Q&A #1 Hindemith, Learning the Notes, Modes etc. with Ben Levin
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- Опубліковано 28 сер 2024
- Thanks to Nicholas Mackelprang, Miguel Fernandez Millan, and Jack Pepper for the great questions! I appreciate everyone who cares about the videos, you inspire me a lot.
Bent Knee tour dates at www.BentKneeMus...
"the only way to start doing something is to start doing it,"
fuck yeah.
I absolutely love Ben, just a humble guy with such cool ideas. Also I love you too adam :p Awesome videos :)
Question
and answer time with
Ben Levin... ya.
you are useful, Benjamin.
Oh shnap, you answered my question. That actually does clarify it better, I'ma go practice this a bit, try and write something in a mode to make sure it sticks but I think I get it now. Thanks man, I appreciate it :)
You already understand this by now, but Guthrie Govan's explanation is fun to watch: ua-cam.com/video/vnOV7iKR1vE/v-deo.html
damn, that actually is pretty great, short and sweet
10:50 - "I'm kind of a rambely boy" which is what we love about you
you know I used to watch your videos and think "well that was interesting, and I know more now", but now when I watch your videos, I can't help but notice how genuine and no bulshit you are. You get straight to the point, and to me that is very inspiring. The way that you explain music is very quantifiable to me compared to the way I've seen other UA-camrs explain the same Concepts. You're making the more advanced concepts in music a lot more accessible to more people. Thank you!
I used speech to text so my original comment looks really weird sorry
I'm singing Paul Hindemith's Un Cygne with my choir and I gotta say I can totally see how he applied that consonance/dissonance mindset in his piece, it was challenging for me to learn initially.
Mr fake doctor levin, thank you. You make Perfect sense to me. You deserve way more views😊
When it comes to knowing the notes on the neck, all I can say is that I played for ages with mostly tab and visual stuff and only half-assed attention to notes. I developed decent technique and agility but was limited to what I could do musically. Once I started making an effort to learn the notes, my playing and enjoyment increased quite a bit. I play with more intention instead of just repeating shapes. I still have a ways to go but it's really not that difficult to learn the notes on your instrument - it's a basic fundamental concept.
I'm no theory expert but I like checking out theory related stuff for ideas and inspiration. When you know the notes and get exposed to these ideas you can more readily visualize how they lay on the guitar - you don't need sheets of tab or anything. It's liberating.
Think of it this way. If you want to communicate verbally, you need to learn the fundamentals of language. You could just grunt and gesture and maybe get your point across for limited and contained ideas but to effectively communicate and to readily discuss anything beyond the routine or to express imagination, you really need to learn the alphabet, learn words, etc.
Hey Ben, thanks for this vid! Im not a long time follower but I loved the way you approached these questions! Wish you the best!
I love that you really take the time to answer the questions properly and with great caution/depth as well!
Ben, Got to you through Adam Neely's channel.. Great content, thanks for posting !!
Excellent, my comprehension of modes is now better . Please keep doing some more Ben, your videos are gold.
RE: the Q about modes: when there's multiple voices/parts/instruments, the bass or lowest pitch, is the first thing I listen for when trying to analyze modally. especially if the bass part is pedaled, or, like Ben explained, if the note "feels like home." that's obviously just part of it--the rest of the harmony + melody are crucial factors.
Loved your explaination, Ben. Keep up the quality work.
I love Hindemith! He, Schoenberg and the Berkeley Jazz composition book are basically the only sources I consistently reference. This is a great thing, you should definitely try it more often if you have the time!
Your videos make me so inspired to become a better musician. Thank you! :D
Well said on the importance of knowing the theory and the notes of the neck and how to relate them together! I've been working on this a lot more myself recently. There's a Wayne Krantz quote on this (which I'm probably going to butcher) but it goes something like "If practice searching you become better at finding". Then at that point you're more interacting with the instrument as a "set of strings tuned in 4ths, and one in 3rds" as opposed to relying on rote memorization.
I'm looking forward to more Q&As. I'm also a fan of long answers, so please stick with that!
YES! This is great! I'm not really at the moment level where I can ask good questions yet myself, but I'm excited that there are so many other people who can
I didn't know you were in a band before this video, so I checked Bent Knee out. Exactly as incredible as I thought a band with Ben Levin would be.
