Does music need an audience? | Q+A
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2024
- Also, why is bass mixed so low in contemporary pop, my thoughts on Juilian Lage, and polytempo!
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Peace,
Adam
Muahaha I control Adam’s content now
4 Producers 1 Sample -> Sungazer's Dream of Mahjong would be really cool
@@VictorCaldo ua-cam.com/video/Kaq8VPpFt4c/v-deo.html
@MomoTheBellyDancer ua-cam.com/video/Kaq8VPpFt4c/v-deo.html
@death hand studios ua-cam.com/video/Kaq8VPpFt4c/v-deo.html
@death hand studios hey i know you you're in a bunch of mr bungle comment sections
My bank account says yes my music needs an audience
Facts
Preach it. PREACH. IT.
Sky Taylor thank you!
oof
Sameee
Music without an audience is basically most local band gigs.
They often have audience. Like 10-15 people (most of them friends) go on this gigs)
@@KinoKonformist There's people in the room but they aint listening lol
Shout out to my mom! Woo!
No, seriously, mom, could you get me a beer? Love you!
@@onkelpappkov2666 my mom never came to my gigs
@@bacicinvatteneaca :(
Adam Neely: Do you need an audience?
Literally 99.9% of composers: Shit, I cant even get a virtual audience ;-;
Calling me out I see
@@bassoonplatoon3146 ooof
Lol for real man it's impossible
My music never has an audience, and that's a good thing
I like the sound of wind turbines (although I've only heard one up close just the once)
Amen to that brother
just call your music "experimental" and you'll get an audience that thinks you're better than everyone else and anyone who doesn't get it is basic
Lol same
I think I saw you at my last performance. You're a big fan, right?
Andrew Huang asking Adam a question, my life is complete
Mine too!
Now Andrew needs to make a beat out of his answer
His question was amazing.
@@manan-543 completely
@@certifiedpossum8655 hell yeah
That's a terribly interesting question. Asking that question is like asking "Does language need to be between two or more people?"
In Arabic classical music, absolutely. The audience is part of the performance. If you were to search up any of the songs of the greatest Arab classical singers (namely, Umm Kulthum, Abdel-Halim Hafez, Fairouz, etc.) you'd notice that each of the videos on UA-cam for just one song have differing lengths---that is because the singer and orchestra depend on the reaction of the audience to see what phrases and sections of the song to repeat and how many times.
When I first got into arab classical music I was a bit confused by how so many of the recordings feature people talking in the background, cheering, clapping along and etc, and also how much songs changed performance to performance, at first I thought this was due to low fi and improvised recordings but eventually I understood that it's the way it's meant to be!
Do you have any links or sources so I can learn more about that? I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but you've piqued my attention!
I talk to myself frequently, so I don't see the problem presented by that simile.
@@tane4652 It's a bit like live Jazz really, where people will "Woo" you if you do a great lick or something
Once attended a workshop with Indian classical musicians - they blew my noodle. 96 scales commonly used in each key.
Adam: We don't have any other way of describing our thoughts and feelings about music unless we use words like...
*Ad plays*
*skips ad after 5 seconds*
Adam: T H I C C
Haha you too? I got ‘unless we use words like CHARMIN ULTRA SOFT is...’
Great moment for an ad, really.
Thanks autocorrect for ruining my 15 seconds of glory
It had ti do it.
Press F ti pay respect in chat
@@ivinnyy when english isn't your first language yes it does ahahah
Read this right as the question game up
(Watching jazz performance) Astronaut: “Wait, there’s no audience.” Other astronaut pointing gun at him: “Never was one.”
*gunshot*
Gavin O'Connor wait, thats not on the script
My boyyyyyyy Nate made it into an Adam Neely video haha 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
"I'm a musician, not an audio file" - Adam Neely 2020
I read this differently lol
🤣🤣🤣
r/misquote
r/technicallycorrect
I might be wooooshed, but he said "audiophile" - a lover of audio.
Andrew's Question is basically my Music Career
[Y] SAME
Yeah, I had pretty much the same thought
Samuel Endicott i mean they're both big music youtubers hahahaha
It's honestly pretty close to home, for sure.
tired: turning down bass guitar to make room in the mix for the kick
wired: tuning the fundamental of the kick to the sub of the bassline
inspired: the bass IS the kick
2 days too late
808 day is everyday
@@theaddictofgaming9174 YEP
I’m not a pro, just play for fun, but “tight” is when everything clicks, all the parts just slide into each other and it feels complete.
Thats a very subjective answer to "what is tightness". Adam was trying to give the most objective and logical answer.
