He's great. ["Mad Rush" analysis (with legos)]
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- 1:47- Part One: Does Philip Glass suck?
6:34- Part Two: Maybe we should look into this binary business.
20:29- Part Three: Wait, where's the melody?
23:41- Conclusion: I was wrong about PG
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Great video! I'm thinking of showing this to my former composition professor who hates Philip Glass and minimalism in general. One note/correction: at 21:22, shouldn't that be augmentation rather than diminution?
Oh shit! Yea, it should be. Thanks for pointing that out. Kinda a very basic mistake 😳
So, now I’m remembering that I’ve always had a weird hang up confusing these two terms! I think in my head I’m like “dim- means less and the rhythms are slower, soooo…” Anyways! Thanks for pointing out the error.
@@BrianKrock No problem! I totally get the mistake, it's like "Longer notes = fewer changes per unit of time = diminution."
Have you heard the Philip Glass joke? Knock knock. Who’s there. Knock knock who’s there. Knock knock who’s there knock knock who’s there. Philip Glass
Wrong....Knock knock, who is there, Knock knock who is knock there. Knock who knock is there. Knock knock knock who who is is there there,
How many minimalists does it take to change a lightbulb? How many minimalists does it take to change a lightbulb? How many......etc etc
Glass used to have that on his website.
I hear that he worked his way through college as a bartender.
Knock knock
As a resident physician, I rotate in different hospitals, one of them is a big cancer center. The emotional, physical, and mental toll can be daunting, so luckily, there was a piano at a lounge, and I used to go and play for 20 minutes at the end of the day once all my duties are done. Everyday I'd play something different, but fairly simple that goes with my limited technical abilities.
Sometimes there is an applause, but mostly not, after all I do it to vent. One day I was playing "mad rush", I was looking down the most of the piece, and after few minutes, I look up, a patient surrounded by her two family members, weakly and slowly walking with assistance, covered with tubes and IV lines, she sat in front of me, catching her breath. She smiled as she listened to the music, as well as her family, later on thanked me for the music. It was the most important performance I've had in my life, I believe that's what Glass's music (or any good music and art) is about, simplicity, and emotional connection to other fellow humans.
Thanks for that beautiful story
Philip Glass has always brought beauty to my life in dark moments. I'm always happy to find other people with similar stories.
Thank you for being a member of the campfire of humanity. Clean water, good food, safety, medicine and art...
Honestly...what else do we really need beyond that? Everything else is a distraction, even if fun af lol
I first heard Philip Glass on CBC radio around 1981; they played The Photographer early in the morning as I was getting ready to go to school. I stopped whatever i was doing and thought, "What IS this, I have to find out more". And I have never looked back, I still play the Photographer often today, and my largest collection of CD's and albums of a single artist is Philip Glass. Koyaanisqatsi projected and accompanied live by the Philip Glass ensemble at the Roy Thompson Hall in the late 1980's....Unforgetable...one of the top five of my cinema going experiences! I got to See Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar live in Halifax. I swear the audience just held their collective breath for the entire concert, and when the music stopped, the audience just exploded with an instant ovation. That was a rush.
I've been a huge PG fan since I was a teenager, and now I'm in my mid-50's. Have been to many of his concerts over the years, and have had the opportunity to meet him at a lot of those concerts. Super cool guy. He called me at my office a while back to wish me a happy birthday. Koyaanisqatsi, The Photographer, Monsters of Grace, Akhnaten, Music in Twelve Parts, Another Look at Harmony Part 4, The Piano Etudes, Mishima, Einstein on the Beach, and much, much more!!!!
When I was a music student, I bought a CD of Philip Glass music only because I heard the name dropped a lot. I didn't expect to become so addicted and moved, and for him to eventually become one of my favorite composers. Sure, he has bad music (as do all the big names), but he has a ridiculous amount of just wonderful and mind expanding music.
Wow - I'm so happy - so glad you're now on the PG train, and that I helped this! Very interesting analysis. Bravo. Thank you Brian.
