickbait, thank you for also not doing video titles in all caps!!!
I mean, Adam's videos are so infrequent and of such high quality that it doesn't need any type of eye-catching tricks to stand out among all the videos.
Or that awful thing of Capitalising The First Letter Of Every Word.
@@bordershader a.k.a. title case. It is a widely used convention in the English-speaking world.
@@ltu42 I know. I was taught to capitalise all but the small words (of, the, and, by etc.) so as not to impede the reader's eye. That seems to have turned into blanket capitalising of every word, which is cumbersome.
Jacob Collier once talked about how he adds another number onto time signatures to show how each beat is subdivided. For example, 5/4/4 would be a normal bar of 4/4 with each beat divided into 5 equal subdivisions (quintuplets.) I'll edit this when I find the video he talks about it on.
June Lee interview part 2, 11 minute mark
Its the 2nd Jacob Collier interview of June Lee's channel at 15:10 :D
But that's the same as those "irrational" time signatures isn't it? So 5/4/4 for jacob collier would be something like 16/20 for Adam
@@justusotter5388 16/20 doesn't exist. Collier's notation helps if the whole song has 4/4 divided into quintuplets and therefore makes it easier to notate and read than 4 mesures of 5/16 since they go by so fast
Exactly! I remembered that aswell and to me it seems like a more useful way to use a tripple time signature than the hypermeter.
Can't wait for your analysis of quadratic function time signatures!
What about triple algebraic time signature? Like 2a/6b/77f
Hypermeter sounds like a pretty cool prog metal band name
Darkthony Progtano
Hyper anything does! First time I heard the word "hypervisor" I was like, whoa that's a rad word, I should call something that!
Hyperbola
@@pixiepandaplush Absolutely!! HYPER PIXIE PANDA PLUSH
Roxfox Not always, Hyperview is Title Fight’s worst album
Stolen from Reddit but Pirates of the Caribbean is just the Licc in 12/8
I don't hear it
Great. Now I can't unheard it
This actually blew my mind
Screw you! You've ruined PoC for me forever! Now I can't hear the theme without getting hit with a flood of meme thoughts.
Oh my God it really is
I love how smoothly you tackled the racial slur and the cultural appropriation subjects
Yuval Nehemia Same, it was good.
Yes!
Yes! Otherwise I would have been so offended that I wouldn't have been able to comprehend the music analysis! But since I now know that he understands that "colored person" is very racist and "person of color" is very respectful, it is clear that he isn't a neo-nazi and his music analysis is now appreciable by me. This is VERY important in music!
@@Ryan-dg5mt well I dont want to hear a nazis opinion on music as they are fuckin dumb in at least one aspect of their thought process.
Edit: and their musical taste is shit
@@layladystay I don't know, WWII German military marches are pretty good, honestly.
But otherwise, that's a pretty narrow thing to say. What if someone you'd call a neo-nazi liked the same music as you? Would that mean that you also have bad taste?
*YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THE SLOWEST MUSIC IS?!??*
Lmaoo
@@amj.composer 12 EXTREMELY SLOW PIECES OF MUSIC! #7 WILL BLOW YOUR MIND!!!
Read this as he said it lmao
*GONE WRONG!*
0.000000001 BPM?!?
When will your TED talk be online?
Ted talks
But does Ted listen???
@@dariocaporuscio8701 I bet Ted listens when money talks
@@DjCzubaka I think Ted talks and his children listen to the story of how he met their mother for like 9 season
guys can somebody actually answer this question seriously?
I'm pretty sure it already is
"Thank you for coming to my Ted talk"
why are you fucking literally everywhere
Ily Justin Y.
Love u
Justin Y. We meet once again
why do i see you everywhere
As an Irishman, I'm thrilled to see Japanese people enjoying Irish music, and I'd like to think they'd enjoy seeing a western musician using the Kumoi and Hirajoshi scales. It's nice when people embrace different cultures.
Adam watches Tom Scott? Nice
I had the same thought!
My biggest takeaway from this video!
*nice*
Damn I missed it
I love that you are very thoughtful to your approach on things that may be considered offensive to others. True in the end a word is just a tool, but the misuse of a tool is another thing entirely. You don't use a hammer to force someone to agree by wacking them over the head with it. Instead you build a bridge with that hammer and encourage them into a mutually equitable trade agreement.
Aylbdr Madison Agreed! It's so refreshing given how much outrage makes the news rather than measured response.
"Knowledge rationing" happens in many jobs as well. People fear if they teach someone how to do a job, then the person doing said job becomes less valued
wouldn't it be more that they can take your job and now you have a problem
I miss the good ol’ days of
Allen Needy’s Vase Linens
Aaron Nandy’s Bait & Tackle....
Angelo Nodule’s Mercantile....
Andrew Nestle's Beef Lasagna
Congestion and Dancer Time with a Denim Wheelie
Arlan Nelly’s Brass Legends
What do you think about distortion heavy bass players like cliff Burton and Lemmy?
Sucks
@@agustinares930 could you elaborate?
@@Faulheit asking someone that made a one word reply to elaborate is funny :) In answer to your question I think distortion heavy bass players are great as long as their playing style fits the music/song and the other musicians/fans like it. Your question is so loose that the one word answer is appropriate, btw. You should refine your question if you want more detailed answers.( I am giving this detail because I found your and Agustins interaction very funny and wanted to make myself a part of it). To elaborate, the two examples you give are of successful musicians - what ANYONE will think is "fair play to them, they found a style they liked and it worked for them". If you are asking about ALL bass players in the WORLD that are "distortion heavy" your question becomes slightly different.. in regard to those players I think they should explore the enormous world of "no distortion" bass. You really should define "distortion heavy"... do you mean "too much distortion at a given time" or do you mean "too regular use of distortion in general".
Now, perhaps you see what I saw and the joke that Agustin reply is actually perfect. Is Agustin telling you they think the two players suck? The "style" sucks"? Or that YOUR QUESTION "Sucks"
@Faulheit Seconded. I would love to hear what he thinks of Cliff Burton, at least. (Lemmy, less so.)
One word negative answers are usually the tool of the troll. If the person had any meaning or feeling behind what they were saying they would have said it in the initial reply. "I don't like it because you lose some of the tone of the bass" or "I feel like it muddies the foundation of the music" or something. Personally, I love the sound of it as a rule, but it if it doesn't fit the song or the style that the band is playing it can sound 'forced', if that makes sense. I've heard live bands where a distorted bass just kinda deadens the rest of the band and makes it all kinda meh.
