I saw the film in 1987-8 in Iran and it blew me away - since then I started following Glass. I always go back to the last 10 minutes, starting with prophecies where in the film it shows disintegrated late 70s America people left to their own devices and then that passenger capsule as it tumbles down. Probably watched it 30 times.
Thanks for transcribing those notes from Koyaanisqatsi, and explaining how the top middle and bass lines ascend and descend. That was always an emotionally powerful moment for me also. It is worth noting that it is just at this moment of musical release that the bass voice intones the movie's title: KOYAANISQATSI
@@ImpliedMusic Nolan was a fan of the film Koyanisqatsi (approximately) and probably told to the Interstellar composer to mimic that minimalist musical style I think
The way that I used to compose melody is to start with a broken chord, and then alter notes. Starting with something so intuitive as a broken chord keeps it listenable. I find it very easy to write things that are far too complex to understand. This is a nice method to keep things teligable.
Koyaanisqatsi was a revelation to me and my friends, when we first saw in cinema! As a film but more as music! it was our first meeting with Philip Glass and became our most favorite composer of the time! After Beatles and Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa, Glass was our new musical genius! And the other films where he scored and of course Hours is my favorite too! New to your channel, thank you for the great videos!
for me also, caught a glimpse of the film in a review, went straight out and got the LP, totally mesmerising. I like a lot of his opera and piano works, but Reggio’s film took these arpeggios to another level - and vice-versa!
I remember being totally smashed after seeing that movie Ko..tsi (to prevent from mistyping) for the first time. The music score matches perfectly fine. Thank you so much for explaining why it does.
Koyaanisqatsi. (I think it is a Navajo word/phrase?) And yeah, that soundtrack is amazing. They should re-release the movie with a full orchestra score remix and show the film on 4k tv's and imax theatre screens. (After scaling the reso up with some AI tech) Otherwise: the original is still absolutely amazing.
There quite possibly would not be the Han Zimmer we know, without Phillip Glass having been a student of minimalism. The Interstellar soundtrack pays heavy homage to Phillip Glass' music imo.
@@Asgairsson I have the film on DVD. If there is a blu ray, I'm sure it still looks and sounds amazing. Even the dvd quality is just great still on a big tv because of that film grain style of pre-digital cinematography.
I think UA-cam is reading my mind. I was just looking at the score for this song from Koyaanisqatsi, then UA-cam suggested this video for me. This is my favorite scene from my favorite movie ever. The song is called "Prophecies".
Great. Recently I played it in combination with Pink Floyd Echoes (the end). I once saw Glass and Reggio at the German premiere of Koyaanisqatsi. And right, there is Zimmer too! And hey, try it together with Tubular Bells, Four on the Floour ... OK, I'll stop ;-)
I love Philip Glass' music, especially Koyaanisqatsi, such a beautiful score! He is a great inspiration for my own music. Your analysis was so much fun to watch!
I've just found the channel that is going to help me continue my musical education Fascinating stuff and a great inside into one of my favourite composers
I saw Koyaanisqatsi when it came out and have been a Glass fan since then. I love the analysis and insight into the workings and seemingly simple ideas that give rise to such beautiful music.
You may like the music of Nobuo Uemmatsu. He's composed most of the music for the Final Fantasy games, and is an absolute master at this. The best example is a track called J-E-N-O-V-A.
One of the really complicated arpeggiation Glass uses is from Einstein on the Beach, particularly the movement called 'Spaceship' in which arpeggios make minor changes measure by measure but also repeated in long strands. The changes are kept after repeats and a new change to the pattern is added. Worth a listen, it is intriguing to hear the changes. And all this without a discernable melody.
8:50 I wrote a synthwave song where I did just that: chopped off the last beat of some bars. It's not out yet. I'd not say I'm evil, because one cannot be evil when there's no one to care in the first place. My life is safe for now.
Thank you, Chris. It's always a delight to hear a video analysis from you. Philip Glass's music is, many times so good from my appreciation. And I think that his most beautiful single piece is Facades from Glassworks. Very beautiful and touching.
I'm an amateur guitarist, and have played some ragtime and love the contrary lines in the pieces I've learned, something which seems absent from most players tool box in recent times. There aren't many rags that I know, but they are super fun to play. It would be awesome to be able to incorporate some of the flavors of Glass in my approach, both arpeggio tricks and modal shifts. Feels ambitious. Thanks for the inspiration.
