Lorde has a new song. If you are a George Michael fan, parts of it will sound very familiar! The guitar part in the first verse is strongly reminiscent of the one in “Faith.” But people seem to be mainly worked up about the similarities in the overall rhythmic groove and chord changes to the …
Tag Archives: groove
Pieces vs Songs vs Grooves
In preparation for making a bunch of new YouTube videos, I have been thinking about Anne Danielsen’s distinction between songs and grooves. It’s a useful scheme for thinking about pop, but it doesn’t cover everything in Western music. We need a third category for linear through-composed music. So here’s my proposal: all of the music …
Chain of Fools
“Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin is a song I loved for many years just for listening and enjoying, but then I started to love it even more as a music theory teaching example. It’s emblematic of blues tonality, one-chord changes, and groove structure. The released version is edited down from its original arrangement, which …
Oye Como Va
Santana’s recording of “Oye Como Va” is one of the most outrageous grooves I’ve ever heard. David Welna describes it as “a Cuban cha-cha composed by a Puerto Rican New Yorker and performed by a Mexican immigrant and his San Francisco rock band.” It’s red-hot from its opening seconds. As the organ starts the montuno, …
Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor
A passacaglia is a Baroque dance that is a lot like the chaconne. One of Bach’s greatest hits is his Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. Like the Chaconne, the Passacaglia is a long series of variations on a short, simple dance form. Also like the Chaconne, it’s pretty awesome. Bach got the first half …
Green Onions
Is this the coolest music that has ever been recorded? I don’t mean cool in the sense of fashionable (though it is) or appealing (though it is), I mean it in the sense of laconic confidence in its bad self. Booker T and the MGs recorded the tune without a title, and then when the …
Groove melodies
Like harmony, melody works differently in grooves than it does in linear songs or Western classical compositions. In this post, I try to figure out what makes a good groove melody, and how to write one. Update: Joshua Horowitz made an interactive animation of this image! It’s so cool.
My Favorite Things
My kids have been watching The Sound of Music a lot lately. I have known many of the songs since elementary school, but I somehow never got around to watching the movie until now. Apparently it was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s last musical, and boy did they leave it all on the stage. I was sitting …
You Are What I’m All About
I fell down a WhoSampled rabbit hole and landed on “You Are What I’m All About” by The New Birth, produced by the great Harvey Fuqua. The album cover might suggest some kind of goth techno, but the actual music is gospel-inflected R&B. This track has been sampled many times, mostly the clave part from …
The Roots, “Don’t See Us”
I advocate for the study of hip-hop because it shows that harmony is not the only aspect of music worth studying. However, hip-hop is also underappreciated as a source of harmonic ideas in and of itself. The Roots’ “Don’t See Us” is a fascinating example of groove harmony. The live version has an amazing acapella …