Belatedly: your comments about good vs. bad music remind me of Goethe's Three Questions: 1. What was the artist trying to do? 2. Was the artist successful in doing it? 3. Was it worth doing? I kind of think all three are subjective to some extent - we have to infer from limited information what the artist was trying to do; we bring our own associations, reactions, knowledge, and so forth to the question of how well it accomplishes whatever we guess it was about; and we bring our own priorities and preferences to the question of whether it was worthwhile... ...but approaching it like Goethe did or like you did moves a listener away from "I like this" and "I dislike this" toward commentary which has a chance to be about more than their own gut reactions. For example: - "I liked your KMart-cassette vaporwave." ...doesn't really give anyone anything to respond to, whereas: - "You brought in a lot of that feeling of nostalgic timbres reinterpreted through electronic music production techniques like chopping, speeding up, and slowing down - a feeling which is the most prominent and, to my ear, enjoyable feature of vaporwave - in the context of a piece of music with a clear structure of rising and falling intensity - structure that makes the piece taken as a whole more coherent and resolve more satisfyingly. I enjoyed it a lot." ...brings up a lot of ideas that can be applied elsewhere, disagreed with, or both. Heck, even if it is taken as a wholly subjective opinion, it gives people a more informative context through which to consider my reactions, hypothetical or actual, to other pieces of music.
rellik009 Thank you! Less professional, more magpie - the Goethe thing I remembered from the Innuendo Studios video on Call of Duty and felt super applicable to Adam Neely's point th-cam.com/video/dbEiVrnhwlU/w-d-xo.html
On the topic of applying one clef to one particular instrument - In high school, I played tuba in marching band and symphonic band, piano in jazz band, and sang in choir my senior year. I was a pretty proficient bass clef reader, but it took me a little bit more concentration to read treble clef. Reading treble clef became a lot easier my last year in school, because I joined choir and sang tenor - so I was spending a good bit of time looking at treble clef every day. On the way to all-state chorus auditions, I found out that I had accidentally been signed up as a bass singer and not a tenor. I figured it wasn't a big deal, because I could sing most bass parts and I was very familiar with bass clef. When sight-reading came up at the audition - I choked. I had associated singing with treble clef so much that my mind drew a blank when I stared at the key signature and starting pitch. My terrible sight-reading score ended up keeping me a point below the threshold to move on to the second round of auditions.
Re: Good/Bad Music I had a teacher back in college who made the following argument, which has basically become my way of thinking about the good/bad distinction about art in general. Whether art is good or bad is fundamentally the wrong question. There may be some objective scale, but that scale is comprised of a dozen different variables all living on their own dimension, and it's much more interesting to talk about those dimensions, rather than the aggregate. You can talk about whether or not the thing is 'emotional' or 'stoic', you can ask about it's 'gravitas' versus it's 'frivolity', but ultimately the biggest contributor to whether or not something is 'good' or 'bad' art, I think, is whether it is _successful_. The artist, author, musician, whoever has, ostensibly, some artistic intent with their art. They want to elicit some emotion, accomplish some technical feat, etc. One of the most valuable things you can consider is whether or not the succeeded. You can term this "Authorial success." You might also consider what you expected from the art, and if you received what you hoped for, or were surprised by something better, or disappointed by something worse; you might call that "Subjective success". There are a million kinds of success. For some people, Turkish Microtonal Guitar music may sound like total crap; to others, it may sound like home, and succeed immensely in evoking feelings of nostalgia and pride and homesickness. For those in the former group, the music was unsuccessful, and while it may sound like the musician intended, they may have played it perfectly, for that former group -- the piece was unsuccessful. One of the most valuable things you can do to expand your appreciation of music is to not let this 'successfulness' metric dominate the 'good/bad' metric so much. Forcing yourself to disregard those subjective feelings of 'did it work' and listening instead for the subtler things is hard work, but it means you can enjoy pieces which otherwise would be 'too hard' to listen to or watch.
Adam Neely I knew someone with such rigorous perfectionism couldn’t just leave this unacknowledged lol. I know I’m severely late, but I’m just getting the chance to binge your channel and I love it. Thank you for getting my brain back into music when my emotions alone couldn’t keep cutting it. You’re the best.
@@AdamNeely not a blunder. If you turn it way up on a good stereo, the combination between the two voices produces subharmonics, foreshadowing the later question.
My wife walked through when you were responding to the bass and treble clef question and said, "pianists read bass and treble clef simultaneously all the time. Stinkin' whiner babies. Not hatin', just sayin'." I thought that was funny so I thought I'd share.
Pianists are wizards man. It's not human to read treble and bass at the same time and play them independently with each hand. AND even sing at the same time. Like come on, leave some talent for the rest of us.
Its all about training. Of course it is harder, but it is doable. Maybe its not for some people tho, but thats another thing... I feel that difference in (regular) reading with my mom, she does that thing where you read whole sentences at a time instead of words... pretty fast reading.
If amplify the subharmonics coming from the diss-sonance of the words and listen closely to the resulting wave pattern, you can hear her dropping a microphone.
When do you first hear music as noise? Four A.M. when you have to get up early and your neighbor won't turn it down. Or... When you hit 40 and/or the person performing it isn't.
Adam, I am a 17 year old who mainly plays guitar, but have been teaching myself piano, drums and bass as well. I know limited theory (I know how to figure out intervals, key centers, modes, have a somewhat small understanding of harmonization and that sort of thing (even just saying this proves my lack of knowledge)), from my highschool's basic music theory class, limited guitar lessons, and random youtube videos, yet my main musical pass time is composition. I write music via picking a key, choosing some notes that sound cool together that are sort of based around that key, then figuring out which chords sound good over them, then figuring out what those chords actually are, so that I can write melodies and other parts of the song. Theres a chord shape I use frequently with my guitar in drop d which stacks three perfect 5ths on top of each other, but I didn't know that until I had been using the shape for months (just an example). This probably makes it seem like I'm just writing simple as hell music (neil young, tom petty sort of stuff), but you would be mistaken. I try me best to emulate bands like porcupine tree, pineapple theif, maybe even a bit of periphery. I feel like this is all the music theory I need to write awesome music, kinda like how 99% of math that people in non math related jobs will use is stuff they learned before highschool. Do you think that basic music theory is enough to write really good music, maybe even as a career? I know others would, but you seem like the kind of guy who would have an interesting opinion on this. Love your stuff
Music theory on its own will not make you a good composer. Music theory is basically an analytical tool - it gives explanations to sounds that are common in music. It is easier to figure out what's happening in music if you know theory, but you can of course do it just by using your ears. It's just a bit more abstract that way. Language is the way we usually make sense of stuff, and music theory is about describing music with language. As long as you have good ideas, it is enough. There are plenty of great musicians who don't know much about theory (for example The Beatles). But I just don't see a reason not to learn more theory. Learning theory can only improve you as a musician. It's kind of the same as asking if only knowing cowboy chords is enough to become a successful musician. Depending on the genre, cowboy chords may be everything you will ever need, but I wouldn't see a reason not to learn a bit more about playing the guitar. It would make you a much more versatile musician.
13:15 An iron wire of a specific diameter with a specific tension on it will vibrate at a specific frequency. Monochords were used to tune other instruments. You can tell what frequency historic instruments played at by information on monochords in historic treatises and in organ tuning treatises (pipe length).
I would doubt the tension holding on a 200-year old wire. However, the pitch at Handel's time and in his city on a specific organ can be determined since the pipes were made of Tin (Sn) which is very stable, and we know the pipes were never altered (for various reasons. You can tell). Oh, and the wind pressure did not change either (another variable--this would have been inscribed on the bellows, and in old units whose conversion is known today). Otherwise organ pipes would be likewise unreliable. That's why the Handel organ example is actually rare evidence. Organs are altered ALL THE TIME.
I very much agree with your comments re: bass clef and how learning it helps overall. I'll add a clarinet's caveat (and this applies to saxophones as well): Eb instruments (alto clarinet, bari sax, contra alto clarinet, and technically alto sax, if only because of range issues) are able to read down a bass clef part by simply flipping the clef and adding three sharps to the key signature, no fuss, no muss. The complication arise in orchestral settings, where bass clarinets have bass clef parts (and I can see horns having this problem when initially dealing with this in the 4th Horn parts). Bass clarinets, particularly in the symphonic/concert band setting, only play in treble clef, making orchestral parts challenging to the uninitiated. In my particular case, bass clef is concert pitch, so I have to make a conscious effort not to double transpose a bass clef bass clarinet part. To top it off, many orchestral bass clarinet parts are in A... bass clef, mandating a double transposition, because practically speaking, bass clarinets in A no longer exist (sidenote: that made sight-reading The Planets on contrabass clarinet in concert quite fun). While I have the advantage of learning bass clef because of messing around on a piano and organ, I somewhat pity instrumentalists that get thrown to the wolves, so to speak, when they get a part for their instrument that isn't in their usual clef. And yes, I have to think when I'm reading down alto or tenor (or soprano!) clef. Thankfully, I don't play bassoon, high trombone, or Bach pieces that call for soprano clef.
Adam, I stumbled across your channel week or so ago and find it absolutely fascinating. First know I am so far away from being a musician that, typically, when I walked past a music store, all the instruments go out of tune. I first picked up a guitar in about 1965. Last year I was still struggling with the alternating baseline in “railroad bill”when I (and the world) were put out of our misery because I had a stroke and lost all use of my left arm. Of course a significant amount of your discussions go well over my head. On the other hand I find that many of your concepts apply to areas of my life unrelated to music but in which I have some expertise. For example, the law of international trade finance - YIKES. And woodworking.(New thought): I’ve been retired for years and have slid into some creative writing - mostlyfree-form poetry. I keep adocument open in my word processor where I keep hold of ideas which seem likely to end up in my poetry. Many of the things you say and the concepts and observations you express are ending up in this document for inspiration Alsp I’d like to mention to a young couple I know who are, to me terrific musicians: Matt and Atla de Champlain they live near hartford CTand, I believe play in NYC FWIW Ala did her graduate work under John Hendricks. She not only sounds terrific (to me) but I assume that she must be damned good to have been mentored by him!Matt is no slouch on the piano perhaps you’d like to check them out on youtube(matt's cd "stride bop" is on sptify IIRC bob walker toledo
and i remember that "eureka" moment when death metal went from sounding like noise to me being able to hear chord changes, riffs and patterns. or when dream theater went from sounding like a disconjointed bunch of riffs and this tidal wave of notes hitting me all at once to making sense, being able to count along with the music, feel the time and its changes!
Adam Neely yeah I'm not sure what the thought process behind the design was, but I guess its too late now. Hope you're enjoying our quaint little city :)
As seen from France, we use "do ré mi fa sol la si do". But once you learn jazz (and associated musics), you also use "A B C D…". A good mnemonic to start : F = fa and A = La and you are done. I don't mind using either one. However, when you get into oriental music through Nothern Africa (once again as seen from France) but not only (I have seen that from Egypt as well), you revert back to "do ré mi fa…", perhaps because Marrocco, Algeria and Tunisia were former French colonies (spare me the historical accuracy, the first and third ones were protectorates). So it is always fun to hear someone from say Tunisia speaking Arabic with a "mi quart de ton" (E quarter tone) in the course of a sentence.
Hey Adam. Hope you enjoyed London! Fascinating Q&A as usual. I wanted to share my experience with reading clefs. I'm a pianist and saxophonist, I can read any clef. I tried once reading bass clef while playing the sax. The first fifteen minutes or so were horrible! I kept reading the notes in treble clef. Our brain makes associations. It learns that with this specific instrument this thing happens, and that's all. When this note shape appears at this position the fingers fall onto that position. It is I suppose psychological or neurological. That's one of the beauties of learning music, your brain learns to make associations and learns how to do an eye-body-ear coordination and apply that in various instances. It's things that otherwise would not have had a chance to be learnt or done (or would have happened under more difficult and dull circumstances). As for the person that said about playing bass with a pick, once your fingers get used to being used differently and a new layer of skin is formed then the feeling is probably going to be different. Like when exercising and then first few days we feel tired or have blisters on our feet but if we persist then the feeling changes. I agree with what Adam said. If you are satisfied with your sound as it is that's fine too. Thanks for your channel and you weekly insights on music in general. I wish I could discuss with you the whole video. Until Monday!
