Solving James Brown's Rhythmic Puzzle Correctly (A Response To Adam Neely)

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It brings me no joy to say this, but Adam Neely is wrong on the internet. Or, ok, honestly, it brings me a little joy, and also it's not really true, so... not sure where that leaves us, but the point is I disagree with some of the stuff Adam said in his video on James Brown, and I wanted to talk about how important those sorts of disagreements are in music theory!
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Комментарии : 897

@12tone 2 года назад

Get 20% off Hooktheory's interactive books and a lifetime subscription to Hookpad: www.hooktheory.com/12tone Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) Fight me, Adam! 2) To be fair to Adam, he does give some indication in his video that he's considering elements beyond meter. He talks about volume near the beginning, and at the very end, as part of his strong-strong-strong reading, he mentions that "feel" is the highest pitch. So, like, he knows all this. He's just assigning a lot more weight to metric stress than I would, which is steering him in a direction that doesn't resonate with me. That's all. 3) That said, while it's certainly possible to read the quote I pulled at the beginning as separating out "metric stress" from a broader category of "musical stress" in order to allow for these other components, the context of the rest of the video makes that interpretation hard for me to justify. It seems very clear to me that his argument rests on the idea that meter is the primary driver of musical stress overall, to the point where the two can be at least roughly conflated. Otherwise, it's hard to see how this would be a clash between linguistic and musical stress in the first place. Just wanted to clear that up before anyone accused me of misrepresenting him. (Which I'm sure people will do anyway, but hey, at least I tried.) 4) I tried to keep my examples at least vaguely stylistically appropriate (except for the Prelude In C, where stylistic differences were the point) but I did have to go with the Green Day one because I needed something that didn't have syncopation in order to avoid falling under that explanation, and it's very hard to find funk/soul songs that both do this very particular vocal thing of creating an accent on an off-beat _and_ don't have any relevant syncopation. I knew Boulevard did it 'cause I analyzed the song previously, so I went with that. 5) Another potential factor here, which Adam does mention, is the melisma: Brown sings both "feel" and "good" in such a way that each syllable contains multiple notes, which also adds emphasis through motion. Adam discusses this as a metric component, since some of the secondary notes do land on beats, but I think it's probably more relevant from a melodic perspective. 6) On the pick-up thing, one could argue that, while the listener doesn't yet know the line is starting on beat 3, James Brown certainly does, and that may influence the way he sings it. And that's certainly true, but if that's the explanation we're going with, then including the metric position in our analysis feels like double-dipping. If he's singing it like it's an accented syllable, that should show up in his vocal delivery, either in pitch, dynamics, or some other sort of emphasis, and I don't hear that. Maybe you do. Again, all of this is made up. 7) One thing that I saw a lot of (mostly non-vocalist) theorists in Adam's twitter thread doing was arguing, as Adam does, that each of the syllables is accented but _in a different way,_ and I cannot stress enough how much that is not what prosody is. Prosody, as I mentioned, is a poetry thing that we borrow to talk about lyrics and, thus, vocal delivery. It is intrinsically tied to the words and how they are spoken, and it relies not on any single parameter, but on the amalgamation of parameters we collectively perceive as vocal accent, including volume, duration, and pitch. (Also, potentially, meter, if we're in a poetic tradition where consistent meters are a thing.) It's entirely reasonable to say that all three notes have some claim to some form of stress, but at that point you're no longer doing prosody. I didn't want to get into this too much in the video 'cause it seemed mean, but it was bugging me so I had to put it somewhere.

@j.epstein7723 2 года назад

@@kylej.d. lol

@j.epstein7723 2 года назад

@@kylej.d. good news

@nickdaino8024 2 года назад

maybe I'm totally out of context, but to my ears "feel" is clearly an anacrusis, therefore the accent is on the upbeat, it precedes the measure, and then you have another accent on "good", the first downbeat(new measure, new accent, the phrase "I feel good" kinda glues two measures ). my two cents, not so sure, but I think it is plausible

@Copyright_Infringement 2 года назад

As a linguist, I have a slightly unconventional question: _Do you speak Spanish?_ I promise this is related to the video. IDK if you'll actually see this, but I figure responding to the top comment is my best bet of getting an answer. I fully acknowledge that this is not my area of expertise (received some jazz training, just a hobby), but with respect to Boulevard of Broken Dreams, I find it exceedingly strange to say that the Eb gets the musical accent, when the C is right there next to it, accompanied by a strum of the guitar _and_ higher than the rest of the bar (save for Eb). It's how it sounds to me, at least. I know this was just one example of multiple, but this take baffled me enough that I had to go back and check that I understood you correctly. Similarly, for Neely's shifted-meter example: I find it strange that beat 3 of the second phrase can be interpreted as sounding weak, when it sounds to my ears as a "strong-strong-weak" sequence. Then, I noticed that the Grimaud example ended on a high note, and I got an ideä in my head: The common thread is that it seems as though you're privileging hightones as automatically having more stress than anything afterward that has a lower tone, even if the following syllable is also higher-pitched than usual. This is a feature of many pitch-accent stress systems, such as the stress systems found in Spanish, Japanese, or Greek (although there are exceptions). That's why I'm interested in whether you speak such a language, since it could point to how the languages we speak can influence how we perceive music. I could also be barking up the wrong tree, though. Regardless, great video, thanks for making it.

@realraven2000 2 года назад

6:28 listen to Glenn Gould's version. he plays the first high note staccato, the repetition tenuto.