That Hindemith book is probably my favourite music book I've ever read. It's dense but I was so fascinated I ploughed through the whole thing. I do know that feeling of not understanding you're describing though, but for me that book was Fundamentals of Musical Composition by Schoenberg
Yooo, that shoenberg book was where I started in composition, very helpful amazing book
HallMonitor I know, and I really want to read it, but every time I try I just get really confused. I've read the first seven or eight chapters about 8 times
I like the idea of learning the notes not just the shapes, That explanation helped make a lot of sense. Cheers!
Wow your answer to miguel's question was fantastic and very insightful. You probably stated that idea/made that argument better than anyone else i've seen speak on the subject.
You pov on chords makes lots of sense. Love it.
that modes explanation.. just simple and awesome !!
hi Ben
stay healty
you are awesome
Thank you for the video! Love it!
Thank you for this I very much enjoyed the video. I found it very helpful to answer a few questions in depth opposed to many questions on a surface level. Im looking forward to another q+a.
Hey nice work man :) cool to see you sharing the fresh stuff
Aw damn Ben! You're coming to DC the day after I leave for the summer!
Nice video.
I see many people teaching theory, like if it's isn't related to our real perception of music. With an authority speech, as if the music theory where something extremely necessary to be a musician. And I also see many people scorning or rejecting theoretical musical knowledge because they do not understand its real benefit. Thank you for bringing a practical understanding, without trivializing the study of theory to do so.
Greetings from Brazil.
you're the best ben. going to ask you something once i think of something smart
Can't wait to see you all in Germany. I'm not a musician, myself. I'm more like a mechanic. And everything you said made perfect sense to me: "you don't need this information today? Just by tomorrow, you might need this information to fix a problem."
To solve a problem, you should at least have an idea about the obstacles in your way.
I ruined every steak before someone told me, what is going on inside a steak when you cook it.
Today I know. And can teach others.
Be safe!
Thanks for responding to my question!
Hindemith is by far my favorite composer
You are an awesome dude.
Thanks for putting all the effort you do into these videos, Ben. I started with you Learning from the Ground Up series and have been watching ever since.
Appreciate all the theory you can throw at us! Especially learning the modes :)
Nice video! Keep making these please.
Very patient. Nice video. Nice new Mac, too!
I should note that I always regret commenting before the end of the video because you usually do something wild, but I'm hedging my bets on this Q&A video.
The last sentence was just sooo cute.
I think the biggest limitation of going by shapes on the neck without knowing the notes is that it creates a slight barrier around the narrow region of the neck you're playing on. I know the shapes of the major scale in different positions quite well but it's tough to improvise in one shape then shift along the neck and immediately be visualizing a totally different shape while continuing a musical idea. We've all seen a guitarist who sounds great until they leap up the neck and try to guess the right high note.
Jacob Collier talks a lot about how chord progressions make him feel, and it's really expanded my creative boundaries. For example, he talked about how adding a major 7 to a major chord makes it like, incredibly happy (depending on the inversion), and how chords going up in fifths is like an expansive feeling as opposed to 4ths that's more like falling into place. I'm sort of just curious about how you decide to pick the chords you pick in your music?
Come to MN please!!
What were you going to say about people's desire to bring back triadic harmony?
Could you please expand on your takeaway from the book? Thanks for a great video!
big kisses from France :)
The guitar stuff was on point and something I did in the beginning as well. Like, what was a G11/B again? Memorizing was tough and I really couldn’t recall passing chords or ones didn’t play as often.
could you tell a bit about how you wrote "Flombus Lives"? i love the song and the animated video.
when you see a well-made final product its hard to crack the veil of the process of creation, of course that's part of the magic so i understand if you don't want to reveal the tricks. i guess i want to hear what ideas influenced its creation, did you start on paper or on guitar, what came naturally vs. what had to be crafted, & how long did it take to create?
When I'm playing/composing for guitar, I primarily think in terms of degrees of the scale rather than named notes. I definitely get benefits like understanding/creating new shapes. Do you think there's any great difference between these two approaches? I certainly think degrees and intervals are more direct, but that might just be down to my own familiarity.