Practicing hard is important, but it’s more important to practice correctly and effectively. I have wasted countless hours practicing badly, or even learning things incorrectly and then having to unlearn and relearn. So work hard - but make sure you are working effectively.
I know teachers who say that for every time you play something wrong, you have to play it correctly at least twice: your time playing correctly should exceed your time playing incorrectly. Many players - including me for a long time - do the opposite. I would hack at something 50 times, get it right once or twice and think “Ok, now I’ve got it”. Then I’d blow it in performance (surprise!).
Hard work is essential, but it can be counterproductive if misapplied, and unlearning is much harder than learning. (Try unlearning your native language, for example).
Hey Adam, could you makes your video “Writing in Sibelius for 10 minutes” into a series or at least an expanded topic video on notation software and how it’s best used to make music in this growing world of internet composers? I ask this not only for others by myself because I have been jumping from free trials with Dorico and Musescore trying to find my way but not really knowing what to do and which software is best. The input would help.
I agree, it would be really nice
That's a complex question. In my opinion Finale and Sibelius are both rubbish. Where are the arpeggios? The scales? The modes? Not to mention the slurs that are impossible to drag where you want. Then there's the issue of it becoming a crutch; I uninstalled Finale after 2 years because its chord checker was like a life jacket and I needed to make chords myself. But for some people these programs might do what they want. I just wouldn't pay for this garbage. Finale also decided to become the world's copyright police in its latest version. It removed pdf score scanning.
I currently use Sibelius (as does Adam Neely to the best of my knowledge). It's a very professional program, but has a LOT of wonky bits to it. It takes a little while to get used to it, but once you do, the workflow can be quite fast and you can create very professional looking scores (as in, many professional publishers use Sibelius).
However, if I were starting out learning nowadays, I'd go with Dorico. It's much more logically laid out and it quickly becoming favored by many musicians. It's created by many of the original creators of Sibelius, but since it's a new project, it's clear they're considering UI a lot more with Dorico. I imagine by the end of 2019 or shortly thereafter Dorico will be able to do almost anything Finale or Sibelius can do.
If money is an issue, though, go for Musescore, I'd say. Many things drive me crazy about Musescore, but there's a lot of support for it and it's free. If you know what you're doing, you can get pretty good results that will suffice for the majority of musicians.
Hey Adam, what are your opinions on Musescore? Why do you use Sibelius?
He's said before (don't remember which vid exactly) that he's cool with musescore, and likes it, but he's got the experience and workflow down pat in Sibelius and doesn't see the need to change.
Also he'd still have to keep Sibelius to be able to access his back catalog, so it's not like he'd be getting rid of anything. The file formats of notation software are horribly proprietary (except MuseScore) and not even consistent across versions, so if you switch programs, you leave behind everything you did in the old one.
I've even had a problem trying to open Encore 4 created files in Encore 5. Basically, it crashes the program. The only workaround is to install Encore 4.5 -- which only runs on 32-bit Windows, it'll crash and burn on 64-bit Windows -- so you can open all your files and immediately save them again. After that, Encore 5 will be able to successfully read them in. So sometimes notation software isn't even backward compatible with _itself,_ let alone cross-platform.
I have an Acer Aspire One from 2009 in my closet for times like these. I don't have 32-bit Windows installed anywhere else.
@Logan Searle Wat. It's popular, sure, but it still uses a proprietary save format by default. MusicXML is the industry standard format for sheet music.
For next Q and A: I play trumpet and I'm currently teaching myself guitar. I enjoy improvising (on trumpet), as jazz is one of my favorite genres. However, when I improvise I find myself using patterns I've used before on previous improv sessions. No one wants to hear the same thing twice. How do I get out of this "loop" of repetition?
Honestly the use of patterns isnt a bad thing, once you know what you're comfortable with try to create slight variations to the idea. Say instead of playing a major pentatonic lick you know really well off the 1 of a maj7 chord, try playing it transposed off the 2 (making a lydian sound) or off the 5 (accenting the maj7th). You can play the same lick in a million different ways and sometimes it leads to the creation of a completely new musical idea.
Say I'm using a blues scale. Bb for example. I seem to do the same thing over and over when i start. It just seems over-repetitive if you get what I mean.
@@LavenderTownWasTaken basically when I use a particular scale I seem to use the same patterns on that particular scale everytime.
On guitar it becomes very easy to fall into the “boxes” and noodle around in those boxes. Rather than doing this, when you’re practicing your improvisation, try to include all 12 musical notes while still remaining in a certain key. Finding “outside” tones that you like the sound of will help you find your own voice on the instrument, and sometimes the “wrong” note can sound stylish and really cool if you play it with conviction and purpose. Of course, learning new phrases, songs and styles will revolutionize your playing without you even realizing it. If you dive into the blues or jazz or rock or whatever, over time your ear will naturally gravitate toward the phrases that are common in these genres. Anyways, it’s a fun journey so enjoy the process!
@@unchien2069 thanks to both of you this advice will definitely help
I've loved the idea of what he called triple measure and I wrote a song that at one point is in 3/3/4, I called it "super waltz" and it has a really intense sound. Glad to see it discussed
Next do 3 bar phrases of 9/8 (subdivided as like a compound 3/4) but the 16th notes are swung in triplets
5:46 "People who say that words don't matter deny that words have any meaning at all, which is contrary to the idea of communication." THANK YOU! I've been dying to hear somebody succinctly put this into words.
Hey Adam, Quick Question for you next Q&A: How long does it take you to find questions for Q&A's?
I am of Romani descent, and we all call ourselves Gypsies. It's not a derogatory term, it's what we call ourselves and what we take pride in. Like you said, context is what's important when using such a word, because anything can be used as an insult.
I speak for American Gypsies when I say we much prefer the term "Gypsy" over "Romani" because we never use that word! And it's always nice to hear people talk about us in videos or movies, even if it's being used offensively we laugh about it! You officially have the G-word pass from me, especially since you were speaking about the music genre :D
I have a similar relationship with the word "Polack". My family used it so much to refer to ourselves that I didn't even know it had a pejorative meaning until I was in high school, when I got in trouble for using it (to describe me).
