There Was A Time (I Got To Move)

Being a fan of James Brown can be a challenge, because his classic songs have all been recorded multiple times in different versions with different names on different labels. “I Got To Move” is a case in point.

It was first released on In The Jungle Groove in 1986, but was recorded back in 1970. The strangely tacked-on intro is an excerpt from a different song, “Give It Up Or Turnit a-Loose.” Except that the specific version of “Give It Up Or Turnit a-Loose” they took the excerpt from was titled “In The Jungle Groove,” which is where they got the name of this compilation. Except that the full song “In The Jungle Groove” was not on this compilation, and has actually never been released. Like I said: confusing! Anyway, the point is, once “I Got To Move” proper starts at 0:29, it’s unbelievably funky.

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Althea

Here’s a Grateful Dead song that I loved as a teenager.

As with many things I loved as a teenager, I did not know why this spoke to me. Now I do, so I get to share that knowledge with you.

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Don’t Sweat the Technique

I did not expect to hear a classic Eric B & Rakim track on The Crown, but at the end of season five, episode five, there was Dominic West as Prince Charles, dancing to this:

There is a lot going on here! The track opens with an upright bass and a drum kit playing a lightly swinging Latin rhythm. It sounds up close and full. After it plays twice, an entire funk band horn section riff enters, sounding like it’s being played on a small radio hanging from a nail on the wall. Then that same radio plays a riff from a single saxophone while Rakim’s voice, loud and clear, intones, “Don’t sweat the technique.” So that’s the first eight seconds. Next, a red hot distorted breakbeat enters, while the Latin bass/drums groove and the tinny radio sax riff continue looping. You would have no way of knowing that the breakbeat and the saxophone riff are sampled from the same recording, because they are mixed and processed so differently. This new groove plays four times, and then the saxophone riff switches to an angular and unpredictable funk riff using upper extensions of the Eb minor chord. All this before the first verse even starts. It’s a lot!

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The Song Factory course

I have been teaching songwriting for a lot of years as a means to other ends: with my private guitar and production students, with my music tech students, with my music education students, with my music theory students. But this semester at The New School, I get to teach my first actual songwriting class whose only goal is to be a songwriting class. It’s called The Song Factory. I didn’t choose the name, but I like it.

The class is meant to both be a songwriting workshop and a survey of American popular song. My plan is to do six units. For each unit, the class will do some listening, reading and discussion, and then they will write an original song. I am requiring that these songs have lyrics, and the students must sing/rap them in class. I am not particular about how they accompany their vocals. They can play their instruments, record their own backing tracks, or use existing loops, instrumentals, type beats or karaoke tracks. We will talk about composition, arrangement and production a bit, but we will mainly be concerned with the sung/rapped aspect of songwriting.

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My year in writing

I wrote a lot of stuff this year! First, let’s talk about the big projects that I started in previous years but finished in 2022. The biggest one was my doctoral dissertation. Read the story of it here. Now I’m in the gradual process of adapting it into a more accessible format, probably a book aimed at music teachers. That’s percolating in the background.

I also finished a book chapter about critical race theory in music education with Frank Abrahams. We started it quite a while ago, before CRT was a regular topic on Fox News and before conservative states started banned its teaching. We were still editing about a week before it went to the printers.

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New book chapter on critical race theory in music education

I’m proud to announce the publication of A Music Pedagogy for Our Time: Conversation and Critique, edited by Frank Abrahams. Frank and I co-authored a chapter on critical race theory in music education. Check it out!

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Just intonation harmonicas

A commenter on the last post informed me of a remarkable fact: for most of the twentieth century, Hohner harmonicas were tuned in just intonation, not twelve-tone equal temperament. This is surprising! Just about every fixed-pitch instrument in the Western world is tuned in 12-TET unless it’s highly specialized or esoteric. The most detailed information I can find on this subject is this post on a Hohner discussion forum. It says that before 1974, Hohner harmonicas were tuned in seven-limit just intonation. This doesn’t mean some weird Harry Partch tuning; Hohner used mostly five-limit intervals along with the harmonic seventh. In 1985, Hohner switched to nineteen-limit just intonation (!) because it gives pure intervals that approximate 12-TET more closely. In 1992, they switched again to a variety of tunings that split the difference between just intonation and twelve-tone equal temperament.

Before your eyes start glazing over, the important thing here is that when midcentury blues musicians like Little Walter Jacobs were playing their Hohner Marine Bands and Special 20s, they were playing in just intonation. 

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Check out this excellent blue note

I got a question from a Twitter friend:

Let’s find out! The note in question comes at 1:28.

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I Want To Hold Your Hand

My kids are deep into the Beatles right now, and unlike me, they like the early stuff as much as the late stuff. So I find myself listening repeatedly to “I Want To Hold Your Hand” for the first time in basically forever. As with so many Beatles songs, the silly lyrics are sitting on top of some highly ingenious music.

The funniest day of music theory class in grad school was when the professor played us the intro to this song as an example of bad voice leading. Everybody in the room lit up with recognition: “Oh yeah, we love that riff!” If the professor was trying to illustrate the universal validity of eighteenth century voice leading conventions, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was a terrible choice. If those conventions are supposed to be universal, then why does it sound so good when the Beatles violate them? But if the conventions are limited to a particular historical and stylistic context, then why does every music major have to learn them?

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I Heard It Through The Grapevine

My first exposure to Marvin Gaye’s recording of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was on the Big Chill soundtrack, which my baby boomer parents kept in heavy rotation.

Here’s a live version. Nobody wore a glittery tux like Marvin Gaye.

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