Really great stuff. I'm convinced Hans Zimmer was inspired by Koyaanisqatsi's ending track for Interstellar's OST. In fact, Nolan has said that Koyaanisqatsi is one of his favorite films.
Koyaanisqatsi is my favourite film and your transcription of the final scene cue brought those beautiful and terrifying images right into my head. I don't aspire to making this kind of music but breaking worn these melodic fragments is really inspiring. Thank you
What a nice man: it's a pleasant shock to find someone being gently intelligent on UA-cam 😊. Now, I'm not a scholar of Philip Glass but I should point out that what you call (and it's a good epithet, btw) a "figured arpeggio" has been use by electronic music composers from day one: Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Jean-Michel Jarre, etc. The "skipping a beat" thing is also a useful tool to heighten tension or excitement, and is a well-used erm... thing (sorry about "thing" - can't drum up a better word). Anyway. Lovely presentation. Thank you.
Subscribed. Very informative. I found it enlightening when playing Glass, to find a balance between the trance it induces (as it should), but also keeping a clear mind to remember the repeats!
Many thanks for sharing, excellent video. I myself love to use arpeggios in my music and I do cut sometimes the length of it so they (I tend to use several arpeggios at the same time) have an asymmetrical flow to eachother.
I had the pleasure of seeing the Glass Ensemble perform the score to Powaasqatsi (the sequel to Koyaanisqatsi) accompanying the film. It was amazing. He sat in with the other musicians while someone else conducted. This was a great analysis, thanks a lot.
I'm a self-study musician and your content is super cool and inspiring for to dive deeper into composing process of my favorite composers!!! Thank you so much!!
I'd say it's symetrical. By the way, yes, it's kind of geometric music. It's not a line, it has a shape. I have no clue about solfege. but to me, even it is chrono-logic, it should not be written, but drawn. I clearly see shapes, colours and light contrasts when listening to Glass. I'd say, over all, it's visual music. And that's the reason i refuse to watch the movie. "Vessels" is, in my opinion, the best piece a human as ever done. The stuff i see, the stuff i feel listening to it.... does not need any more images. I appreciated your video. Thanks
First time I have seen one of your videos, great presentation and content! I'm an electronic rock artist but I did Trance music remixes and originals for several labels and arpeggios were my life! Not like these though, these are more classical though Trance does have elements of classical in it.
Thanks. I'm a live time fan of Glass's music and went to Paris to see him score Koyaanisqatsi in person some 20 years ago. That's quite a thing, a full orchestra scoring a movie. And since a year or so I'm into electronic music so this kind of explanations are very welcome.
Very enjoyable analysis. The music at the end of Koyaanisqatsi is amongst the best of Glass. It's "simple" but so emotional - even moreso watching the images. Aspects I've noticed about Glass is how the end of the "phrase" leads back to the beginning which creates a [potentially] endless cycle...his arpeggios can be fast, relentless and very exciting - usually with something slow above/below it...and, as you say, the rhythm is punctuated by either dropping a half/whole beat or adding it in.
I hadn't heard this described as "figure arpeggios" before and I think it's a great way to refer to Glass's technique and similar methods. As Scruton said of Glass's "Ekhnaton": "nothing but figures...endless daisy-chains...in such cases the music slips away from us, and becomes a haze on the heard horizon".
I really appreciate this analysis. I absolutely love film scoring and I am working my into it myself. There are so many brilliant composers to learn from.
@@ImpliedMusic I ended up watching the film Koyaannisqatsi; the music is beautiful, Vessels is both repelling and alluring and paired with the visuals certainly of the film helped to place the piece in relation to its ascetic. It’s very easy to see where Zimmer found his inspiration for the Nolan films. The title song was miles ahead of its time. Thank you for bringing this up. It made for an interesting evening. And I fumbled around with some figured arpeggios.
LOVE this analysis. I'm always wondering what makes Glasses music so intriguing and deceptively simple at the same time. (Figured) arpeggios, great counterpoint, and modal exchange. And now I know why his music reminds me a bit of Bach. I read (most) of his autobiography and the funniest moment is when he was working multiple jobs and studying with Nadia Boulanger and he messed up his counterpoint assignment...she just looked at him and asked if was ill and needed to go home, to which he replied "no, why?" and then she ripped him a new one by pointing out all the mistakes in his counterpoint 🤣
Thank you for the analysis! I love this piece of the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack, it pops up on one of my Pandora channels regularly. I pretty much stop and listen to it carefully each time, I find the piece mesmerizing, for all the reasons you bring out in your video. At one point I tried to transcribe the notes but I gave up because I couldn't quite make out the bass notes, and I thought there might be a sus chord in there somewhere. So it's great to watch this video! (And I immediately grabbed the notes off your screen) I remember the exploding rocket scene in the movie vividly, I watched Koyaanisqatsi in a theater (well that's dating me). I would have lost myself in the music except that several people sitting behind me had been smoking weed and they all thought the long rocket sequence was hysterical and couldn't stop giggling. Anyway the entire experience was memorable. Thanks again for the video.