However, I am at least two or three generations removed from a time real polish racism was a thing. Now, I'm just basically another white american. The idea of racial prejudice against me is so abstracted that it fails to have a real emotional meaning. So I don't care if people use the term "Polock" or tell polish jokes.
However, I'm positive that it'd be different if there _was_ still a strong anti-Polish sentiment, and I actually felt threatened by it.
@@dalegaliniak607 Polak is the polish word for a polish person, though, an autonym. Not quite the same as "gypsy," which is an abbreviations of "Egyptians" from other languages, or "tsigani", coming from Byzantyne Greek for "untouchable". These were originally slurs.
I've personally never heard it used as an insult or slur so that part of the video confused me. Ive only ever had to use gypsy for the music style as well, as there's no one of that decent in my circle of people I know in Louisiana.
It isn't really your permission to give. It's used pejoratively by people still, and maybe other people of your culture won't like this. Maybe nobody you know.
Do you speak for your entire culture? Does your entire culture know that you are the one who calls the shots?
It's fine to offer individual permission, but trying to offer blanket permission like this never really makes sense.
@@blarghblargh I completely disagree. Words are just words, he wasn't using it in an insulting way. I don't think this kind of fear does anyone any good. Perhaps if it was a fresh wound, but the word and people have been around for a long time now, and he was talking about the genre that is literally called "Gypsy music".
Also, there is not and probably never will be a representative body for gypsies! We are spread around the world and have all adapted different cultures. I think this time it all comes down to if you want to use it or not.
Thanks so much for the detailed answer. It's exactly what I wanted to hear (and honestly I kind of expected that from you). Keep it up man!
"Imagine if there was knowledge rationing in science"
Paid academic journal access.
and this is why all scientists still pray to the gods of Sci-Hub and Library Genesis...
The scientific community does ration knowledge (kinda). Many distributors of scientific papers, like JSTOR for example requires a subscription fee
Jacob Collier suggests using triple time signatures to denote embedded polyrhythmic tuplets... such as 3/6/4 is a bar of 6/4 but each single quarter note is subdivided into 3.
What you described is just subdivisions? It could be a convenient shorthand, but again, new notation...
@@israellai i was writing a reply to you but then noticed that adam neely already basically wrote what i just wrote and commented on his own video so i deleted my comment and wrote this instead
7:30 - "Think about what would happen if the scientific community rationed knowledge in this way."
The Western mathematical communities of the 1400s and 1500s actually _did_ ration knowledge, ironically enough, because back then, mathematicians garnered literal fame and fortune from being able to solve problems that no-one else could, and thus were inclined to keep their methods to themselves. Perhaps the most well-known example of this is the "cubic formula", the general solution to cubic equations (cf. quadratic formula providing the solution to quadratic equations), with Zuanne da Coi and Tartaglia actually placing large bets based on who could solve the most cubic equations in a month.
Adam! Question for your next Q&A: I'm coming up to 17 years old, and I'm struggling with listening to music, Everything I listen to is either boring or becomes boring very quickly (after just a couple times listening through) to me. I was wondering if you've either experienced this or have some advice, even just some suggestions for new stuff to listen to would be helpful, I love everything you do, keep it up :)
I have this problem as well. I used to be fascinated and entranced by the music I listen to, now everything just goes right through me and doesn't do much. Adam please help lol
What stuff have you listened to already?
@@bordershader I've tried lots, I loved and still love brass big band music (but Im struggling to find more of that, my favourite is probably youngblood brass band) I've also tried people like snarky puppy and vulfpeck... I'm a fan of all the classic 1920s jazz and also like classical music xx
@@Pheobe2424 it's sometimes so hard to find new stuff, my background is punk/grunge/alt and I got a bit trapped in the past and wanted to know what new directions were afoot. So I bounced around TH-cam and Amazon "if you like that you'll probably like this..." kind of thing and unlocked masses of new stuff. Spent £100 on new music in an afternoon eek! Lol But that was a while ago and I think the algorithms have changed.
I'm also very into American country/folk and I got a whole new load of directions from reading the credits and finding collaborators. If you don't have the CDs, Wikipedia can be quite good (to a point).
Also now I'm really into the historical context of music. Like the whole Beat scene in 50s/60s America, tempered by (arguably, of course) the Civil Rights movement, post-war whoopee, McCarthyism... this can then lead into finding out who else was on the scene outside of jazz (political folk music, for instance)... looking at the lineage of UK punk is embedded in British politics of the 70s and has seen me develop a new respect not just for those who found a voice and spoke out (in this case, reggae, ska, British folk as well as punk) but also of the history of my own country.
Finally I think nothing of connecting with the musicians themselves, asking who their influences are, what they would recommend. Obvs that's not so easy if you're into 20s stuff, but are there specialist record shops or modern-day musicians you can track down? I'm actually reviving much of my interest through discussions with a lecturer on a masters programme at one of our local universities!
Good luck, anyway. I'm in my 40s and it's taken me too long to really start pulling together all these different strands; where would I be if I'd done this in my 20s? I'm excited for you!
thanks, @@bordershader there's allot to work with there :)
Other classical musics (other than the western) are often taught under Ethnomusicology. Problem of course is that that's musicology, which is more a cultural study than a music study.
Hey Adam, I hope you read this. Re your last section, specifically: "is it wrong to learn another language? of course it isn't, no" - you really shouldn't write that off so strongly as a question. Language is a part of culture, and embeds cultural knowledge. Perceptions of ownership of knowledge differ between cultures - in some (specifically I'm thinking a few Native American nations), knowledge may be seen as being owned, exclusive to either the nation as a whole or select individuals within it, and language is not an exception. As far as I understand, the Jemez don't allow their language to be written; I am also aware (although I forget which community it was) of a linguist developing a dictionary that the community refused to allow publication of, not wanting the language shared.
A concrete example of problems that can arise: there have been cases of traditional knowledge (often encoded in language) about the local environment being exploited by outsiders for e.g. resource plundering, or the creation of patents for traditional medicines. A great article on examples and attempts to explicitly protect exclusive knowledge is in the Pacific Standard ("Breaking a Sacred Trust: On the Exploitation of Traditional Native Knowledge": psmag.com/social-justice/breaking-a-sacred-trust). There's also a small section on the ownership of linguistic and ethnographic data in this paper by Keren Rice (rnld.org/sites/default/files/Rice%202006.pdf). I could go on, but hopefully you get the gist.
