Understanding Message In A Bottle
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2018
- Do you ever feel like sending out an SOS to the world? Well then have I got a song for you! No, but seriously, Message In A Bottle was the Police's first #1 hit, and it's a fascinating song. The story it tells is interesting, but what's really great is how deeply that story is integrated into the song itself. It uses its chords, its melodies, and every other tool it can in order to perfectly tell the story it's trying to tell. I was honestly blown away.
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Last: • How To Succeed In Musi...
Message In A Bottle: • The Police - Message I...
Quintal Harmony video: • Chords Without Thirds:...
Functional Harmony video: • Building Blocks: The J...
SOURCES:
guitaralliance.com/instant-so...
tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/...
www.officialcharts.com/artist/...
www.allmusic.com/artist/the-p...
Script: docs.google.com/document/d/1B...
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Mentions Every Breath You Take. Draws binoculars. This guy gets it.
I know. I have played it in weddings by request soooo many times. Still baffles me.
At least he didn't draw handcuffs or a guy installing hidden cameras in someone's ceiling
@@ashscott6068 I think that last one would be pretty hard to draw, even for him
This was really intereSTING
Nice
XD
That was aweSUMMERS
That was awful, I'm calling the Pun Polic- ... dammit.
Right here officer; take us both in, we deserve it.
I see what you did there.
I believe in an interview Andy Summers said regular triads sounded boring to him and wanted to make a song without the 3rd. So he went with a Sus2 chord
Sus2
Love this. It is just the best.
I would love Sting to see this video and you interviewing him afterwards. He might have thought of some of the thing you mention, and some of them might just be humans finding meaning and order where non exist. I love it, and if I were to write a song one day I will keep some of this in mined. It is like Easter eggs distributed all over the song. Thanks man.
There was a programme years ago where Sting talked about his songwriting. He said he was slightly annoyed that all his musically complex work (Seven Days being an example he gave) being completely over shadowed by Every Breath You Take. It was interesting to hear a songwriter slating their own, super successful song for being harmonically dull and unoriginal.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if much of it was intentional. They were writing and playing punky pop music, but they had the chops for pretty much anything. The Police is what happens when god-tier musicians make simple(ish), catchy, rock and roll songs for mass consumption. You can hear it in lots of their tunes...they take common tropes and flip them on their end, mix in some ambiguity in place of complexity, etc.
I like how goofy your midi sounds sound
YoshiThe1st I can't quite tell if they're the default Sibelius sounds... Anybody recognize them?
Alex Mott Yeah I couldn't day, I got comfortable with Musescore
I think he mentioned he uses reason for his stuff
@@alexmott507 But Sibelius crashed...
I honestly think that your skills to explain this stuff and conect the music with the lyrics makes you as genious as the writers you analyse. Keep rockin!
Meh
Great Video, as usual!
The fact that the progression never *quite* fully resolves back to the E (i.e. never "gets home") is the point of the song: there is no "home" to get back to (and that's okay).
Most people who listen to the song miss the fact that there is no Happy Ending; the final verse states that the narrator is greeted with a "...hundred million castaways looking for a home..." The narrator is granted the realization that everyone is in the same situation, everyone is marooned, and understanding that these messages in bottles (the "SOS") are the best/only way to be less alone.
The chords never get home because the lyrics never get home, and that's because there's no home to get back to - and dwelling too much on getting back home is what will make you feel alone.
The past is a wonderful place to visit, but you don't want to live there.
I've never thought about the on an island verse/at sea chorus analogy before. Very cool to learn something other than the music theory of a song. Thanks :)
As someone who's been into music for a long time on just a hobby/fan level and now trying to learn a bit more and take my own understanding of it more seriously, I have to say this channel is amazing.
There are two types of people in the world, those who hear the home note/key as C#m and those who are objectively wrong.
Just kidding, but I definitely hear the C# as the note the melody is emphasizing and leading to, and the E's sound weaker to me in this. The lack of an E chord in the sections that are supposedly in E seem to point to it being in C#m (as it is also the first chord of the progression, and as others have said they can hear the plagal cadence). But of course you and other people hear it differently, and it's probably good to have multiple perspectives on somewhat ambiguous things.
Morgoth714 #m lol
Morgoth714 oh good I'm not alone in thinking this.