Heh Adam not knowing what "The Shard" is cracked me up! I walked by it every day for 6 months when I had the misfortune of having to live in Londinium... and I have no fecking clue what the shard is. It's a really pointy office building, called "The Shard". I could be missing something, but he's spot on. It's a chunk of building vaguely recognisable on the horizon through the smog. Also, sweet jacket!
About the combination or difference tone - it is a pretty well known thing among synthesizer players, at least those that program their own patches, that you can lower or completely remove fundamental or even the first few harmonics from a tone and the brain is still capable of inferring the original fundamental based on the remaining harmonics, the sound just sounds thinner. It is quite easy to experiment with those things using an additive synthesizer or even a regular subtractive synthesizer with a high pass filer and a spectrum analyzer to see the harmonics. If you play two sounds whose frequencies have a common divisor the same mechanism springs into action - the brain can assume that the two spectra are indeed a single spectrum and so it infers the fundamental at the common divisor frequency. I have an impression this explanation does not really clarify all that much.
So glad you mentioned organs. It's a fascinating harmonic study in how organs can adjust timbre by emphasizing and/or suppressing different harmonics of a given fundamental.
You confused "combination tone" with "difference tone." Combination tones appear in pitches higher than two fundamentals. You can add the frequencies, or add the ordinal numbers on the harmonic series where the lower note of the two fundamentals is "1st." For example, if you played a C and a G an octave and a fifth higher simultaneously, the combination tone would be a C two octaves above the fundamental C. Why? C is #1 on the harmonic series starting on C, and G is #3. The combination tone would be #4 on that series, which is C two octaves higher than the low C. Difference tones are found by subtracting these ordinal numbers. For example, take the major third ratio - 5:4. This means that the two notes that form a major third on the harmonic series are in the fourth and fifth positions. If you were to play a D and an F#, the difference tone would be 5 - 4 = 1, so the 1st position on the given harmonic series. To find this, you have to kind of work backwards to figure out what the first fundamental is of this mystery harmonic series. In this case, it would be another D two octaves below the D in the major third. TL;DR - combination tones are higher, difference tones are lower, and they only occur when intervals are beatless (pure).
Combination tone is a more general term, the higher one is the sum tone, the lower one is the difference tone. These are psychoacoustic, your brain fills in "missing frequencies", as sounds that occur in nature are either unpitched or monophonic. But it is worth noting that there's also a physical phenomenon that can produce such sidebands. If you have non-linear transmission of sound and you add two signals A and B, you get terms of the form A*B, which by a bit of algebra are just the differences and sums of any partials. So if A and B were sine signals at frequencies a and b, this would just be sines at a+b and |a-b|. One of classic cases is distorted guitar, where you get very complex signals and fuzz+Jazz chords is often a recipe for something that is hard to stomach. It's also worth noting that beats are in fact a form of difference tone...
The fundamental is the GCD (greatest common divisor) between the sounding notes, in Adam's example of 440 and 660 it's 220 (220*2 and 220*3). However the effect is easily lost or at least lessened if the notes have rich overtone series themselves, then it sounds more like two separate notes. I've heard that that's why tuning to flutes together is so very hard because of relatively weak overtones the can often create subharmonic tones, Just try an interval like a major second on two recorders at the same time, you'll hear all sorts of crazy bass notes depending on how you tune them.
Some physics: when two sound waves of different frequency approach your ear, the alternating constructive and destructive interference causes the sound to be alternatively soft and loud - a phenomenon which is called "beating" or producing beats. The beat frequency is equal to the absolute value of the difference in frequency of the two waves. The example of Adam, where one sound wave is 440 Hz and the other one is 220 Hz, gives a beat of 220 Hz. Yet this can be applied on other sets of frequencies. When one wants to tune their instrument by ear with 2 strings, you use this same mechanism. When two frequencies are near each other, say 440 Hz and 439 Hz, the reciever would hear a beat of 1 Hz. This can be used in tuning your intrument by listening to the beats. When the beat decreases, your instrument is getting tuned.
8:16 Hey Adam, thx for addressing my comment :] Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to poke fun at you, but at a certain kind of musicians, in general, who get so obsessed with theory, that they end up sounding like they're solving math problems on stage, with no emotions behind it or regard for the entertainment value of what they're doing. Anyhow, thanks for clarifying your stance on it. All the best! P.S. Enjoy London mate. You're witnessing one of the three days in a year with no overcast!
Hey Adam, love your videos. Although I do not share an affinity for jazz, I think I've picked up on the real meaning behind one of the comments addressed in this video. I tend to believe that when the commenter mentioned their aversion regarding the "Extreme Jazz Fusion Reharmonization" technique, they were actually commenting on the aversion that they and many others (myself included) often feel when hearing the particular aesthetic of certain (most) "jazz" music. I think we simply don't like what we experience to be the constantly-changing aesthetic of jazz. The video was great, and very informative and entertaining. I do think they could recognize that the video itself was educational, but the video was picking up comments (like the one you addressed) which were rather expressing the aversion they feel when they hear the "jazz sound"; that it simply presents an unwelcome aesthetic. I agree that some people seem overly-repulsed by even brief "jazz-y" moments in a song, and could benefit from expanding their palate. However, I think there's a third group of musician or even listener who likes music that uses "jazz chords" such as Black Metal, Post-Punk, or even the jazzy chord progressions found in some Pop, but the way they experience jazz is different because the approach and sensibility in actual jazz is different. A tremolo-picked "jazz chord progression" with less jazzy approach and the right counterpoint, and voila! Black Metal. I personally experience most jazz as walking into a horribly-decorated room; there seems to me to be no theme except that of "lack-of-theme". Sure, the person who hung all the different stuff on the walls may have some unifying thought that in their mind ties it all together, but someone else walking in would say "Hey, I guess everyone needs a junk-room!" If such a thing could be called an aesthetic, then I guess there are those of us who simply dislike that aesthetic. Is that so wrong?? ;-)) I mean, I WANT to like jazz... Is there something we're missing that's holding us back, or some realization that would allow people to gain an affinity for jazz? Thanks Adam, if there's anything I learned from your Vaporwave video, it's that sometimes we just like what we like, but it can still be appreciated at least academically by those who are open-minded, like yourself.
Thanks for the "Is there bad music?" question. I rewound and watched it 4x to absorb each one of your points. My wife and I after 25 years of marriage with very disparate music tastes. She likes Contemporary Christian Music and listens to it nearly exclusively and has taken the Bach-ish stance that music should only be used to worship God. I, on the other hand, see music much more broadly as an art expressing the entire range of human experience and emotion. I tend to listen to a large amount of Death and Progressive Metal, which she calls "noise". I think she just doesn't like my music and that's fine. But I never thought it was right for her to completely devalue something's artist merit just because it doesn't fit her personal preference.
16:40 Yes this! I am an organ performance major and this is one of my favourite little tricks with the organ ;) It's really nice to hear a scientific explanation about it though. Also, I have been learning subharmonic singing over the past couple of months, and the way that I do it is that as I sing the fundamental pitch (say a B2) I relax my throat a bit so that it becomes a mix between chest and vocal fry. If you get the right balance between the two, then it produces the octave below (B1). I find it extremely fascinating, much like your videos!
I've heard people demonstrate this right in front of me but I can't do it. I came close once. But I'm already a low bass so I don't really need the trick (well, the other guys were low basses too but one guy could sing an F0 using the trick. Wow.)
Do you think that jazz or some variant of improvised music will become popular again? Do you even think that it would be good for the art if it did? (with it being subjected to extreme commercialization) I've always just thought that most people when they talk about the era of jazz as the popular music seem too nostalgic or praising of it. I feel that the less popular bebop era sent the genre into way less popularity but also gave it many new artistic dimensions impossible under the limelight of mainstream music.
Sherman Thompson you know, I have recently heard to Jazz at Massey. It was recorded in 1953 and it had already had all the modern jazz features by that moment. Mingus even used some rhythmic displacements that are not widely used until today. Not speaking about crazy solos of Parker and Gillespie. And it was 64 years ago. Do you understand what I mean? Those titans have invented something radically new, and then we have 60 years of repeats. This style has already became classical. And when something is classical, it is no more contemporary. So bebop took it's place on the musical Olympus, but I think it is not sane to speak of it as of something, that could be popular again in the feature. As to others styles of jazz, then yes, they are quite popular and continue influencing on most genres. Hip-hip, for instance, share much in common of its roots with acid jazz. If you ask some Rock stars who are they listen to, you will be amazed how many of them will mention some jazz greats like Miles or Mclaughlin. I don't think jazz will be like popular music, but it definitely lives and fertilize others genres till today, as any classical music.
Bravo again to Adam for this one. Summarizing things like resultant tones in easy to understand ways while also remaining completely factually accurate is a hard thing to do. He seems to understand pipe organs very well, and I do commend him for this. (Full disclosure: pipe organ builder here.) :) Big fan of these Q+A's, thanks Adam.
Hey Adam, I really enjoy your posts. You articulate your ideas beautifully, and (mostly), they resonate with my thinking on music. I'm really impressed by the level of maturity you've achieved at such a young age, which enables you to reply to trolls, haters and negatives in a very professional manner. I wish I could have got there earlier. Although I'm primarily a guitarists, I have played bass, but it doesn't touch me in the same way that guitar does. Nevertheless, I enjoy watching your videos, and have learned a thing or two. All the best..
Although I thoroughly enjoyed this Q+A, I was slightly disappointed because the title made me think you were going to share some more awesome music. I love your taste in music, based on the music you compose and the artists you share and refer to! KNOWER is so much fun. I guess I'm just asking for some more bands that you think are awesome because I would love to check them out. I'm always searching for groups with unique sounds, or that implement advanced music theory into their compositions. Either way, I always enjoy your videos Adam. Keep em coming!!
good and bad is relative. some people like, some people don't. they're different. so we should think about what is good music to each group. let's see inside school. there is several student group. -villain group = they were victim. they should attack others first, to prevent not to victimized again. we should understand them. -victim group = of domestic, of school, of self -active group = cheer leader, sportsman, challenger... -ideal followers group = scout, judge, justice, hard worker student... -art group = band, artist, singer, dancer, writer... they like fancy, fantasy , spiritual things. -entertaining group = they will be entertainer. -technological group = they like virtual and cosmic things. -social group = they like spending time to play, love and social party. -geek group = they're maniac. -consumer, bystander group = they consume that others have produced. most people are included here. what is good music? the music that should give satisfaction to at least one group, is good music. our mission is healing, leading, giving a joy, calming, making love and so on. in a word, our role is helping people to live happy.
0:20 in Russian as far as I know we have fixed C (do) position. And we have that italian note names, too. To me that fact about movable one is a new knowledge.
Good/bad music is a notion I debated for some time in my youth, and after many years thinking about it, my current line of thought goes like this. 1. A vital question is, WHERE is music? That might seem like a very bizarre question to ask, but I think it's valid to say that music exists in the collision of sound with an individual's nervous system. Music exists INSIDE our heads. That inevitably means that the pre-existing conditions inside our heads determine what music is for each of us. I remember some guy who played with Monk talking about walking through a park with him and Monk saying something like, "hear that? Those birds are in five..." So depending on the listener, MUSIC IS INDEPENDENT OF A VOLITIONAL SOURCE. Sidenote - Adam, I have to say I really like your channel. And your mom did a great job and seems terrific, and I love the fact you reference her. 2. Adam, while you say that the notion that there is no such thing as good music isn't helpful, I'd disagree. It strips away any pretentions to objectivity about this, and actually allows a better attempt at true objectivity. Given point one above, it follows that one's internal experience of music depends entirely on musical education. Thus, say, Trout Mask Replica will be heard in as many ways as there are listeners: more importantly, each listener (I'm extrapolating from my own experience here) may hear it in different ways at different times in their life. For me, that went from "ugly sound" to "incredibly exciting maelstrom" to "just blues" to "can't listen to this now because Don Van Vliet was a shit who exploited his musicians and acted like a child" (after reading a couple of interviews and biographies). I don't need to defend any of these points of view, or argue the point after any of them, because I know, "yup, JUST ME then." 3. It doesn't mean one cannot assess the skill set of a given musician, although people with more experience of actually making music - preferably at an accomplished technical level - are more likely to have interesting things to say based on significantly better processing of input sound due to education and experience. 4. Therefore, the more thorough and wide-ranging one's musical education, the more sound becomes music. Now I have a huge, HUGE preference for music made by people banging, plucking and blowing things together in real time over anything that involves pressing a button: and I can argue all sorts of benefits for it to explain my PREFERENCE: but I don't expect anyone raised on a diet of Lady Gaga to hear what I hear in the playing of Cannonball Adderley. Nor would I even engage in a discussion. Does any of that make sense to anyone? I hope so.
