Genuinely one of the most interesting channels I have found on this site. Thank you so much for your content. I don't know what you'd do, but I would absolutely love to see what you have to say about Odyssey's "Jump up Superstar." That song is sooo catchy and I absolutely love the swing style of it, and I would love to see what things you could pull out of it
the fucking chorus is completely disconnected the music just pauses for a second and then is all "welcome to the chorus and let's just jump into it" and then it's like a cool ass chorus but suddenly it's like "that's actually where i'm gonna end today's chorus" and youre like the fuck bro
While I don't understand everything, he's basically removing all the fluff to get to the skeleton of the song while mentionning various types of processes used to make the song cooler and more complex.
Listening to people starter than you is the first step towards becoming smarter yourself, even after years of learning Music theory I still learn new ways of applying it to Real songs! Google words you dont understand and take your time learning, then youll get there someday!
The way you integrate your professional musical knowledge, neat editing skills, and witty humor into these educationally satisfying quality content is something I am very appreciative of.
Great video! I loved the step-by-step breakdown of the simplification of the melody, and the description of the 6 different "passing tones" was great too! Keep it up!
The first video where I actually felt like I could use this knowledge myself :D I probably won't, but it's still a cool feeling. Thanks for making these!
I'm taking a music theory course at my university and just started going over nonharmonic tones, but I went into the lesson already knowing everything my professor was teaching because of this video. It's been over two years since I first watched this, so it's crazy to think that it stuck in my mind. Thanks for helping me better understand general music theory while breaking down cool compositions from my favorite video games. You're a life saver!
I didn't expect this video to be EXACTLY what I needed to understand more theory from the point I am at now. I have been trying to understand how one decides on what chords are being implied and how all the stuff that isn't the chord works in the equation.
so, my plan is, I'm gonna watch all the videos, learn music theory and watch them all over again and see if I end up getting it more ^^, but this is so perfect I really enjoy it.
It's funny how your two videos about melodies analyze christmassy/wintery pieces (Earthbound snowman's theme and this). Was this on purpose? are you going to do a video about melody every December?
I think you would enjoy looking into the soundtrack of the Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum game...I've always loved that soundtrack so being able to see why it is so good would be really sick! That is my suggestion
Great video as usual. However, I think the more commonly used term for echapee/escape tone these days is “incomplete neighbor”. Also appoggiaturas by definition have to be on strong beats and approached by leap and left by step. Some of your examples contradict that, like the B after A that I would call an accented passing tone. Also you might know this already and just not have wanted to include it, but what you’re talking about with the Beethoven example is called “sentence” structure in music theory, as defined by Schoenberg. Sorry to be picky but I can’t help it as a PhD candidate in music theory and college music theory instructor.
Sorry to bug you, but as a PhD candidate in the field, what would you suggest on reducing melodies in the following situations? Rapid alternations that aren't clearly neighbor tones, like the verse of Josie (Steely Dan) or the constant returns to G in Ikoroshia (Danganronpa 2) Melodic sections or phrases seemingly composed completely of grace notes, like the main motifs of Rusty Bucket Bay (Banjo-Kazooie) or Grumble Volcano (MarioKart Wii) Melodies composed of a simple note with a distinct rhythm and the chord progressions move around it, like the second electric guitar in Quietus (999) or the verse in Down in Flames (Blue Stahli)
Hmm. Well sometimes if the melody is not really functioning as a clear melody/tune, with variety and clear pitch goals, then it is better not to reduce it. If it repeatedly goes to one note over and over then you could just reduce it down to that one note, or you could just say that its functioning as an "ostinato" rather than a real melody. Melodic reductions typically aim to show the true "melodic progression" and how it works with the "harmonic progression" in counterpoint, so there must really be some "progression" i.e. movement towards a goal. For example, in Schenkerian analysis melodies are reduced to linear descents like scale degrees 3-2-1 or 5-4-3-2-1.
Okay, that makes sense. Would the "rapid alternations" category fall under the quasi-ostinato label too? Also, I'm still confused on how to handle the grace notes melodies. They clearly go _somewhere,_ but it's sometimes hard to tell what notes are and aren't necessary due to the further confusing structure of the accompaniment. If you want links to the songs I mentioned, then here ya' go: RBB: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Wg9vBGYH4Ow.html GV: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Boo6b8fKZqc.html
IroniqEleganceX I’m a little confused by how you’re using those terms related to these songs. The Banjo Kazooie one has a melody that’s almost all chromatic scales with equal space between the notes, so that makes it hard to pick and choose certain notes over others. However you could talk about meter (accented vs non-accented beats, and longer durations, agogic accents) or harmony as other factors to help you decide which melodic notes are “more important” structurally. For example there are parts where G is embellished by chromatic upper and lower neighbors, and we know they are just neighbor tones because G is important harmonically (the dominant in C minor) and it happens on strong beats. So in cases of rapid alternation and grace notes, meter and harmony are often what you look to in order to determine which melodic notes to keep in the reduction. Like with grace notes (really short notes that embellish longer ones) the longer note will almost always be more important for any reduction. I hope this makes sense.
I used that exact beethoven excerpt in a college music theory class this past semester... maybe do a video about video game composers and how they are influenced directly by other types of music/ musicians?? Bitta nintendo and other stuff can come into play here
Can you analyze the soundtrack of super mario superstar saga? If you do, can you analyze what makes rookie and popple's theme a rhythmical masterpeice?