Morgoth714 I'm actually surprised at my own emotional reaction to this. The song genuinely sounds worse to me if I think about it as being in E major. Even if all the notes are the same, the change in perspective makes the melody so much duller IMO.
So yeah, it's all arbitrary in the end but I'm keeping my C#m
Thanks for typing out my thoughts.
I don't think it's because of what Fernie says though, I really believe these things interpretable in multiple ways. Maybe 12tone's ears have a bias to more complex progressions because he has knowledge of all those? Maybe he just isn't thinking too much about styles like reggae?
Now is my chance that you actually will see this. I learned so much from you! My Songwriting has improved so much. Thank you! And now i can enjoy the Video 😊
please never stop, i'm learning so much with your videos
I'll confess that I have only watched about a dozen or so of your videos, but this is by far the most mind blowing . Great work, I love it.
I feel like you're channeling a little Richard Scarry with the way you draw your elephants. Leaves me with fond memories of my childhood. Keep up the good work.
12tone, you are one seriously talented individual. I love your videos, even the ones about songs I don't even care for. I have always wanted to learn theory and then I accidentally found your analysis of Bennie and the Jet. What a treasure you are. Thanks!
Great video man. You've always been great at connecting harmony and rhythm to the lyrics of the song, and I think this may be your best job yet at that. Just a great illustration of how the song is a complete cohesive thematic unit. Keep up the great work!
Great video, really like the way you related the chord changes with the lyrical story. Good stuff, keep 'em coming!
Right out of the gate, I heard that D# as a nine, pulling down to C# minor. Pretty clear to me that C# minor (the relative minor of E major) is the key of this song.
Carter Thaxton Totally agree with that sentiment.
I just typed out a bunch of stuff, no surprise there, as I was passionately taking issue with your analysis. Starting around 3:57 I quoted you and argued points at various stops along the way that we were NOT in E, that we had actually switched to F#mi, and it was really fun. I was making good points, anticipating things even before you said them. The A6 being the 3 chord, the G# that doesn't really fit, where you put the "ghost E chord" was to me just walking down to the root from the A. Then you point out that they land on the F#mi at the end of the chorus, and my brain explodes. It sounds tonic! It sounds tonic to me. Am I right? Did I know what I'm talking about?
Nope. I listen to it a bit longer, I play through the whole passage again, a few times... and you know what, it really sounds like the 2 chord. The minor version of the 2 chord, sure, but still sounds like it wants to resolve down to E.
You know, the 2 chord for the key of E. Like you said.
Anyway, here's my point. I couldn't even have put words to all the stuff I was bringing up, much less identified the parts and pieces so specifically, as recently as a year ago. I took music theory for a year about 25 years ago, and I forgot most of what I learned. But watching people who explain music and music theory on UA-cam has ignited my curiosity and interest in the subject like I never felt back in college. Thanks to you, and others, I'm getting it.
No, I'm not getting it right... I don't care... I'm getting the pieces and having opinions. That's a part of learning. You were right, I was wrong, I see that now, and that's absolutely okay. It's not just okay, it's great! I love that I am getting familiar enough with the concepts to not just regurgitate words or answer simple questions, but to have ideas occur to me, to be able to argue for them, and then recognize when they aren't as accurate as a competing explanation and to realize WHY that is.
Thank you. Please keep doing what you're doing. You're pretty fantastic.
(I'm not defending myself, but I mean, the song does swap to A starting in the pre-chorus, and F#mi is the relative minor for A... and entire passages of the song are so mournful, and, well, minor sounding... I think I deserve partial credit for my F#mi lark. Like, I don't think that I deserve to get an F as a grade overall, but I might deserve an "E"?)
This is a really nice song to analyse - and a brilliant analysis! I live for these videos
I think this has been the best out of the "understanding..." series and there have been some gems.
So many times I don't care for a song and your analysis encourages me to give them another chance in a new light. I hope these artists appreciate your work as much as I do
I cannot hear that as E major. It's so obviously C# minor.
I was thinking the same, but I think the idea is the vocal melody feels like it's more in E major then C# minor.
I agree, it's just C# minor to me honestly
I see a Parasite
Dawg I thought it was in F# Minor
I agree. The guitar is playing C# minor while the vocals are in E major (verses), the pre-chorus modulates to A dorian, and then everything shifts to C# minor for the chorus.
So good! Continue your good work!