+Sidney Richard it makes perfect sense, thanks for sharing! Honestly, I'm very tempted to fall in line with your thinking - a relativistic one, but there are a few nagging questions that seem to always pop up, like... Why do we study music? To get "better" at it? You could say that it's to better approximate what we would like to hear in our own heads, and that's fair, but I think music is more than just an individual construct. It's a culturally created one, and so the role of the individual in judging and understanding music is beholden to the society at large. This is how I think - criteria for judging music are not REALLY objective (mathematical laws of the universe, etc, blah blah) but rather based on socially constructed aesthetics. /egghead
Adam! Thank you so much for replying. I didn't get notified, can't figure out why. I'm not sure we do disagree, because there's nothing in that reply that I disagree with at all. Robert Anton Wilson speaks of each of us having two kinds of "reality tunnel": emic - socially constructed; and etic - based on personal experience. So, for Westerners the emic reality-tunnel of music will be based on the even tempered scale we're surrounded by since birth, and I think it's fair to say it takes a little effort for most of us to break out of that. For Chinese people the tonal nature of their language provides, I think, the kind of processing that makes it easier to attain absolute pitch (and the notion of a symbolic rather than alphabetic language gives rise to all sorts of frankly bizarre possiblities, but I won't open that rabbit hole. You know yourself from personal experience that the deeper your musical education, the more information you'll be able to get out of music and/or sound. I understand you may have, if you like, some resistance to "relativism", but I daresay we've both seen videos where, for example, a Turkish guy mods his guitar to get those otherwise hard-to-pinpoint tones that are not in the tempered scale. That, to me, is very suggestive that music IS indeed relative in the way you seem to object to. I used to argue whether Zep or Purple was a better band, but I gave that up at fourteen. It just seems more sensible, and less arrogant, to speak of personal preference (which I am absolutely prepared to go into detail about, e.g. why I much prefer Cannonball to Coltrane) rather than concepts of aesthetics that, as you say, are socially constructed and therefore... er... relative? As for why do we study music, isn't that going to vary from person to person? I know people who have done it exclusively for reasons of, heyyy (Zappa voice) sexual GRATIFICATION*.... I've always loved music and I'd say my motivations varied. I was put off piano by an appalling teacher, then in my early teens for whatever reason I just kept wanting to expand my vocabulary. What the hell IS that chord? Oh, cool... and on it goes. That, actually, is a great deal to do with my taste in guitarists. I've always loved players - at first Jeff Beck and then BOOM! Eddie Van Halen - that made me whip my head around saying, what the hell was THAT? And... why IS that a nagging question for you? How do you get from (for me dubious at best) attempts to construct an aesthetic to THAT question. Ultimately, music is the most fun I can have while fully clothed, and the process of practice has taught me SO MUCH about life. I do love that quotation from Coltrane, something like... "after a while, all you can do is make yourself a better person". I cannot go into detail here, but practicing music has absolutely made me understand Sheldrake's morphic fields. I was lucky enough to be in a band that did nothing but jam for two years before we even did one gig. By the time we were gigging, we'd play constantly for about 45-50 minutes at a stretch and that would divide up into several distinct sections, each of which would have a theme/melody, be in different tempos. There were seven of us, and, honestly, towards the end, it felt like being in a flock of birds or a school of fish all of which change direction at the same time. If you can find that kind of opportunity, grab it, because I've never again felt anything like it. Adam, once again, love the channel. If you ever get the time, you might want to check out Korzybski's General Semantics or the work of the late and much lamented Robert Anton Wilson. I find the concepts incredibly useful in avoiding a lot of pointless bullshit. It might sound a bit heavy, but it's more fun than you might think, and trust me, it separates fact from opinion like you wouldn't believe. *not my primary motivation, but I won't deny taking advantage of any edge my skills in singing and playing have got me from time to time... :D
Hey Adam, thanks for your videos. Thanks to you, I bought a bass and now I'm learning step by step all alone. I'm a drummer originally so it's more difficult for me to learn how to make a good sound on bass. But anyway, about good or bad music, my thought is that what I call good music is something that has a research in sound, composition or instrumentalisation. What I mean is that, there is a lot of music that I don't objectively like but I find interesting, and they are as good music as song I like then. They just don't touch as I would like to. So for me, there is bad music, not because I don't like this music in particuler, but because I don't find anything interesting inside the composition. For example, I hate when some artist just copy another one and do not dig more their own capabilities. I'm not a great musician myself so I don't really like to say that great musicians can do bad music, but that's my opinion when I try to compose. It's greta to have inspiration, but you have to do more than just mix you influences and do a song that will be yours, but still not yourself. I don't know if I'm clear actually, I'm french so explaining something like that in another language it's harder than I thought. The best example I have about "bad music" is the great artist who only do cover. It's so frustrating because you know they can go further, they can do something bigger. Even if the reinterpretation is great, I will not consider them making good music if they do not try to compose their own music. You talk about Shakespeare in thisvideo, and I'm actually studying Théâtre, and those two arts are about one thing in my opinion : sending a message. It can be by the text or the song, by the way they play live, the way they move on scene or anything like that, that can also be by all in one time (and then, it's the greatest art I can ever imagine when everything touch me in some way.). That the most abstract thing ever, but that's how I see art in general, and music is inside this vision then. ^^ Anyway, thank you again for your videos, I revise my judgment a lot with your explanation so maybe next month I will see "bad" or "good" music in a different way. Have fun in London !
Obviously, most people talking about things which purport to be music not being music typically are either denigrating those things as noise, or questioning their artistic validity in some other way. However, I really think that it can be helpful in certain cases (most notably 4'33" by John Cage, though there are other examples that come to mind), to think of a "song" not as music, but as "meta-music", i.e. art which is less an authentic artistic statement using sound, silence, and time to convey meaning, but which is rather an authentic artistic statement on what it means for something to BE music, and what we can legitimately understand as musical. Obviously, there is a sense in which even meta-music is, technically, music, but I still think the idea is a really useful tool for thinking about aesthetics and philosophy of art, and the concept obviously implies parallel forms of meta-art for various artistic media. Anyway, just a thought.
Funny story on the topic of clefs. So I'm a composer as well as a bassist/guitarist/string player/drummer so I'm very comfortable reading music in all different clefs and keys. One time in an audition for my schools orchestra on bass I was given the sight reading excerpt and went to play it but I read it as if it were in treble clef and wound up being 5th chair out of 6 (I wound up going to all state for composition that year so it's all good) so yeah that happens sometimes
I'm a trumpet player that can read trumpet in treble clef, and in bass clef, and can read trombone in bass clef...and treble clef. It's fine ...go learn stuff. Huh, Adam's right again, go figure. Love that guy.
Wow, thanks for the nod to shakuhachi Adam - thought we were too out there on the periphery. And the context was interesting; much of shakuhachi study is still of the master/disciple variety (iemoto system in Japan) and there's a bit of debate about how much western pedagogy is proper to introduce. While the superstar students might still get superior training via the demonstration only style, most of us mortals can benefit from a slightly more expository approach. Now for the odd ones of us that try to toot a little jazz on the bamboo stick that's a whole other kettle of fish (or can of worms is probably a better metaphor). Those types should all be watching Adam's excellent posts !
On pitch - as I understand it, the instrument that helped spread a uniform pitch (and temperament) was the accordion, as it was relatively inexpensive (compared to, say, a piano) and produced a standard pitch and scale.
Shakespeare comparison is on point. I listened to Miles Davis records in high school because I had a crush on a jazz band girl (spoiler; she gave zero fucks). It was cool, but I didn't really get it. Now, 15 years later, I just love it (and my wife hates it). I can follow the grooves and audiate or vocalize improvised licks and harmonies (whether they're good or not...). My tastes didn't change as much as they just grew to include more things. Thanks for talking at us self - taught knuckle draggers in ways we can understand.
I took a song and used the Tri Tone as passing chords and it is so beautiful. I learned from your video. I also just reharmonized somewhere over the rainbow to a minor key. I have played jazz a while but you made it make so much sense so easily. TY
I like to think of the whole good and bad music thing like this; no piece of music is good. No piece of music is bad. There’s just opinions. So when somebody says ”this is bad” what they’re really meaning is ”i don’t like this”. Me not liking something doesn’t make it bad, because there will always be someone who likes that piece of music.
Once there was a man - Oh, so wise! In all drink He detected the bitter, And in all touch He found the sting. At last he cried thus: “There is nothing - No life, No joy, No pain - There is nothing save opinion, And opinion be damned.” Stephen Crane
Btw... the verb is "to satirise".. "satire" is a noun. Sorry about that, but it's not for nothing that I got a Christmas present a couple years back of a T-shirt bearing the legend "I am silently correcting your grammar". And I'll say it again. Love the channel and your lucidity. AND you quote your mom. That's a beautiful thing.
16:44 Time to put what I learned in my organ lessons to the test. This trick is typically used on organs that have 16' stops but no 32' foot stops because this trick recreates the effect of a 32' organ stop. If you have 32' stops on your pipe/theater organ... then you should probably use that. The way to create this effect is to have 2 different 16 foot stops (make sure that it isn't a stop that is shared between the two - don't use a 16' Diapason stop that is the shared by both manuals) on two manuals. Usually one on the great manual and one on the pedal. You can do this on one manual, but it doesn't work nearly as well, for the above mentioned reason. Then, play the fundamental that you want to be played like a 32' stop on either the pedal or great manual, let's say an A. So play the A on the pedal (usually the pedal is used for the fundamental). Then, play the note that is a 5th above the note you played before on the great manual, so play an E on the great manual. This is pretty much what you would get from a 32' organ stop. Have fun quaking whatever venue you're playing in. It's very fun.
Actually most "Resultants" (16'+10-2/3') are derived from the same set of pipes. And most of them are pretty ineffective compared to the real thing. But you are correct on the most part. And theater organs, I find DO have the best 32' resultant effect (because of large pipe scales and lots of fundamental tone). And you do get the "idea" of A 32' most of the time, true. But you almost never "feel" it in a fake 32. Soft resultants are the most ineffective, I've found (I am an organ builder and Tonal Director of Bond Organ Builders, APOBA). There is a lot of mythology out there -- "The pipe mouths have to be so-and-so-distance apart". "The two pipe types can't be the same". "The pipes must be in PERFECT tune, 2/3 ratio") No. Acoustics matter A LOT, first of all. But the best fake 32' resultant I ever heard is at Temple Beth Israel, Portland. Basically a large theatre organ (built 1926). The acoustics are dead (cork walls). There is a dome, however. That might help. This is just the 16' Diapason played a fifth apart, it's even tempered, not a pure fifth. I swear it's a real 32. It feels like the building is going to fall down on low C (with G sounding above as well). I can never predict what will work. Now that electronic 32s are cheap, I highly recommend them. They don't produce sound in the *audible* range, really, so I don't consider it cheating. It's good use of limited funds.
And I thank you for your comment, the fact you know about this is impressive enough. I didn't mean to imply you are wrong, it's just a bit more complicated. I hear organbuilders say things less accurate actually sometimes. LOL
@@EdwardsGrant Oh my god, this was such an old comment lol. Over covid my organ knowledge has grown rusty but I'm getting back into playing again after a few years but thank you so much for the response--I'm honored to have someone so qualified help me learn more about this subject. I genuinely did not expect to get this thorough of a response to a comment I wrote during my freshman year of high school, but it's really appreciated :) Thank you so much for the info!
@@lifeontheledgerlines8394 I hope I didn't sound technically picky (organists and organ builders have a bad habit of that!) I listened to Mr. Neely's entire video and actually everything he says is entirely accurate, and if he had gone further in detail there would have been so many other explanations necessary. I'm impressed that he managed to do that, but I'm always impressed with his instruction. Probably my favorite channel here.
