Since I wasn't being super clear on the matter - I know full well that protons are positive and electrons are negative. I was referencing their corresponding antimatter particles, the negatively charged antiproton and the positively charged positron as an analogy to the undertone series.
I don't think your transformation of the ii-V-I in C (Dm7-G7-CMaj7 to ) is quite the same "negative" as Jacob Collier refers to in the interview that's blowing the collective mind of music college studentdom. What you show is a negative inversion, arrived at by exchanging the chord tone intervals above the root note for their mirror below. But in the Collier interview, he gives the transformation of G7 resolving to C as an Fm6; that's because every note is reflected through the key "center" of C and G... so really (and this is where the Levy thing is quite convoluted) the note in between those two: Eb/E. If you mark out the intervals of a G7 chord as they relate to the Eb, then "copy" those intervals above the E, you get to the Fm6 chord. G-B-D-F to Eb -> +m6 +d4 +m2 -M2. From E then: +m6(C) +d4(Ab) +m2(F) and -M2(D). Why is it Fm6 and not D half diminished? I'd assume it's because we want to keep a similar bass movement; rather than resolving down a fifth as in G7-C, now we resolve up a fifth (or rather down a fourth) Fm6-C. Transforming Dm7 in the key of C in the same way gives Bb6, which keeps with the quartal bass movement arrived at by transforming the G7. We leave the C alone because I think the effect is all about arriving (as in a cadence like this one) in a similar way through the voice leading. So a negative harmony transformation of a standard jazz ii-V-I in C major would be Bb6-Fm6-CMaj7, which really is quite pleasing. Much more so than the inverted chords you showed in the video.
Hey Ty, I agree with you I don't think Adam did the conversion correctly. Or at least not in the way Collier explained it. When I did this my conversion was Dm7 = G-7 (or Bb6) G7 = Dm7b5 (or F-6) and if you choose to do it to the Cmaj7 chord it will turn into Abmaj7. But I think I agree with you that the tonic chord is to be left alone, which was what Collier also did. I was also very confused why Collier chose to make it a -6 chord instead of m7b5 but I do like your thoughts on this question.
@@kylemandro1923 absolutely right. Thank you for making this distinction for everyone, it really affects how they will utilize real negative harmony going forward. @Adam Neely please edit this video so that further confusion isn't created
Most of the local guys slack off on their theory. Consequently, they have a hard time explaining their song ideas, communicating new parts to each other, and it takes longer for them to learn songs. I'm not the best by any means, but I can learn a band's whole set in a matter of hours and be onstage, a big part of it is that I can break down the patterns and parts into basic concepts and write them out, memorize progressions and chord tones, and prepare myself in an organized and thorough manner. It's just how it is. You wouldn't hire a guy who can't read a measuring tape to build your house, why hire musicians who don't know what they're playing?
Why hire them? Because they sound good - *if* they sound good, and perform well. It's rare, and there's more people that think they can than actually can, but what matters in the end is if they sound good and function well in the setting or with the other people. You're right about all you had to say, don't get me wrong. But I ran into the opposite problem, where guys would lean on theory to slack off on creativity and technique. Either way, it ends up lame and frustrating. Like reading a measuring tape is really useful for building a house, but near pointless if the dude hammers every other nail bent, or spends the whole time deciding on the angle of the roof instead of actually building the thing. What I mean to say is, you need it all - Theory, technique, creativity, motivation, etc. And as for the people you're gigging with... there's always the possibility that they just suck at music, and there's a lot of ways to try and mask that sort of thing, whether through ignorance or pedantry or lack of experience or ego bluster or any other hundred things.
I agree wholeheartedly. But as with most jobs, you've gotta pass the application process first. Believe me, I see plenty of guys who can play like machines, and their music sounds like, well, machines.
Man, you're such an exceptional person. As a physicist, it's awesome to see all this talk about language/constructing meaning/fundamental nature of things from a musician, cause it's these kind of things that makes me enjoy music (and people generally don't talk very much about it).
That pause at 21:19 is amazing. It is intelligent, funny, respectful and an accurate, right on the spot metaphor of why he is doing all these videos. It was even music if you take it too far. Thank you good person (Adam) for everything. I hope I'll be able to support you when I earn more than enough money for my living.
re: negative harmony - classical theorists/musicologists in the UK understand this as serial inversion of chords - if you count 'up' a major third then the 'negative' (actually better called a 'serial inversion') is a major 3rd 'down'..e.g. counting from a C up to E (M3) would be the same as counting C down to Ab (also a M3) and you always use the root note as the starting pitch before carrying on - it's an integral part of 12-tone theory. The discrepancy would be, whether in a negative harmonic chord progression the end result is the same (if there's a ii-V-I progression do we have as our goal - chord I tonic? If it does then one way (there are others) would use the final I chord (if major) as the starting pitch and work backwards so the previous V of ii-V-I becomes a Bbm chord bvii (a serial inversion of V) etc...interestingly vii is the secondary chord of V in any case - bvii isn't though - a borrowed chord form the parallel minor of I...bit of a rabbit hole...
Holy crap, that was a pretty heavy question from a pretty heavy dude! I'm like "I know who Derek Bailey is, what's Adam's take on free jazz?" And you're like, "I don't know much about it", but then you lay down some interesting stuff I never heard about, and delivered some context and ponderables. Well done my man!
I actually understood Jacob's idea of negative harmony a little differently! The way I got it was that, in the key of C, he had a mirroring line between C and G, where the midpoint tone of that line is between Eb and E. He then inverted every note in a chord to portrait a new one while maintaining the same distance from the midpoint, just in a different direction. Thus the G7 chord turned into an Fm6 chord. G->C B-Ab D->F F->D Maybe those two concepts are the same and I just misinterpreted... This way of visualizing it is interesting to me since you can get different negative-chord subs when you choose different mirroring lines. The questions I have now are - why choose a certain tonic specifically regarding any chord? is it because of it's function in the key center? what kind of sounds do you get when choosing different tonics for subing every chord? what happens if you take different midpoints? that is, different that between the root and the fifth? Tell me what you think Adam.
Finally someone talked about this! Exactly. Adam got the idea compeletly wrong because you have to reflect the intervals through the axis of C and G not through the note C.
Ben H.G I'm going to try to answer with what I know, sorry for my English: -It is because its function on the key. if you change the tonic without modulating in the music, you wouldn't be flipping the music, it just will be like solving a math problem without caring about the order of operations. I would like to relate this with how Schoenberg suggest how harmony works (to answer your question of why is the mid point E half flat): so let's think of just one note, one tonic: Schoenberg suggests that a major scale is the horizontal synthesis of the overtone series of a tonic and a tonic chord is the vertical synthesis. So why the Dominant and the subdominant are the most important functions? Because in the overtone series, the nearest different tone is the dominant, and he (Schoenberg) concludes that the theoretical nearest is the sub dominant just below the C: the F. The idea of this "shadowy harmony" is flipping all the music to its shadows (the overtones flipping to the "subtones") , so the Dominant becomes the opposite: the Subdominant (as what Jacob said: "turning everything Dominant to plagal"). It is the same with the tonic, it becomes the opposite, but because if you flip the overtones with the fundamental as the axis the tonic wouldn't change, it is the same, if you flip a C major with the half flated third as the axis it will be the same, a C major with a half flated E. So that's why changing the tonic wouldn't apply to this concept. I tried to sound coherent... im sorry English isn't my strongest language. :P what do you think?
Hey Adam! I'm marching Drum Corps this summer! It's my first year marching, and I feel I learned the most about DCI culture from watching old Cadets videos on Youtheducation. Everyone's taste in Drum Corps are different, but I really enjoy listening to Blue Devils 2010, 11, 12, 14, Bluecoats 2014, and Cadets 2016. Hope you enjoy listening to Drum Corps music! Love all your videos! My first instrument is guitar and I find your videos very helpful for music theory!