I am happy to see that at the end you emphasized the importance of seeing if there is a power dynamic at play - certainly in these cases there is, and language cannot be considered as neutral if it is also cultural.
Lmfao what a pathetic world you live in.
@@Va11idus He's literally just saying there's cultures that don't want their language to be shared
You are literally knowledge rationing
In US schools, look for ethnomusicology. It has pretty much everything non-Western.
UCLA is really good.
Just wanted to add that an exception to the Western-centric academic agenda that most American music institutions have is California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, CA. Taking world music ensembles and classes is required no matter your degree, and there are world music majors as well, who spend very little time playing any conventional western music. Just thought it was worth sharing!
What do they define as World Music? I know what it was when I worked in a record store. It was largely western artists using the grab bag approach, often mixing influences from several continents. (Think Mickey Hart) And then a few Peruvian pan pipe bands and some Indian Raga.
Could a world music major focus on an Indonesian musical subculture? Or traditional Persian music?
@@Markle2k I think the term "world music" has become quite obsolete. Apart from a section at the record store which gets more and more subdivision nowadays. I think with internet, and especially youtube, people are coming to understand that it is not "the world vs western culture".
I've studied instruments and music form all around the globe for the last 20 years, still, I never heard myself say I was playing "world music".
Let's be the change and show common people the nuances of music from everywhere.
Loved the response to the question about cultural appropriation at the end. The consideration of studying foreign languages was spot on. I agree that there is nothing long with creating something inspired by a tradition that is different from one's own background as long as it is not at the expense of the other culture. In the tradition of Family Feud that was a "Good Answer! Good Answer!"
5:21 it’s okay we’ve all read to kill a mockingbird in 8th grade
I didn’t
9th grade for me
Ha! My mind went to the same place with the triple time signature, because Hindustani music actually often uses something like this. The most common "time signature" in Hindustani music is a kind of 4/4/4, where melodic themes follow a "cycle" of four bars of four.
When first introduced to the concept of Western time signatures, this was a source of confusion to me because it took me a while to understand that the time signature provides no information about the rhythmic structure of the music at any time scale larger than a measure of music.
Of course one would have a hard time applying this to other Indian "time signatures", which can contain many bars of varying lengths; in this sense they are probably closer to compound time signatures of the West.
When is the next Musica Analytica!?
Glad to hear you're open to non-Western traditions, Adam. A good intro to Byzantine chant/theory can be found here: stanthonysmonastery.org/music/Index.html It's far from a complete explanation, but a good primer. My textbook was primarily Basilos Psilacos' technical exercise book. He has other books for people who haven't had instructors.
Jacob Collier has an inverse answer to the title question of this video that he addresses in an interview (interview part 2 i think?), where the 3rd number in the time signature denotes the number of subdivisions of each note, which i think is more interesting and versatile than using it for hypermeasures. there's a ton of interesting ways to nest tuplets that are very easy to express using that kind of time signature
yeah, it's the June Lee interview part 2, he starts talking about it around 11 minutes in, specifically he uses it as a way to notate the idea of "playing drunk" that you talked about recently, making more loose feeling grooves with unusual subdivisions.
It seems easier and more standard to just write in "with a septuplet drunk-feel" over the staff. There's no need to propose new notation for a fairly obscure/idiosyncratic way of performing.
As an English speaker from Britain, the existence of American English and International Business English both irritate me.
You don't utilize, you use. A nouned-verb (utility) should not beget verbed-nouned-verbs. Just use the base verb, dammit.
"Do the needful and revert" implies they're going to undo what I've asked for after they've done it, even though I know in IBE "revert" also means to report back.
Adam is wrong about talent. Many musicians (like me) who have very little talent, but who worked hard to get to where they are don't like believing in natural aptitude, because there is a perception that it diminishes all the work you've put in through school to get the outcomes you have. It doesn't, but that's irrelevant. Upbringing is a good argument, but my dad's a classical musician, who showed me notation flashcards before he showed me words. I've played piano from 4 and moved to bass from 14 and I've played enthusiastically my whole life since doing my best to understand music. Fifteen years later, I'm 'good' at bass purely because when you've been doing something forever, you become competent, but I still understand music pretty poorly, and nobody I know would ever refer to me as talented. Compare this to the sax player in my band who works as a tradesperson, doesn't have a single musical family member, and can just feel his instrument in ways I can't follow. He is (and I say this out of love) not a high-intellect person, but he can reproduce anything he hears on his intrument. Any riff, any hook, and he can improvise super-well for someone with zero theory at all other than knowing what key something is in. He never plays his instrument at home either, because he doesn't have to. How can it be possible that he and I both have the same talent level? It just doesn't add up.
Some people are objectively more talented than others. It doesn't mean some people can't do music, but it does mean some people are going to excel faster than others.
I suggest you give a second listening of what Adam says about talent. Although I don't agree 100%, it seems there are some subtleties you may have missed.
For example, he says "is talent necessary for success?". Well, first we have to define success. Let's say it is success in a career in music, I would say that even if music is natural for somebody doesn't mean he or she has the skills to manage a career (booking gigs, organize rehearsals, do p.r, choosing repertoire, writing charts, etc)
IMO, aptitude in music is an irrelevant idea. It is more a package deal of many aptitudes. Like dexterity, capacity to learn a language, memory skills, passion, patience, imagination, tenacity, communication, organization, ear perception, curiosity, and so on. These are all skills or aptitude that we have at a certain degree that will mostly define what kind of musician we can become. So being good at music is not limited to being good on your instrument. Let's say you put those in order of importance (for you), you may see it differently, see better what are your strengths. For example, if your best aptitude is organization, then you are better than many to put up a band and setup a tour, and that is a rare talent among musicians. My point is, it all depends on what you compare yourself to in terms of aptitudes. If you compare yourself with the virtuose part of music, you are probably screwed. Learn how to make profit of your strengths, this is where you will get the more satisfaction for being a musician.
Personally, I have not much difficulty learning an instrument. The result is I work less, I am a lazy musician. So when it is time to get gigs, I am often left behind. I envy less "talented" musicians who have way more success than just because they are good at business or at making contacts. Anyways, I hops this gives you another perspective on the matter.
Hey @Adam Neely
We looked at triple time signatures, and negative time signatures, but what about negative triple time signatures? Or even, quadruple time signatures and their negatives?