@tempo2932 2 года назад

James Brown: "I FEEEL GOOOD" Musicians: Damn, that's deep. let's analyze this.

@PeterCamberwick 2 года назад

Me: Where's my cringe hat?

@tempo2932 2 года назад

@@PeterCamberwick it's inside of you

@AdamNeely 2 года назад

Great video! I don’t really disagree with anything you say here - but of course here are some thoughts. 1. It bears emphasizing that there are many kinds of accent, and I was mainly concerned with metric. There’s also agogic (length of note) and dynamic (volume). I can’t say I’ve ever read anything talking about pitch height as a music form of musical stress, although I can definitely hear it that way. I imagine this might be a useful area to dive down at some point, because I do know linguists use pitch information to determine stress, but I don’t know of any music theorists. 2. I’m not sure if I really have an…”argument” in my video, per se. The whole thing started because I was writing a script for another video and I needed an example, and couldn’t figure out how I heard I Got You. I, well honestly, still don’t know how. I can hear it any number of different ways, and I’m not super convinced with any of them. The video was me going through a few of the options, and me getting mildly annoyed at all of them, ending on an option that doesn’t feel amazingly true, but at least funny. I definitely can hear your WSS hearing, but I’m so used to feeling the “rebound” off downbeats as strong that it’s hard for me to feel “I” as particularly weak. Maybe it’s a bass player thing? Dunno. 3. Being able to change how you feel a rhythm as it relates to an underlying meter is a useful skill in improvising. That’s why this question is interesting to me, because you can practice hearing it in many different ways. Listening to music is an active process, and actively changing the stress pattern in your own head is a great way of demonstrating that I think. 4. One thing that I only briefly mentioned in my video that you didn’t here was the fact that there are definitely more than 3 syllables. “Feel” is broken into two notes - G# and A, and good is sung mellismatically. I can definitely be made to hear the second syllable of feel as stronger than the first. I broke things into “linguistic” and “musical” stress because nobody would break “feel” into multiple stresses in the English prosody. Because we’re conditioned to think of it as one “unit,” that carries over to the musical analysis, but the acoustical signature tells a different story. The question is, does it matter? Maybe, maybe not, since we’re conditioned by the language that we speak to hear it one way, but if I was to play the melody on my bass, I’d hear feel as two syllables to more accurately map the melody onto my instrument. 5. I actually would love to do a “do-over” with my video at some point, because I kinda hit upon the broader thesis I wanted to get into way too late in the process. The main point is that the metric analysis put forth by Leonard B Meyer, and later Fred Lehrdahl with the Generative Theory of Tonal Music is amazingly useful for understanding rhythmic structure in the the common practice, but is absolutely terrible at dealing with syncopation. The paper that I highlighted in my video attempts to square that circle, but I think it fails for the exact reason you said - it’s attempting to make the music fit the theory instead of the other way around, by in some way correcting for the syncopation. I said it produced an analysis which felt “unmusical” to me, and 100% stand by that. The author of that paper was…uh…not happy with me for saying that. Anyway I think syncopation - at least in the way its done in popular music derived from the Afrodiaspora - just doesn’t work with the GTTM, and that bares more exploration.

@bentleymusic03 2 года назад

The sexual tension between you two is off the charts

@RafaelAAMerlo 2 года назад

Here at UFRJ our Graduate "Group of Rhythm Studies" we read some authors (including those of point 5) and had a great time with your video, Adam, among other things to see you raising so many questions we had in our conversations with that texts. I feel 12Tone kinda of "choose" one answer, but I in specific agree with what you said there and here (specially because of the other similar melodic lines in that song), and that raising the question (about this and what we do about music in general) is the point of insight that brings growth and deeper conscience about "solved" and unthought trivialities. Thank you =)

@odd4231 2 года назад

@@bentleymusic03 you’re not wrong

@CORRDiesel 2 года назад

Damn, I wish I could have energy to convey such serious disputes on the internet

@user-uz7gb7gb4v 2 года назад

Coming from the world of linguistics, I would like to just note that generative theory in general is quite useful in analysing many (linguistic, in my case) phenomena, but there are a lot of things that it doesn't capture, especially outside of the Eurocentric context, so it seems quite appropriate to me that you find it useful in understand structures in common practice but not, for example, music derived from the practices of the Afrodiaspora.

@VinceWhitacre 2 года назад

Seriously, guys, it's ok. You can both be wrong. 💖

@lamontmerrick 2 года назад

indiana jones just blasts the guy with the knife right? no need for finessing shit.

@corwin32 2 года назад

This may be something of a violation of the exercise, but I hear “Feel” as the strongest point. Part of the reason for this is that I can’t hear the line by itself, and the further you got into “I Got You”, the more emphasis and flourishes Brown puts on “Feel”. I think the entire song answers the question from the beginning.

@akareject 2 года назад

This was my interpretation as well. Having watched both videos, I was frustrated that neither video analysis spent much time comparing the opening phrase to the rest of the song. James Brown doesn't say "I feel good" once. That phrase is repeated many times as "I feel good" or "I feel nice". Throughout the rest of the song, the emphasis is more distinguishable on "feel". The sense, as the listener, is that James wants you to "feel" what he is feeling as well. Good, nice, doesn't matter, as long as you "feel" what he is singing. I wish this area of analysis had been explored further, because I believe it would have been more fruitful. That being said, both videos are extremely well done and I enjoyed the thought exercise greatly.

@ilcasdy5 2 года назад

I heard it this way too. He trails off on good and it makes it feel very unaccented. Almost like he’s backing away from the microphone in that moment.