We actually had a term for that kind of treatment of mostly arpeggiated lines in the North Texas jazz program: contrapuntal elaboration of static harmony (CESH). Bill Evans was fond of it, and I'm pretty sure Steve Reich liked it as much as Philiip Glass did.
Yes the music is great but I’m sorry to hear you had to suffer this home invasion. I hope he departed without causing any trouble. In Hackney recently there have been a spate of home invasions single-handedly carried out by one young man seeking notoriety on TikTok. He just walks through someone’s front door, sits down on their sofa and proceeds to make videos. Quite horrible behaviour.
Thank you very much for this great vídeo! It resembles some ostinato also used a lot in Berlin School of eletronic music in bands such as Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze!
It is interesting to hear this perspective from someone who is really passionate about Glass and also very knowledgeable, because I have never been able to understand Glass’ appeal. His arpeggios seem “acceptable” to me, but if you compare these examples to any of the arpeggios in Bach’s preludes from Well Tempered Clavier, for example, Glass seems obviously inferior to me. But maybe I’m missing something.
@@ImpliedMusic I would suspect Phillip Glass played it too (I assume any classically trained keyboard player would). But I am interested in what makes his approach different, and why he would choose to make those different choices. I get the feeling from Glass- and this might be way off the mark, but it makes me feel as though, he just doesn’t have the emotional energy to construct harmonies like Bach’s. Maybe like, if Bach were Shakespeare, he’d be like Hemingway or Samuel Becket. Sort of like if Eeyore from Whinnie the Pooh were a composer. But I could totally be just projecting.
Great video. So I am obsessed with 2 things: 1. Koyaanisqatsi, to me is one of the great compositions of the last 50 years, and yet there are so few other Glass pieces even within a mile of that in my book, the other Reggio scores are execrable, and 2. it's very hard to get the complete score since it's 90 minutes, the MP3s are sold on amazon. Consider doing a video on Slo Mo People. It's the dirge in the dead center of the piece. I absolutley love it and I think if I had to take one track to make the case that Glass is a great composer that would be my choice. Your cmoments about his roots in organs and counterpoint would echo through that part as well.
Thank you for this interesting conversation and breakdown of some of my favorite pieces (MAD Rush! ) but I really wish you showed the musical notation since following along is more educational than the green dots and dashes especially as you said, the notations are rarely available and only skilled musicians can transcribe. I would love to learn to read music and have more occasions to do so.
Great suggestion! i will say that i've made a choice about how much notation to use as i teach on this channel. but i get it. we've all got different profiles around musical literacy. i think score reading of classical pieces is helpful. there are whole channels devoted to play throughs with scrolling notation. also, picking up a adult beginner piano method book and patiently working through it can open things up. my own musical literacy journey has been up and down, but i'll say it's really paid off to become a fluent reader.
Totally lazy of me to demand more from you as even the green dots would be informative if played this at half speed. Thank you for reminding me and enlightening me on why Glass's compositions are so exquisite to listen to!! @@ImpliedMusic
I love Koyaanisqatsi; thanks so much for the explanation of Glass' arpeggiation. I'll try it in Cubase. P.S. You should see people try to dance to Peter Gabriel's "Kiss'O Life". The chorus and al fine' section are in 10/8. It was a scream to play in bars...
Lately I have been listening to Philip Glass - early works, Akenatan, etc., and I believe some of the "figured arpeggio" sections are simply melodic chunks that lead to a cadence. I am not very excited about his music because it is so bare and formulaic. However, I have grown to appreciate it more as I listen to the variety of instruments he uses in his works.
I might be a *tad* late on the conversation. Great breakdown, BTW. I do feel the need to point out that what Glass is doing in that ending section a reprise of the opening section which is a passacaglia - a very old form where the bass is repeating itself incessantly to a varying upper voice. Glass makes it more interesting because he does what in the baroque time was known as a lament bass, which would go down - adding richness to the Koyaanisqatsi thematic of life out of balance. All this blabbery might be interesting, but it doesn’t show the beauty of what Glass creates.