Levy and Partch were far from the first to think about harmony in this way. Theorists were thinking about major and minor triads/keys as reflections of each other as far back as the mid-1700s. Euler included this relationship as part of his "Tonnetz", a graphical visualization of harmony (which is another fascinating hole to jump into. Check out Neo-Riemannian theory). Hugo Riemann included this way of thinking in his theory of "harmonic dualism", similar to utonality.
The last segment brought this quote to mind. The Bartron Tyler Group (13 years of my life) included it in the liner notes of “Just About Almost There”. “I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.” -Douglas Adams
Man.. you deserve money. You need to be supported. Your channel is gold quality. I'm glad that I found you.. man a pleasure to listen to you. I've listened to everything from Jacob and just can't get my mind around it, even after looking through transcriptions and everything.. And I've got like.. 14 years of musical education behind me.. It's crazy
Although I am now seeing that it wasn't my specific comment that inspired this video, I still asked about negative harmony on your last Q+A and am very excited to hear what you have to say about it.
The ending was so awesome. You get em, Adam! I don't know a ton of music theory, but I really do love it. When I met Victor Wooten he told me music is like driving a car and theory is like having a tool kit in your trunk. When his "car" gets stuck in a "jam" then he can pull out his tools whenever he needs it.
You defeated duality twice in this video. Positive/Negative Orange/Red It's awesome how the channel integrates big ideas and philosophical concepts, especially since music itself does the same. Never a dull video, man. Awesome stuff.
This last section was wonderful and is exactly how I feel about our methods of exchanging things we appreciate. Being able to explain WHY you like something communicates your passion significantly more than just being enthusiastic without specifics
My new favorite channel! So much so, that I even clicked the bell to get notified of your new videos...something I would NEVER do with other channels I'm subscribed to. 😉
Pitch IS rhythm - All music is rhythm. Pitch is a vibration at a certain frequency, or rhythm. Melody is the linear relationships of these rhythms. Harmony is the simultaneous relational of these rhythms. Then there’s what we conventionally call rhythm. But All music is rhythm.
The question referencing Deftones, Polytonality, and being able to verbally express what you "like" about a song or what's going on within a song really hit home, because I couldn't think of how to describe music verbally with my lack of music theory. Do you have any resources that maybe channel a similar charisma exhibited by Collier as an introduction to theory? I'm pretty well versed with rhythmic concepts, note subdivisions, and time signatures, but it's all the tonal stuff that I need to learn now!
On the topic of drum corps, Bluecoats, Carolina Crown, and Cadets all have some amazing stuff around that I would definitely recommend for a music lover looking to get to know what the activity is all about. The Blue Devils also have some incredible things out there, but in general their writing tends to be more traditional and less progressive than some of the other corps right now, especially Bluecoats and Cadets. As far as bass drum/ drum line splits go, I would recommend watching the videos from the Infinity bassline's warmup routines. They pull off things that seem literally impossible for just 5 people each playing a single drum each. They're probably among the best examples of drum splits out there.
Interesting take on the vinyl vs cd nostalgia topic. It is mostly irrelevant now besides for the most basic consumer level products, which the answer for them is that it is almost exactly the same. The placement and materials of the furniture in your listening space matter more.
If you'd like to learn more about Drum Corps I'd recommend checking out any of the 'Vic Firth - Learn The Music' episodes. They show the battery sheet music to read along while they play it. It's quite admirable how difficult the music is and considering they all have to learn it to such a consistent degree and play super clean.
You've mentioned drum corps twice in this video. Automatic like. Okay, okay. Done. Your other stuff is pretty awesome, too.. As far as what to listen to, some old school Drum Corps can feel like well, just that. Old school. I would probably start with 1991 or 1993 Star of Indiana. From there I would definitely implore watching 2002 Cavaliers. Everything about that show is original, from the music, to all of the color guard elements, so on and so forth. It's also worth noting 2003 Blue Devils because of the type of music and elements that you're into as a bass player. The show is called The Phenomenon of Cool!! I'm pretty partial to Bluecoats 2010 because I was in that show. From there I would look at stuff such as Bluecoats 2016 and onward. There's so, so much more, and so many other corps, but I wanted to give you a somewhat comprehensive list as to the direction of the activity. That list definitely does not give Justice to the activity as a whole. For drumline stuff, it's definitely worth looking at Santa Clara Vanguard from this year. They just won their first title in almost 20 years but this is the third year in a row that they won drums.
For drumline, the WGI finals were last weekend on the 22nd, so watching Music City Mystique's/Pulse Percussion's shows would be a totally good introduction to drumline. For drum corps as a whole, just wait for this summer and watch some shows.
My favorite show was Infinity's, our school had stick tosses in our show so it was so cool to see that the concept could be expanded to include cymbal tosses (albeit using prop cymbals), and a stick toss that's basically the length of the mat.
There are audible breaths on some of the recordings I could find, I'd assume that's what they're doing. That's how pits communicate sometimes instead of visual preps
Adam! The reason #1 why people prefer vinyls is because they are mastered differently. Ironically, despite being the worse medium, vinyls often benefit from a more dynamic mastering compared to CDs (who are often heavily compressed for commercial reasons - the infamous "loudness war"). So when comparing CDs to vinyl, we're - most of the time - not comparing the same masterings!
Hey Adam, you often stretch the importance of building a network of connections as a musician. In case you wanted to move to a LA or any other city (because of a relationship, a PhD program, etc.) - how long do you think it would have take you to regain what you have now in New York? Do you think it would be like starting everything from scratch?
To me, wanting to get an answer on knowing theory vs just experimenting is just a musician's self-validation issue. If you can play or create fantastic music, regardless of whether or not you use theory to help, is great. Whether or not the using theory matters is a separate issue.
Have you thought about doing a podcast with Ben Levin? I was watching your 3 part youtube conversation on Ben's channel and I would love to listen to more Another question: What do you think about classical music in the present day? A lot of people have the impression that it's snobby or too 'intellectual" which is disappointing as an aspiring classical musician.
@Adam Neely Your key misunderstanding is that youre inverting chords based on a fixed pitch. The idea of functional negative harmonization is that we invert based on the relationship of a fifth. So instead of inverting a C maj to a F min by inverting on a 'C', we invert based on the interval of C->G, so in theory the invertion of C maj is C->G, E->Eb, G->C, so we just get a C min chord since both major and minor thirds have the same pull in relation to the C->G fifth. The difference is small but necessary since we're applying these chords to a harmonic spectrum and not simply their pull in relation to 1 note.
Look up Carolina Crown, Madison Scouts from the 80s, Blue Coats, or the Phantom Regiment. Those guys give you chills more than a paranormal experience. Also, can you explain to me why the inversion of a fourth, is a fifth? My band director can't nor can my theory teacher.
Buddy if neither your band director nor your theory teacher can explain that to you then you probably need to find new teachers. The concept of intervals is literally something you learn about in your first semester of college as a music major. If they can't explain something as simple as that then I honestly don't understand how they can do anything that their job requires, the theory teacher especially.
Adam Neely: if you keep thinking in 12-EDO you'll never understand the wonderful world of microtonal music, dividing a m3 in 4 parts (or as many as you want) and even over/undertone series, because they all rely on concepts developed over just intonation and acoustics.
Wow, one of the my favorite Jazz Legends, Eric Dolphy, from the grave. I have to say, that as a Jazz musician, from the the tradition but on the avant-garde side of things, I really appreciated your answer on the question from Mr. Dolphy. You capture the reality of the Jazz avant-garde approach to the music. I love Inter-stellar space. I read an article which gives a detailed theoretical analyses of that improvisation, if I find it I would link it. It sounds like that is something up your ally.
Hey Adam :) Do you have an idea about what makes russian music sound so... well ... russian??? I really do like this kind of sound, but can't quite figure out what exactly is different.