Philip Glass is my favorite living composer. Especially for Music in 12 Parts, his second piano concerto, The Photographer and Einstein on the Beach.
Metamorphosis is my favourite Glass composition. Would love to hear your take on that wonder of minimalist composition!
Unless you feel you've said enough about Philip Glass, would love a score
study of Koyaanisqatsi. Might be his most popular soundtrack, & the music works
really well with the movie for those who don't mind his style.
I would love to do that (I've listened to the soundtrack once). But man... his music requires such focus and engagement! I don't know if I'll have it in me to do something on that scale!
@@BrianKrock Full study of Einstein on the Beach, please :D
See also the opera Akhenaten
@@BrianKrocklate to the party here, but it’s really intentionally an audiovisual experience. Separating the film from the soundtrack for Koya of all films is a crime. Highly, highly reccomend
Me, having no concept of any music theory but liking this piece and Legos: I like your funny words magic man
I've always enjoyed Glass's music. My favourite is the Concerto for Sax Quartet and Orchestra.
yes the sax concerto is amazing!
I love the clever little lighting trick you did here. The light on the left side of your face and the shadow on the right. Clever boy, you.
While studying under Boulanger, Glass was working multiple daytime jobs like driving a taxi and working as a plumber. He came in one day with a completed assignment and Boulanger looked up concerned and asked "Oh no, are you ill? Do you need to go home?" He replied "No, I feel fine, why?" and she sternly pointed out multiple errors in his work...tough as nails! Haha
I'm an amateur pianist that basically only knows how to play Phillip Glass. I heard 'metamorphosis it in college and it stuck with me for years where I wanted to learn how to play it. (Sidenote: that song was perfect for learning piano because it gradually added a new difficulty element in each part). Then 'Opening', a few etudes....and then Mad Rush. It's been my favourate to play over the years, you can't help but get lost in it. It's achingly beautiful.
Mad Rush means a lot to me but I don't know any music theory, so thank you so much for your time making this video as the fresh perspective on the composition itself has been quite mindblowing.
(Sidenote 2: In classical music, Phillip glass can be misunderstood in a similar way that messhugah is in heavy metal with their emphasis on repetition, rythym, and the overarching whole)
I first heard Mad Rush and Wichita Vortex Sutra here played by Branka Parlic. I had no idea that you could get a piano to do that, nor that a person could play with that amount of speed and accuracy. Her forearms are like Popeye. Beautiful, beautiful music.
Wonderful explanation! Thank you so much :)
brilliant! I don't know how I missed this... better late than never, it´s good to have you back. Never been a big Philip Glass fan myself, though I love his string quartets.
been a couple years but I just rewatched this and I have to say with no musical theory background but a love of Philip Glass, I really appreciate your mastery of the subject to the point that you can make an accessible presentation of music theory using lego blocks and put things in terms that an intelligent layperson can understand and appreciate. To me that is the sign of true mastery of a domain. thanks again, this is really a great piece all the way around.
I came back to this video after 2 years, post-concert of Koyaanisquatsi at Mass MOcA!
I played it for my friend in our hotel room to help explain his brilliance after her virgin eyes and ears were racked by witnessing his brilliance live. Great video, thank you!
mind blower of an analysis. thank you so much
man i love your content so much!
I lack the musical vocabulary to describe what I hear in Philip Glass music, but I hear everything you mentioned.
LOVE Philip Glass. I fell in love with his music when I was at a University in the late 1980s. I first discovered his music while watching a TV special on avant garde art (I tuned into see something about Salvador Dali). They were playing the video of "Act III" from "The Photographer." They had the (now, rudimentary) spinning geometric shapes, and that, combined with the music - fast and somewhat repetitive, entranced me. At school, I was taking a music history class and heard a bit of his "Glassworks." I went to the school library, got the album, and sequestered myself in one of the listening rooms. The opening (actually called "Opening") was one of the most beautifully serene pieces I've heard. It sounded to me like rippling water, but with a melody.
You want to hear some melodies, listen to his "Metamorphosis" piano pieces, as well as some of the soundtracks. Try listening to Helen's theme from "Candyman."
