I grew up with a cassette copy of Bringing It All Back Home. It was the first Bob Dylan album that I remember hearing, and I knew that my Boomer parents and classic-rock-loving peers revered it. That said, people definitely respected Bob more than they enjoyed him. I did enjoy a lot of Bringing It …
Category Archives: Key Musicians
Fretless bass
In Advanced Pop Transcription, we continue to talk about instrument timbres that are widespread but not easy for most listeners to identify. Fretless bass is a case in point. Few people even listen to the bass intentionally, and even fewer distinguish between acoustic, electric and synth bass. That’s understandable! The bass isn’t usually supposed to …
Five songs that show the evolution of rap from 2000 to 2025
As with my post about rap songs from 1986 to 2000, this is not a complete or systematic survey. Instead, it’s a selection of songs that I love from different styles and eras, that are musically and lyrically interesting, and that point to larger trends. Missy Elliott – “Work It” (2002) I recommend the hilariously filthy album …
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Watermelon Man on the podcast
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 …
The name of this tune is The Funky Drummer
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 …
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Modulations in “Man in the Mirror”
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” …
Ray Charles on the podcast
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 …
Thelonious Monk plays the blues
Everything is terrible, but at least we have the blues to help us through it. Blues melody week is my favorite week of pop aural skills class. Last session, after one of my sections worked through some Aretha Franklin and John Lee Hooker, we listened to a couple of jazz tunes, including “Functional” by Thelonious …
Aretha Franklin sings “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
We’re coming up on blues melody day in aural skills class. I always like to do some close listening to Aretha Franklin for that session, especially her version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I hadn’t previously done any analysis of it; we just listen and let it speak for itself. But I thought, this semester, …
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What key is “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac actually in?
Here’s a simple-seeming song that is a subject of a lot of music-theoretic controversy. “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac only has two chords (plus a third chord that only appears once), so it seems like it would be easy to analyze its harmony. And yet, no one can agree what key it’s in. The two chords …
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