If anyone is curious about why contemporary Christian music is so bland, I'm gonna ramble on that for a bit. There are two main reasons I think: The first is how modern Christian music is marketed on a corporate level. My music business professor used to work for Sony and was in charge of their Christian music output. I also worked for a Christian radio station for a bit. They both market the music very similarly. Christian music is like regular popular music except that the target demographic is much smaller and more specific. They are not marketing just toward Christians. They are marketing toward White Christian mothers living in the suburbs between the ages of 30 and 45 who have 2 to 5 children between the ages of 5 and 15. So the goal of Christian music is either to sanitize what is currently popular enough that the mother approves or to sound like what was popular when the mother was a teenager. This is why there are so many bands that are just the Christian version of secular bands and why Christian music sometimes feels sonically about a decade behind. So there might be a lot of very weird, experimental, cool Christian artists out there, but it is in their best interest to not market themselves as Christian because they will not be appealing to that demographic of mothers. This gives contemporary Christian music its homogeny. Now there are smaller sub-markets within Christian music. There used to be a huge market for Christian hardcore, metalcore, and punk because a lot of Christian youths were very bored by the CCM their mothers listened to but weren't willing to be completely "rebellious" and delve into sometimes very anti-religious hardcore music. But even these need to be somewhat sanitized for the main demographic of mothers to tolerate them. The second main reason that Contemporary Christian music is so bland and soulless is praise music. Praise music is CCM that is meant to be played and sung along with at church. Because you want everyone to be able to sing along, the songs are generally in a key range that's easy to sing with a simple melody. The words have to be pretty simple and easy to sing too. Someone who has never heard the song and has no musical training should be able to sing on the chorus the second time through. In addition, the songs need to be relatively easy to replicate by anyone with an acoustic guitar or piano because many churches only have that. Soloing is frowned upon because of its flashiness and focus on the self when the song is meant to focus on God. The song's lyrics also need to have good theology. This results in the lyrics staying pretty vague generally and not taking much artistic license in describing God, for fear of pissing off one denomination or another. A good example of this is my worship pastor friend who refuses to play a song because of a line "Holy Spirit you are welcomed here, come flood this place and fill the atmosphere" because "the Holy Spirit is already here and we are meant only to affirm it, not to welcome it as if it were a vampire at the door asking to come in!" This results in most worship pastors having a very small pool of songs they approve of to pull from. Additionally, The singer in praise music must be significantly more prominent so they can be heard above all instrumentation and audience singing along. Mixes for recorded Praise music follow suit and mix their vocals as cleanly and clearly as possible. Sonically, Praise Music sticks to basic rock band instrumentation because that is what most people have access to. Instrumentalists are encouraged to see themselves as background music to the singers who are really leading worship. So writers of praise music are encouraged to be simple in song structure, in melody, and in lyrics. Musicians playing praise music are encouraged to lay back, to blend in, and not stand out or else distract from the singer leading worship. All of this culminates in a sound that is rather boring to anyone not invested in the worship aspect of the music and even to many who are invested.
I'm actually very happy with the answer on Fantano. I guess it's natural that a bald man who plays bass has a mutual respect for another bald man who plays bass.
As a female musician, what you said here is so true. Proportionally, my channel is so small and yet if I have any sort of opinion OR talk about things in a more “emotional” or “feminine” way, the hate just rushes in. I don’t know how many times I’ve had things explained to me and it’s so utterly frustrating. Also, I feel that because of my gender I am held to a much higher standard on UA-cam, because if I make a video I better be a somewhat content expert because they will tear every little mistake down, even if I just used a different synonym or something. Anyway, it’s nice to hear others talking about it. Cheers!
Your attitude towards your mistakes and your haters determine a large portion of your success. It's not like male musicians don't get any hate and are allowed to make mistakes, especially not in today's world where males are reduced more on more on mainstream, but more so that most males don't think about their gender too much and don't have so many other labels that I'm only seeing in females. Anyway goodluck.
@@roundabout468 nope. Actually I've a very wholesome view cuz I believe in multiple truths. Yes some of what she says is true but that doesn't mean women shouldn't assume any responsibility for anything. That would be childish.
Hey Adam, often times when I write a motif, melody, etc. for a song, i have the suspicion that I have unknowingly and subconsciously stolen that motif from a piece of music i've previously heard. Do you ever have this feeling when you write? Is this something I should really be worried about?
I get this feeling too, especially when I'm showing a newly finished song to someone for the first time. I remember learning in school that most harmony and rhythms are much harder to prove that they are copyrighted. And a sung melody and lyrics are much more dangerous territory if you're worried about stealing. Adam, do you know if that's true?
If you feel like you've heard a piece of music you're writing somewhere before, it most likely means it's because that's exactly the case. I don't remember the source, but there has been research done into what you are describing, and it has to do with the way our brains remembers things. Besides that, most music is made from musicians borrowing from each other. We're all influenced by someone, and it's only natural that we try to emulate them even if we do so unconsciously, and a little too closely in some cases.
If it makes you feel better, Michael League (of Snarky Puppy) said in an interview (I think a Jazz Night in America interview) that he believes all music that you write is a accumulation and combination of things you've heard before. It's like that thing where they say nothing is truly original unless you go back all the way to Gilgamesh. So I guess the concern here is not to be totally original, but rather just study and learn so much that whatever you rehash will sound new?
Everybody who writes music also listens to it. You just get that feeling because you were influenced by it. Most songs you will write are originals, but they will have a similar "style" compared to the band/genre you usually listen to.
Hey Adam What's the most difficult/complex aspect of music theory you've come across. The peak of music complexity. Something to blow our minds. Keep doing what your doing
As a linguistics student, I absolutely loved your answer on that saxophone question. The reason why I subscribed to your channel and your patreon was your understanding of the link between music and language in the first place and you still refer to it sometimes. Also choosing Dothraki as the other language was smart.
Im a christian bassist. Contemporary christian music is one of the worst styles of music from a compositional standpoint... I can't stand playing it T-T
I'm a Christian drummer and I can relate to your struggle man. :) I always try throwing in little tasty things just to spice it up. Even if nobody in the audience notices, I'm sure somebody in the band will. And sometimes, I just have to try and enjoy the simplicity of this music, the fact that most of the songs are the same tempo and chord progression, even though I'd rather be playing something more 'interesting'.
Yeah. Whenever the team complains about how boring it is we always get "it's not about the music it's about the worship." That is entirely true, and it also has literally nothing to do with how fun the music is to play. Id argue that more technical music can be more worshipful... But I guess a lot of team members only have a bass understanding of music so.....
Guitarist. Same hate for playing the same inane progressions over and over again. Very rarely do I get to play a song where I actually have to /do/ anything, so I usually end up composing (a stretch to describe it this way, but it’s more deliberate than improvisation) something that borrows from another part ot something. And I really that the “it’s not about the music, it’s about the worship” attitude that many contemporary churches have. I completely understand that worship is, first and foremost, to God, but I also understand that I want to give him my best when I perform. I want to sing my best. I want to play my best. Not because I want to show off, but because I enjoy what I do and any less than my best is just a crying shame for me, those listening to me, and to God most importantly of all. The very fact that worship is to God should mean i’m more driven to play my best and ensure the whole team is learning and giving it their best. What I would give to have the ability and chance to play something like Lincoln Brewster’s “Let Your Glory Shine” in church, or to play a song that had as much technical character as my desire to play music in the first place.
I personally think the worst thing about CCM is that every single song is a song trying to express unique and passionate love for a loving, amazing God... in the form of a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus pop song. It's very ironic (and worldly) that an infinite God is squeezed into a very basic formula and it shows how vain and money-hungry the whole "worship industry" is. Also, constantly going to the tonic is the cheapest way to write music. If I had a dollar for every 1 4 5 1 chord progression I've played...
Fun Fact: Felix Mendelssohn's sister was also a composer, but she had to drop it after criticism for being female. However, Felix was an amazing brother and he sometimes published some of her works underneath his name to get her music out there.
Not really Felix was known to talk about the feminine inability for composition in regards to his sister and even went to far as to encourage her to quit. You may be thinking of her husband that helped her publish music.
I'm flattered. thanks for sharing. the username is an old gamer tag. I understand where you are coming from. you were very kind in your response. keep up the good content. ciao
The byzantine scale that you mentioned in the beginning is actually a very popular scale in Indian classical music, especially South Indian music, all of which is entirely modal in its purest forms, so that might be the reason that the particular triad is weird to explain from a musical theory standpoint. Thanks for all your hard work!
Any ideas why music genre sub communities so hostile towards each other? Everyone seems to always put down every other genre and saying how metal/pop/rap etc isn't "real music" and how "real music buffs" should only listen to reversed dubstep covers of 18th century Prussian military marching music whilst ODing on hay fever tablets or something
“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.” -Brendan Behan Just leaving that here...
In middle school, I had a friend who played tenor sax and percussion for our jazz band. Despite starting on drums, he could transpose from eb to bb instantly and steal phrases from the musicians around him. He was definitely one of my earlier inspirations for learning more theory.
quick fact: anthony fantano said in one of his videos ( I think its the one on motivation on his thisistheplan channel) that he plays/ played bass. Comrade of the four string \m/
Great video, as always, but I wanted to comment on the male Vs. female audience question: I'm not denying there might surely be a prominently male audience to this kind of videos, but I'm sure one of the reasons there seem to be almost no female audience in some topics is because everyone is assumed to be male on the internet unless the contrary is shown somehow. The only spaces where female audience is supposed to be the majority is in stuff concretely marketed to women, which of course has to do with the 'boys club' thing and the microagressions.