I've never studied music and I know nothing of all the technical details that you mentioned, but as a fond estimator of Philip Glass and "Mad Rush" in particular (my favorite piece of all times) everything you pointed out just "made sense", I "felt" they all made sense. Thank you for helping me visualizing the sense that this piece makes to me.
Philip Glass once quipped that he had so few secrets... However, he did have one secret: to get up early and work all day... Architecting a beautiful musical language and gifting us his music. If you can hear it, you will hear it.
Mad Rush, along with In C by Terry Riley are what sold me on minimalistic "classical" music. How so much is done with so little just adds a sense of elegance and grace to beautiful, emotionally evocative music. In C is unlike any other piece I've heard and explores a world of sounds that seem so unique and interesting. Knowing the wonderfully simple, yet so creatively original way it is composed and performed elevates it to something legendary for me. Before I found pieces I enjoyed I would have assumed minimalist pieces/composition would just be boring, likely pretentious. I'd highly recommend people who make that same assumption take the time to explore the music.
Woah! I know this video is kind old but I just performed at Loud Weekend a couple weeks ago in that same room on that exact same piano. Definitely had a moment of "wait a minute why does that look so familiar?" when you showed the footage
11:53 interesting use of words considering Prophecies & Pruit Igoe were used in Watchmen when Doctor Manhattan uses his boyhood training as a clockmaker to piece himself back together..
Great video. Thanks for the hard work. It made me want to hear more of PG
Hey this is great! I have always loved Glass, big fan of minimalist stuff in general. I like house music, lol. Glassworks is a favorite of mine. I agree with your guest that the songs sort of convey all the info of why it works in an intuitive way. When you explained how he writes the melody as a triad of the underlying ostinato it made me think of the moments in glassworks where that happens and you just feel it opening up or reaching it's inevitable conclusion or something like that.
i'd like to consider myself a Philip Glass aficionado, but wow I learned a lot about my favourite piece that ive been playing for 4 years.
i would push back slightly on the no melody until the D.S al fine, however. At the section of music at bar 53, there is "hidden notation" starting at as you would describe figure A (alt), both hands accent (or play slightly louder) the top note of the left hand and bottom note of the right hand in the repeating phrase. looking at the sheet music, it is not apparent that this section contains melody, but when listening to people performing the piece, it is apparent there is a pseudo/hidden melody taking place.
Marvelous video on a time honored piece. I have always loved PG and got Mad Rush as a promo for the Soho News back in the day. I would go see PG in small venues do maddeningly fast keyboard races, often with Richard Landry on solo sax do equally bombastic solos. You should tackle Robert Fripp's froppertonics next.
8:50
You could say there's three tonal centers in the first chord because the third and fifth are emphasized by repetition instead of melting into the F chord, but in the second A chord, it now resolves to only two tonal centers, the usual ones in a minor chord (a and c). The special texture is from us hearing these multiple tonal centers at the same time when they otherwise melt into one tonic.
10:47 now, the second part has three tonal centers again, by the addition of a repeating e (a c e)
I did a similar thing when I was practising Knee play number 4 on the piano - I had difficulty remembering the parts so I called each part by a letter like A and B and so on and wrote the times it was repeated and through that I discovered how clear the structure actually was.
I remember back when youtube was new and I used to listen to mad rush. Then sony pictures got all possessive when they brought him in for that movie Hours. A lot of glass videos got taken down. Of course all the music came back but some of the more unique recordings never found their way back.
Great video. Thanks. I’ve loved PG since high school but still don’t know why. You helped!
I think it is fractal music most of the time. The same theme, but small changes upon that theme. Not binary, but fractals. Whatever it is, it is beautiful to my ears.
Wow, the Lego bricks are an inspired way to think about this music.
Really enjoyed this video, thanks. Impressed how passionately you can argue in favour of Glass’s music as a recent convert too.