Thank you for sharing this video. I'm an adult beginner of 1 year and I find videos just like yours help unlock little motes of theory (and practical) knowledge that gives me a bit more understanding of why I do the things I do to make my music slowly sound better.
I love Arpeggios , I consider them mainly as a beautiful , captivating , involving and such useful forms of sound. It’s possible Bach wrote some of the best Arpeggios I have ever heard along with Handle and Beethoven . I have been listening to the Artist and Composer Olivia Belli lately who has interpreted Bach and produced performances called “Of time” 1 and 2 ..devastating music , devastating interpretation and performance . Well worth auditioning for many reasons.🙏🏿🙏
@@ImpliedMusic yes another creative and wonderful improviser,her tour in Hong Kong is amazing ..her variations on Bach on Apple Music are to die for..I’m her fan😀🙏🏿🙏🎩
I think Glass's music echoes the human voice.. I am driven to explore the patterns with my own voice and developing the themes into new directions. Like many others it mirrors my love of baroque music
yay. you may enjoy playing through the Etudes, or the piano reduction of his score to the film 'The Hours." a great introduction to his keyboard style is the "Metamorphosis."
@ImpliedMusic I haven't been practicing arpeggios enough w my left hand in general because I have been ignoring my left hand development. :) I love your channel.
Bach was my first love so there's no surprise that I love Philip Glass.
Well said :)
I am a Koyaanisqatsi addict, and now understand its magic little better. Thank you.
Koyaanisqatsi sound track has stayed with me for 40 years. Sounds great hummed in the shower with bathroom reverberations.
I saw the film in 1987-8 in Iran and it blew me away - since then I started following Glass. I always go back to the last 10 minutes, starting with prophecies where in the film it shows disintegrated late 70s America people left to their own devices and then that passenger capsule as it tumbles down. Probably watched it 30 times.
I know 0 about music, but I love his music, so I enjoyed this video. Thanks!!!
Excellent analysis and gives you new ideas to work on.
Thanks for transcribing those notes from Koyaanisqatsi, and explaining how the top middle and bass lines ascend and descend. That was always an emotionally powerful moment for me also. It is worth noting that it is just at this moment of musical release that the bass voice intones the movie's title: KOYAANISQATSI
The music from Interstellar remind me a lot these Philip Glass pieces
No doubt
@@ImpliedMusic Nolan was a fan of the film Koyanisqatsi (approximately) and probably told to the Interstellar composer to mimic that minimalist musical style I think
i love the passion in the way you speak - nice video - thanks
So nice of you
The way that I used to compose melody is to start with a broken chord, and then alter notes. Starting with something so intuitive as a broken chord keeps it listenable. I find it very easy to write things that are far too complex to understand. This is a nice method to keep things teligable.
Koyaanisqatsi was a revelation to me and my friends, when we first saw in cinema! As a film but more as music! it was our first meeting with Philip Glass and became our most favorite composer of the time! After Beatles and Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa, Glass was our new musical genius! And the other films where he scored and of course Hours is my favorite too! New to your channel, thank you for the great videos!
for me also, caught a glimpse of the film in a review, went straight out and got the LP, totally mesmerising. I like a lot of his opera and piano works, but Reggio’s film took these arpeggios to another level - and vice-versa!
I remember being totally smashed after seeing that movie Ko..tsi (to prevent from mistyping) for the first time. The music score matches perfectly fine. Thank you so much for explaining why it does.
Koyaanisqatsi. (I think it is a Navajo word/phrase?)
And yeah, that soundtrack is amazing. They should re-release the movie with a full orchestra score remix and show the film on 4k tv's and imax theatre screens. (After scaling the reso up with some AI tech)
Otherwise: the original is still absolutely amazing.
There quite possibly would not be the Han Zimmer we know, without Phillip Glass having been a student of minimalism.
The Interstellar soundtrack pays heavy homage to Phillip Glass' music imo.
@@py_a_thon that is an amazing idea, indeed. I'd go see it.
@@Asgairsson I have the film on DVD. If there is a blu ray, I'm sure it still looks and sounds amazing. Even the dvd quality is just great still on a big tv because of that film grain style of pre-digital cinematography.
I think UA-cam is reading my mind. I was just looking at the score for this song from Koyaanisqatsi, then UA-cam suggested this video for me. This is my favorite scene from my favorite movie ever. The song is called "Prophecies".
