I’m not a particular fan of U2, but I’ll make an exception for “With Or Without You,” their lushly beautiful ambient rock masterpiece.
Tag Archives: music theory
Musical simples: Hey Jude
The end section of “Hey Jude” is longer than most entire pop songs, a long gradual build on a single simple loop.
Musical simples: Day Tripper
Many of the Beatles’ most memorable ideas are variations on boilerplate riffs from rock, country, blues or R&B. The riff from “Day Tripper” derives from boogie-woogie. John Lennon cited Bobby Parker’s 1961 song “Watch Your Step” as the inspiration for both “Day Tripper” and “I Feel Fine.”
Musical simples: Come Together
Presumably you’re familiar with this song? If not, run out and get Abbey Road and don’t deprive yourself for another minute. As far as I’m concerned, you can have Revolver and Sergeant Pepper and whatever else; Abbey Road is the best Beatles album. It opens with the funkiest, baddest bass and drum riff in their …
Musical simples: Smells Like Teen Spirit
The opening riff to this Nirvana classic is a concise explanation of the concept of relative major and minor, and an object lesson in musical parallelism.
Why hip-hop is interesting
Update: I’ve turned this post into an academic article. Here’s a draft. The title of this post is also the title of a tutorial I’m giving at ISMIR 2016 with Jan Van Balen and Dan Brown. Here are the slides: Why Hip-Hop Is Interesting from Ethan Hein The conference is organized by the International Society for Music Information …
Musical simples: Family Affair
We’re putting together the segment of Theory For Producers that deals with the minor modes. We needed an iconic example of natural minor, and we ideally wanted it to be by a woman. After many rejected alternatives, we settled on one of the high water marks of contemporary R&B, “Family Affair” by Mary J Blige. I didn’t …
Theory for Producers: the White Keys
I’m pleased to announce the second installment of Theory For Producers, jointly produced by Soundfly and the MusEDLab. The first part discussed the scales you can play on the black keys of the piano. This one talks about three of the scales you get from the white keys. The next segment will deal with four additional …
Musical simples – Under Pressure
Let’s just get Vanilla Ice out of the way first. White people and hip-hop, oy. “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie is a testament to the power of a great bass groove. The song itself is pretty weak sauce–it emerged out of studio jam sessions and it doesn’t sound like it was ever really finished. …
Musical simples – Teenage Dream
I’m working with Soundfly on the next installment of Theory For Producers, our ultra-futuristic online music theory course. The first unit covered the black keys of the piano and the pentatonic scales. The next one will talk about the white keys and the diatonic modes. We were gathering examples, and we needed to find a well-known pop song that …