It's interesting, I'm listening to this and trying to figure out how the fuck Joe Hisaishi wrote a piece for Ni No Kuni that's in both a beach town and a snowy town, and somehow works for both. But then again Joe Hisaishi doesn't have to follow music theory; beautiful music flows from his hands like a fucking waterfall of magic.
I feel like we assnowciate Christmas with certain songs more because of the cultural ties we make with their instrumentation rather than with the actual melodies themselves, but this video was cool and informative nonetheless.
"You might not hear the melody this way, but that's part of the fun!" That right there sums up why I love this channel. It deep-dives into musical analysis without any of the snobbery it's often associated with.
Ah but, in the bridge the IV-iv-I in the bass is almost the same as the progression in All I Want for Christmas, which is, in C, F-Fm6/D (aka Dm7b5)- C, so maybe point not proven
I saw this originally on my AppleTV, and opened the video in a browser specifically to make a Schenkerian analysis comment. Looks like I'm unoriginal (hardly the first time).
Story time Dude. I love your channel. It’s very educational as to what I couldn’t learn in music theory lessons while I was in high school. In the last year of high school, most Caribbean islands do exams for particular subjects. And for my music exam this year I came 5th in the whole Caribbean! Legit, out of thousands of student, i came fifth 😭On paper it sounds like a great accomplishment, but to me there is still an empty void because due to complications, I had to fit 5 years of music theory into 6 months of music lessons. It worked out because I pushed myself to learn everything I could but there was still a lot I didn’t know just because I only had 6 months of classes. This channel right here is making up for all the things I did not learn. I watch these videos religiously. Anyways. I want you to read this. Because if you ever feel like quitting. I want you to remember that there are people like me you are giving an opportunity to learn new things where they can’t find anywhere else. You are really making their lives for the better. Like so that he sees this.
I only took piano for 2 years and I have been singing for 24 years and I love music. My son likes to code and wants to make video games for his profession and I feel like I could help contribute to what he creates now. :D
By way of feedback, I love learning about what goes into the construction of well-designed, ear-worm-y melodies, so going deep on motifs (your Dark Souls video), reharmonization (Pokemon Jazz video), and melodic decomposition (this video) have all been really helpful and interesting. In other words, I found this video to be interesting, entertaining, educational, and at the very least seasonally appropriate! Thanks again for the video!!
Dang, I've been struggling with good uses of non-chord tones to build on chord-based (but boring) melodies for what feels like ages now, and the non-chord tone discussion here felt eye-opening, particularly for analyzing some inspiration songs and getting a deeper look at how their melodies work! 'Tis Christmas, indeed!
Man, I love your videos so much! I know literally nothing about music theory (I'm slowly studying it now, started like a week ago), yet I get so excited to see a new video from you in my subscriptions. Keep up the amazing content, dude!
it's christmas 5 years later and this video is still amazing!!! ^_^ i came back to it after realizing that i never finished it, and i was super pleasantly surprised that you went into detail about your whole process for melodic reduction!! this video alone taught me so much about melodic analysis, more than any amount of google searching would. i was still a bit confused about how to discern chord-tones from non-chord tones, but after watching this it's like all the pieces fell into place. xD thank you so much for making the most effective, accessible, and high quality educational content on music theory i've ever seen!! 💙
Great video, I jotted down lots of useful tips from this one. In the future, have you considered doing a video explaining how/where to use complex or unusual chords?
I am an a music teacher and I love the way you explain non-chord tones in this video. They’re awesome to watch and listen to and I occasionally will use one of your videos in class! You do great work.
Oh my god, I love your videos. You know so much about music theory that my 9-year-piano-educated brain can't really follow, though I still get most of the things, I did never go so much into detail. I love listening to your analysis because you notice details I just don't realize. Love ya
I have a request... Doki doki literature club. I have a suspicion about the music in act 2... the tune with the guitar seems to have something off about the chord progression... could you check for me? It's a bit jarring... but I don't know if it's intentional. Knowing the game, I wouldn't be surprised.
The bit at the start about how adding sleigh bells to a piece of music makes it a Christmas theme is more true than you may think... The frosty flake galaxy theme is just slight variation/reharmonisation on galaxy 2s main theme with Christmas instruments and tempo 😂
Oh HELL YEAH. Snowball Park has always been among my favorite Mario songs, and it was so nice to see it broken down to it's simplest components, only making me appreciate the "non-chord tones" that much more. I think your videos are starting to wear me down, I actually felt like I understood most of what was going on in this one!
Would love to see you cover NieR: Automata since it won an award for best score this year. It's super cool hear how the feel of the songs change depending on the dynamic layers or instrumentation (including vocals)
The intense asmr about sleigh bells in the intro was absolutely hilarious, lmao. "..And the sleigh bells, oohhh! Those bad boys are.. _jingling_ all the way into your eardrums, pretty much nonstop. Because that's what Christmas is all about.. _Sleigh bells._ *_..In everything."_*
You sound somehow more excited in this video than in others. Not sure if you did something consciously different, or if it's just been a while since I watched one of your videos. Also, sleigh bells. The Fire Emblem Heroes trailer for their new winter characters took the organ "wedding-like" music and just added sleigh bells, which I thought was kind of funny. I am a bit curious about the southern hemisphere and if they have the sleigh bell association with winter or with Christmas. And how they deal with the "Christmas = winter" association in general.
ICY why you enjoy analyzing these melodies. Seeing how in depth you went sent a CHILL up my spine. There's SNOW way I'll ever forget this awesome video... I'll see myself out.