I find your take on the "un-pretentiousness" of pop music quite interesting since I personally have had a very different experience with both pop listeners and the pop musicians. While I personally really enjoy a lot of pop music I have found most (obviously not all) pop listeners to be the most arrogant kind of music listeners out there. Most of them seem really quick to denounce all kinds of music that even slightly differs from the mainstream pop aesthetic as either just noise (even if the music is essentially written just like pop music, e.g. Nine Inch Nails etc.) or as dreadfully boring (Jazz, Classical or even Hip Hop at times). Even the most arrogant LeWrongGeneration Types/Classic Rock Elitists seem a lot more open to other kinds of music. As for the unpretentious nature of pop musicians I can agree only partially. I live in Germany and while this seems to be phenomena quite exclusive to Germany, I have noticed that the pop music topping the charts reach be peak levels of pretentiousness (possibly because no one can call them out on it since there is no word translating to 'pretentious' in German). Those "Artists" seem to think their music is the deepest, most emotionally honest music out there as if they were the next Shakespear or something. The truth is that their music is the most generic, empty and insulting music out there. It seems like they found a way to finally write music that cannot possibly offend anybody: Just talk about meaningless topics like "Humans", "Dancing (even though it is impossible to dance to those songs since they lack any kind of driving rhythm)" etc. The worst thing is that everybody falls for that shit. If they at least admitted the fact that they only make music for the money (which is not at all a bad thing) it would be somewhat less annoying, but they still pretend their music had any meaning. Of course, there are pretentious artists like that in any other genre as well but I found them to be largely part of the pop industry.
A good 2 years late but: "there is no word translating to 'pretentious' in German" .... what gave you that idea? The word is "prätentiös", so basically almost the same ^^° And there isn't much lost in translation either, it totally has the same meaning But you're totally right about the german charts being horrible. I remember a few years back we had more songs involving David Guetta in the Top 30 than songs featuring actual instruments... at the same time in Poland an album by Leszek Modzer (great pianist imo) apparently hit the charts and got platin. Not to sound elitist, but back then it just felt depressing to me. Why? There was no spectrum, not a little bit of jazz, blues, rock, whatever mixed in, it was really all pretty much the same I live in Vienna now and don't know what goes on in germany these days, but I think a lot of the problem might come from the fact, that it was rather hard to find a place to go out at night where anything other than EDM or the current charts-stuff was being played, which is for entertainment (and thats perfectly fine) but at least to me lacks anything that might have an emotional impact. The problem was you just couldn't escape, the lack of alternatives was painful.... and when you never have the chance to broaden your horizon, I can't even really blame people (I guess this channel is mostly watched by musicians with an interest in learning more... and for non-musicians searching through YT to find new styles and whatever might just be not that much of a daily-routine thing, I can't tell) Would be interesting to hear from people in other countries and how they feel about their mainstream music Grüße aus Wien :)
Canadian here - our mainstream music has the same kinds of things going on, but not to a ridiculous extent. Something seems to shake it up every year or so, so that there is innovation even as many things stay the same. Popular culture does still seem to reward music being generic and pretentious, and it sometimes seems to be based around who has the most buzz rather than who makes the best music. That being said, our listeners aren’t purists in any sense of the word - genre-bending and genre-blending is actually having a moment right now, whether it’s pop-R&B, R&B-rap, country-pop, pop-rock, or even rock-rap or country-rap (!!). (Of course, our music is *very* heavily influenced by American music.) We also have a kind of homegrown music which is difficult to classify - it runs from our current “Big Four” (Drake, the Weeknd, Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes) to somewhat smaller acts like the acoustic rock bands Marianas Trench and yes, Nickelback, the young alt-pop singers bülow and Serena Ryder, the reggae-pop band MAGIC!, the comedic, uncategorizable band the Barenaked Ladies and folk legends like the late, great Leonard Cohen, the Indigenous singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Sarah McLachlan, famous for her stunning cover of Happy Xmas (War Is Over), among other things. Of course, an exhaustive list is impossible to make, but these should be a start. (Canadian rap is famously anemic - behind Drake, the most well-known rappers here are NAV, PARTYNEXTDOOR and Classified, all of which could make this list, but don’t have a huge chart presence.) Other than that, we pretty much roll with the Americans in all the ways I’ve described above.
16 year old daughter of two musicians here! I did discover your channel through a male friend but while also finding your channel interesting an inspiring I also find it to be welcoming and accepting tbh. I live in a very metropolitan and accepting city (Brighton, England) so the orchestras and bands I'm in are actually pretty gender-balanced, if not actually slightly more dominated by other girls! Where are my other female Adam Neely fans at???
Hi, Adam About music reviews. I like the categorization of all sentences that state something into two kinds: "descriptive/scientific" and those that deal with values (at least in some kind of continuous axis from one to the other and not necessarily in a binary either/or fashion). Examples of the first kind could be "There is a red straight line in this painting" and "The first track of the album is an intimate piano ballad". There are no big problems in this world, it's the world of reasoning, where we can convince other people with facts and arguments. If I don't like piano ballads, this gives me useful information. However the problems lie in the messed up world of the second kind sentences. Examples could be: "This painting is beautiful", "The lyrics are not that impressive", "The arrangement seems like an overkill", "There are no worthwhile ideas in this album", "Here we find lots of grooves with sharp, burning, catchy guitar leads". In the world of these sentences there are always hidden "good/bad" words, which are completely ill-defined ideas. Usually when we use the word "good" we simply mean that some "pleasure hormone" was secreted when a stimulus occurred. Since the art craft is ultimately a value/emotional pursue, it only matters what happens in our own bodies and not in the reviewer's and that makes the portion of second type sentences in art reviews completely useless. (I watched your Q+A "What is good music?" where you expose how you dislike the "There's no such thing as good/bad music". That is close to what I think but from a language point of view: if there are no accepted definition/use of "good/bad" and everyone has a subjective use of the words, they are close to useless) Any thoughts? (Wow, that was huge, sorry)
Here's my question for the next QnA, what makes chords like F#7add4 (the opening chord to Hemispheres by Rush) sound so open and airy, and how does it still sound "coherent" when you move that chord shape up the neck while still having those open ringing two strings?
F#7 has one fifth interval, (f#-c#) the fifth interval i think is very airy, pale. the F#7 add 4 has 2 fifth intervals, (add the e-b) fifths sound coherent.
Hey adam! I have a challenge for you, with which I came up after I saw the 10 minutes sybellius video and thought to myself that you listened to the song a ridicously low amount of times. Now my challenge is to write a song, maybe half an hour? Without listening to it until the bitter end. Thanks man, please keep uploading, youre amazing!
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5:35 Or when they only review music made by their buddies, music they loved and music they hated (for the sake of saying they absolutely hated it).
I've heard of drummers with the ability to accurately play grooves in the tempo of a numeric value, "this song is in 120 bmp" -> proceeds to almost exactly land the 120 bpm.
Maemi No Yume I presume that's what it would be called but I mean is it something some people are born with? Do some people have naturally better internal clocks than others? Are some people the rhythmic equivalent to "tone deaf"?
Just watched the extra Dorian Bright Theory Madness video. Thanks for putting the cookies on the lower shelf. You have a tremendous talent for digesting the vast amount of theory knowledge you have and putting it in a very clear, useful form for those of us who haven't had the education you have. Thank you! Makes me miss my jazz days.
I know I’m a bit late to this video but Hi! I’m a girl who watches your videos, I’ve even seen the majority of them and I’m trying to teach myself music theory. And yes, I make music without any knowledge in music theory and yet I have recorded a 13 track record and toured the world. I’ve never been disrespected by a soundtech or promoter so far, I think it has a lot to do with the way I present myself and the confidence I have when I show up places. I can only speak for myself and I’m aware of the misogyny in the world of music through other people’s stories but to be fair I believe if you make sure you know your gear, you show up on time and you know a soundtech’s job, people will treat you with the same respect they would treat men. If of course a guy makes misogynist assumptions before you even said a word, try sending them to hell, see what happens, they probably deserve it. A lot of women demand to be treated equally but don’t deliver the equal level of expertise. We are just learning that we can be musicians, architects and politicians as well and I believe as you said, that’s where the real problem is. I see my (male) band mate being totally obsessed by a subject or a thing and he ends up mastering all aspects of it eventually whereas I have to force myself into this kind of commitment because I wasn’t brought up to set myself any kind of goal and get lost in it, neither did I grow up around any kind of female role models of that kind. I just happen to be very good at making music and it makes me very happy, so I’m trying now to catch up with the theoretical aspect of it, and your blog is an excellent addition to my research. I’m sure nobody will read this, but I was wondering if there was an easy way for me to figure out what key my song is written in, given the fact that I produce my songs on logic and just record whatever sounds good to my ear so far.
Hey Adam, I just wanted to take the time and say: thank you! You got me interested in music theory, and your vids provided me with lots of interesting content about what I love so dearly: music. Congrats on that 200 000 subscribers! Have you done the maths? Well, I have, since I'm not good at imagining big numbers... If you took just one second to shake the hand of every subscriber you would need two whole days (and some hours) to shake the hand of each and every one of them - of yourse without sleep or any interruption (so don't eat and drink before that...). Keep it going :)
Hey Adam, Really love how much thought you put into your responses. You've got a real talent for simplifying difficult concepts without sacrificing their nuance. My question is simple: NEW. SUNGAZER. WHEN?
Thanks for the answer Adam. Shazam, wow, that never occurred to me. And to be clear: I didn't really think you or any of the others on stage were miming. I wouldn't have mentioned it at all if it wasn't for the appearance of those invisible backup singers. Cheers for another great vid, not only interesting and informative but I laughed several times too.
I’m a female guitarist and musician in general (I play many different instruments, but I just have a guitar in my hands at the moment), and I agree with what you said about that. I actually started playing guitar because I was a huge Beatles fan, although I actually play metal more now, and am really interested in music theory (currently working on getting my band I just started to do a more proggy method and they’re really into that, which will be fun to do). I don’t know why this is relevant, but whatever.
Not trolling; LA checking in. There are corporate gigs and wedding gigs(uncommon) that are often held in high rise complexes or hotels. The possibility of having to play up high are very real. That being said, you'd probably never have to go above the second floor as some locations have a second floor ballroom. I have heard stories from colleagues who have played up in hotel suites for private functions or upper level patios, but have never personally encountered it. Edit: changed usually to often; Also great job Adam! Always love your content and outlook.
Maxime Ansell davie504 just pissed about with stuff. Doesn't actually learn you anything. And I doubt very much that he knows anything near what Adam knows
Well, Davie504 is an entertainer so he makes content towards that. His bass playing is flashy and cool looking and thats whats best for his content. He knows what he knows and thats it. Adam on the other hand is a more technical, professional oriented musician that has gone through musical training and learning on a pro level. He produces other kind of content geared towards a different audience.
Hey Adam, just wondering where you draw the line between recognizing someone as a musician or not. I've played guitar/bass and been in bands for about 7-8 years, and have always "cringed" when someone calls me a musician... I don't have any degree in music (a few years of lessons but nothing professional or intensely academic), only a basic understanding of music theory, so it just doesn't feel right to "own" that title. I guess you could say that to most bands and artists, maybe a performer would be the best term? Thanks!