Ah! I’m so glad you found this
Great. Recently I played it in combination with Pink Floyd Echoes (the end). I once saw Glass and Reggio at the German premiere of Koyaanisqatsi. And right, there is Zimmer too! And hey, try it together with Tubular Bells, Four on the Floour ... OK, I'll stop ;-)
I love Philip Glass' music, especially Koyaanisqatsi, such a beautiful score! He is a great inspiration for my own music. Your analysis was so much fun to watch!
thanks juliano, that means a lot coming from you!
you have a really high quality channel, dear implied music.
I've just found the channel that is going to help me continue my musical education Fascinating stuff and a great inside into one of my favourite composers
Wow! Thanks for braking it down!
Glad it was helpful!
wonderful🙏
I saw Koyaanisqatsi when it came out and have been a Glass fan since then. I love the analysis and insight into the workings and seemingly simple ideas that give rise to such beautiful music.
Well said!
Fascinating stuff! Defffffinitely an inspiration for Hans.
Arpeggios, figured arpeggios, clipped arpeggios and counterpoint. Very beautiful. Thank you.
You may like the music of Nobuo Uemmatsu. He's composed most of the music for the Final Fantasy games, and is an absolute master at this. The best example is a track called J-E-N-O-V-A.
Thanks!
Nobuo usmmatsu
My all time fav video game composer
Unforgettable Silhouette from FFIX is very Glass-like.
Definitly support this comment. I always go back to FFX compositions for the beauty. The similarities are there
One of the really complicated arpeggiation Glass uses is from Einstein on the Beach, particularly the movement called 'Spaceship' in which arpeggios make minor changes measure by measure but also repeated in long strands. The changes are kept after repeats and a new change to the pattern is added. Worth a listen, it is intriguing to hear the changes. And all this without a discernable melody.
Agreed. Mind bending.
8:50 I wrote a synthwave song where I did just that: chopped off the last beat of some bars. It's not out yet.
I'd not say I'm evil, because one cannot be evil when there's no one to care in the first place. My life is safe for now.
Thank you so much. you explain Glass's music beautifully.
I love much of his work especially The Hours, the Etudes and Metamorphoses;
Many thanks!
Thanks for such a clear, interesting video. I’ll check out the film & soundtrack. Instant subscribe!
thank you!
Thank you, Chris. It's always a delight to hear a video analysis from you. Philip Glass's music is, many times so good from my appreciation. And I think that his most beautiful single piece is Facades from Glassworks. Very beautiful and touching.
wow, what a minimalist of music; what a career!
Thanks for this analysis - I have always loved Glass's music.
I'm an amateur guitarist, and have played some ragtime and love the contrary lines in the pieces I've learned, something which seems absent from most players tool box in recent times. There aren't many rags that I know, but they are super fun to play. It would be awesome to be able to incorporate some of the flavors of Glass in my approach, both arpeggio tricks and modal shifts. Feels ambitious. Thanks for the inspiration.
Really great stuff. I'm convinced Hans Zimmer was inspired by Koyaanisqatsi's ending track for Interstellar's OST. In fact, Nolan has said that Koyaanisqatsi is one of his favorite films.
Koyaanisqatsi is my favourite film and your transcription of the final scene cue brought those beautiful and terrifying images right into my head. I don't aspire to making this kind of music but breaking worn these melodic fragments is really inspiring. Thank you
What a nice man: it's a pleasant shock to find someone being gently intelligent on UA-cam 😊. Now, I'm not a scholar of Philip Glass but I should point out that what you call (and it's a good epithet, btw) a "figured arpeggio" has been use by electronic music composers from day one: Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Jean-Michel Jarre, etc. The "skipping a beat" thing is also a useful tool to heighten tension or excitement, and is a well-used erm... thing (sorry about "thing" - can't drum up a better word). Anyway. Lovely presentation. Thank you.
Absolutely. And I too wish there was a better word for it!
Subscribed. Very informative.
I found it enlightening when playing Glass, to find a balance between the trance it induces (as it should), but also keeping a clear mind to remember the repeats!
true! some of the etudes have complicated repeat schemes.
Koyaanisqatsi is one of my all time favorite pieces of art. Great video again. Keep em coming
thanks. it was eye opening to transcribe that section... its simplicity has great depth.
Heavenly music indeed! Really enjoy your videos. Thanks!
Glad you like them!
That's fabulous
Thanks 😊
Thank you!
You're welcome!
Thank you for making this with such a clear explanation! I subscribed.
Thanks for the sub!