Appropriation, to my uses, isn't copying or borrowing but instead the obfuscation of the original by the copy. E.g. Japanese whiskey isn't cultural appropriation of the Irish because everyone knows which is the copy and that the original exists. If the copy's identity overrides the original to the point that either the original is unknown or not recognized as genuine, that's appropriation. And I think that aligns nicely with the concept of harm. I would say similar to the difference between piracy and theft, only the latter is subtractive.
Knowledge rationing can be beneficial in situations where knowledge gained out of order can be harmful. E.g. a beginning math student may be denied a calculator (temporarily) to be forced to endure an educational constraint. If someone hands you all at once abag of musical bird parts you might be tempted to construct your peacock by the feathers first and not on top of well-placed bones.
Japanese whisky (they don't use the "e") distilleries long ago sent their crews to Scotland to train with the masters. Those masters knew exactly what they were going to do with it, which was to make a Japanese whisky reminiscent of and also _as good as_ the original. By the look of reviews in the last 10 or 15 years, I'd have to say they succeeded.
The notion of "teaching the fundamentals" is a valid one for those who are actually going deeper into the field, but it's kinda overkill for someone who just wants to strum three chord songs by a campfire, or needs to know how to make change for a dollar.
You're such a kind and thoughtful person, Adam. Even though your channel is focused on music, you have a way of making it far more relevant and appealing to human experience and life than just "here are some cool theory nuggets. Enjoy and practice."
I hope if we ever get the chance to meet I can buy you a beverage of your choice and pick your brain a bit. Cheers!
how about complex time signatures like (3+2i)/pi*i
all notes are now played on a graph instead of a staff
Well how about sqrt(-1) / sqrt(-1)?
So if a song has a pattern of, say, 4/4 4/4 6/4, then would those three groupings be considered a "hypermeter"?
Hey Adam. I'm a guitarist and i want to record some stuff on my own. I want there to be fretless bass on it. Should i get into playing bass on a fretted or a fretless bass?
@@AspynDotZip I really love the sound of fretless tho
@@SkeledroMan If that sound inspires you, go for it, but be prepared to have to work harder to get something recorded, because having to intonate is an additional thing to pay attention to.
Hey Adam, question for the next Q/A:
I've seen mentions of the term "equal-temperament" and how most modern music is recorded in it, and how live performances tend to not be in it.
What exactly is temperament? I understand it as some sort of behavior between different tones, but I would like to hear your explanation.
Saludos.
Early gang?
yes please
Yes
Hey Adam, love the videos you make! I'm always waiting in anticipation for the next one haha. Anyway I've got a question for your next Q&A: what makes a song "jazz". Is it the use of chord extensions like 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, flat 5s? Surely just this alone can make a song more jazzy. Like I often hear people wanting to make a song more jazzy and they say "just add some 7ths" but I just feel like there must be more to it than that. Thank you for your time :)
Gypsy is not a slur.Some don't like being called Roma people and refer to themselves as gypsies (cigani),others don't like being called that.In general it doesn't even matter. I'm from Bulgaria :D
No, white elitist Americans say you're offended… just accept it.
Christ it's like everything is a slur nowadays. People need to not be so fucking offended at every little thing.
Gypsy is a misnomer (they don't come from Egypt), but I'd say there are two things that could make it a slur:
1) It's not a term the people use to describe themselves (caveat, unless it was established as a slur then reappropriated, see also "queer" and "N.... Ope, I'm not going to type that one out.
2) It is used exclusively or primarily to refer to those people in a derogatory manner
It's a fact that most of the population in the Balkan don't like them for the majority. It could be used to describe them in a bad way but often it's justified with their deeds. There are exceptions of course but so is the case with all people. In general I'm sick of SJW. Thank you
@@InverseAgonist I'm not a native English speaker but where I'm from, in Spain, gypsy is not derogatory... is the only word to describe the culture of those people who btw are as Spanish as myself, have shape our culture and no longer have anything to do with Romanians
I have a question:
why do people most often say that the bottom number of a time signature is "the type of beat" this is not quite correct. I would say that the bottom number of the time signature is a space in time, which can be summed up by using different types of notes. It is NOT just saying that you must use 4 quarter notes in, for example 4/4 (and straight, without tuplet time or any of that fuzz.)
When you see folks blatantly roll their eyes at anything dealing with notion of cultural appropriation there should be a red flag. It's not that it doesn't exist. As you said, you don't want to use the advantages of your cultural background to take credit for the traditions of others. I recently played guitar with along with a Konnakkol video. Konnakkol is the art of performing percussion syllables vocally in South Indian Carnatic music and is a rich tradition that is thousands of years old. I did NOT want to tread lightly. I sought approval from the original authors of the video and spent over a 100 hours on it, like literally, watch it. I think it's quite apparent I approached their tradition with respect and dignity, along with utter awe and reverence. It's such a rich and beautiful language, I don't think I could have executed the video in the way I did without this underlying respect. Yes I believe cultural appropriation is real. No I don't think that means we should live on isolated, cultural islands.
Cultural appropriation is a rather young debate. So it still needs time to be digested and nuanced. There are an infinite number of exceptions. Indian music is a good example of the will to share a culture with the world, but still keep a certain control and credit over it. You cannot just go and decide to make a career in carnatic music. The years of work, studies and the efforts it takes to play even the simplest composition acts as a natural filter over appropriation. It's like you cannot evolve in this path without facing the idea of respect for the masters and for the culture. Quite the opposite of what's happening with yoga in America.
@@hnatyshyn I had a friend that wanted to get some cheap tablas from Musiciansfriend for a hundred bucks to use for a part on his record. My other friend who studied percussion in Brazil made a poignant observation that I won't ever forget. With that tradition there's 'no shallow end of the pool'. It's a very distinct sound that's underrepresented in western music and people dedicate their whole lives to it. My friend decided against what he ultimately realized would be a fast food version of tabla playing in favor of hiring one a few the tabla players around. Yes you could buy cheap tablas and beat on them, and yes people will roll their eyes at you and accuse of presenting something with a rich history you know nothing about.
@@koalanights Boy! Some lesson there. I whish someday those ideas will be part of the basic musical education. Instruments of other culture for one thing, but also the big scam of cheap instruments dealers. I feel lucky I always had nice opportunity and guidance to get many decent instruments at good price.
