How many Chuggas before the Choo Choo? (music theory Q+A) 

"breathe in, breath out during improvising" Wind players: 👍

“Chugga” is a trochee but “choo choo” is a spondee (both stressed)! This is the hill I will die on.

Hey! I wrote that paper at 4:50 (blink and you'll miss it). All those years in grad school finally payed off! :D

This video has the biggest language barrier I have ever faced: the train in Italy does too-too too-too choof choof.

This might be the most important topic you've ever tackled.

I love how a discussion on chuggas and choos goes from Shakespeare to Black Sabbath to Kanye West. Truly we live in a society.

That “breathe in. breathe out. breathe out” three-chord phrase was very pleasing

"Choo Choo" is clearly a spondee, both choos should be identically stressed

3:19 “That song Kanye West did with Jay-Z” is a very back door way of saying the real title LOL

Breathe in, breathe out. Best advice I've gotten all day

I had a friend that emphasized the "butter" in "peanut butter" and it drove me absolutely nuts.

When I was a child my grandfather told me that 🇺🇸 American trains have a rhythm of 4 16th notes (CHUgga-chugga CHUgga-chugga), while 🇯🇵Japanese one have a rhythm of triplets (CHUgada CHUgada) I hope I will see him again before he dies 😢

3:18 ah yes “distinguished gentlemen of African descent in the capital of France”

The fifth edition Real Book was SUCH a flex.

I just want a 10-hour loop of that song at 5:21

there should be 12 chuggas. that just feels most balanced and train-like to me. 6 and 8 are also acceptable.

For those curious, @ 8:06 it says "oops I missed a note, whatever. I'm trying to deliver a monologue to the camera at the same time. Sue me"

Choo Choo has always been double stressed to me. That’s why there’s 8 chuggas.

Adam's perception of the "chuggas" (which is also mine), is that it matches the Batman theme. Chugga chugga chugga chugga | chugga chugga chugga chugga | choo choooooooo Nana nana nana nana | Nana nana nana nana | Batmannnnnnnn You're welcome :)

"oops missed a note, whatever, I'm trying to deliver a monologue to the camera at the same time, sue me" Prepare yourself, Adam.

I love how he ends talking about chuggas and choos for 3:30 minutes and makes total sense.

"Can you imagine being an athlete that doesn’t breath?" me, a swimmer: "yea its honestly not too bad" 😂

In the off-kilter example at 5:55 when he layers in the clips from The Karate Kid, he shifts "breathe in/out" so it alternates between feeling like a trochee and an iamb. Well played, I appreciate the attention to detail

It brings great joy when Adam fires a direct and precise answer to a flippant question.

You fucking goofed Neely! The picture you posted for the "locomotive" is a Shay type locomotive, that has 3 cylinders - which means it actually "chuggas" in multiples of 3, whereas most steam locomotives do multiples of 2. Though I would agree shays are malformed locomotives... Source: Chugga Expert (used to work for a railroad museum and restored / operated "chugga chugga choo choos")

Breathing... My violin teacher ( who turned me on to your channel) told me it was important. Because if I passed out in the lesson room, he'd have tons of paperwork to fill out..

2:38 chugga chuggAMERICAN WOMAAAAAN

I agree with your statement on the " * chuggas before the choo choo" because its the same rhythm as the classic bathman theme.

i am supposed to be revising poetic meter for English literature and I watched this video to procrastinate I cannot escape

8:06 "oops missed a note, whatever, I'm trying to deliver a monologue to the camera at the same time, sue me" ;)

I think 12 chuggas before the choo choo sounds good, where the chuggas are trochees and the choo choo is a spondee (both stressed).

That 3 chord loop jam was super chill. Can we get a fully fleshed out song version?

Adam: “There should be eight chuggas before the choo-choo.” Me: “I believe every word that man just said because it’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

Dancer here. Pretty cool how all of these pieces of advice apply to dance as well

That mister miyagi mesh up was incredible! For me it also shows that our feel for music is deeply connected with our internal rhythms like breathing or walking.

The amount of effort you put into every video is insane!