When your performance reminds a nuns pus...
well I'm not sure about that, lots of music that mamy people would describe as "loose" (mostly genres such as jazz, soul, etc.) still feels very complete, and definitely doesn't feel tight
just my take tho idk
It's all subjective. To some, it just means "good." To others it means "in sync." In my mind it means the transients (the start of the notes) of multiple instruments align. If two notes play within like around 20-30ms or less of each other, we can't help but percieve sounds as occurring at the same time so they could be described as "tight." An example would be a song is being played and there's a fast syncopated 32nd note riff that everyone plays. If everyone plays it exactly at the same time, it sounds "tight." If someone is slightly ahead or behind the rest of the band, it sounds totally different. Sometimes this is an aesthetic choice, and is not always an indicator of skill or musicianship, but it often is easy to notice if someone in the band isn't "tight" with the drummer for example.
@@shahafshavit1114 But he didn't answer it, he said what it wasn't.
Gotta love ad timing sometimes.
'Unless we use words like-'
'BIG TV BUNDLE!'
“Unless we use words like” “EMAIL”
Mine was "Unless we use words like- 'OOOOOOOHHHH YYEEEeeeaaa.. that's the stuff'" it was a salsa commercial
‘Are you still using your same old play along app??’
Regarding audiophiles versus musicians:
When I was in high school in the 90s I read a book titled "Hi-Fi" about the history of audio reproduction. ( I don't remember the author or publishing date but this book predated CDs.) The author suggested that musicians weren't usually into hi-fi because the sound of a live performance that audiophiles are always chasing is the sound that musicians live with in their daily lives, and thus any audio reproduction equipment, even the best of the best, will sound inferior to a musician's ears.
It makes sense. I'm much more of a music consumer than I am a music maker, though I do compose a little bit. I live with two people who are live performers and I'm definitely the audio geek of the house. While on movie nights they are content to listen through the TV's built-in speakers, I always make sure our sound system is cranked up and ready to go.
"432 Hz" as A440 plays. Brilliant. And I'm proud of myself for noticing immediately!
weird I heard 439.7 Hz, maybe I had the volume up too loud.
Ok it wasn't just me
Edit: Come to think of it, Adam usually doesn't play 432 when he says he is so I should've just trusted my ears
I thought it was weird that it didn't sound flat!
“I’m a musician and not an audiophile”. FINALLY someone says it. I’ve had audiophiles who drive me nuts about the quality of Spotify. I don’t give a shit. I want to listen to music. The compression isn’t enough for me to notice. It’s not like an SD UA-cam video.
He said audio file you idiot
It's so relieving to hear that it's not just paranoia when you're at a loud concert and the music drops a quarter tone when you put earplugs in! Wondered about it for a while and never found any satisfying answers on the goog. Thanks for another great video Adam!
hearing a popular radio song in the car from the back seat on a low volume, knowing the song, singing along until it gets louder and hearing you where singing completely, but equally, off-key was really strange
Ive never experienced any of this... Weird...
@@MacetazzOpina you could try and play a random (not chosen specifically by you) song at low volume and white noise at the same time. it's kinda like a sound illusion so it might suddenly be apparent or flip and sound normal. I had it happen 3 times max. maybe yr ears are too good 😋
@@ColossalZonko im an audio engineer and have been doing music production since very young, maybe you guys are talking of resonance and ive learned to hear it differently? Idk
@@MacetazzOpina it's really more of a musical thing and makes it sound like different bass or chords are being played, the vocals usually sound normal.
I don't think it's a audio thing as much as it is a brain interpretation thing? of course no expert in any audio or music way, just trying to explain my expierience with it as best as I can.
I like to think music doesn't have a moment without an audience; it is only simply playing to ourselves...
Indeed
In my case it's the opposite, I don't need an audience, but any listener is an extra benefit lol. (It's also a good way to avoid disappointment when nobody listens, instead, one listener is extra)
But then you are the audience
The Mario Kart lick easily is one of the best representations of joy of playing music
@Anne O'Nymous ...they hire real composers??
the lick is literally played by a jazz musician, duh
ngl you sound like those ignorant people who think video games are nothing but space invaders
It's interesting to note that even technical musical terms almost always rely on words which describe a different sensory phenomena. High or low pitched is a spatial metaphor. Bright or dark timbre is visual. Even the theories of tension and release that describe tonal music rely on the fact we understand how tension and release feels. The only difference to me is that the meaning of certain words are formalised, more widely used, and their meanings more precisely defined.
Sometimes used for describing taste as well, but that doesn’t seem as formalised...