If I spent as much time practicing my instrument as I did watching these videos, I'd be good.
8:40 my dad is the head of my school's music department and takes the stance that it's more important to understand music from around the world in the current musical world because of how it influences music throughout history and he believes that listening to Eurocentric music should be secondary in music education. In the first 3 years of high school, we all study gamelan, Latin American and African music before we study classical music and so far, it has led to the best results in the UK for a state school. I think this approach would work so much better in the curriculum as a whole.
I am a danish musician, who has spend some time in Turkey studying the Turkish Makam music, and my teacher recommended me the book "Turkish Music Makam Guide" by Murat Aydemir and Erman Dirikcan. That is a very good introduction including 2 CDs for referencing the different makams.
1:40 Why would you need this when phrase markings exist? This “problem” was solved hundreds of years ago.
That was my first thought as well. Maybe because phrase markings can clutter up the page?
One advantage would be that it removes the ambiguity between slurs and phrases.
+FacePomagranate
So does making the phrase markings a little more squared off than slurs. Or, slurs should look like a wet noodle, and phrase marks should look like bent paperclips.
Besides, if it's that ambiguous, i'll usually throw in double bars between phrases just to make it really clear without cluttering the page.
In support of natural "talent," at the risk of sounding like an arrogant prick: my parents tell me I was singing before I was talking (and I started talking at an average age). Singing at a level equal to or better than my peers, some of whom put in much more work, always came naturally to me. Consequently, I have always found it difficult to explain and teach my technique to others. My parents are both amateur musicians and music lovers, and they started me singing in choirs at age 5, so that certainly had an effect on my musical development. Nevertheless, I always seemed to have a leg-up on my fellow choristers, even from a young age. I put in very little work and got great results. I can only attribute this to something innate, a kind of musical intuition.
5:17 "Context does matter when using certain words" This. Intent also matters. If someone doesn't mean to be hateful or derogatory, they're not being hateful or derogatory.
Here's a case of "the joke is on me": I learned in high school Spanish class that "I don't understand" is expressed as "no comprendo." But on a trip to Mexico, when the kids in the street talked too fast, I told them "no comprendo," which put them in convulsive laughter. I later learned that on the street, "I don't understand" is expressed as "no entiendo"; "no comprendo" means "I'm an idiot"! No offense taken.
Natural talent is definitely a thing, but that doesn’t mean it’s a USEFUL thing.
I grew up in a house that had no creative endeavors whatsoever outside of the standard “play with LEGOs and do a coloring book” types of activities. The closest thing I had to direct musical practices were those cheap keyboards my parents would buy every few Xmases, and I would wail on them dissonantly, or create goofy ass soundscapes that remind me of Ross from Friends’ electronic band. I did, however, grow up being EXPOSED to a lot of good music, as my mother was fairly eclectic.
Anyways, when I was about 13 I got interested in bass and my love of music exploded when I was exposed to, and finally “got” a lot of underground metal and hardcore, and the precursor to the social late-00s “emo” movement; the “we don’t identify as emo and reject the term” movement of the late 90s. Bands anywhere from like Sunny Day Real Estate, to Mineral, American Football, Piebald, Casket Lottery, just a whole slew of indie-rock-post-punk from all over, as well as all of this new metal and hardcore like Isis and Botch and early Dillinger.
So having no musical background and a lot of free time, I’d just sit there and play bass to all these songs I could find on Napster, while voraciously searching for new music. I’d take a few min to figure out how the ending of The Red Sea was played, or the bass part to Black Heart Wench of Death, but I wasn’t doing anything *musically*
So my brother lent me his acoustic and told me to learn guitar chords, so that I could be a better bassist and learn key signatures and stuff, be able to improvise and actually write shit.
Lo and behold, I was naturally a very good guitarist and took to it immediately. Within hours I was writing music that at 33 I’m still proud of and would share with anyone.
But to actually DO anything with that talent, I needed to put in hours and hours and day after day after day of practice and hard work. I threw myself headfirst into it. I’d sit on the toilet with an instrument. I’d watch tv with one. I’d chat with friends on AIM with one. I’d lay in bed with one. I’d keep my mom up by playing until the sun rose. I’d skip school to finish writing a riff.
Being poor, I didn’t have a good way to record anything, so I wound up getting one of those tiny cassette dictation devices as a gift, because I would try and make my sister be a human metronome so I could play with meter and polyrhythms lol.
Anyways, I never really learned any theory, I never took a lesson, and I never really understood the definition of practice save for just brute forcing things until you got close enough to call it good enough.
Because of that, while I can sit in with almost any band and do modestly well, I was completely shunned and shied away from music as a career path based solely on the fact that I relied on natural talent, and didn’t put in enough of the work of “learning the language” of theory.
Music is not a meritocracy, just because you’re really good at writing, or really good technically, or just really good overall, it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s all in how you use and hone your talents into being a business. You basically have to be an entrepreneur, and your product is you. If you can sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, you can hustle your way to gigs.
I didn’t have that, and still don’t. And the intimidation factor of never being able to read music or learn theory also killed the whole thing for me 🤷🏻♂️
But anyways yeah, natural talent is real. But success from natural talent is wholly rare.
The way you wrote your experience actually gave me an idea.
You said "I had to work hard to put my talent to use".
People's general perception of talent feels like it could be abbreviated as "You need to have talent to put your hard work to use".
It's a good idea to learn a different language or play a different region of music because it brooding your chance to be good. Let's say for example if you want to learn how to speak Spanish you can start at high school or in college. My point is Adam is why can't a band student in the U.S learn more than just one region of music.
@@LavenderTownWasTaken thanks for that info I'm a 14-year-old boy
I love you even more the way you handled "opportunities can lead to some advantages for people" and "your words matter." Thank you for not being headstrong/ignorant about important issues like that, especially when that's not a focus of your channel
Jacob Collier gang
Funly enough I have been using tripple time signatures in my compositions for a few years now, but not in the sence of saying "5x4/4",
but (as an example) "4/3:4/8", so as a more cleare information of an irational time signature, indicating, that there are 4 tripplet eight notes (3:4) in a bar, wich would look like this:
4
3:4
8
(PS: love your videos)
I have a lot to learn...
I thought that triple time signatures would be like (5/4)/4, making it like 1.25/4 (one quarter and a 16th note per measure)
Time signatures are not mathematical fractions. They denote different concepts entirely.