Thanks for the music theory discussion at the end. I brew beer and it brought to mind how a lot of people think that putting STYLES to beer is irrelevant - make the beer whatever you want, who cares what style it is; or make up new styles to describe a beer that already exists (golden stout, which is actually not a stout but is really just a cream ale with vanilla and coffee added to mimic malt backbone). Beer styles give a handle and a context within which and outside of which we can play and create complexity and dissonance and harmony. If I call something an IPA, another brewer or consumers can have a context of what I mean and realize it's not going to be a Belgian Quad. . . Anyway - thanks! Really good as always. (and yes, I know I'm 2 years out of date - I just let you run randomly when I'm working on other stuff. ;) )
Hey Adam! When we talk about tension and release in music we're usually referring to harmony. Are there examples of the concept being applied to rhythm? My instinct is to say that syncopation is a basic practice of this but I'm not sure.
Worth mentioning for Vinyl vs. CD: vinyls are analog (or continuous), CDs are digital (or discrete). Could view it as vinyl being a series of slopes, while CD is a series of stairs approximating those slopes. That is pure theory. In practice it really depends on the resolution of the vinyl printer (how continuous it really is) and the number of steps in the stair approximation.
World class marching ensembles that compete in drum corps (DCI) and winter guard/indoor drum line (WGI) have been growing more and more popular over the last decade. It’s definitely a level of talent and professionalism that’s very admirable, and nobody who competes in these activities is over 22. If you are looking specifically at drum lines: Santa Clara Vanguard 2004 Blue Devils 2016 Bluecoats 2008 Bluecoats 2015 Blue Knights 2015 Santa Clara Vanguard any year Cadets 2013 Full corps performances in general: Bluecoats 2014 Santa Clara Vanguard 2017 Bluecoats 2016 Bluecoats 2017 Boston Crusaders 2017 Madison Scouts 2013 Cadets 2015 Carolina Crown 2015 Carolina Crown 2016 All of the above groups are some of my favorites that I’ve compiled over the years and they demonstrate how hard the activity actually is. As a major UA-camr this is definitely something that you would benefit from learning about. Peace
Back in the '70s, I played some Derek Bailey for a friend, who said, "But he's just fooling around!" So I handed him a guitar. My friend was astute enough to realize that the sounds he made by "fooling around" with my guitar didn't match what Derek Bailey was doing.
Some bass drum line stuff you should now Bass lines typically (TYPICALLY) have five bass players, each to a different pitch. Each individual player of the baseline is referred to with a different number. For example, the lowest bass drum in the bass line would be referred to as bass 5, the highest bass is referred to as bass 1. Essentially, the lower the bass, the bigger the number. The bass line must play splits, which is essentially defined as a rhythm that is played by two or more basses but not at the same time. The bass players must be able to internalize the subdivision extremely well and be able to play the individual subdivision. It helps to “mark time” which is basically marching quarter notes to feel the pulse. For example, The bass player may march on the downbeat then play a note on the E of the sixteenth note. There are different positions in the bass line that are easier or harder to play. The hardest are bass 2 and bass 4 Next is bass 3 And bass 5 and 1 are the easiest. This is because if you think of a bass run. Say, 12345 in sixteenth notes, the 5 drum landing on the downbeat. It is very easy for basses 1 and 5. They just have to play downbeats. Bass 3 plays an eighth note upbeat which is harder. Basses 2 and 4 play sixteenth up beats which is extremely difficult. This is why you will see the bass leader or bass captain play either bass 2 or bass 4. Definitely check out Vic Firth marching. They are a channel on marching percussion and they have many play alongs that show sheet music so you can get an idea of notation, performance, keeping time, and the general art of marching band.
The first analogy is actually pretty good. Listening to vinyl is like watching a movie shot on film stock. There's inherent are grain and resolution issues that are "corrected" with newer technology but some people just prefer as it seems warmer, nostalgic, artistic, etc.
Hey, Adam, I posted the Sungazer album on my channel a month or so ago and just realized it's monetized to me, so if you want to go monetize it to you, please do!
Hey man, I'd appreciate it if you just demonetized it. I totally don't mind you having uploaded it, but I don't have any digital distribution deals right now, so UA-cam won't let me request monetization. Thanks!
Man, I really appreciate ALL of your videos, even without a solid understanding of a dumb circle of fifths (for someone weird like me, playing for 20 years just by ear and some concepts here and there like polyrhythms and not so dumb stuff). But your last statement, WHY, for sure, IT'S THE GRANDFUCKING BEST EXPLANATION EVER about learning music theory. PERIOD.
The "CD has more information encoded tan vinyl" is absolutely not true (well, at least mathematically). The thing is, that vinyl is an analog (continous time) recording technique, so at least in theory, it can be infinitely accurate. While CD is a digital recording system, so it just can not have that much information in it. Of course the type of information is an other thing (CD can store multiple chanels, and vinyl can be noisy, etc.), but if we only consider the best representation of the wavefunction hitting the sensor, the vinyl is just unbeatable by any digital system ever made (and ever will be made), because vinyl is analog. (Sry for my english)
Ho hai :) What do you think about european (latin) versus international (or english) music notations, using "La Si Do..." instead of "A B C... ABC notation is a far more logical one, because its just, you know... alphabet, its printed into our brain. "La si do re mi fa sol" are not really brain-friendly, in comparaison. Have you learned or used both of them? French musicians for example tend to historicayl use latin notation, but should they migrate to international notation because its just... better? faster?stronger? Thanks
i think solfege and alphabet notation are separated for the most part and have their own uses. solfege is generally used for aural skills and vocal exercises, whereas alphabet notation is (usually) strictly theory based. That being said, when I was in university for music my theory teacher did use solfege to describe chord progressions and scale degrees instead of numbers or "ABC notation" which was infinitely more complicated seeing as it was being used in moveable do and changed depending on the key you were in. ABC notation doesn't change and solfege can change if you're using the movable do method which is why I believe it makes it more complicated.
Dutch person reporting in. We use the English notation but I think ABCDEFG has problems too, like the fact that going from G to A makes no sense, where is H? The German notation actually has H instead of B and A flat turns into B. This kind of strings the whole thing together but it's not elegant. Notes are abstracted fractions and/or formulas so when writing music it might be more "brain-friendly" to use a set without a clear beginnning or end (do re mi) or just to write the actual fractions. At the end of the day the naming is arbitrary and musical notation is imperfect.
It's not better, to me it's confusing calling dó C, but I understand that's because of the musical culture I was raised with. Just take the metric system, for example, one could argue it's a far more efficient measurement, but americans learn miles and they do just fine. People get used to whichever environment they grow in.
why is it impossible for people to offer information freely without getting attacked by insecure morons? he never said anything that would imply anything REMOTELY similar to "i'm better than you". he clearly demonstrated that he knows it's not an important piece of information and that it's an easy mistake to make. how fucking insecure do you have to be to find that offensive?
A drum corps (Short for drum and bugle corps) is a marching band containing only marching bugles, a drumline, front ensemble, and color guard. In the U.S., the most well-known drum corps are non-profit groups of paying members that compete in Drum Corps International (DCI). A typical schedule is audition camps in the winter, and then monthly weekend camps until summer, during which the corps tours the U.S. Performers of DCI corps are exclusively under 21 years old. Drum corps music can come from pretty much any source material, orchestrated for drum corps, but most commonly you'll hear classical, rock, and pop music. In drum corps, drill writing and choreography design have come to be given as much care as the show music itself, so when you're watching any drum corps show, pay attention to how the color guard, and even the instrumentalists are expressing the music through their bodies. It is the color guard's job to let a deaf person hear the music. As far as shows to watch I recommend checking out Santa Clara Vanguard 2018, Blue Devils 2017, Oregon Crusaders 2017, And Carolina Crown 2010.
Totally agree with your defence of music theory at the end. For me, trying to write music without theory is like trying to build a skyscraper without studying architecture; yes, you might get there eventually, but you can get innovating ALOT quicker if you learn from what your predecessors have done first, instead of repeatedly watching your skyscraper attempts collapse!