Baroque pitch: read the book by Bruce haynes/ Geoffrey burgess “the story of A”. To think of baroque pitch as lower or that certain countries had certain pitches three hundred years ago is actually reductive to almost absurdity. The pitch in London in the 1670’s was both at A=455 in the chapel and A=400 in the theater. Simultaneously. Singers simply adjusted and instrumentalists were as aware of the differences as regarded their playing as you are to your lead sheets. Pitch never became anything Close to being unified until the 19th century and even then variants existed because, well, we all like doing things we are familiar with.
Hey Adam, CptnSpicyWeiner here. Please cement my legacy by putting me in one of your Q and A's. What's your opinion on a musician posting a bunch of videos of them playing on social media and loading it with a bunch of hashtags? Can they really be recognized? Is it a good idea? It'd be very helpful if you go in depth on this subject. I love your videos by the way. You know I've been watching them for a long time
Alex Purkis just gaining a decent following. And good idea as in is it practical. Is it better to get your music out different ways? If being in a band and playing shows isn't possible for you in your situation at the moment, is it possible for masses of people to follow you based on the short clips you upload to social media?
That seems like an unlikely way to "make it" but the internet is a weird place and I'm positive it's worked for some people before so... uh, maybe? The key is that the people who find your music this way would then need to be compelled to share it themselves, then the people who find it that way would need to share it as well and so on. If you can figure out how to force something to go viral you'll find a lot more success than just with your music.
in portuguese, C is Dó (the pronounce is with a very open O), but I (and anybody I know) never had much difficulty associating Dó with C, Ré with D, Mi with E, Fá with F, Sol with G, Lá with A and Si with B (why did I write everyone? idk). I think that it's because we learn when we are children the musical notes "Dó, Ré, Mi, Fa, Sol, Lá, Si, Do" because it's in childhood songs, it's repeated etc, and then when we study music the notes "C, D, E, F, G, A, B" are really easy because it's just the letters in order starting with C and then A after G.
Great stuff as always! I've got a question though. I'm a self-taught "musician" and have developed a good ear that can easily hear chord relationships in most "not-too-jazzy" songs. However, I don't make a distinction between major and minor keys. Let's say the song goes Am - G - F - G, in other words it is i - VII -VI -VII in the key of A. The way I think of that progression is that it goes vi - V - IV - V in the key of C. The note C kind of echoes at the back of my head as a reference point. Do you think my way is an acceptable approach or if it somehow limits my understanding, especially when we are dealing with more complicated progressions? I'm wondering if I should force myself to learn the "correct" way or not.
Nice one, I tend to be in London a couple of times a year. Not there now obviously. A shame the stars didn't align Last time I was there I saw a totally unplugged jazz gig in Oliver's in Grenwich. Cosy basement style jazz bar. If you're not playing there you should check it out. The gig blew me away as I had never seen real jazz performed so...er...unamplified!
Let's see if I can go 2 for 2 on Q&A videos. Would you consider talking to Shawn about bringing your Sungazer Project to MAGFest (a music and video game convention in the DC area)? I think you guys would fit in beautifully. Yes, this is mostly a ploy to get you guys to come to the area so I can see you live but I stand by it lol!
The whole problem with the "master/student" thing is that it never left music education. We still have indoctrinators (keeping a student ignorant and dependent by only providing the information they think he/she should know) instead of teachers (giving as much information as possible so the student can't think for him/herself) on some cases. We just put a new slogan in it and called it "music degree", "music school", etc. as you're always told you should do this and that or learn this and that a particular way, but never why.
Surely the easier way for us to know how different orchestras tuned in days gone by is the tuning forks belonging to different composers/conductors. I researched this when making a video throwing out the idea that A440 is some sort of Nazi conspiracy, reference tunings varied so wildly it made orchestral cross pollination very difficult.
+Levi Clay that...makes way more sense than what I thought and read. Tuning forks also would be harder to warp or change tuning throughout the centuries
12:47 About that, in fact physicians worked on measuring vibrations since the 17th century (Mersenne, Galilée) and by the 18th century could accurately measure it (Sauveur). The first diapason was made 1711 by the way and investigations were made and not only it was different from a country to another but each city had a different pitch. Oh and also, paradoxically, as you may guess, the common idea of a baroque diapason one semi-tone lower than the modern one, is....a modern consensus and historically false. Then the international conference in Vienna in 1885 decided to set the A3 at 435. In 1953 a new conference in London made it up to 440.
Biologists like to say that in nature "forms fits function". This, I think, also applies to good music. It is easier to explain the difference between good and bad music if the intentions of the musician are known. So if you want to compare music on quality in a meaningful way, there must be some level of overlap in the intended "function" of the music you are comparing.
To the best of my understanding in Hindustani and Carnatic music Sa (which is the same as Do) is moveable, but is typically tuned between C and D to the singer or instrumentalist's preference. I believe they also use just temperament for great harmonic tones.
Woah I've watched every single one of your Q and A's and as a non-jazz person, I just realized that the question intro music is the lick! (Learned it from your gig vlog on it!)
welcome to London! That monstrosity is known as the Shard. Built only in the last few years, it is finished even though it doesn't look it, and it has an overpriced restaurant at the top which seems to be far more popular than it ought to be. Enjoy your visit! :)
The Coltrane bit - I thought that joke was absolutely hilarious and somewhat surreal! I had to pause the video to collect myself before resuming. The juxtaposition of Coltrane's seminal work and contemporary TH-cam trigger-happy ranting, enhanced by your signature speed/pitch-shifted voiceovers really made it not only a great joke, but also led me to think about what modes criticism took form in back in the day. As if it were not enough that the man was of "wrong" skin colour at the time...
@12:00 With good technique, fingers can't/won't blister. For the next question, this piece comes to mind.... "Crystal Motions" by Roland Young. Some pieces will sound very alien at first, only to become amazing on the second listening.
I think there are compositions that actually are not-music, the most prominent might be John Cage's 4'33" but there are other similar pieces like Erwin Schulhoff's In Futurum or One Minute Silency by Mike Batt. Music is about sonic events and if there is no such event it can't be music. Of course it can be discussed if it is some other kind of performance art.
Hey Adam, you're mom's comment is excellent and thought provoking. We've done a little work on synchrony and movement (journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071182) but you're mom's comment reminded me we've got to get back to the issues she's raised, and try to test some of these theories. Will keep you posted. b.t.w. your early video on posture prevented me from getting recurring strain injuries -- thanks for that.
There were a couple of questions that got me wondering about a couple things, so, if someone ever finds this comment, hi there. I've been a fan of Noise music for quite a few years and from a kinda young age (between 13 and 15, although it was already interesting to me since way earlier) and I've been pretty obsessed with it since, to the point of writing an unreadable (according to my teachers) essay on it's origins, the styles, their characteristics, even including interviews I did... Anyways Generally, for music that's really noisy, dissonant, raw or "chaotic" in it's approach (eg. Black Metal, Free Jazz etc.) it's a matter of gaining a taste for the jarring elements and understand what's beneath that wall of "fuck off pleb". That doesn't really apply with Noise, I think, since I don't really see anything below said wall (Harsh Noise Wall, amirite). It's just... noise... I've never been able to rationalize why I enjoy it (with a few notable exceptions), which contrasts greatly with pretty much the fact that I know why I enjoy pretty much all I listen to..
Thanks for responding so eloquently to my previous question! I've heard before from reliable sources that it is impossible/difficult to identify instruments if their attack and/or decay are removed. If true, this concept fascinates me. I thought you would/could demonstrate for us and provide examples/thoughts on this. Sorry for all the /s...
When I first heard heavy metal music, I thought it sounded like ear rape, and much preferred the softer and lighter sound of the Beatles. After year of getting more acquainted with music as whole, I began to really enjoy it, and other types of music. As you start to expose yourself to music, it becomes easier to enjoy and appreciate it.
Hey Adam, I've been a strings player since I was six(violin, bass, guitar and so on) and now I'm in a jazz quartet in college. I've really been trying to improve my technical skill when it comes to jazz double bass. I know it's pretty common, and I've seen people I play with, take a solo from a Coltrane, Ellington, or Davis and transpose it in 12 keys; I've tried this on bass and found it pointless with the nature of string instruments and the ability to just move positions. I've recently started teaching myself alto sax because both mentally transposing down to an Eb instrument as well as doing the 12 key solo exercise should help. What are your thoughts on this, will it help or just dilute my focus/take away practice time? I'd love to hear your opinion on the topic since you seem like an intelligent person on the topic of musical discipline.
Cam Dore playing something in all keys is also useful on strings - so long as you play vertically in the first couple positions. Being able to play in certain keys using first position - like Ab minor - is a very useful skill. Sure, it's easier to play Ab minor in 4th position - but that defeats the point of excercises like this.
I thought the Knower and Coltrane analogy to be spot on. Neely wasn't making fun of Trane, although now we know more about how fucked up it was in 60s Americahhh.
FYI, about that subharmonic question, Basso Profondos and real Oktavists don't actually use subharmonic singing. There are people out there that can hit those notes naturally
For my 6 string I normally have to read/write in bass & treble clef due to the large range. Only bass clef would be easier for sure but impractical with a 6-string.
Yo Adam I was thinking about art and innovation recently and wonder what you think: Is innovation in art due to desire to express or just ego? What I mean is, does art have to constantly be new and unique in order to be 'good' and convey meaning? Or is some of the innovation/experimentation just a dick measuring contest with other artists? By innovation/experimentation I mean something like Romantic to Modern period in classical music, but also smaller scale like what Wagner did. For example, is the Second Viennese School a genuine desire to express and that's the only medium that fits their needs, or is it driven by ego and being 'higher' or more 'sophisticated' art? The reason I was thinking about this is what if someone finds that the best way to express themselves through art already basically 'ran its course'? Like a composer who's personal voice and style falls more in line with early modern classical music than anything else. Is there a point to creating art that is mostly rooted in the past?
I get that its 3 years since this video came out, but Jeff Berlin is pretty outspoken about his opinions on a couple Facebook bass guitar groups. He is almost certainly not talking about just the players in pursuit of a career. Plenty of weekend warrior types catch shade from Jeff when they disagree with him, especially when it comes to time and rhythm. Find him and make comments about needing a click if you're playing live and you'll see what I mean.
Maybe you could replace the BLEEP when you curse with the "BASS" in your Bass Lessons intro.
not a bad idea
Whoa
Wow so this is where it started
You, my friend, have changed history
Yo he started it
Belatedly: your comments about good vs. bad music remind me of Goethe's Three Questions:
1. What was the artist trying to do?
2. Was the artist successful in doing it?
3. Was it worth doing?
I kind of think all three are subjective to some extent - we have to infer from limited information what the artist was trying to do; we bring our own associations, reactions, knowledge, and so forth to the question of how well it accomplishes whatever we guess it was about; and we bring our own priorities and preferences to the question of whether it was worthwhile...
...but approaching it like Goethe did or like you did moves a listener away from "I like this" and "I dislike this" toward commentary which has a chance to be about more than their own gut reactions. For example:
- "I liked your KMart-cassette vaporwave."
...doesn't really give anyone anything to respond to, whereas:
- "You brought in a lot of that feeling of nostalgic timbres reinterpreted through electronic music production techniques like chopping, speeding up, and slowing down - a feeling which is the most prominent and, to my ear, enjoyable feature of vaporwave - in the context of a piece of music with a clear structure of rising and falling intensity - structure that makes the piece taken as a whole more coherent and resolve more satisfyingly. I enjoyed it a lot."
...brings up a lot of ideas that can be applied elsewhere, disagreed with, or both. Heck, even if it is taken as a wholly subjective opinion, it gives people a more informative context through which to consider my reactions, hypothetical or actual, to other pieces of music.
Am I reading a comment or a professional musicologist's essay?
rellik009 Thank you! Less professional, more magpie - the Goethe thing I remembered from the Innuendo Studios video on Call of Duty and felt super applicable to Adam Neely's point th-cam.com/video/dbEiVrnhwlU/w-d-xo.html
@@Packbat Thank you so much for the link! What a great video, and looks like the channel's other videos are super interesting too. :)
On the topic of applying one clef to one particular instrument -
In high school, I played tuba in marching band and symphonic band, piano in jazz band, and sang in choir my senior year.
