Today is the anniversary of the recording session for the best Miles Davis album, and in its honor, I did a podcast two-parter. In A Silent Way, side A: “Shhh/Peaceful” by Dr. Ethan Hein The conceptually weirdest Miles Davis album is also the best one Read on Substack In A Silent Way, side B: “In …
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How do you create a bassline? This question is not just for bass players. It’s for producers and songwriters, who are likely to be programming their own bass parts in their DAW. Keyboard players can do basslines in their left hand; guitarists do them with their thumbs. And even if you never create or play …
Making my first podcast episode really lit a fire under me, so I quickly produced a second one, about quartal harmony in jazz, classical and film music. The Fourths Chord by Ethan Hein The sound that connects McCoy Tyner, Erik Satie, Miles Davis and Star Trek Read on Substack
This week in aural skills, we are covering embellishing tones. This topic is tough, because I can never remember the difference between an appoggiatura and an escape tone without looking it up, but it’s on the syllabus, so I have to try. In previous semesters, I have approached it by having students identify examples from …
My NYU pop theory class is going from non-functional harmony to the most functional harmony there is, the ii-V-I cadence. It’s subdominant to dominant to tonic, Western tonal harmony the way God and Beethoven intended.
The top number in a time signature is easy to understand. Is the song in four? Count “one, two, three, four.” Is it in three? Count “one, two, three.” Is it in five? Count “one, two, three, four, five.” That’s all there is to it. However, the bottom number is another story. What is going …
Continue reading “The bottom number in time signatures has always confused me”
Song structure is a strange music theory topic, because there is not much “theory” beyond just describing it. Why are some patterns of song sections so broadly appealing? The answer has something to do with the balancing of surprise and familiarity, of predictability and unpredictability, but if someone has a systematic theory of why some …
It’s easy to understand what a section of a song is: an intro, a verse, a chorus, a bridge. It is less easy to understand phrases, the components of a song section. Usually a song section contains between two and four phrases. But what is a phrase? No one seems totally sure. This is important …
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.
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.