Holy shit. It's so weird how people just assume that you don't give a shit about the possibility of being wrong, or that you simply don't watch your own video a fuckton of times before you upload it.
Oh, definitely not... but I think it's kinda funny how people hesitate to believe that he means exactly what he is saying, even when he's proven himself to be super cautious with that - always making sure to say explicitly when he isn't quite certain about something. And, also, people seem to not make any kind of effort to try and understand why he is saying such a thing.
Doesn't matter how many time he watches them if he's wrong. He was wrong about the particles he mentioned, for one. Maybe he is wrong about much more. It's an interesting video anyhow.
Well shit. You were talking above my head. Boy do I feel like a piece of shit now. Sorry about that. I like your videos because they actually make me understand some music theory. Cheers.
Don't know if someone already mentioned this, but Spotify quality can be chosen, up to 320kbit Ogg Vorbis. I am something of an audiophile (a very low level, non-extreme kind) and the higher settings on Spotify make it a perfectly good listening experience with a set of decent headphones
Thanks for the insight. Paticularly on the marketing vs personal aspect of it. Sidenote: People normally get my first name wrong and my surname right, not the other way around!
What do you mean that some sounds "exist in nature"? - you say that overtones exist in nature but undertones do not? Surely all sounds are intrinsically a part of nature so surely any notes in any horizontal or vertical combination are a part of nature?
The overtone series naturally occurs in nature; that is, any natural vibrations that produce definite frequencies produce overtones. Natural vibrations don't create undertones.
I've been into Adam's videos for quite some time. I'm proof that he's living up to his hope to be the Bill Nye or Neil deGrasse-Tyson of music/bass/theory. It's completely working! I am mostly self-taught (bass, guitar - starting in college) but learned some theory along the way. Never played in school band, so I did not learn to sight read. Instead of droning on with adulation, I want to offer a different perspective on not knowing a lot of theory but writing what sounds good to my ears. I look at it like understanding how listeners with no understanding of music or theory appreciate music. They can't explain it. It just sounds good. Same with appreciating art. While I have mostly forgotten all the things I learned in school about art and art history, I absolutely love going to art museums. Artists can make great art without knowing all the minutia of technique. That's not to say that having all the knowledge is bad. It's just a different path. I write music alone or with friends just for the enjoyment of it. I don't care if anyone else likes it or if I can explain exactly what theory is at play. Sure I can figure out the key(s) and progression, but in the end the technical representation of the music doesn't make me like or dislike it. Just my thoughts.
i think he was talking about "positively charged electron" in context of his comment on antimatter- meaning he was actually talking about the positron but w/e
Actually he said that correctly. Yes electrons are negatively charged under normal circumstances, but there are also Positrons, particles that behave the same, have the same mass, and have the same magnitude of charge as an electron, but are positive. It's a form of anti-matter, which he mentioned when he was talking about the positively charged electron. Link: www.thefreedictionary.com/positive+electron Have a great day!
I'm so glad you did your video on Sweet Home Alabama. As a working musician from AL, I have played this song even more than other musicians around the world, and have had the conversation about the tonal center with MANY professional musicians. We all came to the same conclusion as you, finally, around the same time you dropped your video. That being said... I recently brought up a similar situation with the song "I Love It" by Iconapop. Not a single one of my colleagues was on fully board with my hot take analysis, and I feel more strongly about this than I ever did about either proposed key for S-H-A. I believe the one and only logical interpretation (upon really letting my ear take it in and feel the implied resolution of the melody etc) of the progression, is 5 to 1, while others perceive it as 1 to 4. The bridge reinforces this, but everyone around me chalks this up to key change or modal interplay. Am I taking crazy pills?? If you disagree I think it is time to admit myself to a psych ward.
With the Vinyl thing what makes the difference is that Vinyl typically has it's own specific mix and it's pressed different than a CD. Music playing off vinyl is playing organically and not digitally. Think of it like this.. Look at your hand... now put it really close to your face.. It's still your hand but with more details. That's Vinyl. Now look at a picture of your hand on a computer... Now zoom in really close.. It's your hand but pixelated. Some people can feel this cold reproduction in music. Vinyl, while it was still in large part digital at one point in the mixing stage (Usually but not always) pressing to an organic material that can produce music masks a lot of that cold digital feel (Again, usually but not always.) Now to expound upon this, a digital audio file NOT pressed to CD has the ability to compete with the quality and warm/organic nature of vinyl depending on the sample rate recorded at. At a high enough sample rate the digital reproduction and organic reproduction become almost indistinguishable - Like taking that picture of your hand and replacing it with a 4K picture.
As intriguing as it may be, negative harmony is extremely cerebral! I almost feel one must be of an elite class of trained musician to be able to hang in a conversation on this!! Haha...my brain is twisting :D
Since I wasn't being super clear on the matter - I know full well that protons are positive and electrons are negative. I was referencing their corresponding antimatter particles, the negatively charged antiproton and the positively charged positron as an analogy to the undertone series.
First
touché
youre son is amazing
good vid good vids good good
Rick Beato LOL I love your videos btw they're amazing.
hey rick do you like chord scale theory memes
I love you. Never stop.
oh mr foreman, we love you 2!
Beardy loves randoms
16:19 PROTIP: Make sure your cat and your bass are in the same key
You deserve more replise
I love how Adam gets so upset when somebody states that you don't need music theory
I don't think your transformation of the ii-V-I in C (Dm7-G7-CMaj7 to ) is quite the same "negative" as Jacob Collier refers to in the interview that's blowing the collective mind of music college studentdom. What you show is a negative inversion, arrived at by exchanging the chord tone intervals above the root note for their mirror below. But in the Collier interview, he gives the transformation of G7 resolving to C as an Fm6; that's because every note is reflected through the key "center" of C and G... so really (and this is where the Levy thing is quite convoluted) the note in between those two: Eb/E. If you mark out the intervals of a G7 chord as they relate to the Eb, then "copy" those intervals above the E, you get to the Fm6 chord. G-B-D-F to Eb -> +m6 +d4 +m2 -M2. From E then: +m6(C) +d4(Ab) +m2(F) and -M2(D). Why is it Fm6 and not D half diminished? I'd assume it's because we want to keep a similar bass movement; rather than resolving down a fifth as in G7-C, now we resolve up a fifth (or rather down a fourth) Fm6-C.
Transforming Dm7 in the key of C in the same way gives Bb6, which keeps with the quartal bass movement arrived at by transforming the G7. We leave the C alone because I think the effect is all about arriving (as in a cadence like this one) in a similar way through the voice leading. So a negative harmony transformation of a standard jazz ii-V-I in C major would be Bb6-Fm6-CMaj7, which really is quite pleasing. Much more so than the inverted chords you showed in the video.
Agreed. There seems to be some confusion on this subject and I too think Adam and Jacob are talking about two different things here.
Hey Ty, I agree with you I don't think Adam did the conversion correctly. Or at least not in the way Collier explained it. When I did this my conversion was Dm7 = G-7 (or Bb6) G7 = Dm7b5 (or F-6) and if you choose to do it to the Cmaj7 chord it will turn into Abmaj7. But I think I agree with you that the tonic chord is to be left alone, which was what Collier also did. I was also very confused why Collier chose to make it a -6 chord instead of m7b5 but I do like your thoughts on this question.
@@kylemandro1923 absolutely right. Thank you for making this distinction for everyone, it really affects how they will utilize real negative harmony going forward. @Adam Neely please edit this video so that further confusion isn't created
Yo I just learned so much
This isn’t english
Most of the local guys slack off on their theory. Consequently, they have a hard time explaining their song ideas, communicating new parts to each other, and it takes longer for them to learn songs. I'm not the best by any means, but I can learn a band's whole set in a matter of hours and be onstage, a big part of it is that I can break down the patterns and parts into basic concepts and write them out, memorize progressions and chord tones, and prepare myself in an organized and thorough manner. It's just how it is. You wouldn't hire a guy who can't read a measuring tape to build your house, why hire musicians who don't know what they're playing?