@AlexandMaggie07 2 года назад

Yes! And to that, I toast: We're all individuals from all over the place with experiences and biases amassed differently - as 12tone said. Great videos and a great way to spark discourse.

@dinospumoni5611 2 года назад

Yeah omitting the rest of the song is just an oversight from both videos. He repeats it a LOT.

@crud118 2 года назад

I completely agree

@ahobimo732 2 года назад

I absolutely love the fact that Adam and 12 Tone have now published nearly an hour of intense music theory analysis and debate, which has been viewed by thousands of people, and it's all based on a single line of a song that contains only three words and and is about 2 seconds long. This is why the internet is the greatest thing our species in has ever produced.

@Nghilifa 2 года назад

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@lamontmerrick 2 года назад

you think we didnt used to do this in cafes face to face over endless espressos and crackers?

@ahobimo732 2 года назад

@@lamontmerrick True, but the internet has made it into a legitimate profession. We've taken it to whole 'nother level.

@rasmusn.e.m1064 2 года назад

In my specific dialect of Danish, in addition to an increase in intensity, we stress a syllable by lowering the pitch of the syllable itself and then heightening the pitch of the following syllable. So when Adam's video came out, I had the strangest experience: I had listened to I Got You way before I learned to speak English, so back then I would always sing and hear it as a dactyl; with stress on the first syllable. But since then, I must not have listened to it a lot, because when Adam played the clip, my immediate reaction was that it must have been a different recording, but no. My perspective had, simply by learning English, where stress is typically done in the exact opposite way to my native dialect, shifted the sentence from stressing that James Brown felt good to it just being a default statement without much emphasis (in which case there's usually more stress on the subject complement (good) in copula sentences). Just thought I'd share that weird experience.

@marcotedesco8954 2 года назад

That's so interesting!

@noriakijayasekara7936 2 года назад

@@marcotedesco8954 duidui

@akmadsen 2 года назад

Copenhagen dialect? There's more going on than just altering pitch. There's also dynamics/volume, and 'stød', which is a fairly unique feature (typologically speaking) for marking stress.

@rasmusn.e.m1064 2 года назад

@@akmadsen Copenhagen dialect, yes. For the simple idea I was trying to convey, my comment was complex enough as is, so I narrowed in on the most likely reason for my switch in perception. However, I did address dynamics by mentioning "intensity", and my impression is that stød is only relevant to a discussion about stress perception insofar as it is mandatory in the material (like in imperatives). Yes, it can only appear in syllables that have phonological (secondary stress in a compound word) or actual stress, but I wouldn't say that it's necessary for stress perception since the reason it's even lexically relevant is the fact that there are non-occurrences.

@skrowmedia 2 года назад

I have a background in linguistics and have always had a particular fascination with transference phenomena between L1 and L2 (and further L2+). A similar experience I can share is, as a fan of hip hop, I used to listen to French rap before becoming fluent in French and I had always thought French rappers had "wack flow" - which is to say, their prosody poorly fit the rhythmic structure of the beat. Two things have happened over the last ten years or so: I can recognize where I was mistakenly applying English prosodic expectations to French lyrics, and, conversely, the influence of American rap music on hip hop around the world is such that some French rappers actually structure their lyrics in a fashion that more closely resembles English prosody. It bothers me that there isn't more cooperation between music theorists and linguists in scholarly pursuits given the obvious intersection between language and music.

@JoshuaPagan 2 года назад

Optometrist: How's your eye doing? One eyed caveman: "Eye feel good."

@doombird7977 2 года назад

[unironic slow clap]

@toblexson5020 2 года назад

Why only Strong and Weak? Why not Strong, Weak and Medium notes? I hear that "I" is weak, "feel" is strong, and "good" is somewhere in the middle, a "medium" note. If you think about how different ways of emphasis can add up, then it makes sense that you can get more than two results, meaning that there's a spectrum of strength.

@blazerboy233 2 года назад

The notion of "stress" in linguistics is a relative concept. It is a point in a word that is "prominent". How exactly that is realized is subject to great variation. So, there is a broader "sentence-level" prosody, relative to which these points of words are changed to add prominence (which can include raising/lowering pitch, amplitude, etc)

@BonnibelLecter 2 года назад

This is how I heard it as well, thank you. "Feel"'s indisputably the strongest part (to my ears) but "good" is also much stronger than "I." From a meaning perspective, I also think Adam's interpretation of emphasizing "feel" as being opposed to "Look" or "Being" was off. I don't hear Brown responding to something someone else said, I hear him emphasizing his experience of a feeling, since the song is about, you know, getting the girl.

@TheGerkuman 2 года назад

12-Tone's comment with further thoughts argues that if you go for anything other than a relitavistic strong-weak comparison it stops being prosody.

@woulg 2 года назад

@@TheGerkuman isn't prosody just the linguistic stress thing? I agree with op, musically there seems to be many different levels of stress and splitting it in two seems limiting. I also hear it as weak strong medium and I would add that the first syllable of feel is slightly weaker than the second (kinda like a ghost note on a kick drum?), but "good" also feels like the punctuation of the phrase. I think I also think of stress as where it might be nice to put a kick drum when writing a drum part. In my head I think of this as upward vs downward stress, the second syllable of "feel" is upward stress and "good" is downward stress. I guess it's kind of weird but using this upward/downward thing has helped me a lot when writing and thinking about music.