Many thanks for sharing, excellent video. I myself love to use arpeggios in my music and I do cut sometimes the length of it so they (I tend to use several arpeggios at the same time) have an asymmetrical flow to eachother.
Great tip!
I wish your channel amazing growth and success. Your content is so unique!
many thanks.
I had the pleasure of seeing the Glass Ensemble perform the score to Powaasqatsi (the sequel to Koyaanisqatsi) accompanying the film. It was amazing. He sat in with the other musicians while someone else conducted. This was a great analysis, thanks a lot.
that must have been a thrill.
Amazing! Love your passion for great music!
Love this. I found it rewarding to noodle around with the phrasebox plug-in that just has block chords pumped into it. A very useful composition aid.
Interesting. Cool.
I'm a self-study musician and your content is super cool and inspiring for to dive deeper into composing process of my favorite composers!!! Thank you so much!!
thanks! you're so welcome. i came up as a self-taught player until i got to college too.
You're a wonderful teacher, thank you
I'd say it's symetrical.
By the way, yes, it's kind of geometric music. It's not a line, it has a shape.
I have no clue about solfege. but to me, even it is chrono-logic, it should not be written, but drawn.
I clearly see shapes, colours and light contrasts when listening to Glass.
I'd say, over all, it's visual music. And that's the reason i refuse to watch the movie.
"Vessels" is, in my opinion, the best piece a human as ever done.
The stuff i see, the stuff i feel listening to it.... does not need any more images.
I appreciated your video.
Thanks
First time I have seen one of your videos, great presentation and content! I'm an electronic rock artist but I did Trance music remixes and originals for several labels and arpeggios were my life! Not like these though, these are more classical though Trance does have elements of classical in it.
Super.
Thank you for this breakdown. This is one of my favourite sections of Glass' work. The opening of Ipatu also moves me in ways words can't describe.
Wonderful analysis of Glass. Engaging and welcoming! Glass deserves much more of these types of breakdowns. Thank you!
Thanks.
I'm a live time fan of Glass's music and went to Paris to see him score Koyaanisqatsi in person some 20 years ago.
That's quite a thing, a full orchestra scoring a movie.
And since a year or so I'm into electronic music so this kind of explanations are very welcome.
That was really interesting. Thank you so much! 🙂
Glad it was helpful!
Very underrated UA-cam Channel. Keep going this good work 👍👌
Thanks Werner, that means a lot
@@ImpliedMusic You are welcome. I hope more people will find your UA-camchannel.
Very enjoyable analysis. The music at the end of Koyaanisqatsi is amongst the best of Glass. It's "simple" but so emotional - even moreso watching the images. Aspects I've noticed about Glass is how the end of the "phrase" leads back to the beginning which creates a [potentially] endless cycle...his arpeggios can be fast, relentless and very exciting - usually with something slow above/below it...and, as you say, the rhythm is punctuated by either dropping a half/whole beat or adding it in.
thank you. appreciate the effort and enthusiasm for details and breaking it all down. keep it up
Fantastic analysis, you made it so graphic and easily understood. This makes me want to compose more arpeggio-centred music, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
I hadn't heard this described as "figure arpeggios" before and I think it's a great way to refer to Glass's technique and similar methods. As Scruton said of Glass's "Ekhnaton": "nothing but figures...endless daisy-chains...in such cases the music slips away from us, and becomes a haze on the heard horizon".
beautiful
I really appreciate this analysis. I absolutely love film scoring and I am working my into it myself. There are so many brilliant composers to learn from.
Great lesson. So inspiring, brings me back to when I studied music in high school. Thank you! Subscribed
the piece you talk about in The Hours is A version of Islands from his album Glassworks
Like Handel, Glass recycles so much of his music. Nice catch!
That was so enjoyable and very useful. I’ve been a Philip Glass fan for many years and this is a wonderfully informative short analysis.
Excellent explanation - you're a good teacher!
thank you! i love this topic.
Very inspirational. Thanks for sharing :)
Glad it was helpful!
The clipping you mentioned happens in Hey Yah by Outkast. Very danceable song! Granted it does it the same way every time which makes it predictable.
So cool!
Haha don’t use it on the dance floor. That was classic! The at was a great visual.
Glad you enjoyed it
@@ImpliedMusic I ended up watching the film Koyaannisqatsi; the music is beautiful, Vessels is both repelling and alluring and paired with the visuals certainly of the film helped to place the piece in relation to its ascetic. It’s very easy to see where Zimmer found his inspiration for the Nolan films. The title song was miles ahead of its time. Thank you for bringing this up. It made for an interesting evening. And I fumbled around with some figured arpeggios.