Why hire them? Because they sound good - *if* they sound good, and perform well. It's rare, and there's more people that think they can than actually can, but what matters in the end is if they sound good and function well in the setting or with the other people.
You're right about all you had to say, don't get me wrong. But I ran into the opposite problem, where guys would lean on theory to slack off on creativity and technique. Either way, it ends up lame and frustrating.
Like reading a measuring tape is really useful for building a house, but near pointless if the dude hammers every other nail bent, or spends the whole time deciding on the angle of the roof instead of actually building the thing.
What I mean to say is, you need it all - Theory, technique, creativity, motivation, etc. And as for the people you're gigging with... there's always the possibility that they just suck at music, and there's a lot of ways to try and mask that sort of thing, whether through ignorance or pedantry or lack of experience or ego bluster or any other hundred things.
I agree wholeheartedly. But as with most jobs, you've gotta pass the application process first. Believe me, I see plenty of guys who can play like machines, and their music sounds like, well, machines.
Andrew Peterson Jimi Hendrix knew theory...
@@ryanperson6307 Did he though?
@@bryanleigh6497 Well, he did start his career as a backing musician for some big names, so...
Man, you're such an exceptional person. As a physicist, it's awesome to see all this talk about language/constructing meaning/fundamental nature of things from a musician, cause it's these kind of things that makes me enjoy music (and people generally don't talk very much about it).
That pause at 21:19 is amazing. It is intelligent, funny, respectful and an accurate, right on the spot metaphor of why he is doing all these videos. It was even music if you take it too far.
Thank you good person (Adam) for everything. I hope I'll be able to support you when I earn more than enough money for my living.
re: negative harmony - classical theorists/musicologists in the UK understand this as serial inversion of chords - if you count 'up' a major third then the 'negative' (actually better called a 'serial inversion') is a major 3rd 'down'..e.g. counting from a C up to E (M3) would be the same as counting C down to Ab (also a M3) and you always use the root note as the starting pitch before carrying on - it's an integral part of 12-tone theory.
The discrepancy would be, whether in a negative harmonic chord progression the end result is the same (if there's a ii-V-I progression do we have as our goal - chord I tonic? If it does then one way (there are others) would use the final I chord (if major) as the starting pitch and work backwards so the previous V of ii-V-I becomes a Bbm chord bvii (a serial inversion of V) etc...interestingly vii is the secondary chord of V in any case - bvii isn't though - a borrowed chord form the parallel minor of I...bit of a rabbit hole...
Holy crap, that was a pretty heavy question from a pretty heavy dude! I'm like "I know who Derek Bailey is, what's Adam's take on free jazz?" And you're like, "I don't know much about it", but then you lay down some interesting stuff I never heard about, and delivered some context and ponderables. Well done my man!
I actually understood Jacob's idea of negative harmony a little differently!
The way I got it was that, in the key of C, he had a mirroring line between C and G, where the midpoint tone of that line is between Eb and E. He then inverted every note in a chord to portrait a new one while maintaining the same distance from the midpoint, just in a different direction.
Thus the G7 chord turned into an Fm6 chord.
G->C
B-Ab
D->F
F->D
Maybe those two concepts are the same and I just misinterpreted...
This way of visualizing it is interesting to me since you can get different negative-chord subs when you choose different mirroring lines.
The questions I have now are - why choose a certain tonic specifically regarding any chord? is it because of it's function in the key center? what kind of sounds do you get when choosing different tonics for subing every chord?
what happens if you take different midpoints? that is, different that between the root and the fifth?
Tell me what you think Adam.
I got this understanding as well. The harmony in this video seems more akin to Riemannian analysis.
Finally someone talked about this! Exactly. Adam got the idea compeletly wrong because you have to reflect the intervals through the axis of C and G not through the note C.
Ben H.G I'm going to try to answer with what I know, sorry for my English:
-It is because its function on the key. if you change the tonic without modulating in the music, you wouldn't be flipping the music, it just will be like solving a math problem without caring about the order of operations. I would like to relate this with how Schoenberg suggest how harmony works (to answer your question of why is the mid point E half flat): so let's think of just one note, one tonic: Schoenberg suggests that a major scale is the horizontal synthesis of the overtone series of a tonic and a tonic chord is the vertical synthesis. So why the Dominant and the subdominant are the most important functions? Because in the overtone series, the nearest different tone is the dominant, and he (Schoenberg) concludes that the theoretical nearest is the sub dominant just below the C: the F.
The idea of this "shadowy harmony" is flipping all the music to its shadows (the overtones flipping to the "subtones") , so the Dominant becomes the opposite: the Subdominant (as what Jacob said: "turning everything Dominant to plagal"). It is the same with the tonic, it becomes the opposite, but because if you flip the overtones with the fundamental as the axis the tonic wouldn't change, it is the same, if you flip a C major with the half flated third as the axis it will be the same, a C major with a half flated E. So that's why changing the tonic wouldn't apply to this concept. I tried to sound coherent... im sorry English isn't my strongest language. :P what do you think?
Siavash Darmani I don't think the idea is wrong, check what I explained earlier...
Yea Adam's talking about Harmonic Dualism/Riemann Theory, which is also equally mind blowing and philosophical
Hey Adam!
I'm marching Drum Corps this summer! It's my first year marching, and I feel I learned the most about DCI culture from watching old Cadets videos on Youtheducation. Everyone's taste in Drum Corps are different, but I really enjoy listening to Blue Devils 2010, 11, 12, 14, Bluecoats 2014, and Cadets 2016. Hope you enjoy listening to Drum Corps music! Love all your videos! My first instrument is guitar and I find your videos very helpful for music theory!
9:30 is the perfect explanation on why I love this channel so much.
Levy and Partch were far from the first to think about harmony in this way. Theorists were thinking about major and minor triads/keys as reflections of each other as far back as the mid-1700s. Euler included this relationship as part of his "Tonnetz", a graphical visualization of harmony (which is another fascinating hole to jump into. Check out Neo-Riemannian theory). Hugo Riemann included this way of thinking in his theory of "harmonic dualism", similar to utonality.
The last segment brought this quote to mind. The Bartron Tyler Group (13 years of my life) included it in the liner notes of “Just About Almost There”.
“I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”
-Douglas Adams
Diminished Fifth
them stacked minor thirds...
alexanderswisher
i lol'd, btw you dropped your deal with it shades bro
Augmented Fourth
stretto?
Diabolus in musica
Man.. you deserve money. You need to be supported. Your channel is gold quality. I'm glad that I found you.. man a pleasure to listen to you. I've listened to everything from Jacob and just can't get my mind around it, even after looking through transcriptions and everything.. And I've got like.. 14 years of musical education behind me.. It's crazy
Although I am now seeing that it wasn't my specific comment that inspired this video, I still asked about negative harmony on your last Q+A and am very excited to hear what you have to say about it.
The ending was so awesome. You get em, Adam! I don't know a ton of music theory, but I really do love it. When I met Victor Wooten he told me music is like driving a car and theory is like having a tool kit in your trunk. When his "car" gets stuck in a "jam" then he can pull out his tools whenever he needs it.
You defeated duality twice in this video.
Positive/Negative
Orange/Red
It's awesome how the channel integrates big ideas and philosophical concepts, especially since music itself does the same.
Never a dull video, man. Awesome stuff.
I love your excitement when you talk about negative harmony
18:49 Its funny how he skips the last part where she says that hes fantastic in everything and stimulating and addicting lol
I appreciate so much how dense and fast your videos are. Learning so much from your channel, thank you!
I'm a huge fan of your cat.
This last section was wonderful and is exactly how I feel about our methods of exchanging things we appreciate. Being able to explain WHY you like something communicates your passion significantly more than just being enthusiastic without specifics
13:06 Leaving this channel to check out Sunn O)))/Coltrane. Thanks.