Dude. So happy you mentioned War Pigs. For decades of my life, my brain heard the riff as + 1, an iamb. When, the lyrics/band would come in, my brain would melt until it could rearrange things. I had to intentionally think 1 + in order to enjoy the song. Thanks for the great content!

5:34 lofi producers: hippity hoppity this is now my property

This is pure gold. Thank you!

One of my favorite super fast Q and As!

I showed this to my teacher during orchestra class. He remarked how he probably went to Berkeley around the same time as you (which blew my mind) and then we watched the chugga part of the video as a class. Today's been pretty cool.

I remember when I realized the chorus to "Roxanne" is a three-chord loop. It can be used to great effect...I like it

Thanks so much for recommending that 99% podcast, it was such and interesting and entertaining listen! Also the video you did on it was fantastic!

5:54 i love how you first accented the breathe, and then the in/out you just played with the accents again adam is so meta

Moral of story: We are athletes of the fine muscles 💪🏼

When I run, my breathing naturally falls into a pattern of in-out-out. I think I run in 6/8 time.

Completely amazing. Keep it up, Neely!

this may be the best content i've seen over the past few years, well done! 👏👏

Oh yes, That Song With Jay Z, my favorite in the Kanye West discography

AAAAA WTF THAT LITTLE BASS JAM WITH THE 3 CHORD PROGRESSION EXAMPLE IS SO GOOD

My guitar teacher noticed when I play and get nervous or stressed I tend to clench my jaw and it makes the rest of my body tense up too, so he suggested I try to unclench my jaw when I play and it always makes me relax and improves my rhythm and generally stay more in the moment rather than worrying about how well I'm playing.

Someone tell me I'm not the only one that was hearing the Athletic Theme from Mario World but really chill when he starts playing on the 3 chord loop.

To quote the great Robin Williams: “I’m not doing something...what is it? Oh right! Breathe!”

That song* I believe it's called Gentleman in France

Hey Adam, love your work and attitude. In a future Q&A, I’d love to see an answer to the question: What is a common factor that prohibits the transition of instrumentalists from thinking in terms of patterns and muscle memory to thinking in notes/pitches when playing along with a song or other musicians? Groove on

8:06 “oops missed a note, whatever, I’m trying to deliver a monologue to the camera at the same time, sue me”

Breathe in, then breathe out. Back up, back up, tell me what you're gonna do now.

I’m gonna make a 5/8 chugga chugga chugga choo choo song now to emphasize the difference between iamb and trochee.

Oh that intro Adam so clean love it.

GOOD GOD THAT TONE WHEN YOU COME IN WITH THAT OFF KILTER PHRASING, LOVE IT AND AS ALWAYS LEARN SOMETHING NEW AND MUSICALLY/MENTALLY STIMULATING THANK YOU!

My band director played this in class today. Just the chugga chugga choo choo part. Today was a good day.

Petition to have Adam drop a pinned comment under Q+A vids under which people can also submit their questions for the next Q+A. You know, for those who can't/won't use Instagram :-)

i looove using odd length chord loops. such a simple way to make simple progressions really hold a lot of tension and interest

To my ears 4/8 chuggas work as one standalone system. You chugga, you choo, you done. 3 feels unfinished so it doesn't sound weird to keep going. 3,6,3,6 just has such a nice jam to it

I always heard the “choo-choo” as a spondee, not an iamb or trochee. Like the way Damon Wayans says “toot toot” in Major Payne, when he tells the story of The Little Engine that Could.

Remember to breathe while improvising. Horn players: “no shit”

Dont know who edits your videos.. but man... They have a TON of work. Congrats for all that work and tks for your content. Keep posting quality. 👍

i swear I have been running the “that shit cray” change up in my head for the past month

One thing I noticed about the three chord loop is that while it sounded odd at first, the more you played it the nicer it sounded until repetition legitimizes, repetition legitimizes, repetition legitimizes.

That bass in 5:30 is some good morning vibes rn

What a trip having the bass player from your high school jazz band show up as the first one of Adam Neely's recommendations!