@00:37
Looks like a few cool notes there with a casual smile wearing sunglasses.
Fantastic analysis!!!
I really think it's in C# minor. Resolving to Emaj just sounds goofy and it makes more sense to analyze in C# minor because the F#m has some sort of gravity back to the root of C#m while F#m has much less gravity to Emaj. Also the D# to me sounds like it should fall to C# rather than rise to E. Still a great video, i think it would've made a lot more sense and you could've taught about weaker resolutions if you had analyzed it in minor.
Interesting! C#mi was my first guess from looking at the chords (It comes first, and the plagal cadence from F# is the closest we get to a resolution.) but when I listened to the song I really couldn't hear it that way. That's interesting, though, thanks for sharing!
I'd second that I hear the D# in the verses resolving downward to C#. In the video when you followed it with an E, it felt really strange and not at all like a resolution.
Concise analysis of an interesting example of harmonic storytelling. I appreciate the cleverness of the song even more thanks to this video.
I kinda liked how it sounded with the standard 3rd chords. Very bright and poppy. I suppose that wouldn't be The Police though, would it?
Released: 2 minutes ago
Has comments from 16 minutes ago.
*WHAT.*
Ethanotor Oculus time travellers OBVIOUSLY
Or Patrons, like meeee
Finally in these glorious UA-cam times there's someone who explains why Police aren't the usual cheesy stadium rock band
Please do a video on Bohemian Rhadphody or November Rain!!
The analysis itself is a piece of art. Congratulations.
Brilliant analysis...!
Wish I could have a more in depth understanding of this but i’m going into my sophomore year this fall, either way I love your videos and I love music. Hopefully someday i’ll be able to understand all the things you’re saying
One of my favourite songs!
Bit late to this video but also got to address the drumming. Stewart Copeland is a brilliant Drummer and adds a lot of reggae fusion into his playing and in this song he does something really interesting. on the first beat through the song he only plays the high hat which is going through in 8th notes, leaving the snare and bass drum out, this gives the song a pretty interesting feeling rythmically. Im not a drummer so cant explain in great detail but this is also a really important part of this song that really adds to the lonely feeling with the one being not emphasized and peppered ghost notes and gentle rims shots also added in various parts of the song of the song.
im not a music person, but you also have to take into account the musicians interests. sting has said many times during interviews that he likes the melodies and compositions of both Jazz and also Country songs, they have always fascinated him, and he has even tried to do several Jazz and Country songs. if you need examples just look at Roxanne and note that the lyrics are sung to one timing and the guitar is played to another timing. then there are like 2 songs off his brand new day album that are "country" songs. sting uses a lot of jazz influence in his songs.
I enjoy watching the symbols you draw as you explain complex theory. As a kid from the 80's that played bass in the stage/jazz band at school and in a "New Wave" rock band with some friends, we played this song. While the school band focused on Killer Joe and Celebration we discussed the blues and some basic modulations on theory. Needless to say, the Police did things differently! Now I see (insert binocular pic) why Message in a Bottle was so FUN to play!
Can you do VITAL SIGNS by RUSH, PLEASE?
More lost than Sweet Child Of Mine. I like that this one incorporates how the music relates to the lyrics. Doesn't hurt that I and my family love Sting. Great video!
Understanding child in time!!
This was amazing! Please do more Police tracks!
This was a great analysis
I think the reason I like this channel so much is because I've played guitar, obsessively for about 25 years and I have a problem with overanalyzing everything and it seems this guy does too.
Song suggestion: Skinned/Blind Melon , 46 & 2/Tool , Jump/Van Halen , Dry Hands Wet Hands/C418 .
Just discovered your channel and, as a musician, I found it amazing.
I really think you should do an Understanding video on some Muse song. There's a lot to unravel in their songwriting.
This one was extra awesome!
Thanks!
Sublime!
Thanks for the refreshing quality content. I'd love to hear your take on any song off of Talking Heads' Remain in Light 🙂
Great videos dude, but I fundamentally disagree. I think it's in C#minor, without a strong dominant chord ever suggesting a return home, but instead with a lot of plagal cadences from F#m back to C#m suggesting hope of getting away but never managing it. The melody never sings a C# in these sections, which is why you don't hear it as the home tone, I suppose, and which also adds to the lostness. The A major pre-chorus section is a note flatter (D#-D) and for me represents a doubling down on escape attempts in order to focus on the mission at hand, creating the message and putting it in the bottle. After that's done, the protagonist is back to wishing himself away from there, and back in C# minor. I think regarding E as the home isn't very easy, seeing as it only occurs as a dominant chord in the A major section, whereas C#m is basically the most common chord in the song, and commonly returned to from its plagal counterpart.