I was a pretty proficient bass clef reader, but it took me a little bit more concentration to read treble clef. Reading treble clef became a lot easier my last year in school, because I joined choir and sang tenor - so I was spending a good bit of time looking at treble clef every day.
On the way to all-state chorus auditions, I found out that I had accidentally been signed up as a bass singer and not a tenor. I figured it wasn't a big deal, because I could sing most bass parts and I was very familiar with bass clef.
When sight-reading came up at the audition - I choked. I had associated singing with treble clef so much that my mind drew a blank when I stared at the key signature and starting pitch.
My terrible sight-reading score ended up keeping me a point below the threshold to move on to the second round of auditions.
Re: Good/Bad Music
I had a teacher back in college who made the following argument, which has basically become my way of thinking about the good/bad distinction about art in general.
Whether art is good or bad is fundamentally the wrong question. There may be some objective scale, but that scale is comprised of a dozen different variables all living on their own dimension, and it's much more interesting to talk about those dimensions, rather than the aggregate. You can talk about whether or not the thing is 'emotional' or 'stoic', you can ask about it's 'gravitas' versus it's 'frivolity', but ultimately the biggest contributor to whether or not something is 'good' or 'bad' art, I think, is whether it is _successful_. The artist, author, musician, whoever has, ostensibly, some artistic intent with their art. They want to elicit some emotion, accomplish some technical feat, etc. One of the most valuable things you can consider is whether or not the succeeded. You can term this "Authorial success." You might also consider what you expected from the art, and if you received what you hoped for, or were surprised by something better, or disappointed by something worse; you might call that "Subjective success". There are a million kinds of success. For some people, Turkish Microtonal Guitar music may sound like total crap; to others, it may sound like home, and succeed immensely in evoking feelings of nostalgia and pride and homesickness. For those in the former group, the music was unsuccessful, and while it may sound like the musician intended, they may have played it perfectly, for that former group -- the piece was unsuccessful.
One of the most valuable things you can do to expand your appreciation of music is to not let this 'successfulness' metric dominate the 'good/bad' metric so much. Forcing yourself to disregard those subjective feelings of 'did it work' and listening instead for the subtler things is hard work, but it means you can enjoy pieces which otherwise would be 'too hard' to listen to or watch.
Now this is what I call an essay.
👏👏👏
11:38 a rare Adam Neely edit mistake
meh, couldn't be bothered to reupload - wifi here at where i'm staying isn't great. enjoy the edit blunder!
Adam Neely I knew someone with such rigorous perfectionism couldn’t just leave this unacknowledged lol. I know I’m severely late, but I’m just getting the chance to binge your channel and I love it. Thank you for getting my brain back into music when my emotions alone couldn’t keep cutting it. You’re the best.
@@AdamNeely not a blunder. If you turn it way up on a good stereo, the combination between the two voices produces subharmonics, foreshadowing the later question.
My wife walked through when you were responding to the bass and treble clef question and said, "pianists read bass and treble clef simultaneously all the time. Stinkin' whiner babies. Not hatin', just sayin'."
I thought that was funny so I thought I'd share.
... that is great! You need to buy her some flowers! She's a real Goody!!
Carlos Torres I thought the same lol
It is hard as fuck though
Pianists are wizards man. It's not human to read treble and bass at the same time and play them independently with each hand. AND even sing at the same time. Like come on, leave some talent for the rest of us.
Its all about training. Of course it is harder, but it is doable. Maybe its not for some people tho, but thats another thing... I feel that difference in (regular) reading with my mom, she does that thing where you read whole sentences at a time instead of words... pretty fast reading.
People who play the organ read three staves, one treble, and two basses, and they play one with their feet. Think they win.
Adam's mum laying the smackdown.
If amplify the subharmonics coming from the diss-sonance of the words and listen closely to the resulting wave pattern, you can hear her dropping a microphone.
When do you first hear music as noise?
Four A.M. when you have to get up early and your neighbor won't turn it down.
Or...
When you hit 40 and/or the person performing it isn't.
All Star is objectively good.
some
BODY
once
told me
The world
Adam, I am a 17 year old who mainly plays guitar, but have been teaching myself piano, drums and bass as well. I know limited theory (I know how to figure out intervals, key centers, modes, have a somewhat small understanding of harmonization and that sort of thing (even just saying this proves my lack of knowledge)), from my highschool's basic music theory class, limited guitar lessons, and random youtube videos, yet my main musical pass time is composition. I write music via picking a key, choosing some notes that sound cool together that are sort of based around that key, then figuring out which chords sound good over them, then figuring out what those chords actually are, so that I can write melodies and other parts of the song. Theres a chord shape I use frequently with my guitar in drop d which stacks three perfect 5ths on top of each other, but I didn't know that until I had been using the shape for months (just an example). This probably makes it seem like I'm just writing simple as hell music (neil young, tom petty sort of stuff), but you would be mistaken. I try me best to emulate bands like porcupine tree, pineapple theif, maybe even a bit of periphery. I feel like this is all the music theory I need to write awesome music, kinda like how 99% of math that people in non math related jobs will use is stuff they learned before highschool. Do you think that basic music theory is enough to write really good music, maybe even as a career? I know others would, but you seem like the kind of guy who would have an interesting opinion on this.
Love your stuff
Luca Scheid great question
Music theory on its own will not make you a good composer. Music theory is basically an analytical tool - it gives explanations to sounds that are common in music. It is easier to figure out what's happening in music if you know theory, but you can of course do it just by using your ears. It's just a bit more abstract that way. Language is the way we usually make sense of stuff, and music theory is about describing music with language.
As long as you have good ideas, it is enough. There are plenty of great musicians who don't know much about theory (for example The Beatles). But I just don't see a reason not to learn more theory. Learning theory can only improve you as a musician.
It's kind of the same as asking if only knowing cowboy chords is enough to become a successful musician. Depending on the genre, cowboy chords may be everything you will ever need, but I wouldn't see a reason not to learn a bit more about playing the guitar. It would make you a much more versatile musician.
The Beatles didn't know music theory
13:15 An iron wire of a specific diameter with a specific tension on it will vibrate at a specific frequency. Monochords were used to tune other instruments. You can tell what frequency historic instruments played at by information on monochords in historic treatises and in organ tuning treatises (pipe length).
I would doubt the tension holding on a 200-year old wire. However, the pitch at Handel's time and in his city on a specific organ can be determined since the pipes were made of Tin (Sn) which is very stable, and we know the pipes were never altered (for various reasons. You can tell). Oh, and the wind pressure did not change either (another variable--this would have been inscribed on the bellows, and in old units whose conversion is known today). Otherwise organ pipes would be likewise unreliable. That's why the Handel organ example is actually rare evidence. Organs are altered ALL THE TIME.
I love how eloquent you are in your explanations, music theory related and otherwise.
I very much agree with your comments re: bass clef and how learning it helps overall. I'll add a clarinet's caveat (and this applies to saxophones as well): Eb instruments (alto clarinet, bari sax, contra alto clarinet, and technically alto sax, if only because of range issues) are able to read down a bass clef part by simply flipping the clef and adding three sharps to the key signature, no fuss, no muss. The complication arise in orchestral settings, where bass clarinets have bass clef parts (and I can see horns having this problem when initially dealing with this in the 4th Horn parts). Bass clarinets, particularly in the symphonic/concert band setting, only play in treble clef, making orchestral parts challenging to the uninitiated. In my particular case, bass clef is concert pitch, so I have to make a conscious effort not to double transpose a bass clef bass clarinet part. To top it off, many orchestral bass clarinet parts are in A... bass clef, mandating a double transposition, because practically speaking, bass clarinets in A no longer exist (sidenote: that made sight-reading The Planets on contrabass clarinet in concert quite fun).
While I have the advantage of learning bass clef because of messing around on a piano and organ, I somewhat pity instrumentalists that get thrown to the wolves, so to speak, when they get a part for their instrument that isn't in their usual clef.
And yes, I have to think when I'm reading down alto or tenor (or soprano!) clef. Thankfully, I don't play bassoon, high trombone, or Bach pieces that call for soprano clef.
That is "The Shard". Our newest skyscraper.
Adam, I stumbled across your channel week or so ago and find it absolutely fascinating. First know I am so far away from being a musician that, typically, when I walked past a music store, all the instruments go out of tune. I first picked up a guitar in about 1965. Last year I was still struggling with the alternating baseline in “railroad bill”when I (and the world) were put out of our misery because I had a stroke and lost all use of my left arm.
Of course a significant amount of your discussions go well over my head. On the other hand I find that many of your concepts apply to areas of my life unrelated to music but in which I have some expertise. For example, the law of international trade finance - YIKES. And woodworking.(New thought): I’ve been retired for years and have slid into some creative writing - mostlyfree-form poetry. I keep adocument open in my word processor where I keep hold of ideas which seem likely to end up in my poetry. Many of the things you say and the concepts and observations you express are ending up in this document for inspiration
Alsp I’d like to mention to a young couple I know who are, to me terrific musicians: Matt and Atla de Champlain they live near hartford CTand, I believe play in NYC FWIW Ala did her graduate work under John Hendricks. She not only sounds terrific (to me) but I assume that she must be damned good to have been mentored by him!Matt is no slouch on the piano perhaps you’d like to check them out on youtube(matt's cd "stride bop" is on sptify IIRC
bob walker toledo
and i remember that "eureka" moment when death metal went from sounding like noise to me being able to hear chord changes, riffs and patterns. or when dream theater went from sounding like a disconjointed bunch of riffs and this tidal wave of notes hitting me all at once to making sense, being able to count along with the music, feel the time and its changes!
That large building behind you is the Shard! The tallest building in Britain
+The Rachmanioff it looks like it should be in the middle of Pyongyang. Or mordor.
Adam Neely yeah I'm not sure what the thought process behind the design was, but I guess its too late now. Hope you're enjoying our quaint little city :)
Nope, 4th in Europe. Tallest in the UK though. ;)
Welcome to Europe Adam.
gnoccialpesto my mistake
No worries, I make many :)
I didn't realize there were any negative comments on any Knower videos until now.
As seen from France, we use "do ré mi fa sol la si do". But once you learn jazz (and associated musics), you also use "A B C D…". A good mnemonic to start : F = fa and A = La and you are done. I don't mind using either one. However, when you get into oriental music through Nothern Africa (once again as seen from France) but not only (I have seen that from Egypt as well), you revert back to "do ré mi fa…", perhaps because Marrocco, Algeria and Tunisia were former French colonies (spare me the historical accuracy, the first and third ones were protectorates). So it is always fun to hear someone from say Tunisia speaking Arabic with a "mi quart de ton" (E quarter tone) in the course of a sentence.
Hey Adam. Hope you enjoyed London! Fascinating Q&A as usual. I wanted to share my experience with reading clefs. I'm a pianist and saxophonist, I can read any clef. I tried once reading bass clef while playing the sax. The first fifteen minutes or so were horrible! I kept reading the notes in treble clef. Our brain makes associations. It learns that with this specific instrument this thing happens, and that's all. When this note shape appears at this position the fingers fall onto that position. It is I suppose psychological or neurological. That's one of the beauties of learning music, your brain learns to make associations and learns how to do an eye-body-ear coordination and apply that in various instances. It's things that otherwise would not have had a chance to be learnt or done (or would have happened under more difficult and dull circumstances). As for the person that said about playing bass with a pick, once your fingers get used to being used differently and a new layer of skin is formed then the feeling is probably going to be different. Like when exercising and then first few days we feel tired or have blisters on our feet but if we persist then the feeling changes. I agree with what Adam said. If you are satisfied with your sound as it is that's fine too.
Thanks for your channel and you weekly insights on music in general. I wish I could discuss with you the whole video.
Until Monday!
Heh Adam not knowing what "The Shard" is cracked me up! I walked by it every day for 6 months when I had the misfortune of having to live in Londinium... and I have no fecking clue what the shard is. It's a really pointy office building, called "The Shard". I could be missing something, but he's spot on. It's a chunk of building vaguely recognisable on the horizon through the smog.
Also, sweet jacket!
About the combination or difference tone - it is a pretty well known thing among synthesizer players, at least those that program their own patches, that you can lower or completely remove fundamental or even the first few harmonics from a tone and the brain is still capable of inferring the original fundamental based on the remaining harmonics, the sound just sounds thinner. It is quite easy to experiment with those things using an additive synthesizer or even a regular subtractive synthesizer with a high pass filer and a spectrum analyzer to see the harmonics.