There's this really interesting book called Atmospheres by german philosopher Gernot Böhme, in which this phenomenon plays a huge role. Basically a part of his theory about aesthetics is, that these feelings or "atmospheres" like "thicc", "dark", "bright" etc are in fact not bound to specific senses. They are just more likely to appear in those sensory contexts you are most familiar with the terms describing the feeling. But they affect you and your mood in a similar way, which is why you naturally tend to use those words to describe your feelings about something, even if it's not technically correct.
For example the use of "high" or "low" to describe notes could be explained technically by measuring the frequency of the note, but "fast" or "slow" notes would be equally correct from a physical point of view. And yet it doesn't feel right. Ancient Greeks actually didn't use "high" or "low" to describe pitch, they used words like "spiky" and "voluminous", which, at least to me, feels also pretty appropriate.
Me to audience. "I've suffered a long time for my music. Now it's your turn." Bill
👏👄 !
I never heard that reason to mix quietly, I always thought we did it because everything just sounds punchier at higher volumes, and if you get it to sound good quiet, it sounds amazing when loud. Playing it loud not only is hard on your ears but it's almost like cheating yourself.
i also thought this too, i’ve never heard anyone say this... gotta keep those ears fresh :)
We used to switch to larger studio monitors every 3 hrs or so. A bit like driving in town, then on a race track.
I agree. I don't think many engineers mix quietly because of the pitch effect. I think Adam is wrong on that but I could be the one in the wrong.
Listening fatigue is also a factor. Comes faster if you play loud or are tired.
Love the take on BASS
You here too dude?
One of the most interesting things about commercial audio engineering is the low end problem: how to balance the kick and the bass?
I think two interesting solutions to this issue are Drake's God's Plan and Bruno Mars Uptown Funk.
In God's plan the kick contains a lot of sub (35 hz or less) in it, and has a prominent fundamental in the 70-80 hz range. The Eq of the kick has brought down the frequencies in between. The bass (not a bass guitar sadly) then fills the space in between mostly sticking to the notes A1 and B1. And it works well, a big powerful kick and and a big bass.
In Uptown Funk the kick is again quite prominent with a fundamental around 70-80 hz. However unlike gods plan it doesn't have any sub. Instead the bass guitar (5-string) gets to dominate the sub and low end. This is what I'd probably use as a reference for modern pop mixing with a bass guitar.
Of course sometimes the engineer doesn't seem to care about avoiding mud. An example is Billie Ellish's everything i wanted which has a muffled muddy kick drum. When the deep bass joins in on the chorus the low end just becomes a mess.
According to The Neely Continuum of Meme Expense¹ memes exist on a spectrum of cheap, involving little work (colloquially "low-effort" memes), to expensive; with high time-demand and/or extraordinary dedication and talent. The Neely Continuum of Meme Expense (NCME) is distinct from raw meme quality, meaning the scale can be universally applied within a value-free matrix of factors in understanding the proliferation of memes. For example, a high-expense meme requires a commensurately laden transmission vector, i.e, talent/practice. Whereas cheap memes are easy to reproduce, often using templates to increase ease of reproduction, thus only requiring the use of basic image manipulation software ("Is this a pigeon?"). The intuitive nature of the NCME lends it considerable face-validity and convenience of use, though it is unclear if the inherent flexibility of the NCME renders it unamenable to transposition onto a standardised quantitative format. Critics have argued that reproducibility is distinct from the original creative process owing to characteristics of medium - a video can be shared in seconds regardless of the time it took to film, and accordingly the NCME is merely a description of the distinct composition process and has little use in determining the actual dispersion of the meme 𝘪𝘱𝘴𝘰 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘰². Nevertheless, while critics seek to deracinate the meme-product from the context of its inception, few would extend a strong version of meme-realism theory so far as to deny the impact of authorship on the consequent popularity of the meme-product.
[1] - Neely, A.(2020). This video. UA-cam, 12:00 - 12:25.
[2] - Doe, J. (2020). Thesaurus abuse. Verbose Meretricious Ostentation, 23(5), 314-324.
Surely the greatest comment on UA-cam
Whenever Jazzman does a Q&A, I squee
What about when he is testifying?
I squee😂
adam when you played an a=432 frequency i felt my third eye open and my chakras felt aligned. thank you for making my day complete, sir.
leave this at 432 likes boys c’mon
He didn't mention what note it was. It could have been a raised G#. ;)
it’s played through bad frequencies
pretty sure that was a lowered Bb
pretty sure it was 440 Hz... we've been bamboozled
@@MrTryagen yeah i think so too
Julian Lage really is something else, I was lucky enough to see him live at the Jazz Estate in Milwaukee and even say Hi to him
He’s so good AND so nice!