In case nobody else said it: Animals as Leaders actually has a bass in their backing tracks on some songs. When they play live, they have the same backing tracks playing.
The thing is music is a social construct that we invented, it's a subjective term that doesn't inherently exist in the world in the same way "art" or "beauty" doesn't inherently exist. We can't attach definitive and objective criteria to music in the same way we can't objectively say if something is or isn't art, it's not a tangible thing that we can point to and say "this is art", like there's a hidden element in the periodic table that makes it so, because what separates a Jackson Pollock painting from a messy canvas but perspective? If playing sax with drum sticks sounds like music to you, then that's literally all the justification you need to call it music. I believe bands like Swans and Sunn0))) to be music, but if you were to play that 100 years ago no one would call it music, as if they too believed that there was some special rule that constitutes music. One might say that birds singing to each other is "music", but it's not like those birds are jazz bros quoting the lick to each other, they're merely commuocating. It's our subjective concept of beauty, art and aesthetic that defines that as music to us, and us alone. Art and music are what you make of it.
Question for Q+A: Do you think that the type of tuning (equal temperament tuning, werckmeister tuning etc.) has significant influence on our perception of music? Or it is very trivial thing comparing to other things that music consist of and any kind of tuning for "12 notes in octave" music will sound unrecognizably similar for majority of people?
I'm going to set myself on fire! ADAM! You never answer my questions!!! Okay, here's another one: Washington State housing authority has a vague definition of what constitutes "normal wear and tear", and I'm in a situation now where my previous landlords are asking for and additional $354 on top of the $700 dollar security deposit. I want to dispute these charges as well as recover some of the original security deposit without having to go to small claims court. I believe I am entitled to such as the apartment was left in good condition. My question for you is can you play for me a bass groove so jammin' that it will convince them that I am owed my security deposit? Thanks, man. Appreciate ya.
Playing a saxophone with a drum stick could be considered a percussive approach to the instrument. Converting the act to the language of percussion, which has a longer history than the saxophone.
Not Right Music I think he handled the answer well, and I personally interpreted his response to mean that one should be taking a deliberate approach to creating and commenting on music. Like, it would be cool to deliberately create a piece for percussive sax, but he also understands that many people who say things like “playing the sax with drumsticks is just as much music as playing it with a mouthpiece” are really saying that in a pretentious desire to be avante garde. But yes, a piece deliberately made for percussive sax would be a really cool interpretation of what it meant to play saxophone. anybody already in it?
In the end it definitely matters how the saxophone is being played with the drum stick. I'm sure someone could impress me with that. But I agree with him they aren't the same for important reasons - historical and culture ones. It definitely is more in the realm of dada or John Cage to play a sax with drumsticks and usually political statements like that are seen as cliché these days. I'm sure John Cage would have something intelligent to say about this regardless of the fact that his ideas don't seem as revolutionary these days as they actually were in the 60s.
Late to the party, but I love your answer to the drumstick question. I struggle to explain why I disagree with these statements personally, the "just feel it", "let your emotions flow and it's gonna magically be great", "there are no rules" - true, but... Finally I can answer comprehensively.
Wow Adam I've been watching your videos for a while now and they just keep getting better. Your point of view over certain topics (wich often i also see in my music school) is so refreshing. Hail the king of music memes
Why the hell would it even matter? I guess there's something wrong when men like things more than women do. Interesting how it never applies the other way round.
@@kylej.whitehead-music309 can you chill out please. You can see Adam talking about how women are often patronized in music and that can cause a lack of interest. All people love music, not just men
I'm so glad to hear you like 24k Magic. A lot of folks think it's corny but Bruno and his gang did some superb production on that track. He's a respectable musician, even though that often gets lost in all the glitz and glamour around being a pop star. But he's pretty legit, and fun (and hot) to boot.
I was tempted to submit a video for your Why Do I Suck series, but I've only been playing for 5 months and that probably has a lot to do with it. Also as I play the hammered dulcimer it might be a bit off topic. :)
But if you suck, it means you have more to learn. Playing for people who are better than you are isn't embarassing because they know all or most of the solutions to your problems.
Regarding music critics, I agree in part. I've been researching Radiohead. I wasn't into them when I was younger and thought I'd get some because I've liked everything I've heard on the radio and the tracks my friends have sent me. But I was afraid it was going to turn out like my experiences with Yes... where I really dig some songs but, a lot of the others are a little boring. Long story short (and funny enough), Mr. Beato just did a video on why he likes Radiohead. It was exactly what I needed, and how you mentioned - a musician and music theorist telling me why what he likes is cool. So... yeah. I dig Radiohead now :)
In your comment about why music is an old boys club, you leave out the fact that girls themselves tend to become vocalists instead of learning a physical instrument (not that your voice isn't an instrument, but you know what I mean). That is because playing guitar or drums is deemed unfeminine by many aspiring female musicians. (which could be caused by a lack of good role models, although lately you see many female jazz musicians pop up on youtube) Again, I'm not saying that this is always the cause, but it is a contributing factor. Another thing: I am a jazz musician myself and I see this as mainly a jazz-related problem. In classical music males and females are distributed far more equally among instruments. So imo it's not that "music" is an old boys club, no. "Jazz music" is an old boys club! The "why" is still uncertain. Jazz music is still young, only 100 years old, it needs time to emancipate - but that's my opinion.
You're spot on with the criticism of total musical relativism. I think In postmodern art as a whole, there is a pretentiousness that I find annoying. For example when someone drops a scarf in an art gallery and passers by treat it as fine art. Although I agree that anyone should be able to express whatever idea/emotion through art that they like, I find too much of it seems like art for arts sake.
lol Im not a "post modern art" type, but for some reason I can really see the art in someone dropping a scarf in an art gallery. In a way it asks "whats more important about the pictures on the wall, then picking up this scarf?", and "who had the scarf, and what type of person are they?", and where has the scarf been?", and "is this art because its on the floor here, or is it always art?" , LOL I can't stop thinking about it!!
If the scarf was 'framed' by an artist as a piece of artt, it is a piece of art. Whether it's good or bad art is subjective. The discussion surrounding why the scarf is there may well be the intended purpose of the artist.
That's kind of missing the point of postmodernism though. Postmodernism is generally about challenging people's assumptions of the way things work, and postmodern "art" is more about challenging not only what qualifies as art, but also the assumption that "art" is even a needed category at all (as being separate from "creative work", for example). Take Marcel DuChamp's "Fountain" for example- he originally submitted the piece to the Society of Independent Artists, which was supposed to accept any piece of art that was submitted to them. However, they rejected the piece (which was simply a urinal DuChamp had purchased from a hardware store), feeling that it was indecent. DuChamp was using this to point out the hypocrisy in a supposedly democratic group- and you see similar themes in many other works of dada and postmodern "art". Now, I think there is something to be said for how postmodernism has assimilated into the very institutions it aimed to critique (both artistically and academically)- the original Fountain was lost rather quickly after it was created, but there are duplicates of it in art museums all over the world. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "too much art for art's sake" though- more classical music is generally more interested in continuing and building off of musical traditions than challenging underlying assumptions about how we perceive the world, and I'd argue that it has fewer real-world implications outside of "sounding good" whereas postmodern art is very often linked to real life political struggles.
Linguistics major here chiming in on the Dothraki comment. All languages are "equally valid" for all uses, provided that they have sufficient vocabulary to semantically refer to whatever is being discussed. Plus, on that note, languages have the remarkable ability to borrow words from other languages *and* synthesize new words from existing words/morphemes. It may be that Dothraki, being a constructed language, lacks this essential vocabulary at present, but nothing inherent to it or any other language prevents a vocabulary expansion. Greatly love your channel. Just wanted to nitpick.
For your acrophobic gigging musician: I have played a few gigs at the Columbia Tower Club (on the 75th floor of the Columbia Tower One building in Seattle). I also deal with acrophobia to a limited extent, but these gigs never bothered me as I was playing with my back to the windows. Now, playing a musical in an outdoor canyon where I had to carry an upright bass across a rickety makeshift bridge to get to a scene… that scared the crap out of me every night for three months.
I love that you referred to people getting upset by the term microaggression as being triggered :D They get triggered by the word triggered! And they're supposed to be the "tough guys."
Hey Adam, I don't necessarily agree with your food critic analogy. I agree there is a place for an extremely knowledgeable person to provide an in depth criticism for a restaurant, but sometimes the average consumer might not relate to that. For me, I want to know obvious things like pricing, service times, cleanliness, general food quality (was it hot? did it feel like they reheated leftovers? etc and that can be provided be the average consumer. There will always be some really positive or negative outliers which could be expunged with context, and there will also be misinformed self important people who think they know what they're saying, but end up misleading readers with what sounds like high quality critique but in reality is just drivel. Just my thoughts.
Have to add that AAL does have bass in their songs, they play to a click and bass track live. Tosin and Javier are under no allusions that their 8 strings produce the timber of a bass. They specifically sculp their guitar sound around the bass that is present in their tracks. Also excellent to hear your familiarity with AAL and Meshuggah. Truly excellent and unique music in our era. -NP
Hey Adam! Don't be surprised if someone asks you to be a professor or a teacher. (I really don't care about the hierarchy of those names...also because I have been influenced by the Italian culture/language and its usage of the words "professore", "maestro", "insegnante", and "docente." Without going into all of these words in the "classl" of instruction, teaching English in Rome I have been charmed by being called "maestro" by 10 year olds and "professore" by high school students. I think of myself as a coach... if only I were paid as well as some coaches. But it's easy to see that you love to learn which is an essential quality in the best "teachers." The more I follow you the more I like and appreciate you. Hat's off.
Hey! what do you think of Drum Solos. i feel like, if done well, the drum solo can bring the audience to attention and hold them in suspense. whats your opinion
Gotta say I love you videos and the way you get excited by the subject matter, but that being said, I've just been watching the Jacob Collier theory interview (part two)... Holy shit, everybody should get that excited about the music they create. Keep up the good work man
It''s bland, overly-simplistic, and mostly vacuous. The art of the music has been put aside for JEEESSSSSUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSS. There are excellent artists who are Christians (Mutemath, Sufjan Stevens), but I consider those distinct from CCM.
i am a girl and i love your videos, im going to major in worship arts and the theory you describe is wonderful and i don't feel any aggression or isolation because of my gender from this community. thank you!
