There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy. His name was eden ahbez, he was a hippie decades before that was a common thing to be, and he wrote “Nature Boy“, which Nat King Cole turned into a major hit. The tune has become a jazz and pop standard, and has been recorded uncountably …
Tag Archives: Miles Davis
Groove melodies
Like harmony, melody works differently in grooves than it does in linear songs or Western classical compositions. In this post, I try to figure out what makes a good groove melody, and how to write one. Update: Joshua Horowitz made an interactive animation of this image! It’s so cool.
Repetition legitimizes, funk beautifies
David Bruce made a delightful video about the role of repetition in Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. While this piece is hair-raisingly dissonant, it’s also remarkably popular (by classical music standards, anyway.) David explains this fact by showing how repetition makes the previously inexplicable seem more meaningful and less threatening. A crunchy chord might be …
Groove harmony
See also a study of groove melody Chords work differently in grooves than they do in songs and linear compositions. In his book Everyday Tonality, Philip Tagg proposes that chords in loops are mainly there to signpost locations in the meter. By his theory, the metrical location of a chord matters more than its harmonic …
Swing primer
“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah doo-wah” – Duke Ellington Hear a seamless collage of several varieties of swing: Music Theory Songs by Ethan Hein Aside from the blues, swing is the United States’ most significant musical innovation. People typically associate its rubbery, …
Miles Davis – In a Silent Way
In a Silent Way is my favorite Miles Davis album, possibly my favorite jazz album, and one of my favorite works of music generally. Most of Miles’ music of this era is ornery and angular, but In a Silent Way is like slipping into a warm bath. The music hardly sounds like “jazz” at all. …
Circular chord charts
Being home with my kids all day is not very conducive to dissertation writing, but my fragmented attention is still up to the task of making infographics. I’ve been thinking about ways of visually representing grooves. Since circles work so well for rhythms, maybe they can work for harmonies too. Here’s a circular view of …
Songs vs Grooves
Anne Danielsen’s book Presence and Pleasure: The Funk Grooves of James Brown and Parliament is one of my favorite works of musicology. In the book, Danielsen distinguishes between songs and grooves. “Yesterday” by the Beatles is a song. “The Payback” by James Brown is a groove. In structural terms, a groove is a small musical …
So What
If you have never listened to jazz before, Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue is a great place to start. If you’re an obsessive jazz fan like me, it never gets old. The heart of the album is its first track, “So What.” Even before you press play, there’s a world of meaning in that title. …
An intro to remixes
One of the most significant developments in the past fifty years of popular music is the idea of using existing recordings as raw material for new musical expression. The remix began as a way to make dance versions of pop songs, but it has evolved into an entire new art medium unto itself.