@Whatismusic123 2 года назад

I find I to be strong, feel to be medium, the first half of good to be weak, but the latter, when it falls on the beat, to be medium

@losangelesnefastvs 2 года назад

The shout at the beginning is the most stressed part of that intro. With James Brown, "the 1" is always the most important beat. It's like his thing.

@drunkenfarmerjohn42 2 года назад

Yeah. James Brown is a weird one to look at syncopation and accent on because of this. Both interpretations treat the shout as separate, but for Brown, it's the fundamental start. When you watch him live, you can even see him react when the band gets off. On the Album Live at the Apollo, there's a section of a song where he takes the band to task for it, even. You can't tell, because he treats it as part of the performance, so it sounds like he's preaching to the audience. But it's really for the band.

@sierravanriel6906 2 года назад

Yeah I hear it as WOAH, i feel good

@TylerLandis 2 года назад

Wow, we definitely hear things different. To say the high note in that Green Day passage is the most stressed syllable seems just flatout incorrect to my ear. What makes that high note interesting is the lack of attention drawn to it, "Lone" and "road" are the stressed syllables. You can hear Billie hit those syllables hard, and the fact that the transitional note is a high jump is what makes adds color to the passage, but he doesn't hit is nearly as hard as the notes around it, and it's not an important syllable lyrically either. Also you say "good" is both a strong stressed syllable, and that it trails off. I don't think a note that trails off and is kind of thrown away vocally is one of the strongest notes in the passage, I would argue it's even less stressed than "I". The "I" is a ramp up to "feel" and then "good" is thrown way. I haven't seen Adam's video, I don't know if that's how he heard it, but these are some baffling takes to me.

@egegul6343 2 года назад

I honestly agree too, both with the Green Day example and the rest, I’d argue it’s a strong-strong-weak pattern with an emphasis on the first syllable of “feel”

@TheSquareOnes 2 года назад

I heard "lone" and "road" as the accents as well, although I'd disagree that "ly" doesn't draw attention. I think part of what makes "road" such a strong accent is that "ly" actually creates a lot of tension by putting a noticeable high point on an off-beat, it generates a lot of energy with a rhythmic anticipation that releases into the natural backbeat. Definitely interesting how many ways there are to hear something though, really stresses just how subjective music is even at the surface level before getting into interpretations of meaning.

@renerpho 2 года назад

Agreed. I tried to listen to the Green Day line multiple times, and I can not get my ears to hear any emphasis on the high note whatsoever.

@FinnbarrGoesFast 2 года назад

Yeah that I disagreed hard with all of the stress examples, especially the green day one. Interesting to see something I took for granted perceived so differently

@hitismeduh 2 года назад

Yeah, that part of the video really threw me!! When he asked which part was stressed I pretty confidently answered “road” and then he was like “it’s the LY in lonely, right???”

@benfurst4501 2 года назад

Maybe the binary nature of being either weak or strong breaks down in this scenario, and they're all "strong" in different ways (be it higher, more volume, longer, metric placement, ornamentation, etc.)

@duncanrobertson6472 2 года назад

YES. "I" has some growl (timbral stress), "feel" is high and long, and "good" has a stronger articulation (it's also the conclusion to the phrase). It's pointless to argue which one is universally more "stressed" because that depends on what kind of stress you value higher.

@mihailmilev9909 2 года назад

@@duncanrobertson6472 they are all stressed in different dimentions

@MLHunt 2 года назад

That's how I hear it too

@wolfetteplays8894 2 года назад

Strong accents exist, you know, and so do volume indicators

@jvaranx 2 года назад

I hear the emphasis on "I" because he has a growl in his voice when he sings it, which is something people do when they try to emphasize a word. But I also get the other arguments. I think the disagreement comes down to how you define "emphasis". Timbre of his voice? Pitch? Rhythm? It's up to what each individual focuses on.

@ClikcerProductions 2 года назад

I hear the emphasis so strongly on the "I" because of the level of distortion he puts on it

@wiesorix 2 года назад

Interesting, the only thing I know for sure is that I don't hear stress on the "I". Guess this really is about different perspectives and different people hearing different things

@KaiOwensDrums 2 года назад

Yes, I agree, when there is definitely some form of timbral accent that needs to be accounted for

@DF-we4pt 2 года назад

I agree

@miketate3445 2 года назад

It literally sounds like this throat kicked on an overdrive pedal for "I". How can anybody hear the accent anywhere else?

@ramblinevilmushroom 2 года назад

In my ears, the "I feel good" is mirroring the structure of the "OWWW~!" as if it were one sound. We dont argue about what part of the "OW" is the stressed part because its one word, but we get confused about the "i feel good" because its 3 words, but to me its like hes singing it as one word so it doesnt sound like "i feel good." to me it sounds like "iefilgud".

@jenova2239 2 года назад

Linguistic emphasis in music is SO IMPORTANT. Growing up bilingual and wanting to hear Japanese versions of English songs and English versions of Japanese songs, it would always feel weird when there were emphasis on the wrong syllables. So brush it off as a separate thing from musical emphasis feels like (I dare say) a very western way to think about it.

@hisham_hm 2 года назад

What's really baffling is that the captions for the 12tone intro say "(tick, tick, tick, tick, tock)", when the last beat is the higher one in tone. I hear it as "(tock, tock, tock, tock, tick)". Draw me as a confused elephant too! :)

@masterofdesaster5367 2 года назад

that intro always confuses me

@Whatismusic123 2 года назад

I think "I" is emphasized the most, "feel" feels like a passing tone to "good" which at first is weak, but when it lands on the first beat of the next bar, it becomes strong.