If you play two sounds whose frequencies have a common divisor the same mechanism springs into action - the brain can assume that the two spectra are indeed a single spectrum and so it infers the fundamental at the common divisor frequency.
I have an impression this explanation does not really clarify all that much.
THAT (0:05) is a landmark to show we are indeed in a dystopian nightmare.
So glad you mentioned organs. It's a fascinating harmonic study in how organs can adjust timbre by emphasizing and/or suppressing different harmonics of a given fundamental.
Thanks for the great clarification regarding the Knower/John Coltrane comments. It was a great comparison and really resonated with me.
His videos are the best on music education I have seen on TH-cam and there are a lot of really great teachers on here.
You confused "combination tone" with "difference tone." Combination tones appear in pitches higher than two fundamentals. You can add the frequencies, or add the ordinal numbers on the harmonic series where the lower note of the two fundamentals is "1st." For example, if you played a C and a G an octave and a fifth higher simultaneously, the combination tone would be a C two octaves above the fundamental C. Why? C is #1 on the harmonic series starting on C, and G is #3. The combination tone would be #4 on that series, which is C two octaves higher than the low C. Difference tones are found by subtracting these ordinal numbers. For example, take the major third ratio - 5:4. This means that the two notes that form a major third on the harmonic series are in the fourth and fifth positions. If you were to play a D and an F#, the difference tone would be 5 - 4 = 1, so the 1st position on the given harmonic series. To find this, you have to kind of work backwards to figure out what the first fundamental is of this mystery harmonic series. In this case, it would be another D two octaves below the D in the major third. TL;DR - combination tones are higher, difference tones are lower, and they only occur when intervals are beatless (pure).
Molly Wise wtf wow
Molly Wise you're my kind of people!
Combination tone is a more general term, the higher one is the sum tone, the lower one is the difference tone. These are psychoacoustic, your brain fills in "missing frequencies", as sounds that occur in nature are either unpitched or monophonic. But it is worth noting that there's also a physical phenomenon that can produce such sidebands. If you have non-linear transmission of sound and you add two signals A and B, you get terms of the form A*B, which by a bit of algebra are just the differences and sums of any partials. So if A and B were sine signals at frequencies a and b, this would just be sines at a+b and |a-b|. One of classic cases is distorted guitar, where you get very complex signals and fuzz+Jazz chords is often a recipe for something that is hard to stomach.
It's also worth noting that beats are in fact a form of difference tone...
The fundamental is the GCD (greatest common divisor) between the sounding notes, in Adam's example of 440 and 660 it's 220 (220*2 and 220*3). However the effect is easily lost or at least lessened if the notes have rich overtone series themselves, then it sounds more like two separate notes. I've heard that that's why tuning to flutes together is so very hard because of relatively weak overtones the can often create subharmonic tones, Just try an interval like a major second on two recorders at the same time, you'll hear all sorts of crazy bass notes depending on how you tune them.
Some physics: when two sound waves of different frequency approach your ear, the alternating constructive and destructive interference causes the sound to be alternatively soft and loud - a phenomenon which is called "beating" or producing beats. The beat frequency is equal to the absolute value of the difference in frequency of the two waves. The example of Adam, where one sound wave is 440 Hz and the other one is 220 Hz, gives a beat of 220 Hz. Yet this can be applied on other sets of frequencies. When one wants to tune their instrument by ear with 2 strings, you use this same mechanism. When two frequencies are near each other, say 440 Hz and 439 Hz, the reciever would hear a beat of 1 Hz. This can be used in tuning your intrument by listening to the beats. When the beat decreases, your instrument is getting tuned.
8:16 Hey Adam, thx for addressing my comment :] Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to poke fun at you, but at a certain kind of musicians, in general, who get so obsessed with theory, that they end up sounding like they're solving math problems on stage, with no emotions behind it or regard for the entertainment value of what they're doing. Anyhow, thanks for clarifying your stance on it. All the best!
P.S.
Enjoy London mate. You're witnessing one of the three days in a year with no overcast!
Hey Adam, love your videos.
Although I do not share an affinity for jazz, I think I've picked up on the real meaning behind one of the comments addressed in this video. I tend to believe that when the commenter mentioned their aversion regarding the "Extreme Jazz Fusion Reharmonization" technique, they were actually commenting on the aversion that they and many others (myself included) often feel when hearing the particular aesthetic of certain (most) "jazz" music. I think we simply don't like what we experience to be the constantly-changing aesthetic of jazz. The video was great, and very informative and entertaining. I do think they could recognize that the video itself was educational, but the video was picking up comments (like the one you addressed) which were rather expressing the aversion they feel when they hear the "jazz sound"; that it simply presents an unwelcome aesthetic. I agree that some people seem overly-repulsed by even brief "jazz-y" moments in a song, and could benefit from expanding their palate. However, I think there's a third group of musician or even listener who likes music that uses "jazz chords" such as Black Metal, Post-Punk, or even the jazzy chord progressions found in some Pop, but the way they experience jazz is different because the approach and sensibility in actual jazz is different. A tremolo-picked "jazz chord progression" with less jazzy approach and the right counterpoint, and voila! Black Metal. I personally experience most jazz as walking into a horribly-decorated room; there seems to me to be no theme except that of "lack-of-theme". Sure, the person who hung all the different stuff on the walls may have some unifying thought that in their mind ties it all together, but someone else walking in would say "Hey, I guess everyone needs a junk-room!" If such a thing could be called an aesthetic, then I guess there are those of us who simply dislike that aesthetic. Is that so wrong?? ;-)) I mean, I WANT to like jazz... Is there something we're missing that's holding us back, or some realization that would allow people to gain an affinity for jazz? Thanks Adam, if there's anything I learned from your Vaporwave video, it's that sometimes we just like what we like, but it can still be appreciated at least academically by those who are open-minded, like yourself.
At 11:40 you left some unwanted audio in.
Was it music or just noise? lol
hey man it's an easter egg
maybe its a secret message from the illuminati
it's not unwanted, it's a feature!
Thanks for the "Is there bad music?" question. I rewound and watched it 4x to absorb each one of your points. My wife and I after 25 years of marriage with very disparate music tastes. She likes Contemporary Christian Music and listens to it nearly exclusively and has taken the Bach-ish stance that music should only be used to worship God. I, on the other hand, see music much more broadly as an art expressing the entire range of human experience and emotion. I tend to listen to a large amount of Death and Progressive Metal, which she calls "noise". I think she just doesn't like my music and that's fine. But I never thought it was right for her to completely devalue something's artist merit just because it doesn't fit her personal preference.
Yikes. That doesn't sound like the healthiest partnership.
jeeezus
16:40 Yes this! I am an organ performance major and this is one of my favourite little tricks with the organ ;) It's really nice to hear a scientific explanation about it though. Also, I have been learning subharmonic singing over the past couple of months, and the way that I do it is that as I sing the fundamental pitch (say a B2) I relax my throat a bit so that it becomes a mix between chest and vocal fry. If you get the right balance between the two, then it produces the octave below (B1). I find it extremely fascinating, much like your videos!
I've heard people demonstrate this right in front of me but I can't do it. I came close once. But I'm already a low bass so I don't really need the trick (well, the other guys were low basses too but one guy could sing an F0 using the trick. Wow.)
Do you think that jazz or some variant of improvised music will become popular again? Do you even think that it would be good for the art if it did? (with it being subjected to extreme commercialization) I've always just thought that most people when they talk about the era of jazz as the popular music seem too nostalgic or praising of it. I feel that the less popular bebop era sent the genre into way less popularity but also gave it many new artistic dimensions impossible under the limelight of mainstream music.
Sherman Thompson you know, I have recently heard to Jazz at Massey. It was recorded in 1953 and it had already had all the modern jazz features by that moment. Mingus even used some rhythmic displacements that are not widely used until today. Not speaking about crazy solos of Parker and Gillespie.
And it was 64 years ago. Do you understand what I mean? Those titans have invented something radically new, and then we have 60 years of repeats. This style has already became classical. And when something is classical, it is no more contemporary.
So bebop took it's place on the musical Olympus, but I think it is not sane to speak of it as of something, that could be popular again in the feature.
As to others styles of jazz, then yes, they are quite popular and continue influencing on most genres. Hip-hip, for instance, share much in common of its roots with acid jazz. If you ask some Rock stars who are they listen to, you will be amazed how many of them will mention some jazz greats like Miles or Mclaughlin. I don't think jazz will be like popular music, but it definitely lives and fertilize others genres till today, as any classical music.
Bravo again to Adam for this one. Summarizing things like resultant tones in easy to understand ways while also remaining completely factually accurate is a hard thing to do. He seems to understand pipe organs very well, and I do commend him for this. (Full disclosure: pipe organ builder here.) :) Big fan of these Q+A's, thanks Adam.
Hey Adam, I really enjoy your posts. You articulate your ideas beautifully, and (mostly), they resonate with my thinking on music. I'm really impressed by the level of maturity you've achieved at such a young age, which enables you to reply to trolls, haters and negatives in a very professional manner. I wish I could have got there earlier. Although I'm primarily a guitarists, I have played bass, but it doesn't touch me in the same way that guitar does. Nevertheless, I enjoy watching your videos, and have learned a thing or two. All the best..
Really thoughtful answer to the main question.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed this Q+A, I was slightly disappointed because the title made me think you were going to share some more awesome music. I love your taste in music, based on the music you compose and the artists you share and refer to! KNOWER is so much fun. I guess I'm just asking for some more bands that you think are awesome because I would love to check them out. I'm always searching for groups with unique sounds, or that implement advanced music theory into their compositions. Either way, I always enjoy your videos Adam. Keep em coming!!
good and bad is relative.
some people like, some people don't.
they're different.
so we should think about what is good music to each group.
let's see inside school.
there is several student group.
-villain group = they were victim. they should attack others first, to prevent not to victimized again. we should understand them.
-victim group = of domestic, of school, of self
-active group = cheer leader, sportsman, challenger...
-ideal followers group = scout, judge, justice, hard worker student...
-art group = band, artist, singer, dancer, writer... they like fancy, fantasy , spiritual things.
-entertaining group = they will be entertainer.
-technological group = they like virtual and cosmic things.
-social group = they like spending time to play, love and social party.
-geek group = they're maniac.
-consumer, bystander group = they consume that others have produced.
most people are included here.
what is good music?
the music that should give satisfaction to at least one group, is good music.
our mission is healing, leading, giving a joy, calming, making love and so on.
in a word, our role is helping people to live happy.
0:20 in Russian as far as I know we have fixed C (do) position. And we have that italian note names, too. To me that fact about movable one is a new knowledge.
Good/bad music is a notion I debated for some time in my youth, and after many years thinking about it, my current line of thought goes like this.
1. A vital question is, WHERE is music? That might seem like a very bizarre question to ask, but I think it's valid to say that music exists in the collision of sound with an individual's nervous system. Music exists INSIDE our heads. That inevitably means that the pre-existing conditions inside our heads determine what music is for each of us. I remember some guy who played with Monk talking about walking through a park with him and Monk saying something like, "hear that? Those birds are in five..." So depending on the listener, MUSIC IS INDEPENDENT OF A VOLITIONAL SOURCE.
Sidenote - Adam, I have to say I really like your channel. And your mom did a great job and seems terrific, and I love the fact you reference her.
2. Adam, while you say that the notion that there is no such thing as good music isn't helpful, I'd disagree. It strips away any pretentions to objectivity about this, and actually allows a better attempt at true objectivity. Given point one above, it follows that one's internal experience of music depends entirely on musical education. Thus, say, Trout Mask Replica will be heard in as many ways as there are listeners: more importantly, each listener (I'm extrapolating from my own experience here) may hear it in different ways at different times in their life. For me, that went from "ugly sound" to "incredibly exciting maelstrom" to "just blues" to "can't listen to this now because Don Van Vliet was a shit who exploited his musicians and acted like a child" (after reading a couple of interviews and biographies). I don't need to defend any of these points of view, or argue the point after any of them, because I know, "yup, JUST ME then."