Yeah, Julian is quite the player. Would be fun to see live for sure!
OH MY GOD HE ANSWERED MY QUESTION 😭😂
Thanks for your thoughts man!
The beatbox community is a bit of a stir with some sexual misconduct allegations, but overall the community is EXTREMELY supportive and welcoming. Maybe not on discord though lol
Your community too? So many communities getting these accusations. Great for justice but bad news to hear all the same.
@@WhatIsMyPorpoise Unfortunately yes, the 2017 American Champion has had allegations raised against him. Thankfully all of the major beatbox organizations were quick to take a very active stance against it, and changes are in the midst of happening. But still, it's terrible that it's happening at all.
Also, love your username lol
The last time I was this early has replaced "first".
The last time I was this early people still said “first”
stop repeating memes. what you said doesn't even make any sense.
@michał botor
Pretty sure you missed the point of the comment, it isn’t a “meme”, read the comment again properly.
@@michalbotor "The last time I was this early has replaced "first"." Is a perfectly sensible sentence.
fair enough. then i just don't get it then. :) i see the word play of early and first, but the whole thing speaks semantic error to me. ;p
julien lage is the man. absolute beast. i got to hear him talk at my school like 5 year ago and i voice memo'd the whole thing. still listen to it occasionally...oh yeah youre the man too adam!
As a worship/music/tech pastor this pandemic has been such a unique time. Much of what we do in church is meant to engage people who are there with us. There's supposed to be interaction - I always feel more connected when I can hear people sing with me and watch them respond. It a crazy thing to try to interact and engage with a camera in the same way you would with a congregation. It's made me appreciate those in our church more and how much they add to the Sunday morning service experience from where I stand on the platform. As we start back up with limited attendance, it's been an emotional thing as our team regains interaction with people and as people are singing together. I hope we get through this thing safely and soon. Love your channel, Adam. Thanks for providing great content.
the overlap of audiophile and musician largely exists among musicians that are producers and sound designers first more than anything. if u think of urself as a pianist with a keyboard u probably wont be but if u instead think of urself as a someone designing a piece and the keys are ur interface for the composition, yeah all the ppl like that i know are audiophiles.
I mix and produce, and I hate listening to the mixes after data compression and/or bit reduction, but that mostly applies when I hear it on my own monitor setup as most other systems reproduce a sound I am unfamiliar to begin with. My monitors are for sure fairly accurate and detailed, but also bland, unforgiving and not exactly good sounding in the general sense. But that is just the way I like it, because when they do sound, I know it's good, so they make me work harder to achieve the best result I can., and then once I done mixing an album, I generally never want to hear it again. Usually I get a few copies upon release, but I just give them away to friends or who ever wants them.
Theory re: musicians not being audiophiles: if you're playing a lot, your ears are "filling in" a lot of the stuff that's not audible or not perfectly clear, just like when you play a chord with just the fifth, third, and sixth, you're still going to "hear" the root, the ninth, and probably both the dominant and major sevenths.
It might also be because audiophiles tend to care about the minutiae of music, the pointless details that don't make the music what it is. It's like looking at a painting and enjoying the subtle overlap of the brush strokes. I am that kinda guy, who loves pointless details in visual art. Not so much in music tho, which is strange.
I like to use the word “tight” to refer to music that has good structure and organization. Like listening to a symphony that perfectly develops its themes, or a song that has verse variations and brings everything together on the last chorus. In that case, it’s “air-tight” because nothing escapes the music, everything serves some sort of purpose and it all fits together beautifully.
Competition is pretty much the only reason why i get any better, it stays friendly but it keeps me and my friends motivated. It doesnt feel like competition most of the time, but theres a sense of “oh you made something cool now i gotta go make something cool too”
I definitely think you could talk more about why audiophiles and musicians often don't overlap. I'm not a really obsessive audiophile, but do have some tendencies. But I'm also a musician and from my perspective the reason I don't always care about listening on good speakers or from vinyl or whatever is because I'm more interested in the "music itself", the choices the musicians/composers are making. And those decisions will usually come through even if it's recorded badly and won't get better no matter how nice your speakers are.
5:00 He's trolling us, it's actually 440 Hz
"because we dont have any other way of describing our thoughts and feelings and our experiences about music unless we use words like"
*hey! listen! im an ad! no! dont click me away! i jus*
"thicc"
2 years into the future, I can confidently say we have returned to the in-person form of “musicking”. Livestreaming is still very popular but it never truly took over the music performance industry
The "Super Fast Instagram Q&A" intro is such a fucking banger. I relish every second of it. Only second to the classic "Adam Neely's Bass Lessons".