@Hundeputzmunter 2 года назад

I simply love the idea that so much analysis and debate can come from how someone sang three words

@kearnsguitars2236 2 года назад

Adam didn't take a position in his video. He was giving justification for why people hear it differently.

@Erickchicas 2 года назад

wrong

@heaththedrummer666 2 года назад

@@Erickchicas wrong

@jkid1134 2 года назад

I FEel GOod. With a blank syllable after the I, it's essentially stretched all the way out to three trochees. I could go either way on whether it's it's a long GOod or a short GOOD, but "feel" is not one syllable here.

@renerpho 2 года назад

It's interesting that the number of syllables in FEEL could be a point of contention. Did you see 12tone's response to Adam's comment? Adam is more or less in line with your analysis, while 12tone argues (in point #4) that there are definitely not more than 3 syllables in the phrase: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SbKEqe7fnoY.html&lc=Ugz2LJ8_dtvOyL41g9B4AaABAg.9W47wzTvQbw9W8mGbH45fB

@jkid1134 2 года назад

@@renerpho Thanks for pointing me toward this! Adam disagrees with me about which syllable of feel is stressed, but frankly it feels like he's down the rabbit hole at this point. I think without much fussing, the part at the end of the word, with the schwa, is the unstressed part. I agree with 12tone that just because there are multiple notes there are not necessarily multiple syllables, but to my ear there are even multiple vowels in this delivery of feel.

@MiloMcCarthyMusic 2 года назад

I disagree, it’s more like “I feEl GOod”

@ClikcerProductions 2 года назад

For me the timbre supersedes everything else and I can only hear the "I" being emphasised. He puts a great amount of distortion on the I and then drops to a smoother tone for "feel good". I don't know about you but if I'm practically screaming one word and saying the others normally I'm emphasising the word I'm screaming, and to me that trumps any melodic or rhythmic stress when it comes to how I hear the language

@johnrichardson3297 2 года назад

Clicker Productions I argue for the emphasis on sensuality on good, feel thereafter/secondly. Octave variation…

@codahighland 2 года назад

I hear the point you're making but I interpret the sound differently. That's not a scream. That's a lead-in that hasn't reached full support yet. I'm not sure it technically is vocal fry but it's at least similar to it. It's growly because it's not emphasized ENOUGH, or at least that's how I perceive it.

@hisham_hm 2 года назад

12tone is really bringing on the nostalgia for the old days of RU-vid and the Response Video feature (remember that??)

@shinydino 2 года назад

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@SAHanson 2 года назад

For me it's always weak-strong-weak. I can't help but hear the "good" as a falling off which makes it sound like it's being thrown away. It also adds to the arc where the the first half of the chorus is about feeling and the second half is about what you're feeling (I don't think anyone would argue about the emphasis on the "So good" lines)

@humicroav215 2 года назад

100% the way I hear it, too. This song is about feeling. It's not a song about Mr. Brown alone ("I got you") and it's not a song about feeling good alone ("I feel nice"). The song is about his positive feelings due to a (presumably) romantic interest. Even the lines that don't include the word "feel" are referring back to feelings. "I knew that I would [feel good]"

@zak3744 2 года назад

Haha, I have always heard it the exact opposite! Strong-weak-strong. I've always liked the turnaround of emphasis in the subsequent repetition of the line where he stretches out the word "feel" even more (so that time it's weak-strong-weak to my ear). It sounds to me like he's going back and picking up the bit of the sentence he didn't focus on first time around, like a little clever little bait-and-switch surprise almost. *I* fe-el *go-ood* I knew that I would I *fe-ee-eel* good ... How or why those bits feel emphasised I'd have to leave to music theorists, but that's what it sounds like to me!

@Whatismusic123 2 года назад

I feel good as rising, because the latter half of it falls on the first beat of the next bar

@PEBelarus 2 года назад

Just to put my two cents in, I teach English to Russian speakers and one of the basic nuances is the difference in syntax and the differences in culture that ensue. In English, most of the grammar falls on the verb, the verb's relationship to the subject and how actions connect to our present situation. Russian puts the brunt of the grammar on nouns and their relationships to one another and as a result have a spatially different understanding of the world. English grammar pushes people towards responsibility to move forward in life and Russian language teaches stasis and responsibility to other people. In this song, Mr Brown is speaking a specific style of English and representing himself as a proud black man answering a question about himself. He could have said "I am good" or "I am well, thank you for asking" to comment on his health or he might have talked about his business or life advancement, "I am doing well". But speaking as a black man, any "standard" answer would probably be about the miseries of perpetual systemic slavery, economic and otherwise and this is not what is interesting. To me, the clear answer is that the important word is feel. The verb "feel" describes the physical sensations and pleasures of the moment and this is the thing that moves Mr Brown. He is talking about trying to physically hold on to a very pleasurable sensation as long as he can. "I feeel good". He's got his friend with him and life doesn't suck for the moment and keeping this feeling going and squeezing every last ounce of juice out of what he's got is all that matters to the godfather of soul.

