RIFFS:
Let’s play catch.
I throw the ball to you.
You catch it.
But how? How did your brain do that?
It’s more software than hardware.
Your brain is a prediction machine. When the ball’s in the air, your brain is guessing. It’s running the odds, constantly updating its model, then moving your hand to where the ball is about to be.
Like AI, we were trained on data.
We didn’t catch the first ball that was thrown to us. Same for the second, third, & fiftieth. We had to see a lot of flying objects before we could accurately predict one’s path.
I have a theory:
Like catching a ball, musical skill also relies on “seeing a lot of data.”
But it’s not just how many songs you hear…
…it’s how deeply you listen.
Duh: things we don’t pay attention to don’t give us much data.
Perception & attention are linked, and…
Paying closer attention improves our ability to perceive.
Lucky for us, we’re already paying attention.
We’re learning songs. We’re noticing things about them:
the key
“in G”
the chords
“G D Em C”
the progression
“1 5 6 4”
the form
“it does that for 8 bars in the VERSE”
the rhythm
“hit on beat 3”
Paying attention to and naming these things improves our ability to perceive them.
Here’s another thing worth paying attention to:
Production & arrangement.
which instruments do you hear?
when do they enter?
are they doubled?
panned left & right?
do the parts evolve?
is it a live band?
or programmed?
how do the individual parts make up the whole?
was it recorded to a click?
and/or autotuned?
what makes up the sonic textures?
layering of guitars & keyboards?
what sounds & effects are the different layers using?
what sort of auxiliary instruments can you hear?
shaker
synth pad
banjo
are there horns?
or strings?
what’s happening with the harmonies?
did the lead singer record his/her own BGVs?
or are there dedicated harmony vocalists?
how do the harmony layers evolve over the course of the tune?
what do the drums sound like?
dead?
verby?
squashed?
natural?
These were creative decisions made by genius artists & artisans.
They’re worth paying attention to.
Both for their own sake…
…and for the sharpened perception they bring.
RECS:
The new Beyoncé song is a hit.
It’s tearing up both pop & country radio, and it’s all over short form video.
It features clawhammer banjo from Rhiannon Giddens.
Here’s a breakdown of the banjo part, prefaced with a great 5-minute history of the banjo in Black music:
Our country band will cover it more like the killer James Otto version:
CHARTS:
Here’s my chart:
In this Dropbox folder, you’ll find PDF, Sibelius, musicXML, and Ableton Live files.
SMARTS:
Let’s look at the production & arrangement.
1/ form
Beyoncé has two more bars up top, and her outro is both longer and hipper.
Other than that, the James Otto version follows the same form. Same key (D), same chord changes, same number of bars in each section.
2/ ok, then what makes them sound different?
Mostly instrumentation. For example…
Beyoncé leads with that banjo…
..while Otto’s has acoustic guitar, kick drum, and baritone electric with phaser:
You can go through each section, A/B-ing them. In fact…
3/ it’s all set up for you in the Ableton file
As you saw above, they’re perfectly lined up, measure for measure.
You will learn a ton by going through this song section by section, A/B-ing the versions.
click on a section to highlight it…
…then use
control-l
/command-l
……to loop the highlighted section
I mapped the
j
key to swap the active audio:
4/ transposing for our singer
Our singer wants to do it in C.
I took the James Otto version…
…ran it through Moises to remove the vocal…
…then tuned it down to C.
That’s also in that same Ableton Live file in this Dropbox folder.
That’s all I got this week.
See you next Wednesday,
Josh
Well,it's worth learning, thanks,you are extremely meaningful