Call Me Maybe

For the first day of my new pop-oriented Aural Skills II class at NYU, we analyzed “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen. I have been using this song as a listening example in music tech classes for many years because it is the apex of maximalist brickwall-limited caterpillar-waveform 21st century pop production. In the music tech context, I tend not to talk much about the song itself, but it’s a perfect entry point into pop aural skills too. Here’s the video, in case you have been trapped in a well since 2012.

Delightful though the song is, at first it seemed to me to be too simple and repetitive to be interesting from a notes-on-the-page perspective. However, once I dug in, I found more going on than I had thought.

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The Beastie Boys, James Newton, and phonographic orality

One of the most complicated copyright situations covered in my Musical Borrowing class is the landmark sampling lawsuit Newton v. Diamond. “Newton” is jazz flutist and composer James Newton, not to be confused with James Newton Howard. “Diamond” is Michael Diamond, aka Mike D of the Beastie Boys. The song at issue is the Beasties’ “Pass the Mic” (1992).

The flute sample in the intro and throughout comes from James Newton’s piece “Choir” (1982).

If you want to sample legally, you need two separate licenses: one from the owner of the audio recording (typically a record label) and one from the owner of the underlying song or composition (typically the songwriter or composer, or their publisher.) The Beastie Boys got permission to use the recording of “Choir” from James Newton’s label, ECM, and paid a license fee. They did not, however, seek permission from Newton himself. ECM didn’t ask Newton either, and he didn’t even find out about the sample until eight years later, at which point he sued the Beasties for copyright infringement.

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We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

I was not expecting to write a post on here about Taylor Swift. I have nothing against her and wish her the best, I’m just not her target audience. But when you have kids, you find yourself in all kinds of new situations. Ever since my daughter started second grade, she has gone from mildly Taylor-curious to being a full-blown Swiftie. We’ve been listening to the greatest hits together, and so far, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” is the one I like the best. It’s from Taylor’s 2012 album Red, and it was her first number one Billboard hit. She co-wrote and co-produced it with Max Martin and Shellback.

Taylor also released a version for country radio. It has the banjo mixed louder, it lacks the backwards guitar parts and synth swooshes, and the drums don’t have such a conspicuously electronic timbre. I think the pop version is better. 

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For No One

The Beatles were not always a rock band, especially not when it came to the Paul songs. This is a frequently cited example of baroque pop, a cousin of “Eleanor Rigby” and “She’s Leaving Home.”

Paul is playing piano and clavichord, Ringo plays drums and maracas, and the delightfully-named Alan Civil plays the French horn. (He also played in the orchestra on “A Day In The Life.”) John and George were not involved.

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What is the difference between analog and digital recording?

All microphones are analog. They convert pressure waves in the air into electricity. Pressure waves in the air vibrate a little piece of metal, and that generates a fluctuating electrical current. Different kinds of mics have different specific ways of doing this. In dynamic mics, the air vibrates a magnet. This magnet is wrapped in wire, and its motion produces a current in the wire. In condenser mics, the air vibrates a metal plate that’s part of a capacitor with an electrical current already flowing through it. As the plate moves, it blocks or admits more of the current, making the current fluctuate. There are other kinds of mics with other physical setups, but they all do the same thing: they send out an electrical current whose fluctuations match (are an analog for) the fluctuations of air pressure.

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Strawberry Fields Forever

The Beatles are so omnipresent that it’s easy to take them for granted. I answered a question on r/musictheory about that weird chord in the chorus of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and it made me remember that the song exists, that it’s super cool, and that it would be an interesting topic both for my music tech and songwriting students. 

This song was famously assembled in the studio from multiple takes, and its production is quite complicated. Like many later Beatles psychedelic masterpieces, this ended up being more a piece of electronic music than rock. But before we get into the production of the track, let’s talk about the “notes on the page” aspect of the song. John Lennon is very good at making unconventional songwriting ideas sound intuitive and inevitable.

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The microphone placement playlist

Last week in music tech class, we talked about audio recording, and how the placement of microphones relative to the voices or instruments can shape the sound of a recording. Mics don’t just pick up the sound of the voice or instrument itself. They also pick up the sound of the voice or instrument bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling. Depending on where the mic is relative to the sound source, it might pick up more direct sound or more indirect sound. The specific blend tells the listener a lot about the environment that the sound was recorded in, and carries information about style and genre too. 

Here’s a highly simplified diagram of sound in an environment. The solid line represents direct sound, pressure waves going straight from the guitar into your ear. The dotted lines are indirect sound, pressure waves that bounce off the walls, floor and ceiling before reaching your ear.

In a recording, microphones are a stand-in for your ears, receiving pressure waves and converting them into electrical fluctuations. If the mic is close to the sound source, it will mostly pick up direct sound. If the mic is far away from the sound source, it will mostly pick up indirect sound. 

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