Yes there are DEFINITELY people who have natural MECHANICAL APTUTUDE and people who have natural ability to DIFFERENTIATE AUDIBLE TONES and FOLLOW RHYTHM as well as people who have advanced MANUAL DEXTERITY.
I have higher than average natural abilities stated above.... but I rarely practice... so I SUCK to a certain extent.
Example, I can pull off Freedom by RATM almost any time I pick up a guitar... but if I havent played in a month, Laid To Rest by Lamb Of God would take me three days to relearn and be able to play the song all on one shot.
Having said that... I dont have a natural penchant for a lot of prog/metal type playing and I feel I'd basically be a beginner in trying to enter that genre...
..... regardless...PRACTICE YOUR ASS OFF
For your next Q&A.
Hey Adam, I've been listening almost exclusively to Marian Hill for the past few days. I was wondering if you could analyse and explain the crazy jazzy breakdown section at 2:39 of their song "Wasted"?
Greetings from Scotland.
Adam, much respect on your response to the Gypsy comment. In today's day and age, it can sometimes be hard to know what is actually appropriate; many people would have responded defensively rather than thoughtfully. It seems that, regardless of modern dialogue on the use of Gypsy to refer to Romani people, genres of music (e.g. Gypsy jazz) and other genre descriptors are seen as historical and inoffensive. I appreciate your willingness to stick to your guns (because you'd actually put some thought into it) and also the value you put into communicating thoughtfully.
cultural appropriation is still okay even if their is some negative market dynamic between the cultures. unless you a exploiting someone directly, using their culture cannot disenfranchise that person. you can be borrowing something from French culture and not be enriching yourself at the detriment to the french. it's not possible to disenfranchise a group of people by adopting something that that group of people do.
The idea that culture can't be used by people who have not originally adopted that culture is antithetical to the idea of a culture entirely. culture is meant to be shared. it's how a behavior becomes considered part of a culture to begin with. I don't think anyone can claim the exclusive rights to a natural culture just as no one can claim the exclusive rights to a natural language.
Matthew Randolph you missed the point completely lmao
@@bryanzzz748 I'm not really responding to his point. I'm augmenting it. reading comprehension should really be taught in school.
Adopting elements from other cultures in a respectful manner in order to create something new is perfectly fine. But there's a real problem in westerners nitpicking concepts from other cultures and traditions and combining them in a superficial, postmodern manner without actually caring about the deeper aspects of said concepts, their long history, and the unique worldviews that they express.
I dont remember when the attitude qualifier was added to the definition of art. perhaps if you want to take a contrary view to mine, you could address my point so that I can understand your position. otherwise, you look a bit totalitarian. it's not a good look, I assure you.
@@MatthewsPersonal Sure, then let's look at the example Adam alludes to in his video. Much of early blues rock in mid-20th century America descended from a long jazz tradition led by African-American musicians. As the music industry expanded and profited off of sales of this music, these profits did not go back to those same African-American musicians. In fact, for a long time, their role in building jazz and rock was ignored altogether. The original musicians couldn't compete against the new ones, not because the new musicians played the tunes better or added their own contributions to the lineage, but because the new musicians were white and that's all the public would buy. This is an example of someone, or some industry, managing to "disenfranchise a group of people by adopting something that that group of people do."
Your point was that some negative market dynamic is still acceptable. Maybe your point was that what happened to African-American musicians in the 1950s is cultural appropriation, but there is more nuance to the definition than "negative market dynamic." That's fine, but nothing else in the rest of your post suggests this level of nuance.
I'm not sure if my view is contrary to yours, since your view isn't particularly clear and doesn't really seem to augment Adam's point like you say. I hope I've addressed your point at least.
Question for your next Q&A
I play piano (mostly self taught) and I find that when I practice I have a kind of block at times. Ill be more likely to go over the parts of a piece that i already know rather then actually continue and finish the piece. Any tips or tricks to stop that so i can actually learn the whole piece. Also do you have any helpful tips for getting through really really dense sheet music. Currently I'm trying to learn Chopin's Nocturne op. 48 no.1 and I'm only having trouble with the last section that's really dense with chords everywhere. Any tips for dissecting and practicing that last passage.
Thanks
I really enjoy learning about music theory from you
"World" music really should be taught more in music schools. Aside from latin music, I was never taught anything but classical and jazz; definitely nothing eastern.
9:23 I saw a tumblr post of someone complaining of "Too many white people learning Spanish" and "they should learn European languages as too not appropriate POC culture" or something like that.
Cardboard Tenshi As if Spanish was not european smh
Love your channel and your approach to music, theoretical experiments and novations which could add something new to the modern music
All content of your channel covers the immense amount of information that can be useful to absolutely every not indifferent and inquisitive musician. Keep doing what you're doing, Adam
6:19 I know I shouldn't be surprised that you watch tom scott but that makes me no less excited about it
"Giant Steps" may be a rite of passage, sure, but I have my own expectations to compete and keep in perspective.
What else is absent from cultural expectation?
Another interesting idea would be to expand the tensor order of the time signature rather than expanding the number of elements in the time signature vector (e.g. adding a third component to the time signature keeps the time signature as a column vector but now adds a third component). Increasing the tensor order would expand the 2x1 column vector that is the traditional time signature into a 2x2 (square) matrix with four elements. In general, matrices can be perceived as a combination column vectors, so perhaps the 2x2 time signature tensor is just a way of writing two time signatures? e.g. a {(7,3),(8,4)} time signature tensor implies that a single bar of music is actually just a bar of 13/8, but the tensor now shows where the accents/subdivisions are. This could be useful to indicate subdivisions, especially if they change. Not saying it would be more useful than having separate bars, or just accents in a bar, but that's one idea of a use for a tensor time signature. What else could it represent? what if we think of it as four independent elements instead of simply two column vectors?
Hey Adam, love your videos. Please tell me your opinion about musicians who claim to play "everything". I'm still 18 but I have already met 4-5 people who said that and they were all extremely bad at their instrument. How would you behave to them, if you got to play together?
Thanks!!
Of course, you could also have QUINTUPLE time signatures, such as 3:2/5/5/4/5.
5 measures of 5/4 subdivided into quintuplets, with 5/4 being split into groups of 3 quarter notes and 2 quarter notes.
to clarify:
*3:2* /5/5/4/5 tells us how to group the beats of the main time signature.