3. It doesn't mean one cannot assess the skill set of a given musician, although people with more experience of actually making music - preferably at an accomplished technical level - are more likely to have interesting things to say based on significantly better processing of input sound due to education and experience.
4. Therefore, the more thorough and wide-ranging one's musical education, the more sound becomes music. Now I have a huge, HUGE preference for music made by people banging, plucking and blowing things together in real time over anything that involves pressing a button: and I can argue all sorts of benefits for it to explain my PREFERENCE: but I don't expect anyone raised on a diet of Lady Gaga to hear what I hear in the playing of Cannonball Adderley. Nor would I even engage in a discussion.
Does any of that make sense to anyone? I hope so.
+Sidney Richard it makes perfect sense, thanks for sharing! Honestly, I'm very tempted to fall in line with your thinking - a relativistic one, but there are a few nagging questions that seem to always pop up, like...
Why do we study music? To get "better" at it?
You could say that it's to better approximate what we would like to hear in our own heads, and that's fair, but I think music is more than just an individual construct. It's a culturally created one, and so the role of the individual in judging and understanding music is beholden to the society at large.
This is how I think - criteria for judging music are not REALLY objective (mathematical laws of the universe, etc, blah blah) but rather based on socially constructed aesthetics.
/egghead
Adam! Thank you so much for replying. I didn't get notified, can't figure out why. I'm not sure we do disagree, because there's nothing in that reply that I disagree with at all. Robert Anton Wilson speaks of each of us having two kinds of "reality tunnel": emic - socially constructed; and etic - based on personal experience. So, for Westerners the emic reality-tunnel of music will be based on the even tempered scale we're surrounded by since birth, and I think it's fair to say it takes a little effort for most of us to break out of that. For Chinese people the tonal nature of their language provides, I think, the kind of processing that makes it easier to attain absolute pitch (and the notion of a symbolic rather than alphabetic language gives rise to all sorts of frankly bizarre possiblities, but I won't open that rabbit hole.
You know yourself from personal experience that the deeper your musical education, the more information you'll be able to get out of music and/or sound.
I understand you may have, if you like, some resistance to "relativism", but I daresay we've both seen videos where, for example, a Turkish guy mods his guitar to get those otherwise hard-to-pinpoint tones that are not in the tempered scale. That, to me, is very suggestive that music IS indeed relative in the way you seem to object to.
I used to argue whether Zep or Purple was a better band, but I gave that up at fourteen. It just seems more sensible, and less arrogant, to speak of personal preference (which I am absolutely prepared to go into detail about, e.g. why I much prefer Cannonball to Coltrane) rather than concepts of aesthetics that, as you say, are socially constructed and therefore... er... relative?
As for why do we study music, isn't that going to vary from person to person? I know people who have done it exclusively for reasons of, heyyy (Zappa voice) sexual GRATIFICATION*.... I've always loved music and I'd say my motivations varied. I was put off piano by an appalling teacher, then in my early teens for whatever reason I just kept wanting to expand my vocabulary. What the hell IS that chord? Oh, cool... and on it goes. That, actually, is a great deal to do with my taste in guitarists. I've always loved players - at first Jeff Beck and then BOOM! Eddie Van Halen - that made me whip my head around saying, what the hell was THAT?
And... why IS that a nagging question for you? How do you get from (for me dubious at best) attempts to construct an aesthetic to THAT question.
Ultimately, music is the most fun I can have while fully clothed, and the process of practice has taught me SO MUCH about life. I do love that quotation from Coltrane, something like... "after a while, all you can do is make yourself a better person". I cannot go into detail here, but practicing music has absolutely made me understand Sheldrake's morphic fields. I was lucky enough to be in a band that did nothing but jam for two years before we even did one gig. By the time we were gigging, we'd play constantly for about 45-50 minutes at a stretch and that would divide up into several distinct sections, each of which would have a theme/melody, be in different tempos. There were seven of us, and, honestly, towards the end, it felt like being in a flock of birds or a school of fish all of which change direction at the same time. If you can find that kind of opportunity, grab it, because I've never again felt anything like it.
Adam, once again, love the channel. If you ever get the time, you might want to check out Korzybski's General Semantics or the work of the late and much lamented Robert Anton Wilson. I find the concepts incredibly useful in avoiding a lot of pointless bullshit. It might sound a bit heavy, but it's more fun than you might think, and trust me, it separates fact from opinion like you wouldn't believe.
*not my primary motivation, but I won't deny taking advantage of any edge my skills in singing and playing have got me from time to time... :D
Hey Adam, thanks for your videos. Thanks to you, I bought a bass and now I'm learning step by step all alone. I'm a drummer originally so it's more difficult for me to learn how to make a good sound on bass. But anyway, about good or bad music, my thought is that what I call good music is something that has a research in sound, composition or instrumentalisation. What I mean is that, there is a lot of music that I don't objectively like but I find interesting, and they are as good music as song I like then. They just don't touch as I would like to.
So for me, there is bad music, not because I don't like this music in particuler, but because I don't find anything interesting inside the composition. For example, I hate when some artist just copy another one and do not dig more their own capabilities. I'm not a great musician myself so I don't really like to say that great musicians can do bad music, but that's my opinion when I try to compose. It's greta to have inspiration, but you have to do more than just mix you influences and do a song that will be yours, but still not yourself. I don't know if I'm clear actually, I'm french so explaining something like that in another language it's harder than I thought.
The best example I have about "bad music" is the great artist who only do cover. It's so frustrating because you know they can go further, they can do something bigger. Even if the reinterpretation is great, I will not consider them making good music if they do not try to compose their own music. You talk about Shakespeare in thisvideo, and I'm actually studying Théâtre, and those two arts are about one thing in my opinion : sending a message. It can be by the text or the song, by the way they play live, the way they move on scene or anything like that, that can also be by all in one time (and then, it's the greatest art I can ever imagine when everything touch me in some way.). That the most abstract thing ever, but that's how I see art in general, and music is inside this vision then. ^^
Anyway, thank you again for your videos, I revise my judgment a lot with your explanation so maybe next month I will see "bad" or "good" music in a different way. Have fun in London !
Obviously, most people talking about things which purport to be music not being music typically are either denigrating those things as noise, or questioning their artistic validity in some other way.
However, I really think that it can be helpful in certain cases (most notably 4'33" by John Cage, though there are other examples that come to mind), to think of a "song" not as music, but as "meta-music", i.e. art which is less an authentic artistic statement using sound, silence, and time to convey meaning, but which is rather an authentic artistic statement on what it means for something to BE music, and what we can legitimately understand as musical. Obviously, there is a sense in which even meta-music is, technically, music, but I still think the idea is a really useful tool for thinking about aesthetics and philosophy of art, and the concept obviously implies parallel forms of meta-art for various artistic media.
Anyway, just a thought.
Funny story on the topic of clefs. So I'm a composer as well as a bassist/guitarist/string player/drummer so I'm very comfortable reading music in all different clefs and keys. One time in an audition for my schools orchestra on bass I was given the sight reading excerpt and went to play it but I read it as if it were in treble clef and wound up being 5th chair out of 6 (I wound up going to all state for composition that year so it's all good) so yeah that happens sometimes
I'm a trumpet player that can read trumpet in treble clef, and in bass clef, and can read trombone in bass clef...and treble clef. It's fine ...go learn stuff. Huh, Adam's right again, go figure. Love that guy.
super answer on the good or bad music question!
Good Music = music that resonates with you.
Wow, thanks for the nod to shakuhachi Adam - thought we were too out there on the periphery. And the context was interesting; much of shakuhachi study is still of the master/disciple variety (iemoto system in Japan) and there's a bit of debate about how much western pedagogy is proper to introduce. While the superstar students might still get superior training via the demonstration only style, most of us mortals can benefit from a slightly more expository approach. Now for the odd ones of us that try to toot a little jazz on the bamboo stick that's a whole other kettle of fish (or can of worms is probably a better metaphor). Those types should all be watching Adam's excellent posts !
On pitch - as I understand it, the instrument that helped spread a uniform pitch (and temperament) was the accordion, as it was relatively inexpensive (compared to, say, a piano) and produced a standard pitch and scale.
Shakespeare comparison is on point. I listened to Miles Davis records in high school because I had a crush on a jazz band girl (spoiler; she gave zero fucks). It was cool, but I didn't really get it.
Now, 15 years later, I just love it (and my wife hates it). I can follow the grooves and audiate or vocalize improvised licks and harmonies (whether they're good or not...). My tastes didn't change as much as they just grew to include more things.
Thanks for talking at us self - taught knuckle draggers in ways we can understand.
I took a song and used the Tri Tone as passing chords and it is so beautiful. I learned from your video. I also just reharmonized somewhere over the rainbow to a minor key. I have played jazz a while but you made it make so much sense so easily. TY
There is so much music that I can appreciate, even if I don't "like" it.
I like to think of the whole good and bad music thing like this; no piece of music is good. No piece of music is bad. There’s just opinions. So when somebody says ”this is bad” what they’re really meaning is ”i don’t like this”. Me not liking something doesn’t make it bad, because there will always be someone who likes that piece of music.
Once there was a man -
Oh, so wise!
In all drink
He detected the bitter,
And in all touch
He found the sting.
At last he cried thus:
“There is nothing -
No life,
No joy,
No pain -
There is nothing save opinion,
And opinion be damned.”
Stephen Crane
Btw... the verb is "to satirise".. "satire" is a noun. Sorry about that, but it's not for nothing that I got a Christmas present a couple years back of a T-shirt bearing the legend "I am silently correcting your grammar".
And I'll say it again. Love the channel and your lucidity. AND you quote your mom. That's a beautiful thing.
Sidney Richard well you should practice the "silently" part then.
Good luck. This is the internet. You must be new here, but people say what they like.
+Sidney Richard I think it was a joke.
I just freaking love your channel, man, Saravá!
Good music is any music that you enjoy making or listening to.
16:44 Time to put what I learned in my organ lessons to the test. This trick is typically used on organs that have 16' stops but no 32' foot stops because this trick recreates the effect of a 32' organ stop. If you have 32' stops on your pipe/theater organ... then you should probably use that.
The way to create this effect is to have 2 different 16 foot stops (make sure that it isn't a stop that is shared between the two - don't use a 16' Diapason stop that is the shared by both manuals) on two manuals. Usually one on the great manual and one on the pedal. You can do this on one manual, but it doesn't work nearly as well, for the above mentioned reason. Then, play the fundamental that you want to be played like a 32' stop on either the pedal or great manual, let's say an A. So play the A on the pedal (usually the pedal is used for the fundamental). Then, play the note that is a 5th above the note you played before on the great manual, so play an E on the great manual.
This is pretty much what you would get from a 32' organ stop. Have fun quaking whatever venue you're playing in. It's very fun.
Actually most "Resultants" (16'+10-2/3') are derived from the same set of pipes. And most of them are pretty ineffective compared to the real thing. But you are correct on the most part. And theater organs, I find DO have the best 32' resultant effect (because of large pipe scales and lots of fundamental tone). And you do get the "idea" of A 32' most of the time, true. But you almost never "feel" it in a fake 32. Soft resultants are the most ineffective, I've found (I am an organ builder and Tonal Director of Bond Organ Builders, APOBA). There is a lot of mythology out there -- "The pipe mouths have to be so-and-so-distance apart". "The two pipe types can't be the same". "The pipes must be in PERFECT tune, 2/3 ratio") No. Acoustics matter A LOT, first of all. But the best fake 32' resultant I ever heard is at Temple Beth Israel, Portland. Basically a large theatre organ (built 1926). The acoustics are dead (cork walls). There is a dome, however. That might help. This is just the 16' Diapason played a fifth apart, it's even tempered, not a pure fifth. I swear it's a real 32. It feels like the building is going to fall down on low C (with G sounding above as well). I can never predict what will work. Now that electronic 32s are cheap, I highly recommend them. They don't produce sound in the *audible* range, really, so I don't consider it cheating. It's good use of limited funds.
And I thank you for your comment, the fact you know about this is impressive enough. I didn't mean to imply you are wrong, it's just a bit more complicated. I hear organbuilders say things less accurate actually sometimes. LOL
@@EdwardsGrant Oh my god, this was such an old comment lol. Over covid my organ knowledge has grown rusty but I'm getting back into playing again after a few years but thank you so much for the response--I'm honored to have someone so qualified help me learn more about this subject. I genuinely did not expect to get this thorough of a response to a comment I wrote during my freshman year of high school, but it's really appreciated :) Thank you so much for the info!