Definitely check out the Kilimanjaro Dark Jazz Ensemble.
My new favorite channel! So much so, that I even clicked the bell to get notified of your new videos...something I would NEVER do with other channels I'm subscribed to.
😉
Thank you for the drumline shoutout!
Pitch IS rhythm - All music is rhythm. Pitch is a vibration at a certain frequency, or rhythm. Melody is the linear relationships of these rhythms. Harmony is the simultaneous relational of these rhythms. Then there’s what we conventionally call rhythm. But All music is rhythm.
The question referencing Deftones, Polytonality, and being able to verbally express what you "like" about a song or what's going on within a song really hit home, because I couldn't think of how to describe music verbally with my lack of music theory. Do you have any resources that maybe channel a similar charisma exhibited by Collier as an introduction to theory? I'm pretty well versed with rhythmic concepts, note subdivisions, and time signatures, but it's all the tonal stuff that I need to learn now!
On the topic of drum corps, Bluecoats, Carolina Crown, and Cadets all have some amazing stuff around that I would definitely recommend for a music lover looking to get to know what the activity is all about. The Blue Devils also have some incredible things out there, but in general their writing tends to be more traditional and less progressive than some of the other corps right now, especially Bluecoats and Cadets.
As far as bass drum/ drum line splits go, I would recommend watching the videos from the Infinity bassline's warmup routines. They pull off things that seem literally impossible for just 5 people each playing a single drum each. They're probably among the best examples of drum splits out there.
Look at this n00b pronouncing the "O)))" in Sunn O))) like that's a thing
(just kidding ily)
like i said, i really don't know what i'm talking about.
ay thom
Ayyyy thom
Hey Thom
I think everyone does that.
Interesting take on the vinyl vs cd nostalgia topic. It is mostly irrelevant now besides for the most basic consumer level products, which the answer for them is that it is almost exactly the same. The placement and materials of the furniture in your listening space matter more.
I love your videos Adam!
Greetings from México. :D
If you'd like to learn more about Drum Corps I'd recommend checking out any of the 'Vic Firth - Learn The Music' episodes. They show the battery sheet music to read along while they play it. It's quite admirable how difficult the music is and considering they all have to learn it to such a consistent degree and play super clean.
You've mentioned drum corps twice in this video. Automatic like.
Okay, okay. Done. Your other stuff is pretty awesome, too..
As far as what to listen to, some old school Drum Corps can feel like well, just that. Old school. I would probably start with 1991 or 1993 Star of Indiana.
From there I would definitely implore watching 2002 Cavaliers. Everything about that show is original, from the music, to all of the color guard elements, so on and so forth. It's also worth noting 2003 Blue Devils because of the type of music and elements that you're into as a bass player. The show is called The Phenomenon of Cool!!
I'm pretty partial to Bluecoats 2010 because I was in that show. From there I would look at stuff such as Bluecoats 2016 and onward. There's so, so much more, and so many other corps, but I wanted to give you a somewhat comprehensive list as to the direction of the activity. That list definitely does not give Justice to the activity as a whole.
For drumline stuff, it's definitely worth looking at Santa Clara Vanguard from this year. They just won their first title in almost 20 years but this is the third year in a row that they won drums.
One of the best videos I've seen on this channel! Thanks!) Love you!))
For drumline, the WGI finals were last weekend on the 22nd, so watching Music City Mystique's/Pulse Percussion's shows would be a totally good introduction to drumline. For drum corps as a whole, just wait for this summer and watch some shows.
Honestly, any finalist show was incredible. There was some tight competition in there.
Couldn't be more true, man. I'm a freshman and I just watched it because I was curious, and I'm definitely going to be doing indoor next year.
United stayed in the same hotel as Ayala so I got to hear some of Ike Jackson's explanations of the show. Super creative and well thought out show.
My favorite show was Infinity's, our school had stick tosses in our show so it was so cool to see that the concept could be expanded to include cymbal tosses (albeit using prop cymbals), and a stick toss that's basically the length of the mat.
There are audible breaths on some of the recordings I could find, I'd assume that's what they're doing. That's how pits communicate sometimes instead of visual preps
Adam! The reason #1 why people prefer vinyls is because they are mastered differently. Ironically, despite being the worse medium, vinyls often benefit from a more dynamic mastering compared to CDs (who are often heavily compressed for commercial reasons - the infamous "loudness war"). So when comparing CDs to vinyl, we're - most of the time - not comparing the same masterings!
drum corps is a deep rabbit hole; you be careful
currently having flashbacks to 2013
Connor Buckley It all started with E=MC2....
Scatman and Antoine Dodson
yo adam this Q+A is one of the greatest of all time. you really knocked it out of the park man
it's got me excited for my theory class tomorrow
Come on harmonic, cheer up
This comment is 4 yo and i still manage to laugh
Hearing the answer to that last question was pretty mind bending for me as someone who hasn't looked at music theory a lot.
Hey Adam, you often stretch the importance of building a network of connections as a musician. In case you wanted to move to a LA or any other city (because of a relationship, a PhD program, etc.) - how long do you think it would have take you to regain what you have now in New York? Do you think it would be like starting everything from scratch?
To me, wanting to get an answer on knowing theory vs just experimenting is just a musician's self-validation issue. If you can play or create fantastic music, regardless of whether or not you use theory to help, is great. Whether or not the using theory matters is a separate issue.
Have you thought about doing a podcast with Ben Levin? I was watching your 3 part youtube conversation on Ben's channel and I would love to listen to more
Another question: What do you think about classical music in the present day? A lot of people have the impression that it's snobby or too 'intellectual" which is disappointing as an aspiring classical musician.
@Adam Neely
Your key misunderstanding is that youre inverting chords based on a fixed pitch. The idea of functional negative harmonization is that we invert based on the relationship of a fifth. So instead of inverting a C maj to a F min by inverting on a 'C', we invert based on the interval of C->G, so in theory the invertion of C maj is C->G, E->Eb, G->C, so we just get a C min chord since both major and minor thirds have the same pull in relation to the C->G fifth.
The difference is small but necessary since we're applying these chords to a harmonic spectrum and not simply their pull in relation to 1 note.
Look up Carolina Crown, Madison Scouts from the 80s, Blue Coats, or the Phantom Regiment. Those guys give you chills more than a paranormal experience. Also, can you explain to me why the inversion of a fourth, is a fifth? My band director can't nor can my theory teacher.
C to F is a fourth. If you flip that and go F to C, that's a fifth. That's how inversions of intervals work basically
Buddy if neither your band director nor your theory teacher can explain that to you then you probably need to find new teachers. The concept of intervals is literally something you learn about in your first semester of college as a music major. If they can't explain something as simple as that then I honestly don't understand how they can do anything that their job requires, the theory teacher especially.
Great analogy! (overtone/undertone) 6:15 very cool!
Adam Neely: if you keep thinking in 12-EDO you'll never understand the wonderful world of microtonal music, dividing a m3 in 4 parts (or as many as you want) and even over/undertone series, because they all rely on concepts developed over just intonation and acoustics.
WHAT?
Wow, one of the my favorite Jazz Legends, Eric Dolphy, from the grave. I have to say, that as a Jazz musician, from the the tradition but on the avant-garde side of things, I really appreciated your answer on the question from Mr. Dolphy. You capture the reality of the Jazz avant-garde approach to the music. I love Inter-stellar space. I read an article which gives a detailed theoretical analyses of that improvisation, if I find it I would link it. It sounds like that is something up your ally.
Hey Adam :)
Do you have an idea about what makes russian music sound so... well ... russian???
I really do like this kind of sound, but can't quite figure out what exactly is different.