I am the only female player in my schools student jazz ensemble. Its important to have representation in music. Otherwise, if we DON'T push for representation the world never changes and nothing gets better for people in the future. Don't crush your children's desire to play instruments, especially if they are underrepresented in the world. Go forth and create.
Why do I keep watching your channel even though I can't understand a single thing you say? I've watched every video of yours, not having any musical training, and I didn't understand one thing about musical theory, but I can't stop. How do you manage to keep me from unsubscribing? How?
Bwahahaha!!! I have a limited understanding of theory, but Adam does paint a musical theoretical picture about as well as Bob Ross painted happy little birds and trees. Adam is a brilliant mind, and we're lucky that he's so committed to educating the world. BASS!
Dear Adam, Because of your pedalboard video, I spent 100€ on a MXR Deluxe Bass Octaver for a gig only to play "24K Magic" and "What You Don't Do" by Lianne La Havas. 24K Magic is indeed a really cool song to play (espacially love the weird drop/bridge with the "misplaced" rythmic accents, nice way to play with 4/4). Well, that was my uninteresting anecdote.
For Q+A How much is musical academia permeated by politics and ideology in the US (I'm not American), and how easy/difficult is it to bypass/ignore it without harming your grades or reputation?
Musical history is sometimes taught incorrectly etc, due to wanting to leave out certain things that may now a days be seen as micro aggression's, things such as the chinese and celtic influence on the blues are left out, because some find it offensive to say that the blues was somewhat appropriated from other cultures, although its true, and is very useful to learn, especially when learning about the universal truth of the overtone series, and how most cultures using the pentatonic scale highlights that (blues uses the pentatonic scale heavily, as does chinese music as well, etc)
I mean YA but not me)) Russian has just hard consonants vowels ,that's it. Parodys on our language is fake. Russians speak harder and softly of anytime. When I hear parody it looks like Italian or Germany dialect. But who cares
perfectly fair response. i suppose my ultimate point is that making music is about taking what's in your head and making it listenable to other people; so if what's in your head is drumsticks sax, you should go for it.
There is craft that goes into pop music. There's the dance choreographer who makes sure the "talent" is dancing correctly. There's the song writers who actually write the song. There's the musicians who can actually play the song. There's the team of engineers who make sure the "talent" is in key. There's the stylist who tells the "talent" what to wear. Then there's the assistant who makes sure the molly addicted, spoiled brat, untalented "talent" is happy and comfortable. All to produce a product that sounds exactly like everything else and to track down any hints of individuality and destroy it. Have you ever heard Britney Spears sing without all the auto tuning and reverb and everything else? She can't. She's a singer who can't sing. I mean, The Beatles were a pop band I guess so technically I have no problem with pop music in general if that's what you mean but there is a kind of music that is just pop and nothing else and that's what I'm taking issue with. Auto tuning takes all the character and imperfections of a real singer's voice and kills it and turns it all into mediocrity. I'm usually with you but not on this one man. Please feel free to criticize my comment if you so choose but please keep in mind that if you criticize my name, you run the chance of getting that wrong like many others have. Love the channel. Keep up all the great stuff.
I found the answer to the saxophone drumstick question really satisfying, but I would add that one motivation for trying to make sounds outside of existing musical traditions is to work within existing artistic traditions of avant-garde iconoclasm. It can be much harder to reach an audience that way-it's the Captain Beefheart approach rather than the Frank Zappa methodology-but there's an open frontier there if you can contextualize it right.
Hey Adam, this is the Double harmonic MAJOR scale or Byzantine scale indeed. The double harmonic MINOR is an alternative name for Hungarian minor scale (the 4th mode of the double harmonic major scale).
that ukulele girl Sadly that's not always true. It really depends on several aspects, one of them is the kind of music you're playing and the amount of s*** you're willing to take.
I have to ask, cause I've wondered for years - I'm not sure if it's the small sample size or just bad luck finding it, but I've never seen a female musician that can solo. I mean like a guitar solo, something that isn't planned in advance. Anyone good you can point me to? And I'm curious because I keep hearing about this "boy's club" thing keeping women out of music, but I can't help but wonder if this is just another offshoot of the wage gap myth with the same basic root causes.
Aitch it is pretty difficult to find female improvisation soloists. I listen to Alison Balsom, because I play trumpet, but I also like playing ukulele. Im still a student musician, and I want to compose music in the future. Improvisation is pretty hard at first, but when I improvise I use my knowledge of scales to solo. My advice to you is don't try too hard. If you practice and keep on learning the solo will come to you. I know from experience it was really frustrating, but one day I just let the music come to me. you have to feel it, and then you can go from there. hope this helped a little.
According to wikipedia it's supposed to be called either double harmonic major or simply double harmonic. I'm guessing a lot of people call it double harmonic minor because it feels more like a minor scale than a major one
I love that you describe the E7#9 chord as being "spicy"; every time you call it that, I can't help but think that the chord probably tastes like masala chai (because that's what I was drinking when watching this video). Unfortunately musical spiciness is totally different from things like black pepper and cayenne, so music unfortunately cannot taste like masala chai. If only the scoville scale was a music scale and not a measurement system for the pungency of chili peppers; I could totally go for some spicy music.
Hey Adam! Would have to say your response to the playing Sax with a mouthpiece, or Drumsticks thing made me think. Your reasoning (which I feel is sound for sure) seemed more to be based on the idea of "intended purpose" of an instrument. Hence the wealth of pre-existing material/music/expression that has come before; however give the sax (for hitting) to a percussionist, and it'd probably be a whole lot more interesting, than giving the drumsticks to a sax player. I'm struggling to find the words for what I'm trying to express, but hopefully my point is there. The percussionist is more likely to have more understanding of the nuance, and technicality, to draw more involved expression from the instrument, than a sax player learning these from scratch. Ultimately sounds are all just part of our sonic colour palate anyway! :)
I strongly disagree with you on the subject of music reviewers. I think one's opinion of a piece of art ideally shouldn't at all be informed by how it was created. Art is about the meaning and aesthetics of the work itself and not the technical ingenuity behind it. I know a lot of very skilled musicians that (in my opinion) have terrible tastes in music, because they can't keep their mind from getting sucked up by the technical side of it. This doesn't mean that I don't personally enjoy articles that offer technical insight into works of music, but this is not what I'm looking for in a music review.
I think what Adam meant is that you should know a bit about the general subject of the music in order to analyse it. For example, I don't really like metal music, if someone play me a metal song that I don't know, I will probably just think it sucks. But I think my opinion is much less valuable than the one of someone who likes and knows a lot about metal. Art is subjective. but I don't think all point of views are equal.
If anyone is curious about why contemporary Christian music is so bland, I'm gonna ramble on that for a bit. There are two main reasons I think:
The first is how modern Christian music is marketed on a corporate level. My music business professor used to work for Sony and was in charge of their Christian music output. I also worked for a Christian radio station for a bit. They both market the music very similarly. Christian music is like regular popular music except that the target demographic is much smaller and more specific. They are not marketing just toward Christians. They are marketing toward White Christian mothers living in the suburbs between the ages of 30 and 45 who have 2 to 5 children between the ages of 5 and 15. So the goal of Christian music is either to sanitize what is currently popular enough that the mother approves or to sound like what was popular when the mother was a teenager. This is why there are so many bands that are just the Christian version of secular bands and why Christian music sometimes feels sonically about a decade behind. So there might be a lot of very weird, experimental, cool Christian artists out there, but it is in their best interest to not market themselves as Christian because they will not be appealing to that demographic of mothers. This gives contemporary Christian music its homogeny. Now there are smaller sub-markets within Christian music. There used to be a huge market for Christian hardcore, metalcore, and punk because a lot of Christian youths were very bored by the CCM their mothers listened to but weren't willing to be completely "rebellious" and delve into sometimes very anti-religious hardcore music. But even these need to be somewhat sanitized for the main demographic of mothers to tolerate them.
The second main reason that Contemporary Christian music is so bland and soulless is praise music. Praise music is CCM that is meant to be played and sung along with at church. Because you want everyone to be able to sing along, the songs are generally in a key range that's easy to sing with a simple melody. The words have to be pretty simple and easy to sing too. Someone who has never heard the song and has no musical training should be able to sing on the chorus the second time through. In addition, the songs need to be relatively easy to replicate by anyone with an acoustic guitar or piano because many churches only have that. Soloing is frowned upon because of its flashiness and focus on the self when the song is meant to focus on God. The song's lyrics also need to have good theology. This results in the lyrics staying pretty vague generally and not taking much artistic license in describing God, for fear of pissing off one denomination or another. A good example of this is my worship pastor friend who refuses to play a song because of a line "Holy Spirit you are welcomed here, come flood this place and fill the atmosphere" because "the Holy Spirit is already here and we are meant only to affirm it, not to welcome it as if it were a vampire at the door asking to come in!" This results in most worship pastors having a very small pool of songs they approve of to pull from. Additionally, The singer in praise music must be significantly more prominent so they can be heard above all instrumentation and audience singing along. Mixes for recorded Praise music follow suit and mix their vocals as cleanly and clearly as possible. Sonically, Praise Music sticks to basic rock band instrumentation because that is what most people have access to. Instrumentalists are encouraged to see themselves as background music to the singers who are really leading worship. So writers of praise music are encouraged to be simple in song structure, in melody, and in lyrics. Musicians playing praise music are encouraged to lay back, to blend in, and not stand out or else distract from the singer leading worship. All of this culminates in a sound that is rather boring to anyone not invested in the worship aspect of the music and even to many who are invested.
thanks
the worship music at soul survivour, which is a christian festival, is sooooo good
Ben Casey thank you for this analysis
lmao i just played holy spirit yesterday at church, great analysis
Is there more to this comment? I only see a few sentences.
Thanks Adam!
Hey it's Questiony Answtano
theneedledrop Hey big stinky
THE BEST TEETH IN THE GAME
A wild melon appears
hey bro, thanks for stopping at traffic lights, I know you stop at traffic lights
I'm actually very happy with the answer on Fantano. I guess it's natural that a bald man who plays bass has a mutual respect for another bald man who plays bass.
Adam isnt bald. He just has a buzz cut.