@@lifeontheledgerlines8394 I hope I didn't sound technically picky (organists and organ builders have a bad habit of that!) I listened to Mr. Neely's entire video and actually everything he says is entirely accurate, and if he had gone further in detail there would have been so many other explanations necessary. I'm impressed that he managed to do that, but I'm always impressed with his instruction. Probably my favorite channel here.
Good music is what atleast two people can appreciate.
Baroque pitch: read the book by Bruce haynes/ Geoffrey burgess “the story of A”. To think of baroque pitch as lower or that certain countries had certain pitches three hundred years ago is actually reductive to almost absurdity. The pitch in London in the 1670’s was both at A=455 in the chapel and A=400 in the theater. Simultaneously. Singers simply adjusted and instrumentalists were as aware of the differences as regarded their playing as you are to your lead sheets. Pitch never became anything Close to being unified until the 19th century and even then variants existed because, well, we all like doing things we are familiar with.
Solfege is one of those common core musician experiences that connect us, even if we don't share the same language.
Hey Adam, CptnSpicyWeiner here. Please cement my legacy by putting me in one of your Q and A's. What's your opinion on a musician posting a bunch of videos of them playing on social media and loading it with a bunch of hashtags? Can they really be recognized? Is it a good idea? It'd be very helpful if you go in depth on this subject. I love your videos by the way. You know I've been watching them for a long time
Some guy who isn't Adam here. Could you be a bit more specific? Recognized as what and a good idea in regards to what?
Alex Purkis just gaining a decent following. And good idea as in is it practical. Is it better to get your music out different ways? If being in a band and playing shows isn't possible for you in your situation at the moment, is it possible for masses of people to follow you based on the short clips you upload to social media?
That seems like an unlikely way to "make it" but the internet is a weird place and I'm positive it's worked for some people before so... uh, maybe? The key is that the people who find your music this way would then need to be compelled to share it themselves, then the people who find it that way would need to share it as well and so on. If you can figure out how to force something to go viral you'll find a lot more success than just with your music.
in portuguese, C is Dó (the pronounce is with a very open O), but I (and anybody I know) never had much difficulty associating Dó with C, Ré with D, Mi with E, Fá with F, Sol with G, Lá with A and Si with B (why did I write everyone? idk). I think that it's because we learn when we are children the musical notes "Dó, Ré, Mi, Fa, Sol, Lá, Si, Do" because it's in childhood songs, it's repeated etc, and then when we study music the notes "C, D, E, F, G, A, B" are really easy because it's just the letters in order starting with C and then A after G.
Great stuff as always! I've got a question though. I'm a self-taught "musician" and have developed a good ear that can easily hear chord relationships in most "not-too-jazzy" songs.
However, I don't make a distinction between major and minor keys. Let's say the song goes Am - G - F - G, in other words it is i - VII -VI -VII in the key of A. The way I think of that progression is that it goes vi - V - IV - V in the key of C. The note C kind of echoes at the back of my head as a reference point. Do you think my way is an acceptable approach or if it somehow limits my understanding, especially when we are dealing with more complicated progressions? I'm wondering if I should force myself to learn the "correct" way or not.
Nice one, I tend to be in London a couple of times a year. Not there now obviously. A shame the stars didn't align
Last time I was there I saw a totally unplugged jazz gig in Oliver's in Grenwich. Cosy basement style jazz bar. If you're not playing there you should check it out. The gig blew me away as I had never seen real jazz performed so...er...unamplified!
Hi Adam, just wanted to tell you I will always love your content. Keep it up!
Let's see if I can go 2 for 2 on Q&A videos. Would you consider talking to Shawn about bringing your Sungazer Project to MAGFest (a music and video game convention in the DC area)? I think you guys would fit in beautifully. Yes, this is mostly a ploy to get you guys to come to the area so I can see you live but I stand by it lol!
The whole problem with the "master/student" thing is that it never left music education. We still have indoctrinators (keeping a student ignorant and dependent by only providing the information they think he/she should know) instead of teachers (giving as much information as possible so the student can't think for him/herself) on some cases. We just put a new slogan in it and called it "music degree", "music school", etc. as you're always told you should do this and that or learn this and that a particular way, but never why.
Surely the easier way for us to know how different orchestras tuned in days gone by is the tuning forks belonging to different composers/conductors.
I researched this when making a video throwing out the idea that A440 is some sort of Nazi conspiracy, reference tunings varied so wildly it made orchestral cross pollination very difficult.
+Levi Clay that...makes way more sense than what I thought and read. Tuning forks also would be harder to warp or change tuning throughout the centuries
Never heard of fixed or moveable do before, thought it deserved a quick explanation. Love your videos though
12:47 About that, in fact physicians worked on measuring vibrations since the 17th century (Mersenne, Galilée) and by the 18th century could accurately measure it (Sauveur). The first diapason was made 1711 by the way and investigations were made and not only it was different from a country to another but each city had a different pitch. Oh and also, paradoxically, as you may guess, the common idea of a baroque diapason one semi-tone lower than the modern one, is....a modern consensus and historically false.
Then the international conference in Vienna in 1885 decided to set the A3 at 435. In 1953 a new conference in London made it up to 440.
Biologists like to say that in nature "forms fits function". This, I think, also applies to good music. It is easier to explain the difference between good and bad music if the intentions of the musician are known. So if you want to compare music on quality in a meaningful way, there must be some level of overlap in the intended "function" of the music you are comparing.
To the best of my understanding in Hindustani and Carnatic music Sa (which is the same as Do) is moveable, but is typically tuned between C and D to the singer or instrumentalist's preference. I believe they also use just temperament for great harmonic tones.
Woah I've watched every single one of your Q and A's and as a non-jazz person, I just realized that the question intro music is the lick! (Learned it from your gig vlog on it!)
welcome to London! That monstrosity is known as the Shard. Built only in the last few years, it is finished even though it doesn't look it, and it has an overpriced restaurant at the top which seems to be far more popular than it ought to be. Enjoy your visit! :)
The Coltrane bit - I thought that joke was absolutely hilarious and somewhat surreal! I had to pause the video to collect myself before resuming. The juxtaposition of Coltrane's seminal work and contemporary TH-cam trigger-happy ranting, enhanced by your signature speed/pitch-shifted voiceovers really made it not only a great joke, but also led me to think about what modes criticism took form in back in the day. As if it were not enough that the man was of "wrong" skin colour at the time...
@12:00 With good technique, fingers can't/won't blister. For the next question, this piece comes to mind.... "Crystal Motions" by Roland Young. Some pieces will sound very alien at first, only to become amazing on the second listening.
I think there are compositions that actually are not-music, the most prominent might be John Cage's 4'33" but there are other similar pieces like Erwin Schulhoff's In Futurum or One Minute Silency by Mike Batt. Music is about sonic events and if there is no such event it can't be music. Of course it can be discussed if it is some other kind of performance art.
Led Zep..weather Report..Tower of Power..Beatles..Pink Floyd..The Who..Prefab sprout..etc etc
Hey Adam, you're mom's comment is excellent and thought provoking. We've done a little work on synchrony and movement (journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071182) but you're mom's comment reminded me we've got to get back to the issues she's raised, and try to test some of these theories. Will keep you posted. b.t.w. your early video on posture prevented me from getting recurring strain injuries -- thanks for that.
There were a couple of questions that got me wondering about a couple things, so, if someone ever finds this comment, hi there.
I've been a fan of Noise music for quite a few years and from a kinda young age (between 13 and 15, although it was already interesting to me since way earlier) and I've been pretty obsessed with it since, to the point of writing an unreadable (according to my teachers) essay on it's origins, the styles, their characteristics, even including interviews I did... Anyways
Generally, for music that's really noisy, dissonant, raw or "chaotic" in it's approach (eg. Black Metal, Free Jazz etc.) it's a matter of gaining a taste for the jarring elements and understand what's beneath that wall of "fuck off pleb". That doesn't really apply with Noise, I think, since I don't really see anything below said wall (Harsh Noise Wall, amirite). It's just... noise... I've never been able to rationalize why I enjoy it (with a few notable exceptions), which contrasts greatly with pretty much the fact that I know why I enjoy pretty much all I listen to..
Thanks for responding so eloquently to my previous question! I've heard before from reliable sources that it is impossible/difficult to identify instruments if their attack and/or decay are removed. If true, this concept fascinates me. I thought you would/could demonstrate for us and provide examples/thoughts on this. Sorry for all the /s...
Yes, that ugly pointy thing is The Shard. Our new temple to Mammon
Love your videos Adam. Keep it up!
Love the channel! Greetings from London! 😉
on the subject of satire: people need to understand that comedic and satirical techniques don’t have to be used exclusively for comedy.
I mentioned you on a comment too Janek Gwizdala a few days back... He's a great player & really inspirational
My goodness! Welcome to the UK.
When I first heard heavy metal music, I thought it sounded like ear rape, and much preferred the softer and lighter sound of the Beatles. After year of getting more acquainted with music as whole, I began to really enjoy it, and other types of music. As you start to expose yourself to music, it becomes easier to enjoy and appreciate it.
Hey Adam, I've been a strings player since I was six(violin, bass, guitar and so on) and now I'm in a jazz quartet in college. I've really been trying to improve my technical skill when it comes to jazz double bass. I know it's pretty common, and I've seen people I play with, take a solo from a Coltrane, Ellington, or Davis and transpose it in 12 keys; I've tried this on bass and found it pointless with the nature of string instruments and the ability to just move positions. I've recently started teaching myself alto sax because both mentally transposing down to an Eb instrument as well as doing the 12 key solo exercise should help. What are your thoughts on this, will it help or just dilute my focus/take away practice time? I'd love to hear your opinion on the topic since you seem like an intelligent person on the topic of musical discipline.
Cam Dore playing something in all keys is also useful on strings - so long as you play vertically in the first couple positions. Being able to play in certain keys using first position - like Ab minor - is a very useful skill. Sure, it's easier to play Ab minor in 4th position - but that defeats the point of excercises like this.
So how much did you improve?
Hi Adam, are you still in London? I'd love a catch to meet and and buy you a drink for all your great content!
I thought the Knower and Coltrane analogy to be spot on. Neely wasn't making fun of Trane, although now we know more about how fucked up it was in 60s Americahhh.
FYI, about that subharmonic question, Basso Profondos and real Oktavists don't actually use subharmonic singing. There are people out there that can hit those notes naturally
Yes I did enjoy this little Faure
when i find a kind of music where my first thought is “i don’t like this”, my second thought is now “i don’t understand the goal of this.”
Hey, I just wanted to say that I discovered subharmonic singing through your video and now I'm starting to be able to sing in my subharmonic register.
For my 6 string I normally have to read/write in bass & treble clef due to the large range. Only bass clef would be easier for sure but impractical with a 6-string.
11:39 eh... double voiced adam
EXTREME ADAM REHARMONIZATION
Yo Adam I was thinking about art and innovation recently and wonder what you think:
Is innovation in art due to desire to express or just ego?
What I mean is, does art have to constantly be new and unique in order to be 'good' and convey meaning? Or is some of the innovation/experimentation just a dick measuring contest with other artists? By innovation/experimentation I mean something like Romantic to Modern period in classical music, but also smaller scale like what Wagner did.
For example, is the Second Viennese School a genuine desire to express and that's the only medium that fits their needs, or is it driven by ego and being 'higher' or more 'sophisticated' art?
The reason I was thinking about this is what if someone finds that the best way to express themselves through art already basically 'ran its course'? Like a composer who's personal voice and style falls more in line with early modern classical music than anything else. Is there a point to creating art that is mostly rooted in the past?
The building is the shard.
I get that its 3 years since this video came out, but Jeff Berlin is pretty outspoken about his opinions on a couple Facebook bass guitar groups. He is almost certainly not talking about just the players in pursuit of a career. Plenty of weekend warrior types catch shade from Jeff when they disagree with him, especially when it comes to time and rhythm. Find him and make comments about needing a click if you're playing live and you'll see what I mean.
Have you talked about the UK in a video? I'd be interested to know why you went, did you work, how it compares with NY musically, etc.?