Russian music is actually marches but in a minor key that speed up
Thanks for the music theory discussion at the end. I brew beer and it brought to mind how a lot of people think that putting STYLES to beer is irrelevant - make the beer whatever you want, who cares what style it is; or make up new styles to describe a beer that already exists (golden stout, which is actually not a stout but is really just a cream ale with vanilla and coffee added to mimic malt backbone). Beer styles give a handle and a context within which and outside of which we can play and create complexity and dissonance and harmony. If I call something an IPA, another brewer or consumers can have a context of what I mean and realize it's not going to be a Belgian Quad. . . Anyway - thanks! Really good as always. (and yes, I know I'm 2 years out of date - I just let you run randomly when I'm working on other stuff. ;) )
7:46
Adam, you have no idea what you've just done...
Throw Your Toaster 😂😂😂
Marching band kids are rabid lol
I love hearing you try to pronounce all the names, almost as much as I like all the interesting content.
3:05
*Super-ULTRA-hyper-mega-meta lydian scale
Absolutely spot on with the answer to the first question! Better headphones and/or speakers ftw!
Hey Adam!
When we talk about tension and release in music we're usually referring to harmony. Are there examples of the concept being applied to rhythm? My instinct is to say that syncopation is a basic practice of this but I'm not sure.
7:11
NIN - March of the Pigs could be called one. It uses 7/8 and 4/4, and the 4/4 always feels like the release from the 7/8.
Worth mentioning for Vinyl vs. CD: vinyls are analog (or continuous), CDs are digital (or discrete). Could view it as vinyl being a series of slopes, while CD is a series of stairs approximating those slopes. That is pure theory. In practice it really depends on the resolution of the vinyl printer (how continuous it really is) and the number of steps in the stair approximation.
"...positively charged electron, or the negatively charged proton."
Christopher Bramel he’s already living in an antimatter world
basically the opposites of proton and electron (non-existent in theory)
@@darylldumo75 No? In both theory and practice, they exist, as part of antimatter
@@fonzyfermin8896 oh? Guess i need more research then hahaha
@@Amanda-dg9zj Antimatter was first proven mathematically and through CERN we have since been able to produce antiprotons and even antihydrogen.
World class marching ensembles that compete in drum corps (DCI) and winter guard/indoor drum line (WGI) have been growing more and more popular over the last decade. It’s definitely a level of talent and professionalism that’s very admirable, and nobody who competes in these activities is over 22.
If you are looking specifically at drum lines:
Santa Clara Vanguard 2004
Blue Devils 2016
Bluecoats 2008
Bluecoats 2015
Blue Knights 2015
Santa Clara Vanguard any year
Cadets 2013
Full corps performances in general:
Bluecoats 2014
Santa Clara Vanguard 2017
Bluecoats 2016
Bluecoats 2017
Boston Crusaders 2017
Madison Scouts 2013
Cadets 2015
Carolina Crown 2015
Carolina Crown 2016
All of the above groups are some of my favorites that I’ve compiled over the years and they demonstrate how hard the activity actually is. As a major UA-camr this is definitely something that you would benefit from learning about.
Peace
Thank god Eric Dolphy phoned one in...
Thank you very much for your videos Adam!! They make me love music even more :)
Cheers!
Derek Bailey's stuff is great but you must approach with a really open mind
Back in the '70s, I played some Derek Bailey for a friend, who said, "But he's just fooling around!" So I handed him a guitar. My friend was astute enough to realize that the sounds he made by "fooling around" with my guitar didn't match what Derek Bailey was doing.
It takes awhile to watch your videos, cos every time you reference another video, I go watch them!
20:40 Anyway, here's wonderwall
Toward the end of the video, the case you made in favor of learning music theory was fantastic. I just wanted to say thanks for that!
PROTIP: Make sure the cat and the bass are in the SAME KEY!
Some bass drum line stuff you should now
Bass lines typically (TYPICALLY) have five bass players, each to a different pitch. Each individual player of the baseline is referred to with a different number. For example, the lowest bass drum in the bass line would be referred to as bass 5, the highest bass is referred to as bass 1. Essentially, the lower the bass, the bigger the number.
The bass line must play splits, which is essentially defined as a rhythm that is played by two or more basses but not at the same time. The bass players must be able to internalize the subdivision extremely well and be able to play the individual subdivision. It helps to “mark time” which is basically marching quarter notes to feel the pulse. For example, The bass player may march on the downbeat then play a note on the E of the sixteenth note.
There are different positions in the bass line that are easier or harder to play.
The hardest are bass 2 and bass 4
Next is bass 3
And bass 5 and 1 are the easiest.
This is because if you think of a bass run. Say, 12345 in sixteenth notes, the 5 drum landing on the downbeat. It is very easy for basses 1 and 5. They just have to play downbeats. Bass 3 plays an eighth note upbeat which is harder. Basses 2 and 4 play sixteenth up beats which is extremely difficult. This is why you will see the bass leader or bass captain play either bass 2 or bass 4.
Definitely check out Vic Firth marching. They are a channel on marching percussion and they have many play alongs that show sheet music so you can get an idea of notation, performance, keeping time, and the general art of marching band.
I love that you used the hobbit as an example. Lord of the rings looked great, hobbit looked garbage because it was too hdish.
The first analogy is actually pretty good. Listening to vinyl is like watching a movie shot on film stock. There's inherent are grain and resolution issues that are "corrected" with newer technology but some people just prefer as it seems warmer, nostalgic, artistic, etc.
Hey, Adam, I posted the Sungazer album on my channel a month or so ago and just realized it's monetized to me, so if you want to go monetize it to you, please do!
Hey man, I'd appreciate it if you just demonetized it. I totally don't mind you having uploaded it, but I don't have any digital distribution deals right now, so UA-cam won't let me request monetization. Thanks!
Adam Neely You got it! Let me know if that changes!
You the man, thanks!
Man, I really appreciate ALL of your videos, even without a solid understanding of a dumb circle of fifths (for someone weird like me, playing for 20 years just by ear and some concepts here and there like polyrhythms and not so dumb stuff). But your last statement, WHY, for sure, IT'S THE GRANDFUCKING BEST EXPLANATION EVER about learning music theory. PERIOD.
Check out "As One" by Gene Koshinski, for some serious percussion Hocket/splits.
THANK YOU, that's just brilliant.
few things make me happy on a Monday. thank u dude
"harm-y"
You and Rick are among my favorite teachers. Steve Stine is my favorite guitar teacher.
The "CD has more information encoded tan vinyl" is absolutely not true (well, at least mathematically).
The thing is, that vinyl is an analog (continous time) recording technique, so at least in theory, it can be infinitely accurate. While CD is a digital recording system, so it just can not have that much information in it.
Of course the type of information is an other thing (CD can store multiple chanels, and vinyl can be noisy, etc.), but if we only consider the best representation of the wavefunction hitting the sensor, the vinyl is just unbeatable by any digital system ever made (and ever will be made), because vinyl is analog.
(Sry for my english)
your vids never let me down. so much information to check out. thank you.
Ho hai :)
What do you think about european (latin) versus international (or english) music notations, using "La Si Do..." instead of "A B C...
ABC notation is a far more logical one, because its just, you know... alphabet, its printed into our brain.
"La si do re mi fa sol" are not really brain-friendly, in comparaison.
Have you learned or used both of them?
French musicians for example tend to historicayl use latin notation, but should they migrate to international notation because its just... better? faster?stronger?
Thanks
i think solfege and alphabet notation are separated for the most part and have their own uses. solfege is generally used for aural skills and vocal exercises, whereas alphabet notation is (usually) strictly theory based. That being said, when I was in university for music my theory teacher did use solfege to describe chord progressions and scale degrees instead of numbers or "ABC notation" which was infinitely more complicated seeing as it was being used in moveable do and changed depending on the key you were in. ABC notation doesn't change and solfege can change if you're using the movable do method which is why I believe it makes it more complicated.