@defenestrated23 2 года назад

This squares with the next like, "I feeeeeel nice", where there is zero ambiguity where the emphasis is. The verse is also very blues-influenced, with an AA'B pattern, you say something, you repeat it with emphasis, then you say another thing related to the first pair. Actually that's interesting. The song is kind of *anti*-blues. Blues uses the template "I got/feel blue, . I feel blue

@TimothyYshurakhuno 2 года назад

That's very interesting but kinda sophistic and stupid ;) Russians don't much into that stasis or relations stuff. (im russian btw) That's not rare in speech that accents on a verb. And it's easier to achieve because you can rearrange the order of words as you like to put accents in right way for each case. I don't think that grammar teaches people. People adjust grammar for their needs. (and i don't think that James Brown feel slavery and think about it 100% his time but that's a different hard story im not into that stuff)

@PEBelarus 2 года назад

@@TimothyYshurakhuno Спасибо Тимоти. Вы можете позвонить мне в любое время, чтобы получить помощь с грамматикой и синтаксисом английского языка

@TimothyYshurakhuno 2 года назад

@@PEBelarus как мило, мне точно было бы полезно)

@markop.1994 2 года назад

Idk how much this counts but when i try to sing "i feel good" like james brown its seems "I" has the most power. Like, "I" is an explosion "feel" is its tail and "good" is the conclusion and down beat. Second time around he says it different like "i FEEEEL good" which i would agree that "feel" is the accent

@jakesmith9379 2 года назад

Can't wait for Adam to comment "Great Video! Here are a few additional thoughts." and 12tone to pin the comment

@gcewing 2 года назад

To my ears, the linguistic stress is on "good". Although "feel" is held for longer, that just serves to build dramatic tension to further emphasise the "good". This also aligns with the metric stress, since "good" is (at least mostly) on the first beat of the second bar. At least that's the way I hear it -- I hadn't even noticed the syncopation until I saw it written down.

@steve7745 2 года назад

Arguably though, as a composer here, the end of a phrase/cadence is always naturally stronger as a moment of musical resolution. In terms of functionality within the idiom of R&B, derived from early jazz tropes, the rhythm of eighth, quarter, eight/any syncopated rhythm with a long note on an offbeat creates a stressed syllable, so I would hear it as " i / FEEL / GOod" (lowercase being unstressed, uppercase being stressed). But I do think that 12tone makes a really good point about the subjectivity of all this discussion, especially seeing how most of my argument comes from contextualization through a jazz theory lens

@matthewvreeke9872 2 года назад

Could you please do an analysis of Kashmir by Led Zeppelin? It’s one of my favorites and it seems like it would have a lot to analyze.

@FinetalPies 2 года назад

I hear the stress on "I" and the first half of "good" I've seen other people say that Good trailing off made them feel like it was de-emphasized, but to me the fact that good is being almost broken into two syllables made it jump out at me even more.

@JustLilGecko 2 года назад

Same. The distortion on "rrrrr-I" and the explosive sound of the hard g in Goo-ood (two syllables, first one stressed) makes sense to my ears too

@shawnwhelan5689 2 года назад

Absolutely. While high notes often do create their own emphasis, it sounds to my ear that he's deliberately emphasising the syllables either side of it (unlike when he later sings "I FEEEEEL good"). Strong-weak-strong. Meaning "I don't know about you, but *I* feel *good*."

@pentalarclikesit822 2 года назад

I also hear the stress on "feel" and then less so on "good." But to me, it feels almost like a resolution in pitch rather than key. Since feel is sung louder, with more growl, and at a higher note, it gets the stress from the "tension" that then releases with "good" being back at "home" with the other notes. I think it's even more clear that way in other parts of the song, especially in one of the later ones (after "My love can't do me no harm") where he *really* grinds into that "feel". To me, though, you have to include the scream as part of the line as well. If you asked 100 people on the street to sing that opening, 99 of them are likely to do it as "Wah! . . . I feel good." Extending the rest in the vocals where the drum hit is, because that is the what causes the stress and drama in the line.

@alexanderpurkis3508 2 года назад

2 minutes in and I find myself agreeing (in terms of feeling emphasis), since I also found Neely’s video a bit baffling. I thought about how I’d phrase the phrase (haha) on bass and I’d definitely almost ghost the “I”, bend the string and highly emphasize the “feel” and slide softlyish into “good”. But the fight isn’t over yet... Minutes later: And I especially agree about high note emphasis - especially since I use quite a a lot of perpetualish motion stuff in my own composition and I usually use the highest notes as a sort of emphasis, which is a great tool when playing with polymeters and such.

@SimGunther 2 года назад

The scream is the strong stress note and the shock that wakes up the audience to wonder; therefore creating a question for the audience "how you feeling?" without saying a word. "I" would be the medium stress that establishes an initial conflict since it kind of feels like he's still recovering from the scream. Finally, "feel"/"good" are both strong stress for the punchline of how he's doing after that shock in the first note.

@SIQN- 2 года назад

I let out an audible cackle when you said Adam was wrong. That said, I’m glad to see this discussion happening. For me, the emphasis is on “good” with an occasional ALSO emphasis on “feel”… but, “good” would be the “important” word to my ear, and reasoning why goes to the line right after… “I knew that I would”. He feels GOOD and knew that he would.

@SIQN- 2 года назад

Someone mentioned “nice” in the comments… and I still stick with the last word of the phrase “I feel ____” because the next line always rhymes with it (good/would - nice/spice), and to me… that signifies the importance of that word in the phrase. Again… it’s all subjective, but I feel that those are the important words in those phrases.

@emmettmeehan3331 2 года назад

I think one of the reasons for the Green Day example showing stress on “ly” is because people tend to push high notes, especially when there’s a leap. It’s something that classical or music theater vocalists have to work at, to maintain dynamic control over a wide melodic range (choirs too). Billy Joe is a long-time vocalist, but he doesn’t have the most controlled voice. That doesn’t mean bad (I like it), but that can result in more of a dynamic accent than was intended. That doesn’t mean artistic intent reigns supreme, but I think it’s an important detail when considering stress.