I really wanted to know what's his opinion on Vulfpeck hahahahaha
I THINK he likes them? I know they have been mentioned in some earlier Q&A, if I recall correctly in positive words.
Who doesn't like Vulfpeck?
Resident musician and audiophile here: the imperfections are what I obsess over in my mixes. Probably adds far too much production time, but I really care about everything that goes into the music, even if most consumers won't even hear it on their apple earbuds.
Me too, and god is it pointless in the end. Later I come back to a song and the problem is that it was just boring and it wasn't the 8000-9000hz sharp resonance in the kick drum that I forgot to iron out.
I tend to find that those imperfections on their own don't make much difference, but they add up, so while you may not really notice them individually, it is the sum of them all that often makes a mix sound good, and that is something that is generally lost on a lot of artist when they make an album. It is true most listeners won't be able to identify the small mistakes and sloppiness here and there, but the cumulative effect of them being there all at the same time tend to register with most, even though they can't tell you why it sounds bad.
I LOVE that you touched on the sensory vocabulary that we so often rely on in music. A common hurdle I've found is when a group of players (more frequently "jammers" rather than trained musicians) each think that the same term means something entirely different - also a common theme in object-referent theory of language and mind. Not so much a problem when you encounter the sound first and then qualify it with a descriptor as a collective group, but much more difficult when you are trying to encourage a particular feel from another player and the terms you use to describe it mean something entirely different to them if they mean anything at all - depends largely on the functional vocabulary of the people involved. This communal building of cross-sensory vocabulary is often just as important as (and perhaps indistinguishable from) the building of the musical vocabulary shared among the musicians as a whole. I would also wonder if synesthesia, or the varying levels to which each person exhibits this trait, plays a part in how we choose to describe sensory input via other-sensory descriptors.
I have asked professional touring musicians "would you continue to make music if there was no such thing as an audience?". I wanted to know what their deeper motives for making music were. They had clearly not asked themselves this question before - some of them were noncommittal, vague, others became extremely aggravated & even angry at the suggestion. I asked because I had realised that I make music for myself, for my own well-being and creative satisfaction. I'm more interested in the active process of creative discovery than the product, so an audience, or a consumer-oriented system that requires an audience, becomes redundant.
During a period of clinical depression, I learned about brain function and the neurological benefits of musicmaking; from then on I approached all my musicmaking primarily as a form of brain health, a personal tool for developing my own psychology. Having also been diagnosed (at 54) as autistic, I have a better understanding of my musicmaking / recording as a process of calming and sensemaking, a medium through which I decode the chaos of life for myself. I haven't performed live for many years, create in isolation from the world, and have recorded over 40 albums of music & soundscape traversing whatever style takes my interest. I post all my recordings on Bandcamp, simply because I enjoy documenting my creative evolution.
Really, I take the same view with all 'art' - creativity is an active, transient and very intrapersonal, thinking experience, and we get in the way of it by putting it in a box as something 'other' in status.
Yes! I realized the same things about myself a long time ago. As a professional musician, it was very frustrating because my income depended on the audience, but they were not the reason I was there in the first place. And it's not as if I disliked the audience, the performance is always better with an attentive audience. And even as I say that, I don't mean that my appreciation for the audience was only because of how it benefited me, the performer, and my performance endeavor! I absolutely love it if I am able to touch other people through my music. But still, the audience isn't necessary for me.
I think I hope that there are performers/artists who are in it first and foremost to deliver an experience to the audience. That seems somehow noble and unselfish. But that will never be me, alas.
Hey Adam
Question for you're next Q&A
How would someone go about trying to arrange a song into a completely different style?
Eg: Rock into big band swing or Hip hop into Calypso.
keep up the great work.
I absolutely love how you say "modERN jAZZ" at 9:51
(and yeah I think it's just your normal voice and everything but I like it)
(bonus just for you: 12:00)
I’ve enjoyed every video I’ve seen you do. Thank you for the work you’re doing and for being such a great source of music knowledge!
beautiful to hear you talk of Julian Lage so glowingly! he's such an amazing player....
I got a perfect example of polytempo: look up the worst sweet child o mine cover on youtube.
😂 ua-cam.com/video/AcibYABRm9E/v-deo.html
toe (japanese band) is probably my favorite band that uses polytempo, but that band covering sweet child... I really enjoyed their performance lol
Igloo Igloo Toe is so good. “The book about my idle plot...” is my go-to rainy day album.
