Hey Folks, It's been a while.... It's great to be back on the tube again. I'm not sure how much interest there will be out there, but I feel there's a lot I can contribute to this space, and I'm at a place in my life where I'm ready to really go in on this project if there's sufficient demand for me to be able to make this a viable thing. This video is the beginning of my experimentation with a new model that is better aligned with my personal values and hopefully will help enable me to spend more of my time making useful stuff for everyone: I've decided to close my Patreon page, and freely offer everything I make from now on. No more paywalled content. As I mention in the video, I'm hoping we can make this work with nothing but a tip jar and a dream: Ko-fi.com/MusicWithMyles So yeah, if I can get enough support to afford this, I would like to start putting out a lot more content on this channel at a much higher level of quality than this video. I have so many ideas...there's so much I want to make. The current bottleneck is the fact that I'm doing every bit of this on my own (while also teaching full-time), including the visuals, which, as you can probably tell, is not at all my area of expertise. So, I'm looking to bring an actual professional animator on board to help streamline the process and take MwM to the next level. If you'd like to see this happen, please consider donating if you can. Even a single dollar is super helpful if a lot of people are pitching in :). In fact, if even just 1% of viewers were to throw in $1 or so per video, suddenly this channel could be my main focus. Btw, feel free to ask me any music question along with your donation and I'll be sure to reply! And if you don't have a spare dollar, just sharing my stuff around helps a ton too :D And thank you so much for watching, everyone 💙🙏 -Myles P.S. If there are any particular types of content you'd like to see from me in the future, let me know in the comments!
Great to have you back man! This is already such high-quality content - totally understand the desire to up the production value with an animator, but don’t underestimate how good this already is! Also, would love to see a video on metric modulation, as I feel this is a technique that is desperately under-explored in music education as a whole, and I’m sure you could make something really informative and entertaining.
Glad to have you back making content again! I've gotten the feeling that the videos you've made so far have gone along with your usual songwriting methods, and I've found that to be the most interesting material. To watch a general music lesson and immediately know how it applies to songs I recognize is very satisfying and helps with learning and retention. Would be very happy to see more content that relates to your personal process and methods!
Welcome back! I couldn't believe it at first when I saw that your channel had a little blue dot! Your video on Modal interchange is still one of if not the best on youtube! Just the energy, information density and editing are on spot! Seriously amazing work!
I can't even begin to explain how freaking happy I am, your few videos are top tier musical knowledge on this platform right next to some of Rick Beato's "What Makes This Song Great" and a few comments from Adam Neely's "Q&A Sessions". Also Quiet World is still on the top prog metal albums I've ever heard. Poh Hock's latest album/EP sounds great too. Any plans of releasing stuff of your own soon?
Another tip for everyone: Don’t be afraid of leaving pedal tones in your harmonies. This just means having one or two notes that stay the same throughout, maybe only moving up or down a note if necessary. This sort of anchors the harmonies so they don’t feel like they’re moving too drastically
OK, but four way close harmonisation is specific, and useful for harmonising solo for ex supersax : fourway close double lead. Please do not mix up things so unexperimented people gets confused ! It's a matter of style. If you start mixing everything up then you can also talk about Bach's chorals ans so... This video is an excellent explanation of 4 way close harmonisation, please respect it's creator.
Quite frankly: there aren't many people on youtube who explains such advanced stuff with this much clarity, you're filling a massive gap. I don't know what's going on with your life but I can assure you that your work is really needed and appreciated here, I really hope you'll keep going.
I teach Harmony at Berklee and embed Myles videos on my class pages- fine explanations, awesome quality video, just top-notch education. So glad to see him adding more content
A really good explanation. This technique is also known as "block voicing" or "thickened line" and it's standard for big band jazz and many other styles. Queen did it all the time of course and they became so good at it they could do it in studio on the fly with hardly any preparation or practicing. (They recorded it with all three singers doubling all four lines to get an even fuller sound btw.) A few useful variants to add: + Sometimes you want to add a sixth rather than a seventh to three note chords. It generally gives a slightly softer sound. + If you want an even tighter sound for some of the notes, try to substitute a ninth for the root and/or a fourth for the third. But if you do, remember that you still want all the voices to move in the same direction all the time. + Two more common ways to handle passing notes (that is melody notes that don't fit the harmony): - Use a diminished 7th chord - Omit the chord note right below the melody note. (For example: if the melody note is an F and the chord is a Cmaj7 (CEGB), leave the E out of the chord.) + As the video says, ideally you want all the lines to move in the same direction all the time but if that simply isn't possible, it's usually better to let lines cross than to have one stuck at the same note. (For example, let's say the second line ends up as E-D-E and the third as C-C-C. A better solution would usually be second line E-C-E and third line C-D-C.) + You can add more body to the sound by doubling one or more of the lines one octave down. Typically the melody is the first one to double this way and then either the second or third voice depending on how tight you want the harmonies to be. (Btw, "standard" instrumentation for a full big band horn section is to start with everything doubled in octaves, then have the brass play the lines from the top one and downwards and the saxes from the third highest and downwards.) + Keep in mind that musicians will naturally intonate to fit the harmony so a harmonisation with a real musician/singer for each line will usually sound softer than the same notes played on a keyboard or by a computer. + If you only have three voices and want to emulate the sound of four-way close voicing, the easy way is to leave out the lowest line. I'm not sure but I think that's what Queen did live. A more advanced (but technically not close voicing) solution is to leave out either the root or the fifth of each chord. --- Not really four-way or close voicing but really useful variants anyway: + If you want a less "jazzy" and not so overwhelming sound, use the same principles but with three note chords and (of course) only three lines. Leave out the root of fifth of any four note chords in the harmony. + You can get a "wider" and less tight sound by transposing one or more of the lines in octaves. Three typical tricks: - Transpose the lowest line one octave up. This is a kind of hybrid between "standard pop harmonisation" and block voicing. Make sure the melody doesn't drown in the mix though; give it a different timbre and/or more power than the other lines. - Transpose the second line one octave down. Not close voicing anymore of course but it cn sound really great when done right. - Transpose the second and fourth voice one octave down. Definitely not close voicing but it can be very powerful, maybe even a bit overwhelming if you're not careful. --- Last but not least: remember that all rules in music are guidelines, not absolute laws of nature. What matters in the end is how the music sounds. It's still a good idea to learn and understand music theory and the standard solutions as well as possible because it will save you time and effort in the long run and besides, as I used to tell my students, you can't really break the rules properly if you don't kow them.