@rmdodsonbills 2 года назад

For whatever it's worth, I feel like you always open my ears to new ways to think about music, rather than tell me I'm wrong for how I've interpreted things before. It's one of the things I like about this channel. Also, I chuckled out loud at "he was cool with it; I hope he still is." That kind of dry, wry observations is another thing I like about this channel.

@Packbat 2 года назад

Is "feel" only one syllable in this? I read it as two syllables, with a schwa in there ahead of the L. Also, I agreed with the two-accent analysis - the first syllable of "feel" as the bigger accent and the "good" as the smaller.

@ZipplyZane 2 года назад

I just feel like one aspect is being left out. And it's the one aspect that that is left out. "Feel" sounds louder than the other two words. Only "feel" both starts and ends at full intensity. "Good" trails off, and "I" has some build up and is a lower pitch that he sings slightly quieter. I also note a lack of something that I feel is essential in the analysis: the fact that this phrase repeats and has variations. It seems to me that you kinda need to compare them. No one hears that first phrase in isolation. We hear it as the first of many times the same thing occurs. In fact, that's where I hear the accent on "good." That's the one lyric that changes. When he later sings, "I feel nice!" the lyric change draws your attention. And I think that retroactively adds emphasis to the word "good." What I hear is a weak "I", a primary stress on "feel," and a secondary stress in "good." And the fact that there are two levels of stress in English (including English poetry/prosody) is the third thing I think you missed.

@joelcaron8291 2 года назад

Two years ago, you tube dropped me one of your clip and I decided to watch it. Altough I play guitar by ears for the last 25+ years, I got around 15% of the video and I was in Awe... So I decided to learn music to understand ALL of your videos. Then, I discovered, Adam Neely, Steve Stine, Rick Beato... I am on a quest... Learning about 15-20 hrs a week For two years Now, today, I understand every single words you are saying Bang ! Thank you man !! You are the kick in the butt that got me to learn music theory. Now my musical skills are above anything I would've imagine.

@MilesTippett 2 года назад

I hear "I" feel "GOOD" With the emphasis on I and Good.... If you changed it to a four count, it would be ONE two three FOUR. Counting in this way feels the same to me.

@willmorris8198 2 года назад

Hey, I loved how in depth your analysis was, and I loved how you mentioned how a common theory mistake is just "feeling it" rather than being able to argue why. As a undergrad music student learning theory, that is something I have dealt with a lot.

@malHHkenny 2 года назад

“I knew that I would.” But how are we to mutually understand what J.B. knew? [ ] a? [ ] b? [ ] c? [ ] all of the above? [ ] none of the above? The answers is [x] all of the above. That’s where the emphasis resolves. Some of us may dispute how that can possibly be. (“Emphasis can’t be everywhere. That would mean it’s nowhere.”) But that conflict doesn’t exist. J.B. tells us so. He knows that he can do no wrong - bypassing any and all mutual misunderstanding that we may bring to it. [ ] existential threat? [ ] existential dilemma? [ ] existential reality? [ ] all of the above? [ ] none of the above? (Choose wisely. Hint: Mutual misunderstanding is where we go wrong.)

@shiningarmor2838 2 года назад

I always heard “I feel good!” as one single interjection.

@SudaNIm103 2 года назад

REPOSTING MY COMMENTS FROM ADAM’S VIDEO: I’m not familiar with the correct semantics but To me it feels like two things are happening with respect to the emphasis of each word simultaneously that are seemingly in opposition to one another. I will refer to them as effect “A” and effect “B”. With each word the it’s as if effect A is modulated as “Short, Long, Short” while effect B gets modulated as “Big, Small, Big” and in a way offset each other; Ultimately the emphasis comes across as homogeneous yet still feels dynamic. At least that’s my impression. Though I think a secondary factor is the intensity of the “WHOAW!” at the beginning of the verse I feel it’s so “Big” by comparison my brains “emphasis resolution” is sorta temporarily diminished when listening to the to the rest of the following lyrics.

@SJ-oi7tk 2 года назад

The "I Feel Good" phrase is pretty ambiguous stresswise, incorporating many elements of "emphasis" - punch, length, pitch, word choice - delivered and heard flexibly. And I'm guessing that's on purpose.

@Arakiel9 2 года назад

You did it. You summed up in one phrase why I find you so delightful. "Unnecessarily long tangents...", they are my reason for living. Even my closest friends, those most predisposed to allowing me a measure of grace, of taking my side in any conflict... even they are taxed to, and sometimes beyond, their limits of tolerance. Verbose doesn't even begin to cover it. There's information, oh yes, there is information. I'm not talking gibberish (quiet you, it was just that one time... oh, and that other time... ok, yeah, and then there was...), I know quite a bit about a lot of topics, Jack of all trades, master of none sort of thing. But I just... don't... shut... up. Oh, and the redundancy. Always with the redundancy. "Isn't that the third time you've said the same thing, just using different words each time?" "Yeah, why do you ask?" But you don't have all the same flaws... or you're a hell of an editor... or you actually script what you're going to say before you say it... or all of the above. I find you very interesting, very enjoyable, very entertaining, and throughout my life I have been a great lover of references. Referential humor is probably my favorite style of humor, and this is weird, perhaps, EVEN WHEN I DON'T GET THE REFERENCE!!! Yeah, I know that's weird. You're telling an inside joke. I get that it's referring to something. I also immediately realize that I am definitely NOT on the inside, at least not this time, but I love it anyway. Likewise, your knowledge of music theory dwarfs what I have ever held in my brain noggin, even when I was studying it in college. Um... should have put danger quotes around "studying"... I was in the class anyway. Oh, and your doodles! I love your doodles. I bet a lot of people love your doodles. Anyway, point... get back to it... both your knowledge and your referential doodle sometimes escape the boundaries of my understanding. Great! You're being smart, and witty, and that is apparent to me without necessarily understanding what the... um... heck... you are saying or drawing. I get enough of the picture that I can tell you're being awesome, and I admire that awesome, even if I can't explain the content at anything approaching an adequate level to anyone. I love what you do. Keep doing it, please. Thank you.