3:2/ *5* /5/4/5 tells us what tuplet the beats are subdivided into.
3:2/5/ *5/4* /5 acts like normal time signatures do, 5 meaning number of beats and 4 meaning length of note.
3:2/5/5/4/ *5* tells us the number of measures it should be thought of in.
So in conclusion, a quintuple time signature would tell us how to group the beats of the main time signature, what tuplet the beats are subdivided into, what number of beats is in a measure, how long each beat is (half note, quarter note, eighth note, etc.) and how many measures the song should be thought of in (maybe to measure where the chord progression loops, or for some sort of clarification purposes).
Hey Adam! Question for your next Q+A: As someone who seems welled versed in both jazz and EDM, I wanted your opinion on some troubles I ran into while writing with one of my friends. I've played jazz bass for about 10 years now and he's been DJing and doing his own stuff for about as long. He often get's upset with me for over complicating things with music theory and harmony, but I get upset with him because he keeps adding all these different sounds and not advancing the piece. I'm more concerned with what each instrument is playing and how it will line up, and he is more concerned with what everything sounds like and less focused on exact rhythms or pitches. I like his stuff when it's finished and he likes what I write, but it's a little hard for us to each hop on each other's trains at the same time because we are attacking it from opposing sides.
How does your workflow for writing with Ableton work? Are you ever at odds with these conflicting directions yourself, and if so how do you overcome it?
What do you think of other less jazz-oriented bassists like Davie504? I personally think he's extremely talented, but what's your opinion? Thanks!
I finally checked out Sungazer after many many months of meaning to. This is excellent, thanks for the tunes man!
7:30 We already have that, it's called 'journals'.
Heya Adam,
I’m versed in the video game music industry, and I’m wondering if appropriation applies to the ragtime-ish music composed by nubuo Uematsu for the final fantasy games.. Check any piano collections album for games final fantasy 5-10 and you’ll see a ragtime track. Would that qualify as appropriation of another culture’s music for the benefit of a different art form and (maybe?) more importantly: for profit?
Example 2: Wii shop and menu music appropriating Latin rhythms and conventions.
Thanks! big fan, violinist at Cornish college of the arts Seattle WA Shout out
For anyone interested, Meshuggah use hyper meters. If you want a full on academic paper on the subject look up 'Re-casting Metal: Rhythm and Meter in the music of Meshuggah' by Johnathon Pieslak. Enjoy!
Edit: I see Adam picked up another Meshuggah paper 🤘
Hey Adam, great video as always! One thing that popped into my head was about your comment about "knowledge rationing" in science. I'm a musician and also a science communicator by day job. There's a concept in a lot of science education called the "lie-to-children." For example, we first learn that electrons are little balls that circle an atom like little moons. If we go on in our physics/chemistry education, we then learn that they're actually quantum waves that form particular resonance forms* around atoms. The first can be thought of as an oversimplification, yes, but if we're looking at it more bluntly it's basically a lie to make things easier to understand! On a less prosaic level, of course, there's all kind of interpersonal shittiness in the science world that leads to people hoarding results or techniques to prevent other people from using them or taking credit. So I think this question of when and how to share knowledge, and what kind of knowledge to share, is a really interesting topic across a lot of fields!
* On a super geeky note, I'm wondering if you've ever made a video about how the same techniques that are used to analyze music at a sound level, like Fourier analysis, are also used to analyze the underlying nature of reality? There's a ton of really interesting stuff there without getting too much into woo-woo "we're all vibrations, man!" nonsense. Even though we, uh, kind of are.
So I was messing around w/ my keyboard and noticed that E and E flat sound worse together then B and C. I know they are both a half step apart but it's kinda weird. Can u plz explain?
Hey Adam. I love your work! I’ve been a patron for several months. (Coda Calypso) Thanks for touching on the concept I’ve been calling “knowledge hoarding”. This is one of my biggest problems with Van Halen. I respect the musicianship, but the more I hear about the people behind the music, the harder it is to keep my appreciation for the finished product. The artist provides the context through which I receive the art. In your opinion, is that a legitimate mind frame to consume art, or should music be viewed as a pure art form? An independent concept that lives completely divorced from the artist. Thanks for everything you do. Sungazer rocks!
Hey Adam, quick question here: what things or techniques do you use when you try to write music? How do you come up with ideas for melody, harmony, rhythm, etc for your music? And what do you do to get into your creative head space?
What do you think about teaching yourself instruments that you don't have?
Please don't give in to the trend of politicizing everything. People need to grow a thicker skin again.
In my opinion, you handled "it" really well in this video. ...and as always: thanks for your content, I really appreciate your work. :)
To figure out compound time signatures in music already written (at least when scored for a symphony/wind ensemble/etc), you can just look at the percussion part to see how many bars are repeated in each section at a time. Ha.
Hi Adam! Is it hard for an international student to apply for a music school on US? I started studying music quite late in my life (about 19 y/o) and although I play guitar ever since I was 14, only in college I actually engaged in a rich musical experience through a bateria (a percussion group made by students that uses samba school drums to play all sorts of arrangements). As a result, I have A LOT to catch up to compared to a lot of international students that study and live music ever since they were kids. Is there an age limit to apply? Best regards from Brazil!
Idk, I find it hard to believe the difference between the likes of Jacob Collier and a very good musician is down to just practice, there are only so many hours in a day.
Many people have a very musical family and have become obsessed with music, and granted, these people are probably all good musicians, but there's a difference between being a good musician and achieving the levels of praise Jacob gets, including from highly trained musicians. This is coming from a kinda outsiders perspective tho, so I'd like you to take this with a grain of salt, I'm not that passionate (and consequently, not that good) about music, but I am about other things, and in those my experience indicates a very high importance of talent that I'm kinda just assuming also works for music from the little evidence I see.
On a side note: I understand where you're coming from if you wanna discourage people who say stuff like "Oh I'm just not talented". Yes, talent is what will differenciate between people who do put a ton of work, but I'd take a wild guess and say all mentaly healthy people have what it takes in terms of talent to become great musicians.
The closest thing I can think of to a triple time signature is the fourth movement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, where the time signature is 2/8/6/16/3/8 which is conducted in one and has different subdivisions between different members of the orchestra and changes the subdivision you read every few measures without changing the time signature