Thanks great video!
LOVE this analysis. I'm always wondering what makes Glasses music so intriguing and deceptively simple at the same time. (Figured) arpeggios, great counterpoint, and modal exchange. And now I know why his music reminds me a bit of Bach.
I read (most) of his autobiography and the funniest moment is when he was working multiple jobs and studying with Nadia Boulanger and he messed up his counterpoint assignment...she just looked at him and asked if was ill and needed to go home, to which he replied "no, why?" and then she ripped him a new one by pointing out all the mistakes in his counterpoint 🤣
Thank you for the analysis! I love this piece of the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack, it pops up on one of my Pandora channels regularly. I pretty much stop and listen to it carefully each time, I find the piece mesmerizing, for all the reasons you bring out in your video. At one point I tried to transcribe the notes but I gave up because I couldn't quite make out the bass notes, and I thought there might be a sus chord in there somewhere. So it's great to watch this video! (And I immediately grabbed the notes off your screen)
I remember the exploding rocket scene in the movie vividly, I watched Koyaanisqatsi in a theater (well that's dating me). I would have lost myself in the music except that several people sitting behind me had been smoking weed and they all thought the long rocket sequence was hysterical and couldn't stop giggling. Anyway the entire experience was memorable. Thanks again for the video.
thanks peter. it's a breathtaking sequence. i can't watch it without tears, basically. i'm so glad the transcription was useful.
Excellent video
To me the part with the counterpoint/contrary motion (6:11-6:17 and again 6:27-6:32) sounds like Balinese Gamelan or Russian bell music.
Hi. Chris! I'm now a subscriber. I cant play music but I love having it explained to me - and you do that really, really well. Thank you!
Yay.
We actually had a term for that kind of treatment of mostly arpeggiated lines in the North Texas jazz program: contrapuntal elaboration of static harmony (CESH). Bill Evans was fond of it, and I'm pretty sure Steve Reich liked it as much as Philiip Glass did.
excellent info. (CESH) i'm going to put that in my bag. North Texas is a legendary jazz program.
Phil played his piano etudes at my house about 15 years ago; amazing music. I had not seen him play (only the ensemble)-he’s really good!
Yes the music is great but I’m sorry to hear you had to suffer this home invasion. I hope he departed without causing any trouble. In Hackney recently there have been a spate of home invasions single-handedly carried out by one young man seeking notoriety on TikTok. He just walks through someone’s front door, sits down on their sofa and proceeds to make videos. Quite horrible behaviour.
Thank you very much for this great vídeo! It resembles some ostinato also used a lot in Berlin School of eletronic music in bands such as Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze!
you're welcome. and, yes, good call.
It is interesting to hear this perspective from someone who is really passionate about Glass and also very knowledgeable, because I have never been able to understand Glass’ appeal. His arpeggios seem “acceptable” to me, but if you compare these examples to any of the arpeggios in Bach’s preludes from Well Tempered Clavier, for example, Glass seems obviously inferior to me. But maybe I’m missing something.
yeah. fortunately it's not a competition. i play all of the WTC, and it's my gold standard too.
@@ImpliedMusic I would suspect Phillip Glass played it too (I assume any classically trained keyboard player would). But I am interested in what makes his approach different, and why he would choose to make those different choices. I get the feeling from Glass- and this might be way off the mark, but it makes me feel as though, he just doesn’t have the emotional energy to construct harmonies like Bach’s. Maybe like, if Bach were Shakespeare, he’d be like Hemingway or Samuel Becket. Sort of like if Eeyore from Whinnie the Pooh were a composer. But I could totally be just projecting.
yes, i think those are strong comparisons. @@boldstandard
Great video. So I am obsessed with 2 things: 1. Koyaanisqatsi, to me is one of the great compositions of the last 50 years, and yet there are so few other Glass pieces even within a mile of that in my book, the other Reggio scores are execrable, and 2. it's very hard to get the complete score since it's 90 minutes, the MP3s are sold on amazon. Consider doing a video on Slo Mo People. It's the dirge in the dead center of the piece. I absolutley love it and I think if I had to take one track to make the case that Glass is a great composer that would be my choice. Your cmoments about his roots in organs and counterpoint would echo through that part as well.
it'd be good to transcribe that section too.
Thx for the analyse...! You should check the score of the movie Mishima, music is by Philip Glass and the last song "Closing" is really beautifull
This is so useful! Thanks a lot!