This video bonked writing harmony back into my head after 8 years removed from music school. You did a better job of explaining 4 part harmony than music school did for me. Excellent content please make more.
As a procedurally-minded software guy who also is trying to improve my amateur musical arrangement skills, I really appreciated this. Somebody will write algorithms to do this at the click of a button but I like arranging the notes like a savage. How quaint!
Dude you’re back!!!!!!! Hell yeah!! Dude I got such a theory boost off your modal interchange video. Seriously got me started expanding my guitar playing. I would love more videos.
god damn u probably think its corny but i thank you so much for writing out the names of the letters dawg i know how to read music but its something i havnt needed to do since school band so it makes it so much more digestable
I'm intrigued by the substantial depth of this material. A book with comparable insights broadened my intellectual scope. "A Life Unplugged: Reclaiming Reality in a Digital Age" by Theodore Blaze
Well done, good job. It think it is better to use IA to generate the others voices, the plug in is changing the formants which doesn't give a natural result....
Yeah... I studied harmony at music college and was pro orchestral musician for 20 years. Unfortunately this doesnt explain harmonic structures or how to move between.... But hey if it makes you feel better ...
I think the main issue is not leaving room for maybe one voice staying in the same note instead of following the movement of the main melody exactly, sometimes it sounds a bit too much arbitrary.
Yeah I agree that it may be better to let a voice stay on their same note, or switch to their target note early. Like staying on Ab or going to Bb for the bottom voice instead of going to A natural at 6:12.@@mitsuki1388
I also think making every chord a 7th chord robs the resolutions of their power. If you listen to the original, there are plenty of chords that are just 1-3-5-1.
Great explanation, really well presented. Personally I'm not a fan of turning every chord into a seventh chord (especially in rock) as it destabilizes the true chords such as the EbMaj7 at "Ma-ma", but as a mechanical technique it works really well.
i feel the same. just make those maj7 chords maj6 chords (so the first chord from to bottom would be G-Eb-C-Bb) and it's much more stable. although that minor second internal dissonance is really nice on IV chords.
I just wanted to say, even though this video came out a long time ago, that you explain harmony topics in a spectacular way. I am a music student and with your short videos I have learned and built a lot
I can't tell you how excited I am to see you back! I am 100% completely honest when I say your format is the cleanest and best format I've seen for music related educational videos! Looking forward to seeing more!
Sorry but... that second minor really rubs me the wrong way in a pop context like this, even when not next to the lead. If this was jazz or experimental maybe, but I fail to understand why you didn't stack the notes on top so as to have actual 7ths instead.
Dude I just found your channel and the way you explain these ideas is so great! I love the constant beat in the back - it keeps the viewer’s attention and it lets you incorporate the chords you’re demonstrating really naturally. I see this is the first video you’ve made in years and while I didn’t know about you then, I’m very glad you’re back. Please make more of these types of videos, and thank you!
You know the joke about how teachers only become teachers because they can't do the real thing. Well this guy dropped the best album ever made then dropped the mic so that when he teaches no one can accuse him of not being able to do the real thing.
Great video but I feel using the pitch shifted original vocals really don't work in explain how well the harmonies sound, they sort of just sound robotic especially during the vibrato
I've never seen your channel before, but I absolutely LOVE how you keep a metronome going and start examples on beat! Gives it a certain momentum that solidifies engagement. Plus, simple easy bgm!
That Db-7 is not working. I think it’s often not effective to just move each voice independently through non-chord tones and not care about the harmony is creates.
at 6:30, the drums behind you speeding voice make me feel anxious. You made a very dense video, but I'll appreciate some respiration sometimes to keep concentrate. Thanks
Seems like the chord voicing should be more dependent on the vowel that's being sung. If it's a low vowel, there should be a tighter range, and for a high vowel, a wider range.
Is this a psychology experiment or a joke? Myles is a great presenter and seems to know a lot about music theory. It's an awesome state of the art video. So why does the song he creates here sound like a clown theme from a nightmare sequence in The Simpsons?
I once read that in voice leading guidelines that it preferable for the outer notes to move in contrary motion or oblique. parallel motion should be avoided unless it's intentional. ain't it?
I think that's only if you want to separate your voices, it's easiest to identify and hear with contrary motion as well emphasizing more interesting notes with the middle voice
This arranging technique is called four way close, been used for decades, just learn about jazz harmony, this is not classical harmony. Each style has it's "rules"
So glad youre back and that youtube recomended your video to me. probably since ive been subbed from the early days. also i hope beyond hope for more native construct.
I didn't like the end result. It felt robotic and too perfect, like a Jacob Collier song. Maybe if it was actually sung with some imperfections it would be better.
This is probably one of the most well-made music theory videos I have ever seen. The fact that you have that constant groove in the background and how it flows perfectly into whatever music example you’re about to use is simply beautiful