Okuno Zankoku I think that notes are more direct. The note name describes the note itself, whereas the degree describes the position in a scale that a note is in. Notes are direct and degrees are relative to the note being played. Take that with a grain of salt though because I don't really know too much! Everything works for someone!
I want to hug you
I think what can become confusing about modes is when people try to compare chords with modes. I think "major" and "minor" should be left out of mode discussion because that's where things get confused.
For instance... we think of C# Phrygian when talking about the third mode starting on A.
But there's no C# Phrygian chord--it's a minor chord if you just take the 1, 3, 5 (and even the 7) from Phrygian. Same thing with Dorian--the triad and 7th are minor chords... so it can become confusing because people use the same word "minor" for the Aeolean mode.
So there are minor chords, but they shouldn't be thought of as strictly coming from the Aeolean mode. I think the books and explanations that try to sell Aeolean as being the source of "minor" can be the exact confusing element. I think it would be better to leave "minor" out of the discussion in terms of modes and maybe "major" as well, and just focus on the Ionian mode as a starting point-- W.W.h.W.W.W.h. (W= whole step, h= half step). Using that as the starting point, it becomes less confusing... but then applying the modes or "using" the modes is a whole other ballgame.
I've gone thru a bunch of your videos so im not sure if you've answered this yet so forgive me (and please redirect me?) if you have, BUT Regarding the last question about modes, what then is the application, after you know that you can play C# Phrygian in A major? How does this relate to playing jazz guitar or playing "modal" licks in any genre ?
Hindemith also wrote exercises for three part writing but it hasn't been translated - apart from a couple of chapters gathering dust at Yale - from German into English and it won't be anytime soon because Schott - they hold the rights - don't think that it's worth doing financially and they won't let anyone else do it.
I supose Im a bit late, but I didnt make my question clear, because I do think as you do, but my real question is, I do know, for example, that im in e minor and I want a mayor triad in the V degree (with respet to the relative mayor key, G mayor) arround fret 7... so Id play for example bar chord on the 7 fret, strings 2,34. and that works fine in any situation, any key, even rare scales like dimished. but I still dont know thats a D mayor chord and that it has A, D, F# (took me a while to actually put it there). so, I dont know the name of the notes im playing, but I do know all the relacionships needed to make them work as I want, so, why should I learn the name of those notes if im going to use them in the same way?
Also, I really like your answer because thats what I would have said in your case and im glad you give such good answer.
Kind of funny that Colin Stetson inspired your guitar playing because his arrangements are a lot more 'practical' to play on a guitar compared to how you would play those constant streams of notes with register jumps on sax.
hello, would you mind recommending your favourite books? thank you!
you cannot simply go to book 2. Book 1 is needed to understand what you are doing in book 2. it though, is hard to find someone to help you do book one.
Ben and Adam, u are doing a wonderful job but i've got a question. Do you know some piano channels just like your's and Adam's? Thanks.
Alex Shmalex pianoTV does a lot of videos about playing classical piano songs and a lot of other helpful info for someone more suited to the classical. Not sure how deep she gets with the theory though.
Thanks, but i've ment jazz piano, especially excercises
Alex Shmalex You may want to check out Bill Hilton on UA-cam, he has a lot of videos about jazz piano.
aimee noltee is amazing for jazz piano instruction, watching her feels like sitting down with a great instructor in person
Forming chords on a guitar is so much more difficult than on a piano..I am overwhelmed. So hard to learn and remember where the note names are. I tip my hat to anyone who can do it.
Can you maybe list the talking points in the description? I dont know how to spell the saxophonists name lol
MacNeil Whalen that Sax guy is Colin Stetson. Good stuff!
tfw theres a show 20 minutes from my house but im not old enough to go ; ^ ;
Hey Ben - 2 questions. How much of your albums like Freak Machine and People are scored out note for note and how much is just presented as an idea to improv on? I don't suppose you write out all the drum parts. Also is the pop song at the end of Freak Machine 4 with all the auto tune supposed to be a stab at the pop music industry? Can you elaborate on that song a bit? Thanks! Love your music, man. Never stop.
rambly boi c: