Holocene: How Bon Iver Creates A Mood 

His music always makes me feel like that. In a way, he's like the manifestation of saudade.

Lmaooo me

Yea because that’s kinda what it’s about it’s about falling out of touch with a friend

yes

I know this feeling, it means you loved someone...and let that person go

Here I am- on RU-vid trying to figure out- what this song really means. Now I realized how it has taken me on a rollercoaster of emotions- yet, not knowing what all the lyrics meant. The music itself beyond phenomenal.

It's always felt so overwhelming for me.

it does. beautiful piece.

ME TOO!!!

same!!!!

And 'Anchor' by Novo Amor too.

Yes pls

YES YES YES.

Sufjan is 1000x better and more creative than Bon Iver.

YES!

Vojta K..

OnceUponAPiano He artistically works so well with “Woods”. There’s so much context in the song that is felt and not exactly said.

And The Wolves

"Woods" is a masterpiece

22, a Million’s “Deathbreast” and “Creeks” are also good examples.

same goes with a band from my country, Up Dharma Down. it's very hard for filipinos to understand what Armi (the vocalist) is saying because she uses her voice to add melody to the instrumentals.

i was literally about to write this same comment

Hahahaha totes. Same here

Same. Made my day already.

SAME SAME SAME.

+Kayla Griffith yup! Was thinking that too

And I love Bon Iver

+DunnYT Just don't be sending any of your money to Ethan because his name is Evan.

Lol my bad, dunno why I typed Ethan. Literally just got the thank you message and everything with Evan in it. The content is just as good and inspiring regardless though

Wow Ethan! Great moves. Keep it up. Proud of you.

This video was the final trigger for me to unsubscribe

+Cam Anderson Most scholars agree that you should qualify a brass instrument not by the material it's made of, but by the way the sound is made - that is, by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments made of wood include the alphorn, cornett, serpent and didgeridoo. Conversely, the saxophone is a woodwind instrument that just so happens to be made out of brass.

"But it's made of metal that means it's brass rite guise???"

"but would use the general "horns" referring to brass and saxes" that really depends on the role they play in the piece. Though honestly situations where you ought to be referring to even just the entire brass aren't exactly common, because they're typically not doing the same thing.

Woodwinds use a wooden reed. Doesn't matter what they are made out of. K?

I knew this comment would be here haha

Hipsteria ohmygod yes.

I love that song so much!

We could also talk about "couleurs"

omg yes

Middle 8 channel has analyzed m83, check it out

Research. You can do it as well given time and effort.

@@_sayan_roy_ The OP is talking about how it's surprising that many of Nerdwriter's videos are on things that happen to be favorites of theirs, and how they like that coincidence. They're not asking how to make the videos. Work on your reading comprehension before trying to be pretentious.

Yeah, hes awesome

what song of his specifically do you recommend as a first time listener?

fuck yes, where do my bluebird fly

I can recommend dark bird is home

+napty "King of spain" is a very catchy song of his.

+

I'd love to see that video one day.

It'd be super cool to see a video about Trains. Maybe about how it combines traditional song structures with more nuanced, progressive elements to create such a magical atmosphere.

Get on it, Nerdwriter1​

Cornelis Mollberger I'm backing this up 100%.

yes please

You...you got'em?

...okay?

+Jaimeen Adhia I think he's saying the music has a very soft, soothing sound

Yung Falafel i was actually making a joke, if you can believe that.

OddGonzo oh well in that case I don't get the joke

I second this

beat me to it

I third this.

yessssss

+Butt Soup Muahah, you're in the great game now

The name is pronounced the way it would be in French. It comes from the French phrase "bon hiver" which means good winter. It's a greeting :D

I heard people pronounce it as "Bonny Bear." So which is it? lol

Boney (As in bone with a "y") Vear (Sounds like "wear.".

So that's the correct way to say it? Or as you mentioned before which was "Bon hiver."

Yes. The band name is pronounced and based on the French phrase "bon hiver." "Boney Vear" or "Bone-ee-VARE" is the phonetical pronunciation of that. Does that make sense?

Victoria is great film

Victoria was one of the best movies of 2015 in my opinion

Ugh Victoria is not a good film. It totally blew all it's great potential in the second half making it an immensely disappointing experience to watch.

+Daniel Mu Why didn't you like the 2nd half?

The film started out strong, very strong indeed. It felt very authentic in the way it portrayed human interaction in a situation like the one set up. The film gets the little things right, how people behave and talk. As someone fluent in German I could appreciate the little details they put into crafting the dialogue that felt so real and refreshingly unglamourized, so unlike anything we see from Hollywood. Victoria works best when it's focusing on the characters and the intimacy between them. The film felt so authentic, the characters so subtly detailed that I felt like observing real people on a night out. This is where the camera work and technique add to the realism of the film making it even more fascinating to watch. But then unfortunately the film decides to take a turn by incorporating a totally unnessecary cliché gangster/ heist plot, shattering all the authenticity it so meticulously built up in the first half. The characters started to make cringe inducingly moronic decisions that felt out of place and unearned, only serving the purpose of driving the story forward. This is also when the film falters at it's own logistics. While the single take approach in the beginning had a clear purpose in adding realism to the story, it quickly became no more than a cheap gimmick as it was no longer warranted by the story. I just wish they would have focused on a smaller more intimate story that highlighted the characters that they so beautifully set up in the beginning.

yes wow I would love that

Jacob Canlas would love that! Promise is so complex, yet so simple. “Darlin’ to ya’ Who am I?” “I come alone here” About life and death, and what’s between.

They've actually done two songs together: Fall Creek Boys Choir and I Need A Forest Fire. I don't know which one you meant, but you should look up the other one, they're both absolutely amazing. :)

zivkovicema3 I have listened to both, actually. Both very different songs. I need a forest fire is what i was referring to but in all honesty I prefer Fall Creek Boys Choir. It's intoxicating and strange, like sounds and music you didn't know your ears would touch. Blake's odd sound is like no other and I'm proud to say that he comes from my hometown.

Fall Creek Boys Choir is one of the most raw, bewitching songs I've ever heard. One of those songs you unconsciously look for in other music, like an ex lover.

StrangerToEarth You put it beautifully :)

Dom-Vito Mercaldi Nope you're right! That's him.

I find it pretentious that you find this pretentious

I wouldn't say they're pretentious, but I do think some of them are just average and very forgettable (e.g The Office essay). His Bob Dylan and Picasso ones were fantastic, he should analyse more art and philosophy like he used to, but I think he is just trying new things at the moment.

I imagine people who like this kinda stuff feel that the movie essays are pretentious also, two sides to a coin I guess

+Arbogurl does that make me pretentious too

What makes this pretentious?

+AlmostMyself I knew a girl who pronounced it that way too. I'm surprised you never heard anyone saying his name before now. He has been around and well known for about 8 or 9 years.

Justin Vernon himself said that it's pronounced either way. I've always pronounced it Bon-eye-ver

"bon ee-vair", emphasis is on the O and E.

it would actually be Bon ee-vair, if you're going for the french pronunciation, i hear a lot of Americans say it like Boney vair. But there's not obligation to use the french pronunciation, and i think a lot of people find that its sounds a bit pretentious to do the french accent.

When you realise that it means - good winter 😱

First, that vocabulary just makes you sound pretentious. Second, Spot. On. The video is about _emotion_, what it _feels_ like instead of the boring instrument-this instrument-that music theory. It's a normie's take on dissecting a song by what the overall feel is, not the individual parts, which most people here missing that point.

Ugh, you relentless pretentious hipsters, just shut the fuck up

@@deathmetalpotato eat shit nerd

lol I pretend that I'm understanding

same

he's not saying much. just that the song sort of maybe might be exploring contrasting ideas like clarity and vagueness and might sort of kind of maybe also be exploring that mysterious place where ideas come from altogether. the music might help unlock something universal? I think overall he's communicating how this song makes him feel.