@@johnfrenette Their albums "For Long Tomorrow" and "Hear You" are probably my favorites
Well, I actually spent like 12 years of my life making music with literally nobody there to hear me... like, in every sense, because I developed depression and anxiety when I was a child and I had to fight that sh*t all by myself. Music helped me so much... and everything that I wrote was just how I tried to understand my feelings, but then I entered this loop of wanting someone to share my music with but thinking that maybe nobody ever cared because I wasn't good enough so I became more depressed and that made me write even more and so on and on and on... (and by both "caring" and "being good enough" I'm not talking only about the music itself but me as a person -- and I know it might sound dumb, but my depression really f*cked me up for so long)
It's been a while since my last depressive episodes, and I actually decided like a month ago to start uploading everything that I've written, yay. So, if you want you can maybe give it a try here on my youtube channel.
Big fan, Adam. I've been a subscriber and viewer since your djazz videos.
I know that "feeling and knowing" are two different breeds altogether, but I want to emphasize that there are more reasons for lack of interest than how good you are. Like, I could simply not give a shit on my own, regardless of a performer's ability.
I'm saying this because it's a trap thought I see often, especially on myself. My post only gets 3 upvotes, which means I didn't do it right and... no, it doesn't mean anything. And the reasons why someone dislikes your stuff are manifold and at least half dependent on the person who likes / dislikes stuff.
It's often hard to see the agency of others when you're a victim of depression. It's just that, no matter the quality of something, I'm free to hate it with and without passion.
@@onkelpappkov2666 Ugh, yes! Depression is really blinding indeed. It's been difficult to realise how my perception of so many things had been altered by it. Thank you for your reply. I've learned so many things throughout all these years that I've been trying to help others struggling with their mental health as much as I can.
Thank you again for your reply! Stay safe!
@@Eteneme Spent like 20 years on playing bass, only a year ago found my first serious band) Never thought that way. As a music nerd myself (in terms of listening tons of obscure underground stuff) and also as long time admin of metal community in VK in the past I'd say - don't even start thinking that you're not good enough because of lack of listeners. All my experience as a listener and music admin ROARS me that popularity doesn't mean quality as a music and fullness of ideas. Popularity is self-containing thing. I heard damn shitty music that is popular (especially in Russia - all popular music here is crap. I'm not a snob, it's actually crap, believe me). All that I can think of unpopular music is "hmm, let's give it a listen". Popularity is about marketing, PR and exposure on popular spots like radio, top channels etc. I heard literally masterpieces that nobody knows just because it's too unusual to pop music format or it's just different.
Just make music as YOU want to do it, you can't do better than this.
@@bxp_bass So cool! Good luck with your new band, and I'll follow you right now to see more of your videos!
@@Eteneme Thanks! And I'll follow you. :)
Audience is a nice little thing to have, but the main audience of your music is you. If you like and listen to your own music, that's a success!
BTW, nice one hand clapping. ;)
I'd say it depends on how you feel about your own music. If you write music you love hearing, and you're getting into it...bam...you're the audience!
jazzmatazz
*jazzmaztazz
I'm a musician and an audiophile. They overlap much more in tone-driven avante garde music, especially IDM
DUDE! I'm making a video about polytempo literally right now. Crazy timing! You are a scholar and a gentleman, truly.
Love the title question. A bit ago you did an interview with Zac Zinger about the shakuhachi. After a long career as a sometimes professional, sometimes part-time trombonist, I wandered away from western music performance and found the shakuhachi. I studied with a teacher for several years, and eventually arrived at a place where I love the playing of the old zen honkyoku pieces, and have no interest in the Japanese folk song (minyo) or other more musical styles like the pieces of Fukuda Rando. What I enjoy is precisely the fact that the honkyoku were never meant to be played for an audience, they are an internal exercise. That's the shakuhachi as a spiritual tool, not a musical instrument.
But it feels like I'm playing music. If you were to sneak up behind me and watch, it would look like I'm playing music. Lol, I'm so confused. Hey, my hat's off to you and everyone who are keeping on during these times. Hang in there. I love your channel.
11-EDO serial, polytempo lofi with every pitch comprised of the entirety of Giant steps to form a fractal in 6/9+pi/6 with A=432.
Why not 96-edo or 48-edo for ultimate precision? Or if we want wacky imprecise intervals in relation to just intonation, we could do any EDO from 1-10, preferably 1,3,5,7, or 9 for very wierd and highly non-musical divisions of the octave. Thoughts?