Anthony Tran so does melon
Wow if Adam is bald, then I am forced to imagine your hair is so full that it grows on your eyeballs
Sean Evans needs to get in on this love triangle
@@soulmas520 I laughed too much at your comment 🤣🤣
Anthony Fantano is one of those people that once I started watching him, I started seeing him everywhere.
And that's a good thing.
@@aixide agree to disagree
like Filthy frank or idubbz, these guys influence is insane on meme culture
Google "Baader Meinhoff Phenomenon", itll explain why
@@fanrco766 I've heard of it after typing this.
As a female musician, what you said here is so true. Proportionally, my channel is so small and yet if I have any sort of opinion OR talk about things in a more “emotional” or “feminine” way, the hate just rushes in. I don’t know how many times I’ve had things explained to me and it’s so utterly frustrating. Also, I feel that because of my gender I am held to a much higher standard on UA-cam, because if I make a video I better be a somewhat content expert because they will tear every little mistake down, even if I just used a different synonym or something. Anyway, it’s nice to hear others talking about it. Cheers!
Your attitude towards your mistakes and your haters determine a large portion of your success. It's not like male musicians don't get any hate and are allowed to make mistakes, especially not in today's world where males are reduced more on more on mainstream, but more so that most males don't think about their gender too much and don't have so many other labels that I'm only seeing in females.
Anyway goodluck.
@@vleaky3430 you're ignoring the problem, mate
@@roundabout468 nope. Actually I've a very wholesome view cuz I believe in multiple truths. Yes some of what she says is true but that doesn't mean women shouldn't assume any responsibility for anything. That would be childish.
Hey Adam, often times when I write a motif, melody, etc. for a song, i have the suspicion that I have unknowingly and subconsciously stolen that motif from a piece of music i've previously heard. Do you ever have this feeling when you write? Is this something I should really be worried about?
I get this feeling too, especially when I'm showing a newly finished song to someone for the first time.
I remember learning in school that most harmony and rhythms are much harder to prove that they are copyrighted. And a sung melody and lyrics are much more dangerous territory if you're worried about stealing.
Adam, do you know if that's true?
If you feel like you've heard a piece of music you're writing somewhere before, it most likely means it's because that's exactly the case. I don't remember the source, but there has been research done into what you are describing, and it has to do with the way our brains remembers things. Besides that, most music is made from musicians borrowing from each other. We're all influenced by someone, and it's only natural that we try to emulate them even if we do so unconsciously, and a little too closely in some cases.
If it makes you feel better, Michael League (of Snarky Puppy) said in an interview (I think a Jazz Night in America interview) that he believes all music that you write is a accumulation and combination of things you've heard before. It's like that thing where they say nothing is truly original unless you go back all the way to Gilgamesh. So I guess the concern here is not to be totally original, but rather just study and learn so much that whatever you rehash will sound new?
Up! Please include this in the next Q&A Adam :D
Everybody who writes music also listens to it. You just get that feeling because you were influenced by it. Most songs you will write are originals, but they will have a similar "style" compared to the band/genre you usually listen to.
Hey Adam
What's the most difficult/complex aspect of music theory you've come across. The peak of music complexity. Something to blow our minds.
Keep doing what your doing
As a linguistics student, I absolutely loved your answer on that saxophone question. The reason why I subscribed to your channel and your patreon was your understanding of the link between music and language in the first place and you still refer to it sometimes. Also choosing Dothraki as the other language was smart.
Im a christian bassist. Contemporary christian music is one of the worst styles of music from a compositional standpoint... I can't stand playing it T-T
Michael kaster Same! I play my bass in my church's praise band a couple times a month, and even on the "rockier" songs the bass parts are quite tame.
I'm a Christian drummer and I can relate to your struggle man. :) I always try throwing in little tasty things just to spice it up. Even if nobody in the audience notices, I'm sure somebody in the band will. And sometimes, I just have to try and enjoy the simplicity of this music, the fact that most of the songs are the same tempo and chord progression, even though I'd rather be playing something more 'interesting'.
Yeah. Whenever the team complains about how boring it is we always get "it's not about the music it's about the worship." That is entirely true, and it also has literally nothing to do with how fun the music is to play. Id argue that more technical music can be more worshipful... But I guess a lot of team members only have a bass understanding of music so.....
Guitarist. Same hate for playing the same inane progressions over and over again. Very rarely do I get to play a song where I actually have to /do/ anything, so I usually end up composing (a stretch to describe it this way, but it’s more deliberate than improvisation) something that borrows from another part ot something.
And I really that the “it’s not about the music, it’s about the worship” attitude that many contemporary churches have. I completely understand that worship is, first and foremost, to God, but I also understand that I want to give him my best when I perform.
I want to sing my best.
I want to play my best.
Not because I want to show off, but because I enjoy what I do and any less than my best is just a crying shame for me, those listening to me, and to God most importantly of all.
The very fact that worship is to God should mean i’m more driven to play my best and ensure the whole team is learning and giving it their best.
What I would give to have the ability and chance to play something like Lincoln Brewster’s “Let Your Glory Shine” in church, or to play a song that had as much technical character as my desire to play music in the first place.
I personally think the worst thing about CCM is that every single song is a song trying to express unique and passionate love for a loving, amazing God... in the form of a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus pop song. It's very ironic (and worldly) that an infinite God is squeezed into a very basic formula and it shows how vain and money-hungry the whole "worship industry" is.
Also, constantly going to the tonic is the cheapest way to write music. If I had a dollar for every 1 4 5 1 chord progression I've played...
Fun Fact: Felix Mendelssohn's sister was also a composer, but she had to drop it after criticism for being female. However, Felix was an amazing brother and he sometimes published some of her works underneath his name to get her music out there.
Not really Felix was known to talk about the feminine inability for composition in regards to his sister and even went to far as to encourage her to quit. You may be thinking of her husband that helped her publish music.
@@getoutofmyinternet Some of Fanny's songs were posted under Felix's name though?
I'm flattered. thanks for sharing. the username is an old gamer tag. I understand where you are coming from. you were very kind in your response. keep up the good content.
ciao
I GOT ROASTED! good job kid.😎
Wow I'm glad you saw flaw in the way you thought and admited it. Most people don't do that.
Dont mess with melon brah
Davm97 wrong channel...
The byzantine scale that you mentioned in the beginning is actually a very popular scale in Indian classical music, especially South Indian music, all of which is entirely modal in its purest forms, so that might be the reason that the particular triad is weird to explain from a musical theory standpoint. Thanks for all your hard work!
Any ideas why music genre sub communities so hostile towards each other? Everyone seems to always put down every other genre and saying how metal/pop/rap etc isn't "real music" and how "real music buffs" should only listen to reversed dubstep covers of 18th century Prussian military marching music whilst ODing on hay fever tablets or something
instead of reversed it will be a mirrored canon.
Just basic tribalism
I’d assume it’s just basic tribalism tbh. People hate what they don’t understand.
Cuz they wanna feel superior or they just dont like it
...this comment took a turn 🥸
“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.” -Brendan Behan
Just leaving that here...
savage
Ok
They do *not* know how it's done, and I doubt most of them have been in a room when a song's been written.
@@guatahala have you heard the new CALassic? fantano knows whats up
Some critics are/were also professionals of the thing they are critiquing, though.
In middle school, I had a friend who played tenor sax and percussion for our jazz band. Despite starting on drums, he could transpose from eb to bb instantly and steal phrases from the musicians around him. He was definitely one of my earlier inspirations for learning more theory.
quick fact: anthony fantano said in one of his videos ( I think its the one on motivation on his thisistheplan channel) that he plays/ played bass. Comrade of the four string \m/
Nathan Lyrakis He had an amazing drone/post-rock band named Taiga, some of their live footage is on UA-cam
Nathan Lyrakis Cal Chuchesta has played the bass at least once before a review, don't know which one tho
Great video, as always, but I wanted to comment on the male Vs. female audience question: I'm not denying there might surely be a prominently male audience to this kind of videos, but I'm sure one of the reasons there seem to be almost no female audience in some topics is because everyone is assumed to be male on the internet unless the contrary is shown somehow. The only spaces where female audience is supposed to be the majority is in stuff concretely marketed to women, which of course has to do with the 'boys club' thing and the microagressions.
I find your take on the "un-pretentiousness" of pop music quite interesting since I personally have had a very different experience with both pop listeners and the pop musicians.
While I personally really enjoy a lot of pop music I have found most (obviously not all) pop listeners to be the most arrogant kind of music listeners out there. Most of them seem really quick to denounce all kinds of music that even slightly differs from the mainstream pop aesthetic as either just noise (even if the music is essentially written just like pop music, e.g. Nine Inch Nails etc.) or as dreadfully boring (Jazz, Classical or even Hip Hop at times). Even the most arrogant LeWrongGeneration Types/Classic Rock Elitists seem a lot more open to other kinds of music.
As for the unpretentious nature of pop musicians I can agree only partially. I live in Germany and while this seems to be phenomena quite exclusive to Germany, I have noticed that the pop music topping the charts reach be peak levels of pretentiousness (possibly because no one can call them out on it since there is no word translating to 'pretentious' in German). Those "Artists" seem to think their music is the deepest, most emotionally honest music out there as if they were the next Shakespear or something. The truth is that their music is the most generic, empty and insulting music out there. It seems like they found a way to finally write music that cannot possibly offend anybody: Just talk about meaningless topics like "Humans", "Dancing (even though it is impossible to dance to those songs since they lack any kind of driving rhythm)" etc. The worst thing is that everybody falls for that shit. If they at least admitted the fact that they only make music for the money (which is not at all a bad thing) it would be somewhat less annoying, but they still pretend their music had any meaning.
Of course, there are pretentious artists like that in any other genre as well but I found them to be largely part of the pop industry.
A good 2 years late but:
"there is no word translating to 'pretentious' in German" .... what gave you that idea? The word is "prätentiös", so basically almost the same ^^° And there isn't much lost in translation either, it totally has the same meaning
But you're totally right about the german charts being horrible. I remember a few years back we had more songs involving David Guetta in the Top 30 than songs featuring actual instruments... at the same time in Poland an album by Leszek Modzer (great pianist imo) apparently hit the charts and got platin. Not to sound elitist, but back then it just felt depressing to me. Why? There was no spectrum, not a little bit of jazz, blues, rock, whatever mixed in, it was really all pretty much the same
I live in Vienna now and don't know what goes on in germany these days, but I think a lot of the problem might come from the fact, that it was rather hard to find a place to go out at night where anything other than EDM or the current charts-stuff was being played, which is for entertainment (and thats perfectly fine) but at least to me lacks anything that might have an emotional impact.
