MusicRadar asked me to write about “Pure Shores” by All Saints”, which I guess was a bigger deal in the UK than it was here, because I had never heard of it. Nice track though.
I had definitely heard of the producer, William Orbit, who made Ray of Light with Madonna. The coolest thing in “Pure Shores” is the polymetric organ riff, every three sixteenth notes. It gave me the excuse to talk about three vs four polymeter as a foundational concept in groove-based music generally.
I continue to work through the greatest hits of my classroom practice. It’s fun and easy making episodes using material that I have presented many times in many contexts, informed by student discussions. Eventually I will run out of this stuff and my pace will slow down significantly, but for now, the episodes are pretty much producing themselves.
I am not, myself, much of a podcast listener because I would almost rather just read (or listen to the screen reader on my phone.) However, music is a good subject for podcasting, because it’s nice to have the examples right there with the surrounding discussion.
I have written about the Funky Drummer break several times here before, but this podcast episode is my best explanation of it. The main thing that’s new is the connection between this break and Afro-Latin tresillo patterns. I also programmed a bunch of variations on the groove for comparison purposes.
Savelle was in my Song Factory class at the New School, and she just released her first EP. I could not be more excited for her, and I really dig these songs.
My favorite of the three is the bluesy opener, “Company.” I take no credit for any of this. Savelle came into class as a fully-formed musical persona. All I and her peers did was offer her encouragement and feedback (mostly “wow, that was beautiful.”) She did tell me that she found it helpful having to work outside her stylistic comfort zone, especially when she had to write a fun, upbeat pop song. Anyway, I don’t think anyone needs to publicly release music to get a benefit from songwriting, but when my students do, I am always happy for them. And it helps when the songs are this well-written and well-performed.
It’s modulation week in aural skills class, and that means we get to talk about my two favorite pop song key changes, both of which are from the same Michael Jackson song.
The song was written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. Michael and Quincy Jones produced. Glen Ballard also co-wrote and produced “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips and “Hand in my Pocket” by Alanis Morrissette. The man has a way with an indelible earworm.
I did a podcast episode about Ray Charles’ recording of “You Are My Sunshine”, a crucial example for my pop theory and aural skills classes.
This is the first episode where I layered multiple versions of the same song on top of each other for ease of comparison.
In this episode, I use “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” by Stevie Wonder (1973) as a jumping off point to contemplate the headache of naming notes and chords in keys with a lot of flats and sharps in them.
Making my first podcast episode really lit a fire under me, so I quickly produced a second one, about quartal harmony in jazz, classical and film music.
Continue reading “New podcast episode on McCoy Tyner and the fourths chord”