I always loved this piece but you just blew me out of the water here.. mind blown
Akhenaten is my favorite opera but my fiancé, who loves trad opera HATES IT with a passion. I also love the theme to Candyman and I think Glass should compose more for horror, sci fi and fantasy. He also created music for Universal’s Dracula but it’s never been released with the Glass soundtrack edited in. There was a fan edit of it on UA-cam but it got taken down before I could rip it.
I played 'Mad Rush' at a college recital about 15 years ago. It lasted over fourteen minutes. It was a workout making it expressive the whole time. This is a pretty good analysis. It's definitely not meant to be played exactly as written.
Super cool vid!!
Fantastic video as always Brian!
Such a fun video (as a rabid PG fan), that I've watched probably 5 or 6 times now. At 12:47 (m. 22-23), isn't the melody actually F G F? (not F G A) I feel like that dramatically changes the feeling, giving a sense of resolution, rather than ascending/building. I don't think that would change your overall structural analysis, but that struck me as something that didn't quite jibe with how I feel the piece. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Unbelievable! You know, all composers i love but my favorites are Glass, Bach and Shostakovich. Half 1 hour before i saw your video i explained to my wife the musical connection by these 3. I explained to her having a box of Lego and what they do with less bricks. Thanks for your excellent explanation.
Wonderful analysis! Gives me a new appreciation of the piece which, I must admit, is one of my least favorite of Glass's works. I came to him in the late 1970s through a friend who handed me his LP of the original Einstein on the Beach, saying "This guy is the future of music." I put off listening to it literally for months thinking, "Oh, great. A whole three hours of academic gray." Then this same friend invited me to join him listening to the first radio broadcast of Glass's Violin Concerto #1. I was hooked. I binged on Einstein for weeks.
I’m quite a fan of Phil’s work. Especially a few of his works from Aguas da Amazonia.
I’m glad you’re getting into minimalism, and I’d like you to do a video on Steve Reich at some point.
Great video as always Brian. Big fan of Philip glass but I can of course understand why many might not be. I’m surprised your guest in the beginning did not mention the influence of Steve Reich. While Ravi Shankar was an influence it wasn’t until he heard Steve Reich’s music that he started composing in a minimalist style. You can hear the influence of a Reich composition like piano phase in early Philip glass pieces. Reich was influenced by terry rileys in c which I’m sure Philip glass was as well.
good visual design, really highlights the idea of variation
I had the chance to hear Philip Glass play Mad Rush at the Hay-on-Wye literature festival in 2013 or 2014 ... He was in his mid seventies already, so the performance wasn't 100% accurate but exactly that made the piece sound that small bit more chaotic. I'm not sure I even enjoyed it more that the studio versions.
Excellent....& Welcome!
Really good analysis of Glass' work. It’s great to see people noticing that his output is incredibly intentional, as much as it seems repetitive.
Mad Rush was my gateway drug to Glass. His writing embeds so much Eastern philosophy, elements like change and metamorphosis, and meditation and stillness.
I am a biologist a neuroscientist. I don’t know music but I know it. Music is life, I can’t read it but i can hear it and live it. Philip Glass is the sound track of my life. I saw him at the Lincoln center in NY. It was awesome. At the end of the show I was crossing the street right in front the Lincoln and he took the cab I was about to take… he stole my taxi! Regarding the music is my favorite composer… again I only live music, im not a musician….but PG music is universal and huge and organic like a pattern of neurons understanding it self.
Instant sub. Fantastic vid
I always laugh at the haters, which recently caused me some serious pain. I was in a composition class and we had a visiting professor, a guy who’s a solid Hollywood B Lister (who thinks he’s an A Lister). The more he derided Glass, the louder I laughed. When I could catch my breath, I said “Two things: his string quartets, and the score to “The Hours.” “
At the end of the day I was never going to impress this guy anyway, Glass is a great composer who will be performed a hundred years from now, and oh yeah; Glass has a wonderfully broad array of work for film, opera, stage production and of course all those “real” compositions to his name. Amen!
I would love to hear your take on the 2 pieces of music created by Van Dyke Parks and Daniel Johns (Silverchair)- Tuna in the Brine, and Across the Night.