I played with him his in piano me in orchestra❤
this was so cool, thanks
Thank you for this interesting conversation and breakdown of some of my favorite pieces (MAD Rush! ) but I really wish you showed the musical notation since following along is more educational than the green dots and dashes especially as you said, the notations are rarely available and only skilled musicians can transcribe. I would love to learn to read music and have more occasions to do so.
Great suggestion! i will say that i've made a choice about how much notation to use as i teach on this channel. but i get it. we've all got different profiles around musical literacy. i think score reading of classical pieces is helpful. there are whole channels devoted to play throughs with scrolling notation. also, picking up a adult beginner piano method book and patiently working through it can open things up. my own musical literacy journey has been up and down, but i'll say it's really paid off to become a fluent reader.
Totally lazy of me to demand more from you as even the green dots would be informative if played this at half speed. Thank you for reminding me and enlightening me on why Glass's compositions are so exquisite to listen to!!
@@ImpliedMusic
I love Koyaanisqatsi; thanks so much for the explanation of Glass' arpeggiation. I'll try it in Cubase. P.S. You should see people try to dance to Peter Gabriel's "Kiss'O Life". The chorus and al fine' section are in 10/8. It was a scream to play in bars...
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Lately I have been listening to Philip Glass - early works, Akenatan, etc., and I believe some of the "figured arpeggio" sections are simply melodic chunks that lead to a cadence. I am not very excited about his music because it is so bare and formulaic. However, I have grown to appreciate it more as I listen to the variety of instruments he uses in his works.
i think that's accurate. it's a like a little spin at the top of the arpeggio that leads us out.
Balm. Just what we need. Sweet.
I am actually learning this piece for pipe organ. Its stunning isn't it?
I am happy I've stumbled upon your channel! subscribed! keep this content coming..
I might be a *tad* late on the conversation. Great breakdown, BTW. I do feel the need to point out that what Glass is doing in that ending section a reprise of the opening section which is a passacaglia - a very old form where the bass is repeating itself incessantly to a varying upper voice. Glass makes it more interesting because he does what in the baroque time was known as a lament bass, which would go down - adding richness to the Koyaanisqatsi thematic of life out of balance. All this blabbery might be interesting, but it doesn’t show the beauty of what Glass creates.
@@kentan1985 excellent insight
Good stuff
Thank you for sharing this video. I'm an adult beginner of 1 year and I find videos just like yours help unlock little motes of theory (and practical) knowledge that gives me a bit more understanding of why I do the things I do to make my music slowly sound better.
exactly. small bites, and chew slowly! my practice mantra.
Very cool, i‘m in the process of learning to play the piano and your analysis is super helpful. thank you so much ❤
Happy to hear that!
I’d love to see you expound on the music of the late Johann Johannsson. Your insight would add to my appreciation and love of his music!
Thank you for this. I thought you WERE Glass until you said Glass. :)
I love Arpeggios , I consider them mainly as a beautiful , captivating , involving and such useful forms of sound. It’s possible Bach wrote some of the best Arpeggios I have ever heard along with Handle and Beethoven . I have been listening to the Artist and Composer Olivia Belli lately who has interpreted Bach and produced performances called “Of time” 1 and 2 ..devastating music , devastating interpretation and performance . Well worth auditioning for many reasons.🙏🏿🙏
i'll check that out. if you enjoy Bach re imaginings, have a listen to Gabriela Montero's bach based improves. she's amazing.
@@ImpliedMusic I will definitely have a listen to Gabriela 😃🙏🏿🙏
@@ImpliedMusic yes another creative and wonderful improviser,her tour in Hong Kong is amazing ..her variations on Bach on Apple Music are to die for..I’m her fan😀🙏🏿🙏🎩
He does what arpeggios cannot do.
I think Glass's music echoes the human voice.. I am driven to explore the patterns with my own voice and developing the themes into new directions. Like many others it mirrors my love of baroque music
I just discovered Glass ❤
yay. you may enjoy playing through the Etudes, or the piano reduction of his score to the film 'The Hours." a great introduction to his keyboard style is the "Metamorphosis."
@ImpliedMusic I haven't been practicing arpeggios enough w my left hand in general because I have been ignoring my left hand development. :) I love your channel.
Very nice!
Thanks!
amazing stuff... would you be kind to share the midi files for the songs in this video. thx
Thanks. Perhaps MIDI is something for future Patreon or Membership perks.