*Great topic and amusing too. Brings out the important relationship between poetry/text and metre/rhythm. If I ran a university music school I’d want to hire you to liven up the theory and music history/culture departments. Nice bass player too.*

Chugga chugga chugga chugga Xiu Xiu

Love the subtle bass face during the even chu chu’s 😂

Hi Adam, I'm loving your channel! for an upcoming Q&A could you give us a basic rig-rundown for your studio video setup?

OMG Dale Music in Silver Spring! I took flute lessons there - way back in the last century. Also bought lots of sheet music and music books there. So we have a connection! So cool!

2:32 I mean arguably it's a linguistics question because stress in language is a linguistics thing but also this is semantics and Im a linguistics nerd, I'll go back to my "umm akshyually" neckbeard cave

"Yeah … Let's get off-kilter." A motto for life.

A classical comporser, Heitor Villa-Lobos, wrote a song which the orchestra imitates the sound of a locomotive, and in this song the “choo choo” is a trochee. The song is called “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 2”

That progression was tight as The voice leading sounds really cool More goldddd

From this day forward, every time I hear the opening of "War Pigs", I'm singing "choo choo".

Adam: writes music in time signatures far beyond my comprehension switching seamlessly Also Adam: multiples of 2 and 4 only! >:(

Adam Neely is AMAZING!

I find it quite brilliant how you always manage to create a sort of overarching story in each of these Q&As.

Malformed Train is the name of my next album

Just have to say about the ”Chuggas”, that if you imagine them as part of a pickup measure, the first Choo in ”Choo-Choo” can still be on the downbeat.

I got the notification for this 4 days after I watched it, thanks YooTuub!

Great video

Now everyone can relax in the warm, soft duvet of Roman Mars' voice. Blessed be 99pi.

Actually. On a two cylinder steam locomotive(most of them), the two cylinders are a quarter of the wheel appart, thus creating the two louder and two quieter exhaust sounds we emulate as CHU-GA-chu-ga. There are, however many three cylinder steam locomotives(here in europe especially high speed passenger train ones), that make a very distinctive TA-ka-ta TA-ka-ta triplet sound. As the ways we emulate the sound have probably evolved from real life experiences of our ancestors, both multiplies of three and four are valid if voiced correctly. What's wrong is multiplies of any other number, unless you're in the us and then probably shay locomotives and similar contraptions could have more than three cylinders.

As someone who studies steam engines, for most of them irl the pistons pushing rods making the wheels go round push the rods back, then push the rods forward. Then one side is set 90° off from the other. Knowing this, there would be a multiple of 4 chuggas for a single wheel rotation. And the choo is just the whistle going off, typically 1 for stopping, 3 for backing up, and 2 for alerting railroad workers you’re coming/going forward. Take from this what you will, trains are complex bois

your video lighting looks great today

Adam Neely, finding answers to the world's greatest mysteries

I love first illegal Real Book stories. They are all so similar!

There are nine "chuggas." The first one is a pickup/anacrusis. It adds some extra fun.

As someone who knows a bit about rail, I can say that the sound that steam locomotives make is more of a consistent hum of sorts (a constant "chugga chugga" or "chuff chuff chuff" if you will.) The "choo choo" part seems to arise from the need to have a resolution to the buildup from the "chuggas," and feels like a representation of the whistle (which is more like a "woo woo" or "oowoooo.") There is also a sense of buildup when they start moving; starting slowly is necessary for preventing wheel slip, which is hard on the axles and rails.

The song you played to explain subjective rhytmization made me realize that lo-fi hip hop is just gen Z lounge

That bit at 6:00 was honestly the best thing I've heard on this channel yet

5:22 I think I actually prefer the 3-chord progression and the "off-kilter" feeling!

Hey Adam! Nice video but just meant to say that the Choo-choo is a spondee (double accent) and there's no way around it. It is true however that if we wanted to modify it, it would be easier to change to a trochee than an iamb! Also, we don't think about Shakespeare + Milton and verses of the time as strictly in iambic pentameter, that's old stuff: it's about how you break the monotony of an iambic rhythm with a different rhythmic foot in an important conceptual area of the verse! And in this case, the CHOO CHOO is important af, so it has to be a spondee to show its climatic awesomeness. Thanks for your videos man.