Micoola I tried nodding in compliance.. until I went cockeyed..

Louis Cyfear He has a way of talking that makes anything he explains seem legit

Or cry baby cry on the same beatles album. Very John Lennon like

Holocene is only about 4 years old, it's pretty new music, Bon iver is actually a collaborator with Kanye west on some of kanyes best songs

+Ethan Henderson oh ok, sorry i don't follow Bon Iver. Then i better shut up...

He's just saying that the song captures the mood of memories, sometimes clear, sometimes nonsensical, but always a bit ghostly.

Godzeno, I must agree with you when talking about this video. To me it looks like he is saying a lot, without any explanation to what he really means. Later today I will watch this video again, but right now it looks like he makes statements, like 'he uses his guitar for the rhytm', but then Nerdwriter doesn't explain how he thinks Vernon does that in this song.

+godzeno Yah, I thought this was his least coherent video to date. Kinda sounded like he was talkin shite! I think he and Justin Vernon are amazing by the way.

There's a level of invention to any kind of artistic analysis. The way nerdwriter breaks down this piece isn't necessarily a reflection of the intention the artist put into it, but it does show what kind of meaning and symbolism the listener can take away from the piece. The problem with such critique and analysis is that the reviewer often treats what they see in a work as the objective quality and message of that work. That's how you get people trying to make Lord of the Rings an analogy for world war 1, even thought Tolkien explicitly said how much he hates analogies.

'Needlessly pretentious', would be another way to state it.

this is a reply

this is not a pipe

This is a reply to a reply to a comment.

This is the way the world ends...

This is deja vu all over again.

YES

NORSEMEN! DO NOT EAT THE BIG PINK MINT

billied_2003 Flush hard, it's a long way to Athens

Do "The Electrician"!!

PandaApproved Bronson, man.

i think he's trying to complement the themes/ mood of the song, but yea i agree it got kinda convoluted

Yeah sometimes i don't really understand what he's trying to say Felt like theres sophistication in his use of words but I'm on the confines of simplicity Nevertheless i still love his channel he focuses on angles on a particular topic i never thought of Keep it going nerdwriter 👍

I thought he was very clear. Perhaps there's an issue on the receiving end, rather than in the content being received.

+Wilfred Godfrey: That's a sweet way to say I'm an idiot, thanks. Fuck you too. Running thru the video again, here's my gripes in chronological order: - It's not that weird to start a song with a fingerpicked guitar. It's a common way to set a somber mood. - He's reading *way* too deep into this title. I don't think Vernon set out to make it an "unbreakable piece of art" when he named it "Holocene" - Yes, the trumpet and sax are known to be solo instruments (though certainly not the French horn), but they're also commonly used as ambient/rhythm instruments. - Wow. He uses so much unnecessary wordplay when he explains the lyrics/theme it makes me want to barf. In my og comment, perhaps I meant to use "wordplay" rather than "metaphor." My bad. But still, it's just so unnecessarily abstract here - "Somehow, I feel close to the terrain." What? More unnecessarily abstract wordplay. Das it. I love the Nerdwriter. I get notifications once a new vid comes out and I watch it immediately. However, I just felt this wasn't his best. Too much abstract wordplay that drowns the message. It's like he was trying to stretch out his words to fit a word count (which might more or less be the case here, in a way). Again, love Nerdwriter, but not a great video this time.

I disagree. The only thing that may throw people off is the attempted focus on the technical aspects behind the song, and then the shift of focus towards the mood/message of the song (even though I think its smart to include both as its obviously connected - one delivers the other). What he basically explained is how Bon Iver used instruments to deliver the 'feel'. The ending makes perfect sense to me - he is saying that this is a personal expression of the artist and his memory. However, the quality of the song comes from the emotions it gives. I believe that's why people like to get philosophical around ambiental music, it just allows you to create your own meaning and "feel close to the terrain".