Simon Balbus-Holmquist full 1200 edo we’re going down to the cent for those juicy 1200 note clusters spanning an octave, still lofi tho
Tom Bruges hell yess I will take nothing less! What about googol-EDO or googolplex-EDO or googolplexian-edo? What about Graham’s number-EDO, or TREE (3)-EDO, or SSCG (3)-EDO? How about infinity-EDO wait that’s just a fretless instrument. Wait but if infinity is a continuum are there multiple levels of infinity-edo? Wait the continuum hypothesis can’t be proved or disproved according to the laws of math and computation. So there is and there isn’t existence of multiple different but not different infinity-EDOs. Schroedinger’s-edo I guess!
I guess the musician can be his own audience sometimes. I usually have to anyway...
I've streamed over 2000 hours of improvisational multi-instrumental music to twitch. It's one of the weirdest and most awesome experiences out there. I used to busk on the streets and live streaming feels kind of the same, but obviously different. The ability to connect individually and personally to anybody willing to bend their ear to my noise making really feels like a deeper interpersonal exchange than I ever could have predicted, considering there is no "in person" handshakes, hugs, or glances. It's a very difficult medium to figure out and I'd love to connect and share stories about my online streaming experience to anyone willing to invest the time to listen. Thanks for what you do Adam. So much respect for the way your mind works and I've been a "fan" since day 1. ~Josh
Adam, I just wanted to say you have been a massive inspiration to me and many other musicians. I am going to start studying at BIMM in Brighton, UK and just came across your masterclass, which I've just watched. I hope one day to attend a class of yours in person.
Absolute living legend! Keep it up :) Thank you Adam for being humble and willing to share your knowledge
"if you play an instrument, but you can't hear it, is it still music?" would be the better question :')
I'd say it is, just on a whole other level, and I think one has to be pretty advanced to be able to play like this correctly. You have to hear the pitches and intervals in your head which to some people can be kind of hard, and I don't blame anyone it is a hard process to learn an ability like this.
But still since you can hear it in your head it should at least in my opinion be considered music.
4:45 ish, got me wondering, why is it called "seconds"? I thought for a second, that you were talking about some musik 4th and 2nd's times.
Anyway I looked it up. Minute is the first method of breaking up an hour, and the second method is seconds.
I played a piece in high school once where the flute section all repeated the same 2 bar phrase, all at different tempos. It was supposed to represent the winds of an impending hurricane. Very cool effect.
With such philosophical questions as "Does a tree make a sound ...," one always has to first define the premises. If one defines sound as sound waves, then yes, it makes a sound (unless the tree falls in a perfect vacuum). But if one defines sound as a person hearing it, then no, the tree does not make a sound.
Health Vol 4 inner liner: "This record was conceived to be played in excess of 90 decibels. Please do your best"
Adam Neely describing music: "thicc"
Pop music has quiet bass in recent decades, go back to the 60s and it was the lead instrument. Most Motown songs you could mute everything but Jamerson and the singer and you'd still have 'the song'. I was at a wedding and they played Signed Sealed Delivered outdoors on a single crappy little PA speaker and Babbit's bassline sounded amazing. It's funny that the trend in bass tones shifted from the muddy thump to the zingy mid sound in the 70s onward, but it actually cut through the mix less because it no longer had the harmonics from the beefy tube distortion.
Whether music needs an audience is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, especially with the recent health craziness going on and bars being forced to close left and right. I've been thinking of alternate ways for musicians to make a living, as well as whether performing without an audience is a viable option. More specifically, without a LIVE audience. Thanks for taking on this question. Great content, as always!
When are you going to do UA-cam comment Q&As again?
The first observation/question: it’s even worse when it’s live and the band is waaay too loud and you can’t hear yourself lol
Arson Barn agree! I compare it to lights
If someone has blinders in your eyes you really can’t see much besides that obnoxious spectrum/frequency
Same w bands, with the exception you made
You are Your Music's audience. Anything else further is just a bonus...icing on the proverbial cake
I’m loving the direction these videos are going.
6:49 A musician sees "ti" and says "tie" what is this world and where are your solfege fundamentals?!?!?!?!
😂... yes well US people call it Eyerack, so.
I bloody hope not. As a terrible amateur musician, nobody should be forced to listen to how bad I am.
Maybe war criminals and child molesters, but even then...
It would be the holy grail for my music career ambitions (i.e. first step) if I could play without anyone listening in. (There's some awful negative feedback that I cannot compensate for.)
Cruel and unusual punishment
Haha!!
Hang in there buddy!
@a dude never done wonderwall... But I'd give that a go for that worthy cause!
@a dude That's not a just punishment. He's not gonna live much longer, and that punishment could shorten his remaining lifespan even further.
Loved every single one of those answers! So good!