The problem was you just couldn't escape, the lack of alternatives was painful.... and when you never have the chance to broaden your horizon, I can't even really blame people (I guess this channel is mostly watched by musicians with an interest in learning more... and for non-musicians searching through YT to find new styles and whatever might just be not that much of a daily-routine thing, I can't tell)
Would be interesting to hear from people in other countries and how they feel about their mainstream music
Grüße aus Wien :)
Canadian here - our mainstream music has the same kinds of things going on, but not to a ridiculous extent. Something seems to shake it up every year or so, so that there is innovation even as many things stay the same. Popular culture does still seem to reward music being generic and pretentious, and it sometimes seems to be based around who has the most buzz rather than who makes the best music. That being said, our listeners aren’t purists in any sense of the word - genre-bending and genre-blending is actually having a moment right now, whether it’s pop-R&B, R&B-rap, country-pop, pop-rock, or even rock-rap or country-rap (!!). (Of course, our music is *very* heavily influenced by American music.) We also have a kind of homegrown music which is difficult to classify - it runs from our current “Big Four” (Drake, the Weeknd, Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes) to somewhat smaller acts like the acoustic rock bands Marianas Trench and yes, Nickelback, the young alt-pop singers bülow and Serena Ryder, the reggae-pop band MAGIC!, the comedic, uncategorizable band the Barenaked Ladies and folk legends like the late, great Leonard Cohen, the Indigenous singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Sarah McLachlan, famous for her stunning cover of Happy Xmas (War Is Over), among other things. Of course, an exhaustive list is impossible to make, but these should be a start. (Canadian rap is famously anemic - behind Drake, the most well-known rappers here are NAV, PARTYNEXTDOOR and Classified, all of which could make this list, but don’t have a huge chart presence.)
Other than that, we pretty much roll with the Americans in all the ways I’ve described above.
16 year old daughter of two musicians here! I did discover your channel through a male friend but while also finding your channel interesting an inspiring I also find it to be welcoming and accepting tbh. I live in a very metropolitan and accepting city (Brighton, England) so the orchestras and bands I'm in are actually pretty gender-balanced, if not actually slightly more dominated by other girls!
Where are my other female Adam Neely fans at???
Male here
Hi, Adam
About music reviews. I like the categorization of all sentences that state something into two kinds: "descriptive/scientific" and those that deal with values (at least in some kind of continuous axis from one to the other and not necessarily in a binary either/or fashion). Examples of the first kind could be "There is a red straight line in this painting" and "The first track of the album is an intimate piano ballad". There are no big problems in this world, it's the world of reasoning, where we can convince other people with facts and arguments. If I don't like piano ballads, this gives me useful information. However the problems lie in the messed up world of the second kind sentences. Examples could be: "This painting is beautiful", "The lyrics are not that impressive", "The arrangement seems like an overkill", "There are no worthwhile ideas in this album", "Here we find lots of grooves with sharp, burning, catchy guitar leads". In the world of these sentences there are always hidden "good/bad" words, which are completely ill-defined ideas. Usually when we use the word "good" we simply mean that some "pleasure hormone" was secreted when a stimulus occurred. Since the art craft is ultimately a value/emotional pursue, it only matters what happens in our own bodies and not in the reviewer's and that makes the portion of second type sentences in art reviews completely useless. (I watched your Q+A "What is good music?" where you expose how you dislike the "There's no such thing as good/bad music". That is close to what I think but from a language point of view: if there are no accepted definition/use of "good/bad" and everyone has a subjective use of the words, they are close to useless) Any thoughts? (Wow, that was huge, sorry)
Here's my question for the next QnA, what makes chords like F#7add4 (the opening chord to Hemispheres by Rush) sound so open and airy, and how does it still sound "coherent" when you move that chord shape up the neck while still having those open ringing two strings?
F#7 has one fifth interval, (f#-c#) the fifth interval i think is very airy, pale. the F#7 add 4 has 2 fifth intervals, (add the e-b) fifths sound coherent.
Daft Doggo favourite petrucci chord ever
Nothing by Rush sounds coherent. That's not a slight against them - they are at least a little bit incoherent on purpose.
you know animals as leaders, my favourite band
You owe us the "ya!" at the end of the intro :( Should play it twice in the next Q&A.
I'm officially going to start using "dank tonic" in music theory discussions
Hey adam! I have a challenge for you, with which I came up after I saw the 10 minutes sybellius video and thought to myself that you listened to the song a ridicously low amount of times.
Now my challenge is to write a song, maybe half an hour? Without listening to it until the bitter end.
Thanks man, please keep uploading, youre amazing!
5:35
Or when they only review music made by their buddies, music they loved and music they hated (for the sake of saying they absolutely hated it).
Hey Adam, is there a rhythmic equivalent to perfect pitch?
yes
perfect rhythm
Chris Sheridan I second this
I've heard of drummers with the ability to accurately play grooves in the tempo of a numeric value, "this song is in 120 bmp" -> proceeds to almost exactly land the 120 bpm.
Maemi No Yume I presume that's what it would be called but I mean is it something some people are born with? Do some people have naturally better internal clocks than others? Are some people the rhythmic equivalent to "tone deaf"?
"BASS" at the end made my dog sneeze. Thanks Adam.
Just watched the extra Dorian Bright Theory Madness video. Thanks for putting the cookies on the lower shelf. You have a tremendous talent for digesting the vast amount of theory knowledge you have and putting it in a very clear, useful form for those of us who haven't had the education you have. Thank you! Makes me miss my jazz days.
I know I’m a bit late to this video but Hi! I’m a girl who watches your videos, I’ve even seen the majority of them and I’m trying to teach myself music theory. And yes, I make music without any knowledge in music theory and yet I have recorded a 13 track record and toured the world. I’ve never been disrespected by a soundtech or promoter so far, I think it has a lot to do with the way I present myself and the confidence I have when I show up places. I can only speak for myself and I’m aware of the misogyny in the world of music through other people’s stories but to be fair I believe if you make sure you know your gear, you show up on time and you know a soundtech’s job, people will treat you with the same respect they would treat men. If of course a guy makes misogynist assumptions before you even said a word, try sending them to hell, see what happens, they probably deserve it. A lot of women demand to be treated equally but don’t deliver the equal level of expertise. We are just learning that we can be musicians, architects and politicians as well and I believe as you said, that’s where the real problem is. I see my (male) band mate being totally obsessed by a subject or a thing and he ends up mastering all aspects of it eventually whereas I have to force myself into this kind of commitment because I wasn’t brought up to set myself any kind of goal and get lost in it, neither did I grow up around any kind of female role models of that kind. I just happen to be very good at making music and it makes me very happy, so I’m trying now to catch up with the theoretical aspect of it, and your blog is an excellent addition to my research.
I’m sure nobody will read this, but I was wondering if there was an easy way for me to figure out what key my song is written in, given the fact that I produce my songs on logic and just record whatever sounds good to my ear so far.
You wiped the floor with that "wingzero" kid. Couldn't have put it better myself.
Dank tonic. trademarking it.
You're the best Adam, all of your critiques of the rude comments are extremely fair but still manage to shut them down.
Hey Adam,
I just wanted to take the time and say: thank you! You got me interested in music theory, and your vids provided me with lots of interesting content about what I love so dearly: music.
Congrats on that 200 000 subscribers!
Have you done the maths? Well, I have, since I'm not good at imagining big numbers...
If you took just one second to shake the hand of every subscriber you would need two whole days (and some hours) to shake the hand of each and every one of them - of yourse without sleep or any interruption (so don't eat and drink before that...). Keep it going :)
Hey Adam,
Really love how much thought you put into your responses. You've got a real talent for simplifying difficult concepts without sacrificing their nuance.
My question is simple:
NEW. SUNGAZER. WHEN?
Q: Give it to me straight, is the japanese otomatone a "valid" instrument? Like, do professional musicians consider it a real music-making tool?
Thanks for the answer Adam. Shazam, wow, that never occurred to me. And to be clear: I didn't really think you or any of the others on stage were miming. I wouldn't have mentioned it at all if it wasn't for the appearance of those invisible backup singers. Cheers for another great vid, not only interesting and informative but I laughed several times too.
I’m a female guitarist and musician in general (I play many different instruments, but I just have a guitar in my hands at the moment), and I agree with what you said about that. I actually started playing guitar because I was a huge Beatles fan, although I actually play metal more now, and am really interested in music theory (currently working on getting my band I just started to do a more proggy method and they’re really into that, which will be fun to do). I don’t know why this is relevant, but whatever.
Not trolling; LA checking in.
There are corporate gigs and wedding gigs(uncommon) that are often held in high rise complexes or hotels. The possibility of having to play up high are very real. That being said, you'd probably never have to go above the second floor as some locations have a second floor ballroom. I have heard stories from colleagues who have played up in hotel suites for private functions or upper level patios, but have never personally encountered it.
Edit: changed usually to often; Also great job Adam! Always love your content and outlook.
Hey Adam
What's your opinion on the bass UA-cam Davie504?
(Also do you think you could take him in a bass off? ;)
Maxime Ansell davie504 just pissed about with stuff. Doesn't actually learn you anything. And I doubt very much that he knows anything near what Adam knows
@@jay8819 I don't think that's fair to Davie, we have seen what musical knowledge he has because of his difference in content
JJWP 88 still shreds
Well, Davie504 is an entertainer so he makes content towards that. His bass playing is flashy and cool looking and thats whats best for his content. He knows what he knows and thats it. Adam on the other hand is a more technical, professional oriented musician that has gone through musical training and learning on a pro level. He produces other kind of content geared towards a different audience.
Thanks, Adam. As always - always! - lots to learn from you. And yes, your 'brand' is the essence of your professional identity. So it is important!
Hey Adam, just wondering where you draw the line between recognizing someone as a musician or not. I've played guitar/bass and been in bands for about 7-8 years, and have always "cringed" when someone calls me a musician... I don't have any degree in music (a few years of lessons but nothing professional or intensely academic), only a basic understanding of music theory, so it just doesn't feel right to "own" that title. I guess you could say that to most bands and artists, maybe a performer would be the best term? Thanks!