Songs found on Diorama, Silverchairs 4th album.
It’s worth mentioning that I heard a Buddhist teacher recently say that the Wrathful Deities are not harmful or angry Deities. They are to be seen as loving parents who need to discipline their children in order to show their love. For what that’s worth; it would be part of the context that Glass, a Buddhist, brings to this composition
Another great video!
Thanks :)
He is super influential and super important. Legend
hey man, great video and also love the flute version of the song you made in the background. do you have that isolated audio track somwhere?
Listen to the final part of his opera: Satyagraha. The melody is so beautiful……..
I have always liked Philip Glass starting from 80's. Of cause he has he's hallmark melody which never changes, but if it gives you feelings then that is good.
Speaking of minimal, repetitive music, what do you think of Sunn O)))? I'd recommend checking out their "Monoliths and Dimensions" album, since it contains some horn sections, too.
Dude, I LOVE Sunn O)))!
Thank god. I always thought this, but didn't know why
Thanks a bunch , he's my favorite composer and few understand why. This is why, the architecture
Anyone know which program / website he uses for the lego brick stuff?
As a composer I'd really like to use that to build my musical structures before actually starting to compose.
It looks cool and I want to try it.
People mainly hate Glass when they have to play it lol
His music is the hermeneutic circle
I discovered Philip Glass because his nephew would play parts of Mishima on his podcast and it really gave me chills when associated to the sad stories they were telling at the time. That got me to watch Mishima and I was completely captivated. Wow. Then I learned about minimalism and I loved the concept of the idea. I listened to a lot more of his pieces and found them to be hit-and-miss. Not that I think they're bad, just that they don't all speak to me. And that's okay.
Thank you for your analysis. I'm really enjoying it. I've had a hard time trying to articulate why such a repetitive, surficially simple composition can have such depth.
Furthermore, I'm going to say something that may be flatly wrong, but it's something I see. I'm a complete beginner with almost no music theory background. A lot of Glass' pieces loosely remind me of something I experienced in Chopin's prelude (28,4) where almost the entire piece sounds like you're.. not at home. You didn't start at home. You're already out of your home, lost, wandering... and then right near the very end (measure 21) there's a sudden... you've arrived and returned home. It's what gives me chills when I play (terribly) the prelude... I see myself wandering dark, rainy alleyways of some 1800s European city and then I finally find the Inn. Glass makes me feel the same.
Ahhh I'm seeing patterns! In "Mishima: Closing" (for string quartet, arranged for solo piano) there's this somewhat "injected" triplet in bar 13 that plays a similar role to those duples you're pointing out. It slightly deviates from the established pattern of triples ascending and descending. And there's also that occasionally placed note, just a semitone off from the established pattern. These little details would be completely lost in a piece that wasn't so... minimal.
Amazing video!
Huge fan of Glass and minimalism in general.
I have loved Phillip Glass since I first heard the Sesame St animation he did when I was probably 3 years old…
You may not dig him, you may not like him, but you gotta respect him because he is a pioneer in modern music. Every pioneer deserves utmost respect.
Great analysis! I had the opportunity to see Glass perform this live when I was in college (coincidentally as part of a recital accompanying a visit to my university by the Dalai Lama). He played it for a few minutes longer than the official score calls for, and I remember recognizing (in between falling in and out of this really intense half-waking state, seriously one of the most meditative/spiritual musical experience I'd had up to that point) that it seemed to be constructed modularly, but I never really took the time to investigate how that might work out, so I appreciate seeing it laid out like this!
I saw him in 1976 at the Roxy in L.A. Haven't been the same since.
Mad Rush is the quintessential Philip Glass piece. In a few minutes it gives a good insight into what the rest of his corpus is all about.
there's something very primal about this repetitive music
you wanna dance around a big rock or a fire to it lol
This is very interesting!
Actually. I have always pictured Lego bricks when I think of Glass' music. That and wheels within wheels.
Nice idea with the legos
Brilliant.
Underrated video.
You are so underrated... It's sad.
