The I, IV and V chords are beginner-level music theory concepts. However, in my pop-oriented aural skills class, we are covering them in the context of the blues, where they are more complicated than they are in the standard tonal theory context. Let’s begin with a review of the basic I, IV and V from the major scale. Here they are in C.
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. Continue reading “Identifying the diatonic modes”
It’s pentatonic scales week in aural skills class. This would seem to be the easiest thing on the syllabus, but I discovered while doing listening exercises with the students that even these simple scales have their subtleties.
You can understand the C major pentatonic scale to be the C major scale without scale degrees four and seven. These are the ones that create all the tension and dissonance, and without them, the major pentatonic sounds uncomplicatedly sunny and cheerful. (Or does it? More on that in a minute.) Click the image to play the scale in the aQWERTYon.
You can easily explore the G-flat major pentatonic scale: it’s the black keys on the piano. Guitarists will find that G major pentatonic is particularly easy to play. (Too bad they can’t so easily play it with the pianists.)
My NYU aural skills students are working on chord identification. My last post talked about seventh chords; this post is about chords with more notes in them, or at least, different notes. My theory colleagues call them added-note chords. They are more commonly called jazz chords, though many of the examples I list below are not from jazz. You could also call them extended chords, or complicated chords, or fancy chords, or cool chords. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the numbers and symbols. My preferred way to organize all this information is to think of chords as vertically stacked scales. It is intimidating to try to learn to distinguish between C7, C9, C13, C7sus4, C9sus4 and C13sus4, but they are really just different combinations of the notes in C Mixolydian mode, and they all convey a similar “Mixolydian-ness”. But before we get to those, let’s start with extended chords you can make from regular old C major.
In aural skills class, we are practicing identifying seventh chords. This is second nature for guitarists and pianists who play anything jazz-related, but I appreciate that it’s harder for singers and players of monophonic instruments. Here’s my reference guide to the four (non-diminished or –augmented) seventh chords.
For the first day of my new pop-oriented Aural Skills II class at NYU, we analyzed “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen. I have been using this song as a listening example in music tech classes for many years because it is the apex of maximalist brickwall-limited caterpillar-waveform 21st century pop production. In the music tech context, I tend not to talk much about the song itself, but it’s a perfect entry point into pop aural skills too. Here’s the video, in case you have been trapped in a well since 2012.
Delightful though the song is, at first it seemed to me to be too simple and repetitive to be interesting from a notes-on-the-page perspective. However, once I dug in, I found more going on than I had thought.
My newest side hustle is a writing gig for MusicRadar, in which I will be analyzing well-known songs in terms of music theory, production and larger cultural context. The first one went live today, a study of “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish from the Barbie movie. The next one is going to be about the Beatles. Check it out!
A couple of weeks ago I posted about how a couple of NYU’s new progressive music theory and aural skills classes have been assigning this blog. Either coincidentally or as a result of the post, the department offered me a section of Aural Skills II – Popular Music. That feels good, and it’s an opportunity to put a lot of long-held ideas I’ve had about how to teach this material into practice. It’s not a lot of prep time, and I have some nerves about that, but they have offered me plenty of materials to draw on. I’ll be posting updates about it here. 
After spending their first few years writing abstract psychedelic tunes, the Grateful Dead took a hard turn into Americana. They wrote a bunch of songs inspired by blues, country and folk, and in doing so, they massively expanded their listener base. Several of these songs involve outlaws and drifters in the Wild West. I think the best of the Dead’s cowboy songs, both lyrically and musically, is “Jack Straw”.
When I was a kid, my older stepbrother had a bunch of Dead albums stored in our apartment. I avoided listening to them at first because their covers suggested that they would be too heavy and frightening for my tastes. Imagine my surprise when I finally did try them and they turned out to be affable psychedelic country. I first heard “Jack Straw” on What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been, the hugely better of the two Grateful Dead greatest hits compilations. (The other is Skeletons from the Closet, which has some baffling choices – “Mexicali Blues”, why?)
When I was in college, I picked up a cassette of Legacy by Jon Faddis from the dollar bin at the record store. It’s a kind of greatest hits of jazz trumpet, and it was one of the best dollars I ever spent. The last three tunes were especially wonderful: “A Child Is Born” by Thad Jones, “Lil’ Darlin’” by Neal Hefti, and “Whisper Not” by Benny Golson. I have to give it up to the producer for that sequencing; the obvious move would have been to end the album on “Lil’ Darlin'”, but instead, just when you’ve been lulled into a peaceful slumber, “Whisper Not” opens up a whole new and unexpected atmosphere of nocturnal mystery. I rewound this part of the tape endlessly.
Here’s a live performance of Benny Golson playing “Whisper Not” with the Jazz Messengers in France in 1958, along with Art Blakey on drums, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Bobby Timmons on piano and Jymie Merritt on bass.
Golson gives some insight into his compositional process in this Jazzwax interview with Marc Meyers. Continue reading “Whisper Not”