Dutch person reporting in. We use the English notation but I think ABCDEFG has problems too, like the fact that going from G to A makes no sense, where is H? The German notation actually has H instead of B and A flat turns into B. This kind of strings the whole thing together but it's not elegant. Notes are abstracted fractions and/or formulas so when writing music it might be more "brain-friendly" to use a set without a clear beginnning or end (do re mi) or just to write the actual fractions. At the end of the day the naming is arbitrary and musical notation is imperfect.
Well if we're using that logic what comes after H? lol
timoonn It's actually Bb that gets called B, so H doesn't even come after G.
It's not better, to me it's confusing calling dó C, but I understand that's because of the musical culture I was raised with. Just take the metric system, for example, one could argue it's a far more efficient measurement, but americans learn miles and they do just fine. People get used to whichever environment they grow in.
i cant thank you enough man... you and rick beato.. thanks for everything you do...
Hey, I know this is very dumb but you're not actually supposed to pronounce the o))) in sunn o)))
don't worry, nobody says it right the first time.
Astrohfic 2 ok, we get it, You're better than us.
why is it impossible for people to offer information freely without getting attacked by insecure morons? he never said anything that would imply anything REMOTELY similar to "i'm better than you". he clearly demonstrated that he knows it's not an important piece of information and that it's an easy mistake to make. how fucking insecure do you have to be to find that offensive?
DevinDTV i think it was a joke
A drum corps (Short for drum and bugle corps) is a marching band containing only marching bugles, a drumline, front ensemble, and color guard. In the U.S., the most well-known drum corps are non-profit groups of paying members that compete in Drum Corps International (DCI). A typical schedule is audition camps in the winter, and then monthly weekend camps until summer, during which the corps tours the U.S. Performers of DCI corps are exclusively under 21 years old. Drum corps music can come from pretty much any source material, orchestrated for drum corps, but most commonly you'll hear classical, rock, and pop music. In drum corps, drill writing and choreography design have come to be given as much care as the show music itself, so when you're watching any drum corps show, pay attention to how the color guard, and even the instrumentalists are expressing the music through their bodies. It is the color guard's job to let a deaf person hear the music.
As far as shows to watch I recommend checking out Santa Clara Vanguard 2018, Blue Devils 2017, Oregon Crusaders 2017, And Carolina Crown 2010.
Hail Sunn O)))
Totally agree with your defence of music theory at the end. For me, trying to write music without theory is like trying to build a skyscraper without studying architecture; yes, you might get there eventually, but you can get innovating ALOT quicker if you learn from what your predecessors have done first, instead of repeatedly watching your skyscraper attempts collapse!
Holy shit. It's so weird how people just assume that you don't give a shit about the possibility of being wrong, or that you simply don't watch your own video a fuckton of times before you upload it.
Editing something automatically comes with watching/listening a fuckton of times, that doesn't save one from making mistakes, though.
Oh, definitely not... but I think it's kinda funny how people hesitate to believe that he means exactly what he is saying, even when he's proven himself to be super cautious with that - always making sure to say explicitly when he isn't quite certain about something. And, also, people seem to not make any kind of effort to try and understand why he is saying such a thing.
Doesn't matter how many time he watches them if he's wrong. He was wrong about the particles he mentioned, for one. Maybe he is wrong about much more. It's an interesting video anyhow.
PLEASE read the pinned comment.
Well shit. You were talking above my head. Boy do I feel like a piece of shit now.
Sorry about that. I like your videos because they actually make me understand some music theory. Cheers.
Don't know if someone already mentioned this, but Spotify quality can be chosen, up to 320kbit Ogg Vorbis. I am something of an audiophile (a very low level, non-extreme kind) and the higher settings on Spotify make it a perfectly good listening experience with a set of decent headphones
Loved the video! However electrons are negative... Didn't really detract from the point tho...
+Snitzmusic that was the point - a positive electron is antimatter
aka anti-electron or positron or most correctly positon.
Thanks for the insight. Paticularly on the marketing vs personal aspect of it. Sidenote: People normally get my first name wrong and my surname right, not the other way around!
What do you mean that some sounds "exist in nature"? - you say that overtones exist in nature but undertones do not? Surely all sounds are intrinsically a part of nature so surely any notes in any horizontal or vertical combination are a part of nature?
The overtone series naturally occurs in nature; that is, any natural vibrations that produce definite frequencies produce overtones. Natural vibrations don't create undertones.
I've been into Adam's videos for quite some time. I'm proof that he's living up to his hope to be the Bill Nye or Neil deGrasse-Tyson of music/bass/theory. It's completely working! I am mostly self-taught (bass, guitar - starting in college) but learned some theory along the way. Never played in school band, so I did not learn to sight read.
Instead of droning on with adulation, I want to offer a different perspective on not knowing a lot of theory but writing what sounds good to my ears. I look at it like understanding how listeners with no understanding of music or theory appreciate music. They can't explain it. It just sounds good. Same with appreciating art. While I have mostly forgotten all the things I learned in school about art and art history, I absolutely love going to art museums. Artists can make great art without knowing all the minutia of technique. That's not to say that having all the knowledge is bad. It's just a different path.
I write music alone or with friends just for the enjoyment of it. I don't care if anyone else likes it or if I can explain exactly what theory is at play. Sure I can figure out the key(s) and progression, but in the end the technical representation of the music doesn't make me like or dislike it. Just my thoughts.
I keep hearing negative "harmy" 😂😂
I enjoyed your passionate response to the last question, I think it's such an interesting debate.
"positively charged electron". You were close bud
i think he was talking about "positively charged electron" in context of his comment on antimatter- meaning he was actually talking about the positron but w/e
Angus Blaney he's talking about antimatter ie inverted charged atomic particles positive electrons as negative protons.
DustyKun123 Oh yeah you're right
Yep, he's a fraud. Send the hate mail
Actually he said that correctly. Yes electrons are negatively charged under normal circumstances, but there are also Positrons, particles that behave the same, have the same mass, and have the same magnitude of charge as an electron, but are positive. It's a form of anti-matter, which he mentioned when he was talking about the positively charged electron. Link: www.thefreedictionary.com/positive+electron
Have a great day!
I'm so glad you did your video on Sweet Home Alabama. As a working musician from AL, I have played this song even more than other musicians around the world, and have had the conversation about the tonal center with MANY professional musicians. We all came to the same conclusion as you, finally, around the same time you dropped your video. That being said...
I recently brought up a similar situation with the song "I Love It" by Iconapop. Not a single one of my colleagues was on fully board with my hot take analysis, and I feel more strongly about this than I ever did about either proposed key for S-H-A. I believe the one and only logical interpretation (upon really letting my ear take it in and feel the implied resolution of the melody etc) of the progression, is 5 to 1, while others perceive it as 1 to 4. The bridge reinforces this, but everyone around me chalks this up to key change or modal interplay. Am I taking crazy pills?? If you disagree I think it is time to admit myself to a psych ward.
I would love to see an entire video on Negative Harmony. That topic intrigues me.
With the Vinyl thing what makes the difference is that Vinyl typically has it's own specific mix and it's pressed different than a CD. Music playing off vinyl is playing organically and not digitally. Think of it like this.. Look at your hand... now put it really close to your face.. It's still your hand but with more details. That's Vinyl. Now look at a picture of your hand on a computer... Now zoom in really close.. It's your hand but pixelated. Some people can feel this cold reproduction in music. Vinyl, while it was still in large part digital at one point in the mixing stage (Usually but not always) pressing to an organic material that can produce music masks a lot of that cold digital feel (Again, usually but not always.)
Now to expound upon this, a digital audio file NOT pressed to CD has the ability to compete with the quality and warm/organic nature of vinyl depending on the sample rate recorded at. At a high enough sample rate the digital reproduction and organic reproduction become almost indistinguishable - Like taking that picture of your hand and replacing it with a 4K picture.
As intriguing as it may be, negative harmony is extremely cerebral! I almost feel one must be of an elite class of trained musician to be able to hang in a conversation on this!! Haha...my brain is twisting :D
Heard the CSO play The Unanswered Question live. It was awesome.