Interesting! I think the suspended nature of the harmony makes it hard to hear the F#-C# move as a plagal cadence in practice, but I can see the structure of a C# minor analysis, and if that's how you hear it, it totally works. Thanks for sharing!
That's how I see it, too: an alternation between C# minor and E, its related major, with a digression into A major, which is closely related to C# minor by virtue of the fact that C# minor is the iii chord of A major and can also be seen as a rootless A major 7. It's the restless movement between major and minor that evokes the movement between hope and despair, with C# minor as a sort of fulcrum or pivot between the two majors (up a minor third / down a major third).
I don't think the song is 'in' C# minor, or E, or A. It's roaming restlessly back and forward between those three tonal centres or moods without ever reaching a resting place for long, like an animal in a cage.
Because we aren't fucking boring like you people. Of course it's a metaphor for loneliness, but the metaphor is one of being stuck on a desert island, far away from home. The escaping and going home parts are also parts of the metaphor, and with the tiniest amount of imagination it becomes apparent what they mean, but we shouldn't have to spell that out, and we don't, because you clearly already have seen through the guise. Well done.
Fernie Canto It is a common interpretation that musicians use when they talk about chord change etc.
I would love to see videos on closing time and married life (from Up). Married life especially as it is an incredibly repetitive some that has so many different emotions based solely on the tempo and instrumentation.
5:16 Don't Stand So Close To Me does this too.
You are so detailed
brilliant
Your drawings were extra great this video!
Andy Summers REALLY likes 9nth and 2sus chords in his riffs. He uses them in this one, in "Every Breath You Take", "Do Do Do De Da Da Da", "Invisible Sun". It's kind of his trademark sound.
Cool!
Always liked this song, now I know why.
"It's sus2 chords"
There. Now you don't need to watch this video.
I kid. Everyone needs to watch your videos because you're amazing
Also, your drawings are so cute!
This was a good analysis
Great video again, this song (as many) leaves to me an open question: Fade out song ending... in this case "sending out an sos", is pretty clear (for me) that fade out makes strong the song´s theme, but in a lot of different songs seems to be a lack of resources to find an appropiate way out or ending. What do you think of the "fade out" as song ending? Have you found certain songs that deserves a better ending? (Please excuse my english)
“sending out a soos”
Message in a Bottle YTPMV when?
When learning a song by ear fails, and all the tabs suck, there's always 12tone.
Dude, you`re like a conspiracy theorist of the music world, amazing.
I've heard you mention how some people complain that your analysis somehow "destroys" the music.
For me it is quite the opposite, this isn't the first time that your analysis made me appreciate the song in question MORE.
Quintal harmony is a bit awkward to play on the guitar. It's not too bad in this song, but Summers does it again in Every Breath You Take, and that song is exhausting to play. I've heard it in concert a few times, and Sting's backing guitarist always drops the iconic riff almost immediately when the first verse starts.
I honestly think this song is mostly just in C# minor but I respect your interpretation too
Hey dude. Great video as always. I keep learning new things from every single video!
Could you please do "Stargazer" by Rainbow? It's a hard song to understand (at least to me). I'd appreciate a video on it.
YAY! New stuff
Jeez, it almost feels like you’re over analyzing but it all works and makes sense.
I really like the syncopation part in the song.
LOVE this. Sting-are you watching?
At a benefit concert called The Secret Policeman's Other Ball, Sting sang this song and accompanied himself on a guitar, no other instruments or musicians playing with him. It's a wonderful version, a very lonely, haunting sound, compared to the 'snappier' version on the Police album with all three of them playing.
take a shot every time a 12tone video mentions doo wop changes
I hear the G# that the bass plays in the chorus as some kind of a dominant of C#m. It's kind of like a i-bVI-V progression in C#m. And as other people have pointed out, I hear the verse in C#m, not in E. The D# has a pretty strong function in the key of C#m too (not as strong as the leading tone, but it still has a relatively strong pull towards the tonic - the second scale degree is probably the most tense note after the leading tone).
