We are wrapping up the harmony unit of pop aural skills class with harmonized basslines. These sound more “classical” than the other material we’re covering, and for good reason. Long before Western Europeans thought in terms of chords, they saw harmony as something that emerged from the interaction of multiple simultaneous melodies. Baroque composers frequently …
Tag Archives: Michael Jackson
Identifying the diatonic modes
In Aural Skills class we continue our sprint through harmony concepts with the diatonic modes. These are an advanced topic in classical theory, but for popular music, you need to deal with them up front, especially Mixolydian and Dorian. Here are the tunes I’m giving the class to practice distinguishing the modes from each other.
I Wanna Be Your Lover
In addition to drumming with the Roots, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson is a brilliant DJ, and he wrote a Twitter thread about his top ten most reliable dance floor fillers. Prince figures heavily in the thread, first because he once tipped Quest $100 for having the audacity to slip Miles Davis’ “Milestones” into a DJ set. …
Crosseyed And Painless
Since I’m stuck in my apartment with Covid for a while, looks like I have plenty of time to continue my Talking Heads series. Here’s one of their funkiest and most Afrobeat-sounding tracks. David Byrne always speak-sings to an extent, but this song has an actual rap verse (“Facts are simple and facts are straight…”) …
I Want You Back
Why is “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 such an uncontainable explosion of joy? It has the happiest chord progression ever, which I wrote about in a previous post. But the harmony is just the icing on the cake. The real heart of this tune is the groove. Let’s have a look! I …
The best guitar solo ever recorded
The best guitar solo ever recorded is in Prince’s 1986 classic “Kiss.” Don’t be fooled by Wendy Melvoin’s mimed guitar playing in the video; Prince himself played the solo. It might seem unfair that one of the best singers, songwriters, dancers, bandleaders and producers in history should also have played history’s best guitar solo, but, …
Glenn Gould wanted me to make this remix
Glenn Gould thought people should make their own edits of classical recordings. He explains this idea in greater depth here. I read it and thought, challenge accepted!
My year in (other people’s) music
I chose my top songs of 2018 based on a combination of their emotional impact and the number of times I listened to them (measured subjectively, I don’t actually keep track.) Some of these I included because I loved them, and some my kids made me listen to a million times. I didn’t include any …
Dancing to Michael Jackson with my kids
I have a longstanding musical relationship with Michael Jackson. There’s nothing remarkable about that; many people do. Like the rest of my age cohort, Michael entered my consciousness with Thriller in the early 1980s. Aside from a period in my teens and young adulthood, he has rarely been out of my ears since. The relationship …
Real vs hyperreal vs surreal
You can put all recorded music techniques and gestures into three categories: realist, hyperrealist, and surrealist. These categories have soft boundaries that broadly overlap. Nevertheless, I find them to be a useful way to organize my thinking about sonic aesthetics.