I tried this already as a YouTube video and a blog post, but I don’t think I did a good job explaining what was going on in each tuning system. This is because I didn’t really understand the tuning systems myself. I have been filling gaps in my knowledge and refining my examples, and the …
Continue reading “Listening to the Well-Tempered Clavier in actual well temperament”
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 …
Continue reading “William Orbit’s polymetric groove in an All Saints song”
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 …
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. The name of this tune …
Continue reading “The name of this tune is The Funky Drummer”
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. Three by Savelle My favorite of the three is the bluesy opener, “Company.” I take no credit for any of this. Savelle came …
Continue reading “Check out this beautiful EP by one of my former songwriting students”
Here’s a subject that I tried hard to explain using songs, without apparent success. Maybe the podcast format will work better. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing by Ethan Hein But what actually is swing? Read on Substack
Here’s a subject I have written about a few times before, and it provoked a lot of debate in the comments and elsewhere. Let’s see how folks react to the audio version. Are blue notes out of tune? by Ethan Hein Or are they more in tune than the piano-key pitches are? Read on Substack
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” …
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. You Are My Sunshine by Ethan Hein Ray Charles and the racial politics of country music Read on Substack This is the first episode where I layered multiple versions of …
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. The circle of fifths is a lie by Ethan Hein My struggles to learn “Don’t …