Gracias por el video. Amo "Mad rush" y "Etude 2".
Hey man, awesome video !! Any way to read Nathan's paper on Glass ?
Is the woodwind rendition going to be released? I can only listen to this orchestration now 🙉
I played a concert of Glass, and a knowledgeable audience member said "It was like I was constantly waiting for a tonic or resolution, it never resolves" and I couldnt help but think that Glass should not be analyzed by the kind of Western Theory you find at universities. I would call it 'Post-Harmony'... a new kind of harmony that, while relating to traditional harmony loosely, exists in a world after all of the 2nd viennese experiments. He has his own personal and unique harmony, and traditional harmonic analysis falls short
I know this is way late, and a bit pedantic, but as a Lego fan myself, the plural of Lego is actually Lego..lol.
I am a minimalist. Let me give you my interpretation.
You're getting somewhere with the Lego representation; binary codings are actually the root of all things. But to label the elements of the binary codes, is wrong.
The little identifiable musical sections are combinations of traits. The traits are themselves. Theoretical analyses of these traits are always wrong, because the analysis necessarily departs from being the notes themselves. The song is the only thing that can demonstrate the traits, because it *is* the traits.
Every word of "A minor triad in first inversion" is a fake concept. A=fake. Minor=fake. Triad=fake. And so on. The point of minimalism is to subtract everything that's unnecessary, and then, left with only the minimal blocks, one can begin to see the true form of the majiscule.
In a sense, Mad Rush - like all other Philip Glass songs - is a sequence of numbers which are individually constituted of whatever digits Philip Glass decided to exist. But I'll go even further in my minimalistic interpretation and present an even smaller thesis:
Mad Rush is, and is about, *otherness*.
Watch Leonhard Bernstein's lecture series "The Unanswered Question" and get ready for your mind to be blown.
After Mad Rush, my favorite song ever is "Ontario Plates" by Do Make Say Think, a sort of post-jazz gig. It's also got a minimalistic bent. I've never been able to make a harmonic analysis; feel like giving it a try?
Repetition with difference exemplifies Glass
Can you please help me understand what what bozan Gorisek does here at 5:17-18? Is the dissonance in the score in the score or added by the performer? I don’t hear it in other performances of Mad Rush. ua-cam.com/video/ZLH69o9g6R0/v-deo.htmlsi=yCiLbGug8duWiNL2
Koyaanisqatsi is one of Philip’s finest in my eyes, to my ears? In my opinion.
If one doesn't get PG, then they need to plug-in their earbuds or headphones or whatever and listen to any piece in the middle of the night with no distractions, no light, no other sounds than perhaps the quiet susurations of their sleeping spouse. The notes will appear suspended in layers, in mid air, so nearly physical as to be touchable.
I love Mad Rush and his Etudes.
Just letting you know. I'm too old to learn about "irrational" time signatures ;} I would have used 7/8 for part of this ;}..
I'm a Steve Reich man, myself
11:00 I basically lost interest when you felt the need to put a drum beat in the background. I mean, why?
😂 it's a remix dear
Fun analysis. Why the goofy rhythm machine in the background? You dont need this gimick.
I consider "Einstein On The Beach" to be one of most outstanding masterpieces of the 20th century. I first heard it on the radio and it simply blew me away and I had to get a copy of the LP set ASAP. I then followed him slavishly up until the mid-80s when I became aware that he was simply repeating the same harmonic formulae over and over again and was stuck in a rut. I tune in sometimes to see whether he's evolved beyond it but as soon as the chugga chugga chugga starts I am out of there. I found the 9th Symphony impressive however. Its one of those cases where I feel success ruined somebody and I hope he has kept up with the experimental side privately.
I kind of agree - I really like Glass but if he has any faults it's that he's too industrious cause for every Masterpiece that he has written there are always a few that do the same thing in a less interesting way - I have around 50 CD's by Glass and I notice that I mostly listen to about a third of them.
symphony no 8 is magnificent, if you haven't come across it before.
irrational time signatures is in no way easier...