I just wanna take a second to express how much you've Inspired me on my musical journey. When i first fell in love with music i loved listening, then when I started playing i fell in love again.. but both of those situations pale in comparison to the amazing feel of falling in love with the theory. thanks to people like you and Ben levin I've opened my eyes to the sheer beauty of the craft and without you guys i may have quit music a long way back because my love was fleeting.
So thank you, genuinely. music has brightened my life in ways i can't accurately express and if it weren't for your channel teaching me the theory i wouldn't have that crutch to pick me up.
10:51 JOE JOE JOE JOE JOE JOE JOE JOE
Musician here, also Audiophile. Listening to high quality studio recordings is much more fun than to listen to your band practice recorded with your phone...
I feel both ends of this spectrum deeply and you could not possibly be more correct 😂
I don't think preferring high quality studio recordings over band practices recorded on a phone makes you an audiophile, though...
@@MaggaraMarine fully agree. Was a very rough example where it starts...
7:15 to 7:30 - About the overlap between musicians and audiophiles: My uncle Roger was a fanatical music lover, going to classical concerts, operas etc. whenever he could as well as listening at home. He had pocket scores of everything he listened to; played the clarinet as a kid, but gave it up in adulthood. He could have been a conductor in a different life.
Awesome Q&A Adam! One thing to add though, actually a lot of musicians are major audiophiles! That is, mainly classical musicians and some jazz artists. We have a music label (TRPTK) run by audiophile musicians for audiophile musicians. There are things I as a mastering engineer almost can’t hear anymore but our artists hear instantly. That all said, yeah Spotify is just the easiest way to consume music...
>adam: 5:52
>me, a drummer: i agree, despicable individuals, the lot!
Sir we need that WAP reharm
While yes, also no. While I don't completely understand it (like a lot of poetry, the lyrics and the song have meanings that I don't fully grasp), part of the power of the song is in who sings it. Adam, being who he is, performing that song could contribute to reducing the power and impact of that song. So he chose not to (at least for now).
Daan Wilmer what
4:25 Mick Goodrick has a pretty damn good take on that one.
"when you're playing, at least one person is listening"
I mostly play music for myself these days,especially since I'm still a student
The entire structure of your videos, the humour, and editing are literally perfect
What’s your favorite video game soundtrack?
I like Hollow Knight a lot btw
Always wondering how Davie504 and you would do for collaboration. Two bassists with totally different style :)
BASS!
That would be...
based
I love that you have so many videos that you can reference them in your other videos
Thank you for answering my question 🙏 I really like that you gave an example of polytempo, I will check it out :)
Will there be a collab with Andrew Huang?
When I listen to music with headphones (that you plug in to the ear) and yawn, the pitch of the music changes. Why?
I'm late for an answer but anyway: The Pitch changes because of the connection between your middle ear and your mouth/nose via the auditory tube. When you're yawning the pressure inside of the tube changes, so that the air is vibrating in another frequency aka the pitch changes.
@@Cohlonn wow that's really cool!! Thank you!
Although this is rather old, when I was watching your video doing short challenges with Samurai guitarist, one of the tasks was to switch instruments. And for the first 10 seconds, I kept expecting your playing on the guitar to come out as bass and Sammy G's playing on the bass to come out as the treble part. It was a jarring experience having to rewire my expectations of who was making which sounds. I remember this being a concept you covered in your playing a backing track video and thought it was cool to see it in action.
Music is a performance art discipline. It's expressionistic and creative, especially so in live sessions there is room for improvisation so a piece can be played/heard in permutations. A recording of a piece remains static, and since music is heavily commodified, it can get boring, even irritating if it's played everywhere. Thus live playing of music is a chance for the audience to hear music that is different from what they're just to, so the same piece feels new, freshened up. There is something more magical, memorable and engaging at a live gig in my opinion. in that moment in time, with a captive audience, presumably musicians feel more appreciated and enthusiasm for their work which can be rewarding and motivating.
LOL Middle school band directors. A very patient lot. ;)
He won't talk about vulfpeck because Joe Dart is the best bass player in the age bracket
I heard he plays on a Fender electric bass guitar.
I'm guessing MonoNeon is more Adam's cup of tea.
Lmao get real. I love Vulf and Joe but that is silly and incredibly short-sighted.
@@MrBrawl it's an inside joke
Your videos are so good Adam 😤😤😤😤😤
As for the polytempo, a really cool example is in Jacob Collier's 'Dun Dun Ba Ba'. In it, he sings the main line at a slower tempo, while the percussion stay at the same tempo. It almost feels like you're running, and suddenly you have to run in water instead. Really cool stuff