It felt so satisfying when you explained Meshuggah. yes, that, exactly.
Is there any theory about ornamentation in music or it is all just about "serving the song" and playing what sounds good?
Not strictly classical, but I think Herbie Hancock says turns in blues piano are meant to sound like guitar bends.
In case nobody else said it: Animals as Leaders actually has a bass in their backing tracks on some songs. When they play live, they have the same backing tracks playing.
The thing is music is a social construct that we invented, it's a subjective term that doesn't inherently exist in the world in the same way "art" or "beauty" doesn't inherently exist. We can't attach definitive and objective criteria to music in the same way we can't objectively say if something is or isn't art, it's not a tangible thing that we can point to and say "this is art", like there's a hidden element in the periodic table that makes it so, because what separates a Jackson Pollock painting from a messy canvas but perspective? If playing sax with drum sticks sounds like music to you, then that's literally all the justification you need to call it music. I believe bands like Swans and Sunn0))) to be music, but if you were to play that 100 years ago no one would call it music, as if they too believed that there was some special rule that constitutes music. One might say that birds singing to each other is "music", but it's not like those birds are jazz bros quoting the lick to each other, they're merely commuocating. It's our subjective concept of beauty, art and aesthetic that defines that as music to us, and us alone. Art and music are what you make of it.
I'm really sad the "ya!" Zoom in didnt happen on this video :( my second favorite thing after the music commentary
Question for Q+A: Do you think that the type of tuning (equal temperament tuning, werckmeister tuning etc.) has significant influence on our perception of music? Or it is very trivial thing comparing to other things that music consist of and any kind of tuning for "12 notes in octave" music will sound unrecognizably similar for majority of people?
I'm going to set myself on fire! ADAM! You never answer my questions!!!
Okay, here's another one:
Washington State housing authority has a vague definition of what constitutes "normal wear and tear", and I'm in a situation now where my previous landlords are asking for and additional $354 on top of the $700 dollar security deposit. I want to dispute these charges as well as recover some of the original security deposit without having to go to small claims court. I believe I am entitled to such as the apartment was left in good condition. My question for you is can you play for me a bass groove so jammin' that it will convince them that I am owed my security deposit?
Thanks, man. Appreciate ya.
Playing a saxophone with a drum stick could be considered a percussive approach to the instrument. Converting the act to the language of percussion, which has a longer history than the saxophone.
Not Right Music I think he handled the answer well, and I personally interpreted his response to mean that one should be taking a deliberate approach to creating and commenting on music.
Like, it would be cool to deliberately create a piece for percussive sax, but he also understands that many people who say things like “playing the sax with drumsticks is just as much music as playing it with a mouthpiece” are really saying that in a pretentious desire to be avante garde.
But yes, a piece deliberately made for percussive sax would be a really cool interpretation of what it meant to play saxophone. anybody already in it?
Not Right Music man you are in the comment sections o of all the videos I watch. Adam Neely, Sideways, 12tone, Rick Beato...
Bep Mir - yeah man! I see a lot of the same people around different channels.
Andrew Huang should do this
In the end it definitely matters how the saxophone is being played with the drum stick. I'm sure someone could impress me with that. But I agree with him they aren't the same for important reasons - historical and culture ones. It definitely is more in the realm of dada or John Cage to play a sax with drumsticks and usually political statements like that are seen as cliché these days. I'm sure John Cage would have something intelligent to say about this regardless of the fact that his ideas don't seem as revolutionary these days as they actually were in the 60s.
Late to the party, but I love your answer to the drumstick question. I struggle to explain why I disagree with these statements personally, the "just feel it", "let your emotions flow and it's gonna magically be great", "there are no rules" - true, but... Finally I can answer comprehensively.
*_BRANDING_*
Oh shit man we got a rebel here
Wow Adam
I've been watching your videos for a while now and they just keep getting better. Your point of view over certain topics (wich often i also see in my music school) is so refreshing.
Hail the king of music memes
wait adam's audience is predominantly male?? i thought it was pretty balance out..
Catarina Barbosa We're assumed to be guys on the internet unless we specify otherwise :)
Well males are musicians more often than females
Nicholas' Trombone Also most people on UA-cam are male
Why the hell would it even matter? I guess there's something wrong when men like things more than women do. Interesting how it never applies the other way round.
@@kylej.whitehead-music309 can you chill out please. You can see Adam talking about how women are often patronized in music and that can cause a lack of interest. All people love music, not just men
I'm so glad to hear you like 24k Magic. A lot of folks think it's corny but Bruno and his gang did some superb production on that track. He's a respectable musician, even though that often gets lost in all the glitz and glamour around being a pop star. But he's pretty legit, and fun (and hot) to boot.
I was tempted to submit a video for your Why Do I Suck series, but I've only been playing for 5 months and that probably has a lot to do with it.
Also as I play the hammered dulcimer it might be a bit off topic. :)
But if you suck, it means you have more to learn. Playing for people who are better than you are isn't embarassing because they know all or most of the solutions to your problems.
Practice, practice, practice.
The hammered dulcimer, sound great, hate to tune one or re string one.
Much grooviness to you
Regarding music critics, I agree in part. I've been researching Radiohead. I wasn't into them when I was younger and thought I'd get some because I've liked everything I've heard on the radio and the tracks my friends have sent me. But I was afraid it was going to turn out like my experiences with Yes... where I really dig some songs but, a lot of the others are a little boring. Long story short (and funny enough), Mr. Beato just did a video on why he likes Radiohead. It was exactly what I needed, and how you mentioned - a musician and music theorist telling me why what he likes is cool.
So... yeah. I dig Radiohead now :)
In your comment about why music is an old boys club, you leave out the fact that girls themselves tend to become vocalists instead of learning a physical instrument (not that your voice isn't an instrument, but you know what I mean). That is because playing guitar or drums is deemed unfeminine by many aspiring female musicians. (which could be caused by a lack of good role models, although lately you see many female jazz musicians pop up on youtube)
Again, I'm not saying that this is always the cause, but it is a contributing factor.
Another thing: I am a jazz musician myself and I see this as mainly a jazz-related problem. In classical music males and females are distributed far more equally among instruments. So imo it's not that "music" is an old boys club, no. "Jazz music" is an old boys club! The "why" is still uncertain. Jazz music is still young, only 100 years old, it needs time to emancipate - but that's my opinion.
Felix Degenaar what you said seems to be a consequence of what he said so I’m not quite sure I understand your point
I feel like in this video you're more happy and chill unlike your other vids
You're spot on with the criticism of total musical relativism. I think In postmodern art as a whole, there is a pretentiousness that I find annoying. For example when someone drops a scarf in an art gallery and passers by treat it as fine art. Although I agree that anyone should be able to express whatever idea/emotion through art that they like, I find too much of it seems like art for arts sake.
lol Im not a "post modern art" type, but for some reason I can really see the art in someone dropping a scarf in an art gallery. In a way it asks "whats more important about the pictures on the wall, then picking up this scarf?", and "who had the scarf, and what type of person are they?", and where has the scarf been?", and "is this art because its on the floor here, or is it always art?" , LOL I can't stop thinking about it!!
If the scarf was 'framed' by an artist as a piece of artt, it is a piece of art. Whether it's good or bad art is subjective. The discussion surrounding why the scarf is there may well be the intended purpose of the artist.
That's kind of missing the point of postmodernism though. Postmodernism is generally about challenging people's assumptions of the way things work, and postmodern "art" is more about challenging not only what qualifies as art, but also the assumption that "art" is even a needed category at all (as being separate from "creative work", for example). Take Marcel DuChamp's "Fountain" for example- he originally submitted the piece to the Society of Independent Artists, which was supposed to accept any piece of art that was submitted to them. However, they rejected the piece (which was simply a urinal DuChamp had purchased from a hardware store), feeling that it was indecent. DuChamp was using this to point out the hypocrisy in a supposedly democratic group- and you see similar themes in many other works of dada and postmodern "art". Now, I think there is something to be said for how postmodernism has assimilated into the very institutions it aimed to critique (both artistically and academically)- the original Fountain was lost rather quickly after it was created, but there are duplicates of it in art museums all over the world. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "too much art for art's sake" though- more classical music is generally more interested in continuing and building off of musical traditions than challenging underlying assumptions about how we perceive the world, and I'd argue that it has fewer real-world implications outside of "sounding good" whereas postmodern art is very often linked to real life political struggles.
Linguistics major here chiming in on the Dothraki comment. All languages are "equally valid" for all uses, provided that they have sufficient vocabulary to semantically refer to whatever is being discussed. Plus, on that note, languages have the remarkable ability to borrow words from other languages *and* synthesize new words from existing words/morphemes. It may be that Dothraki, being a constructed language, lacks this essential vocabulary at present, but nothing inherent to it or any other language prevents a vocabulary expansion.
Greatly love your channel. Just wanted to nitpick.
Hey Adam. Love your videos! So we send you a link for the critique? It won't get filtered out as spam?
I can’t imagine how accomplished I’d be if I had your videos in high school. Thanks for the effort
For your acrophobic gigging musician: I have played a few gigs at the Columbia Tower Club (on the 75th floor of the Columbia Tower One building in Seattle). I also deal with acrophobia to a limited extent, but these gigs never bothered me as I was playing with my back to the windows.
Now, playing a musical in an outdoor canyon where I had to carry an upright bass across a rickety makeshift bridge to get to a scene… that scared the crap out of me every night for three months.
I love that you referred to people getting upset by the term microaggression as being triggered :D They get triggered by the word triggered! And they're supposed to be the "tough guys."
1:38 - I just picked this scale out recently, wrote it down, and looked everywhere for it. Now I have a name, thanks Adam!
Hey Adam,
I don't necessarily agree with your food critic analogy. I agree there is a place for an extremely knowledgeable person to provide an in depth criticism for a restaurant, but sometimes the average consumer might not relate to that. For me, I want to know obvious things like pricing, service times, cleanliness, general food quality (was it hot? did it feel like they reheated leftovers? etc and that can be provided be the average consumer. There will always be some really positive or negative outliers which could be expunged with context, and there will also be misinformed self important people who think they know what they're saying, but end up misleading readers with what sounds like high quality critique but in reality is just drivel.
Just my thoughts.
