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This is a thread for discussion surrounding topics like music history, music theory, world music, and really any deeper dives into technical and cultural aspects of music. I'm by no means an expert on any of these, myself. I know a very small bit of music theory and even less about music history. I'm just interested in these topics. Thanks to Jaz and JUICY JAY for the inspiration:
Also, I think the Call Me Maybe video tells us something in its own way. It demonstrates how basic pop music is and that even across genres songs have similar or almost-exactly the same structures. It reminds me that I probably shouldn't hold a Childish Gambino video sacred.
I think you might enjoy this comment that I saw on reddit. I don't know all the musical theory terms but it seemed pretty interesting:
~120 bpm, 4/4 with four bar phrases
Choruses are four bar antecedent and four bar consequent.
Both songs feature strong emphasis on agogic accents.
Songs diverge in that the Glover song used a lot more syncopation and triplet rhythm on choruses (popular in rap ATM) while the choral verses use a mixed meter feel that's popular in High Life and early African American/Carribean music, passed down from more complex African rhythms.
Carly uses more of a pop music call and response with vocal/melodic emphasis on the down beat, backing track doing some call and response, while Glover is using syncopation off the down beat (again, popular in current rap).
All of this to say, the Carly music is about as "white" as possible — from the production, to the instrumentation, to the rhythms, to the feel, to the melody. The Glover track is pulling on three if not four African/African-American styles of music (I think intentionally as part of the message of the song), some of which contributed to the development of rock/pop-rock, and others which were direct responses (arguably to the appropriation of blues and jazz).
It's interesting that music is so cyclical and intertwined
Edit: this is an example of High Life. I mentioned all this only because I think Glover's song is produced with African music intertwined as part of its larger message. I only see people talking about the visual symbolism, so I thought I'd expound.
Slaves brought African music to America. Blues was born and begat rock. Rock then influenced music in Africa. Now that African music is informing rap (another African American art). I only mentioned this because this song and music video (imo) are about the black experience in America. You could argue that white adaptations of rock into mass produced pop (like Carly) are an aspect of that experience.
The history, culture, and experiences that underly why these songs work like this are a reflection of what Glover is trying to talk about.
This is great. Not that I am in any way fluent, but I would love more discussion like this on inforoo. Maybe Im missing a specific thread?
Some more examples of stuff that might be posted in the thread:
My friend, as well as the podcast thread, recently hipped me to the Dissect podcast, which does season-long deep dives into recent, highly-influential albums. The first and third seasons are on TPAB and Blonde, respectively, but I've been tearing through the second season: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The episode on POWER is particularly good, elaborating on the diverse samples used to created the hook and the lyrical depth of the song:
Here's a pretty good, short video explaining microtones and microtonal instruments. It was made before the relative success of Flying Microtonal Banana by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, which was a concept album based around the use of microtones, or notes between the notes of the chromatic scale, which are the notes represented by all of the keys of a traditional piano (or any typical Western instrument, really):
Here's a cool video with the lighting director of Umphrey's McGee's live shows:
Post by Nathan Fieldcяab on May 15, 2018 14:21:23 GMT -5
My older brother has a graduate degree in music comp and an unhealthy obsession with all things microtonal. I'm sure he'd be tickled pink to see it get a shoutout on Inforoo!
My older brother has a graduate degree in music comp and an unhealthy obsession with all things microtonal. I'm sure he'd be tickled pink to see it get a shoutout on Inforoo!
If he has any theses or essays that he'd like to share, I'd definitely like to have stuff like that in here.
Work was crazy yesterday so I havent been able to post but this is awesome. I would love to explore of what makes music music, and what makes music better than others.
Sort of on the topic of music theory as it relates to pop, Owen Pallett put out some great theory essays on "Bad Romance", "Teenage Dream", and "Get Lucky" a few years back.
Sort of on the topic of music theory as it relates to pop, Owen Pallett put out some great theory essays on "Bad Romance", "Teenage Dream", and "Get Lucky" a few years back.
I've read the ones on Bad Romance and Get Lucky so far. I really like those songs.
I thought it was kind of funny that most of the things they say about Gaga from a theory standpoint are somewhat fascistic, and I'm not a huge of them, but I generally like her and her music.
The stuff about Get Lucky being in A Aeolian or D Dorian depending how you look at it is relevant to a song I've been trying to conceptualize. Pretty interesting coincidence.
Chilly Gonzales has a great pop music theory video series. It's really fun to hear the thought process or mechanics of what makes something an ear worm. Sadly they took down the video where he accused Hozier of ripping off Feist but the rest are still good.
Also shout out to the Song Exploder and Switched on Pop podcasts.
Song Exploder gets musicians to explain how they wrote one of their songs. It's really fun to hear where inspiration comes from like Bryce Dessner's wife challenging to write a song with a harmonica line or Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso falling in love with his neice's Play Skool piano.
Pop Music Matters is a professor of music and a professional song writer who analyze pop music. They take it seriously as an art form and really have a huge depth of knowledge to pull from. My favorite episode was probably about Max Martin's style and tricks.
This guy makes a ton of videos on music theory and the music industry. He's a Nashville songwriter named Rick Beato. He has a whole host of videos in this series. This particular one is on Everlong.
Post by snowmanomura on Aug 5, 2018 22:34:53 GMT -5
This is an incredibly in-depth article on Steely Dan - both as commentary on their perfectionism and a bit of deconstruction of their songwriting style, with a particular focus on Peg. Also includes some videos with Fagen breaking down the chords on the piano and "making of" videos for Peg and Aja.
Why did no one tell me this thread existed? You have failed me.
I wish I didn't find Steely Dan so goddamn boring, because those videos look interesting, but the noodly-ass songwriting puts me to sleep. It's like Phish, if Phish could play, but still couldn't write.
What are your favourite songs with unusual progressions or structures? I always get so bored of the same old stuff in different packaging.
I’ve never heard someone who doesn’t like SD list their songwriting as a reason. The lyrics are one of my favorite parts, I find them often times to be really funny and sly.
I recorded some of the "Classic Albums" series that BBC put on late 90's and kind of kicked around until what looks like 2017. It comes on AXS if you've got Direct TV, but I watched 2112/Moving Pictures and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road last night and they were both great. The Elton one was amazing, both had the engineer breaking down the isolated parts of the songs, footage from recording sessions, interviews. Have a few more on deck, but the list of stuff I don't have recorded is really good.
I recorded some of the "Classic Albums" series that BBC put on late 90's and kind of kicked around until what looks like 2017. It comes on AXS if you've got Direct TV, but I watched 2112/Moving Pictures and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road last night and they were both great. The Elton one was amazing, both had the engineer breaking down the isolated parts of the songs, footage from recording sessions, interviews. Have a few more on deck, but the list of stuff I don't have recorded is really good.
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