I would say the C#m sound also comes from the F#m chord that has a relatively weak pull towards E major, but creates a plagal cadence in the key of C#m. And this is also why I don't hear the D# as having a strong leading tone function - it's because of the F#m chord that it's played over.
I do agree that if we play the melody out of context, it sounds like it's in the key of E major. But many times the implied harmony of the melody isn't the same as the actual harmony of the song, especially when we are talking about pop music.
My man!
Sting needs to see this
Excellent chord analysis but whenever I think about The Police and their songs what comes to mind most frequently is Stewart Copeland. You mentions “syncopated “ rhythm but man, talk about underselling the contribution to the song!
So they intro with my favorite sort of power chord subbing the 9th for the octave.
What a good fucking song. What a good fucking video
OMG - I just finished listening to 12tone's (wrong) analysis of Aqualung and am now listening to his (equally wrong) analysis of MIAB. The verse is in C#m, not E. Obviously. You don't need a music theory degree to know this, it's just how it feels. 12tone's much more recent video about "what people get wrong about music theory" is spot on and makes this very point, and after perusing his back catalog, I'm fairly certain that at least one part of his target audience in that video is his past self.
EDIT: Morgoth, Ryan Johnson, and probably others ninja'd me by years, of course.
Today I listened to Million Light Years Away by Stratovarius and I thought "what is this backing part in the Verse reminding me of?" I firstly thought of Fisher- Z, but...
0:34 now I know again. Thanks for reminding me!😂
And really great analysis btw!
Sometimes Human brains are just searging for weird things and reasons for everything. Even if there aren't any.
And sorry for the bad english.... it's 1 o'clock right now, and i'm awake since 6 o'clock yesterday. And in general: outside my english lessons or english yt channel watching times the english part of my brain just shuts down completely. And the german part is never functioning correctly...😅
Here's two other songs which my (totally untrained) ears never really could work out: "Hold Me" by Fleetwood Mac and "Love Will Find A Way" by Yes. "Backberry Way" by The Move isn't bad either.
Just discovered this channel. Your stuff is really awesome!
If you are open for suggestions, I would love to see something like Velvet Underground, especially Sweet Jane.
You made this song 500 hundreds times better to me
If I can make a suggestion, you should analyze a Rush song like Spirit of Radio or of you're feeling very interested the Temples of Syrinx. Would be awesome and and I think rush has some interesting musical ideas that would be fun to analyze.
Y'know it actually sounds modal to me, as in neither major nor minor. I can't identify what mode it might be, and this could be totally off-base, but it definitely has that flavor to it for me.
When you say that a chord has a subdominant function. Does that mean that the chord can also be called the subdominant chord?
Though I get the argument you’re making, personally I actually very strongly hear the verse in C# minor, and though the chord progression still isn’t very strong in this key, it still feels to me like the whole thing is pushing towards a C# minor i chord. The bass riff in the chorus sounds indiscriminately like a “do do do le sol” as opposed to a “la la la fa mi” as you seem to suggest in the key of E. Definitely an interesting way of looking at it though and I’m not sure which is the right answer, but that’s how I personally hear it.
I think that D could also be pulling down to the C natural
or it would if we weren't already using C#
UNDERSTANDING MR. BRIGHTSIDE
Yaaaas
I'm too stoned for this, I'll be back later...
Probably the hardest riff to play live.
Unless you have several hands or Two guitarists.
Could you make a video about Sultans of Swing? I think it'd be really interesting
12tone-san, please explain for me the bridge in "Every breath you take" in simple to understand elephant doodles.
+12Tone, do you know if there's a word for a song that's chords/music symbolically represents ideas/themes of the lyrics? If so, a whole video about songs for that would be an amazing topic to discuss sometime!
nice dove
I know this video is 3 years old by now but I'm just watching it now. I know the melody seems to indicate that it's E major, but couldn't you analyze it in C# minor? That D# to me actually sounds like it's desperate to go down to C# not up to E. Also, I've wondered this for ages: can you still say a V chord has dominant function if it's got no third thus no leading tone wanting to resolve up to I? So does a V5 power chord (as in the chorus here) have dominant function? Thank you so much!!
Can you do Helicopter by Bloc Party? It's an interesting song with cool elements I don't know how to describe.