Dual tonicity in a classic klezmer tune

I’m rewatching Curb Your Enthusiasm and very much enjoying the work of music supervisor Steven Rasch. In season five, episode eight, Larry pretends to be an Orthodox Jew to win over the head of the Kidney Consortium. To soundtrack the scene where Larry first meets the guy, Rasch chose a classic klezmer tune, “Tanz Tanz Yidelekh”, which is Yiddish for “Dance dance Jews.” Yes, that is the title.

I played this tune with F Train Klezmer back in the day and it’s a beauty. It’s also quite a music theory puzzle! Continue reading “Dual tonicity in a classic klezmer tune”

Led Zeppelin, “Ten Years Gone”

I like to dip into Rick Beato’s YouTube channel once in a while. He’s too Boomer-ish and curmudgeonly about current pop music for my tastes, but when he rhapsodizes about the 70s rock that he loves, he’s delightful. His list of the top 10 Led Zeppelin riffs is especially pure Beato essence.

Number six on Rick’s list is “Ten Years Gone”, a power ballad from Physical Graffiti and a bit of a deep cut. After this video reminded me that it existed, I went and listened to the song with fresh ears, and I very much enjoyed it. Continue reading “Led Zeppelin, “Ten Years Gone””

Smokestack Lightning

The twelve-bar blues is not the only blues form. There is also a whole world of one-chord blues grooves over drones, pedal tones and static riffs. Howlin’ Wolf has several classic songs that follow this model, including “Spoonful“, “Wang Dang Doodle“, and “Smokestack Lightning.”

Guitarist Hubert Sumlin came up with the iconic riff. The track also features pianist Hosea Lee Kennard, guitarist Willie Johnson, bassist Willie Dixon, and drummer Earl Phillips. Continue reading “Smokestack Lightning”

How guitarists learn music theory

This is me, rehearsing an Allman Brothers song with my stepbrother Kenny for my stepdad’s funeral last summer.

If you are a music theory teacher interested in reaching guitarists, here’s some background on my own music learning that might be illuminating. My journey is a pretty typical one for a rock guitarist, except for the part where I went to music school afterwards.

Continue reading “How guitarists learn music theory”

Research statement

I am finishing my dissertation soon and am applying for full-time academic jobs. Here’s my research statement. Also see my teaching statement.

I have three main areas of research interest: the teaching and learning of rhythm and groove; the challenges of hip-hop pedagogy; and expanding the teaching of harmony to include groove-based musics, particularly the blues. I address each of these areas in turn.

Continue reading “Research statement”

Nahre Sol introduces Billie Eilish to the classical canon

In this fascinating video, Nahre Sol composes accompaniment for an isolated Billie Eilish vocal in the styles of various canonical composers.

The combination of Billie Eilish and Mozart is predictably weird, but not for any “musical” reason. There is not such a wide disconnect between Billie Eilish’s melody and classical music. The weirdness is due to the fact that Billie Eilish is a microphone singer, not a concert hall singer. It’s strange to hear microphone singing over classical-style accompaniment! Continue reading “Nahre Sol introduces Billie Eilish to the classical canon”

The blues and the harmonic series – a visual guide

Does the harmony of the blues come from the natural overtone series? Is it a just intonation system that later got shoehorned into Western twelve-tone equal temperament?

Whether the blues comes from just intonation, or just intonation happens to sound like the blues, this is a rich and promising avenue of inquiry, both for understanding the blues and for creating new music inspired by it. In this post, I use MTS-ESP, Oddsound’s amazing microtonal tuning plugin, to visualize the possible harmonic basis of the blues. Continue reading “The blues and the harmonic series – a visual guide”

The problem with just intonation – a visual guide

Tuning is the final frontier of my musical understanding. I start reading about it, and then I hit a big table of fractions or logarithms and my eyes immediately glaze over. However, tuning is important and interesting! So I continue to struggle on. Fortunately, as with so many music theory concepts, the right computer software can open up lots of new learning avenues. I have been having a great time with MTS-ESP by Oddsound. It was designed to help you hear and play different tuning systems, but it also visualizes them in an attractive circular way. If you read this blog, you know how much I love a good circular music visualization scheme.

So here is the basic problem with tuning. An ideal system (for Western people) would be based on the natural harmonic series, because we love how harmonics sound. This kind of tuning system is called just intonation. It sounds lovely! Unfortunately, just intonation makes it impossible to change keys or tune your guitar. Let’s use MTS-ESP to figure out why that is. Continue reading “The problem with just intonation – a visual guide”

Modes from light to dark around the chromatic circle

People find the diatonic modes confusing. They are confusing! But they’re also wonderfully useful. So one of the goals of my music theory songs is to make the modes less confusing (or, at least, to make them confusing in a different way.) Some of the confusion comes from the fact that you conventionally see the modes as being generated by the major scale. So, theory texts will tell you that the notes in C major also make D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A natural minor, and B Locrian. This information is not necessarily helpful to you! It doesn’t tell you anything about how the modes sound, or what you might want to use them for.

I think it’s better to think about the modes in parallel: C major, C Dorian, C Phrygian, C Lydian, C Mixolydian, C natural minor, C Locrian. It’s even more helpful to see them organized in a different order, from “brightest” to “darkest”: C Lydian, C major, C Mixolydian, C Dorian, C natural minor, C Phrygian, C Locrian.

This order makes more sense when you see the modes written on the circle of fifths.

Continue reading “Modes from light to dark around the chromatic circle”