Have to add that AAL does have bass in their songs, they play to a click and bass track live. Tosin and Javier are under no allusions that their 8 strings produce the timber of a bass. They specifically sculp their guitar sound around the bass that is present in their tracks. Also excellent to hear your familiarity with AAL and Meshuggah. Truly excellent and unique music in our era. -NP
How does one complain about pretentious people, whilst also sounding incredibly pretentious about it?..
Hey Adam!
Don't be surprised if someone asks you to be a professor or a teacher. (I really don't care about the hierarchy of those names...also because I have been influenced by the Italian culture/language and its usage of the words "professore", "maestro", "insegnante", and "docente."
Without going into all of these words in the "classl" of instruction, teaching English in Rome I have been charmed by being called "maestro" by 10 year olds and "professore" by high school students. I think of myself as a coach... if only I were paid as well as some coaches.
But it's easy to see that you love to learn which is an essential quality in the best "teachers." The more I follow you the more I like and appreciate you. Hat's off.
Hey! what do you think of Drum Solos. i feel like, if done well, the drum solo can bring the audience to attention and hold them in suspense. whats your opinion
Gotta say I love you videos and the way you get excited by the subject matter, but that being said, I've just been watching the Jacob Collier theory interview (part two)... Holy shit, everybody should get that excited about the music they create. Keep up the good work man
not a male, not a bassist(but keyboardist) but I'm here cuz I got a crush on Adam
I know I'm late but shoot that shot 👏
YOU ANSWERED MY QUESTION, SIR. And I love you for it.
What is the problem with contemporary christian music? Let's take the religious aspect out, and just talk musically.
*grabs popcorn
they don't have enough bass
+no name B A S S*
Fixed that for you.
It''s bland, overly-simplistic, and mostly vacuous. The art of the music has been put aside for JEEESSSSSUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSS. There are excellent artists who are Christians (Mutemath, Sufjan Stevens), but I consider those distinct from CCM.
Joshua Allgood it’s literally boomer white moms that listen to it. I’d say 9/10 christians don’t like ccm
@@stephen5601 I hope so
i am a girl and i love your videos, im going to major in worship arts and the theory you describe is wonderful and i don't feel any aggression or isolation because of my gender from this community. thank you!
I am the only female player in my schools student jazz ensemble. Its important to have representation in music. Otherwise, if we DON'T push for representation the world never changes and nothing gets better for people in the future. Don't crush your children's desire to play instruments, especially if they are underrepresented in the world. Go forth and create.
I don't even play or make music, I just love watching you explain musical concepts :)
rip he didn't answer my question... maybe next time.
Good lighting in this video! I was like, what's changed? my screen? no... and then I went, light!
Why do I keep watching your channel even though I can't understand a single thing you say? I've watched every video of yours, not having any musical training, and I didn't understand one thing about musical theory, but I can't stop. How do you manage to keep me from unsubscribing? How?
Bwahahaha!!! I have a limited understanding of theory, but Adam does paint a musical theoretical picture about as well as Bob Ross painted happy little birds and trees. Adam is a brilliant mind, and we're lucky that he's so committed to educating the world. BASS!
13:06 chains my subscription to adam
Dear Adam,
Because of your pedalboard video, I spent 100€ on a MXR Deluxe Bass Octaver for a gig only to play "24K Magic" and "What You Don't Do" by Lianne La Havas.
24K Magic is indeed a really cool song to play (espacially love the weird drop/bridge with the "misplaced" rythmic accents, nice way to play with 4/4).
Well, that was my uninteresting anecdote.
For Q+A
How much is musical academia permeated by politics and ideology in the US (I'm not American), and how easy/difficult is it to bypass/ignore it without harming your grades or reputation?
seriously though...
Musical history is sometimes taught incorrectly etc, due to wanting to leave out certain things that may now a days be seen as micro aggression's, things such as the chinese and celtic influence on the blues are left out, because some find it offensive to say that the blues was somewhat appropriated from other cultures, although its true, and is very useful to learn, especially when learning about the universal truth of the overtone series, and how most cultures using the pentatonic scale highlights that (blues uses the pentatonic scale heavily, as does chinese music as well, etc)
randomly discovered your videos and love them. Just some praise for ya.
Where's YA. Oh my gosh
Nikolai Novohohlovskye? would that be your name????
*Russian is so fun and difficult...
I mean YA but not me)) Russian has just hard consonants vowels ,that's it. Parodys on our language is fake. Russians speak harder and softly of anytime. When I hear parody it looks like Italian or Germany dialect. But who cares
perfectly fair response. i suppose my ultimate point is that making music is about taking what's in your head and making it listenable to other people;
so if what's in your head is drumsticks sax, you should go for it.
There is craft that goes into pop music. There's the dance choreographer who makes sure the "talent" is dancing correctly. There's the song writers who actually write the song. There's the musicians who can actually play the song. There's the team of engineers who make sure the "talent" is in key. There's the stylist who tells the "talent" what to wear. Then there's the assistant who makes sure the molly addicted, spoiled brat, untalented "talent" is happy and comfortable. All to produce a product that sounds exactly like everything else and to track down any hints of individuality and destroy it. Have you ever heard Britney Spears sing without all the auto tuning and reverb and everything else? She can't. She's a singer who can't sing. I mean, The Beatles were a pop band I guess so technically I have no problem with pop music in general if that's what you mean but there is a kind of music that is just pop and nothing else and that's what I'm taking issue with. Auto tuning takes all the character and imperfections of a real singer's voice and kills it and turns it all into mediocrity. I'm usually with you but not on this one man.
Please feel free to criticize my comment if you so choose but please keep in mind that if you criticize my name, you run the chance of getting that wrong like many others have. Love the channel. Keep up all the great stuff.
I found the answer to the saxophone drumstick question really satisfying, but I would add that one motivation for trying to make sounds outside of existing musical traditions is to work within existing artistic traditions of avant-garde iconoclasm. It can be much harder to reach an audience that way-it's the Captain Beefheart approach rather than the Frank Zappa methodology-but there's an open frontier there if you can contextualize it right.
by modern christian music did you mean stuff like "Jesus is a friend of mine" and not stuff like Arvo Pärt?
Hey Adam, this is the Double harmonic MAJOR scale or Byzantine scale indeed. The double harmonic MINOR is an alternative name for Hungarian minor scale (the 4th mode of the double harmonic major scale).
as a female musician, if you do your best, it'll be fine.
E-very
G-ood
B-irl
D-oes
F-ine
that ukulele girl Sadly that's not always true. It really depends on several aspects, one of them is the kind of music you're playing and the amount of s*** you're willing to take.
I have to ask, cause I've wondered for years - I'm not sure if it's the small sample size or just bad luck finding it, but I've never seen a female musician that can solo. I mean like a guitar solo, something that isn't planned in advance. Anyone good you can point me to?
And I'm curious because I keep hearing about this "boy's club" thing keeping women out of music, but I can't help but wonder if this is just another offshoot of the wage gap myth with the same basic root causes.
Aitch it is pretty difficult to find female improvisation soloists. I listen to Alison Balsom, because I play trumpet, but I also like playing ukulele. Im still a student musician, and I want to compose music in the future. Improvisation is pretty hard at first, but when I improvise I use my knowledge of scales to solo. My advice to you is don't try too hard. If you practice and keep on learning the solo will come to you. I know from experience it was really frustrating, but one day I just let the music come to me. you have to feel it, and then you can go from there. hope this helped a little.
St. Vincent can shred your face off, check her out!
I'm very lazy and only like music to have a quick playlist, so have my comment-like, Adam, you're awesome
Why isn't the double harmonic minor scale called double harmonic major? I mean, It has a major third...
Erik Andresen I've always heard it referred to as just "Double Harmonic" so it's just assumed as major
According to wikipedia it's supposed to be called either double harmonic major or simply double harmonic. I'm guessing a lot of people call it double harmonic minor because it feels more like a minor scale than a major one
Erik Andresen It's cause the scale has the same augmented 2nd interval in the harmonic minor scale, twice
Alex Baronikian Still, you do get a basic major chord from the first note of the scale
Bure Stålmarck But at that point it's not a "harmonic" major
I love that you describe the E7#9 chord as being "spicy"; every time you call it that, I can't help but think that the chord probably tastes like masala chai (because that's what I was drinking when watching this video). Unfortunately musical spiciness is totally different from things like black pepper and cayenne, so music unfortunately cannot taste like masala chai. If only the scoville scale was a music scale and not a measurement system for the pungency of chili peppers; I could totally go for some spicy music.
our group is entirely female and a guy came up to the stage and asked "what are you, like a heart tribute band?"
What an ass that person
That guy is real. He answered the most ridiculous question with a straight face. What a lad
Who here just watched "vidcon 2017 bathroom story"?
Hey Adam! Would have to say your response to the playing Sax with a mouthpiece, or Drumsticks thing made me think. Your reasoning (which I feel is sound for sure) seemed more to be based on the idea of "intended purpose" of an instrument. Hence the wealth of pre-existing material/music/expression that has come before; however give the sax (for hitting) to a percussionist, and it'd probably be a whole lot more interesting, than giving the drumsticks to a sax player. I'm struggling to find the words for what I'm trying to express, but hopefully my point is there. The percussionist is more likely to have more understanding of the nuance, and technicality, to draw more involved expression from the instrument, than a sax player learning these from scratch. Ultimately sounds are all just part of our sonic colour palate anyway! :)
I strongly disagree with you on the subject of music reviewers. I think one's opinion of a piece of art ideally shouldn't at all be informed by how it was created. Art is about the meaning and aesthetics of the work itself and not the technical ingenuity behind it. I know a lot of very skilled musicians that (in my opinion) have terrible tastes in music, because they can't keep their mind from getting sucked up by the technical side of it. This doesn't mean that I don't personally enjoy articles that offer technical insight into works of music, but this is not what I'm looking for in a music review.
You are dumb.
Henk .is cool I know that you said in your opinion but by your logic I think that there could not possibly be any terrible music
Henk .is cool Some people like to feel music, some like to know *why* they feel a particular piece of music.
Sethymes I mean, thats entirely correct. Good/bad with art is entirely subjective
I think what Adam meant is that you should know a bit about the general subject of the music in order to analyse it. For example, I don't really like metal music, if someone play me a metal song that I don't know, I will probably just think it sucks. But I think my opinion is much less valuable than the one of someone who likes and knows a lot about metal. Art is subjective. but I don't think all point of views are equal.