@austinfloyd2365 2 года назад

Maybe a weird take, but for me, I sorta hear "feel" as two syllables (strong then weak, fee-uhl). My reasoning: I perceive the volume on the first half of the word to be much stronger/louder than the second half of the word. My overall perception of the (4 syllable) phrase: strong strong weak strong.

@Cloiss_ 2 года назад

idk if you've seen Adam's video but he does go over the analysis of "feel" as 2 syllables

@ohtamb 2 года назад

The song’s basic form is a 12 bar blues and James Brown probably thought of “good” and “would” on the 1 count. Those syllables always hit on the 1 and help you feel the 12 bar blues changes. The “I feel” and “I knew that I” phrases are pickups leading into the 1 count. James Brown’s minimal funk needs a big band to all internalize those big obvious 1 counts. The groove and syncopation that makes you dance can be felt in-between these strong 1 counts. JBs bassist Bootsy Collins explains “on the 1”. But when he actually sings it he makes it hip by smearing out the words and playing with the phrasing each time to actually fall around the one but not exactly on it. But the poetic place for the “good” and “would” syllables is on the one. Compare to Ray Charles “I got a Woman” where “woman” starts on the one count of the blues changes.

@OscarMSmithMusic 2 года назад

A very well reasoned discussion, I enjoyed this a lot!

@garrettlittle4819 2 года назад

I would pay a LOT of money to see MMA bouts with music RU-vidrs

@tanyanguyen3704 2 года назад

Hahahhahha

@dergitarrenlehrer952 2 года назад

In my opinion and feeling, the anticipated beat 1, like on the word „good“, automatically strengthenes the accent. So I hear: i feel GOOD:-)

@timothy-js 2 года назад

Another way of looking at this problem that I haven't seen mentioned is investigating the linguistic stresses of other lines in the song which share roughly the same phrasing and position in the measure. 'i feel good' has perhaps an ambiguous stress pattern, but I think that the lines 'i knew that i would' and 'like sugar and spice' are more obvious - just saying them with normal prosody inevitably results in 'i KNEW that i WOULD' and 'like SUgar and SPICE'. When you take where these strong syllables occur in the meter and superimpose them on the original 'i feel good', you end up with 'I feel GOOD' (strong weak strong). Of course, this tactic only works if you assume that lines which share their rhythmic qualities are supposed to share their prosody as well (though I think this is usually the case), as well as that the lines are supposed to be heard with a 'natural' prosody (some songs certainly are not, but funk rock tends to be so).

@wiesorix 2 года назад

Does James Brown even know whether he feels good, he FEELS good, HE feels good, he feels GOOD, HE FEELS good, he FEELS GOOD, HE feels GOOD or HE FEELS GOOD?

@RichSProducer 2 года назад

I feel like this debate would make James Brown physically violent. He, in fact, would not feel good. 😅

@radgiraffe5519 2 года назад

"He probably did that to avoid an unnecessarily long tangent" Oh boy here we go again...

@jamesdennis8290 2 года назад

A: "HI! How ya doin'?" Mr JB: "I feel good!" As in normal conversation, Just an opening turn with normal intonation contour, no contrastive stress; but the instant before he responds he examines his heart and realizes what he expresses, thus the high pitch on "I". "[You know?] I feel good". That "I" has to have the upbeat, or whatever you music theorists call it. "good" has falling pitch, which indicates that that is the new information focus, but "feel" and "good" are pretty much equally and normally stressed, and there is no other stress difference (loudness, pitch or duration) other than the normal that would indicate a contrast. As in normal conversation, "feel" and "good" then get their own beats. But in general, I should think that what the jazz singers call "phrasing" and the matching of the prosody of the lyric to the melody would be a problem of great interest to anybody who has listened to different versions of the same song by different singers.

@c0d3m0nky Год назад

You need a Playlist of 'Fight me Adam Neely' videos Also, you need to make more 'Fight me Adam Neely' videos Sincerely, A 12Tone and Adam Neely fan

@hoikdini9263 2 года назад

In Green Day's 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams', I just interpret the high note as setting up a cadence for "road" (vii-V), especially since '-ly' is not a stressed syllable in the word "lonely" [ ˈlōn-lē ], with "road" also getting emphasis in the duration of the note.

@heavydevy-c5630 2 года назад

That thumbnail, "fight me!" XD I'll fight Adam Neely anytime lol.

@ramanspeedballof930 2 года назад

"Adam isn't wrong but also Adam is wrong" That's RU-vid for you all

@th.nd.r 2 года назад

I love this video and largely agree with this analysis, but as Toblexson said elsewhere in the comments, I think that strength and weakness are best seen not as a binary, but as a spectrum. I’d personally put this spectrum on multiple axes (axises? Axi? I like axi): linguistic stress, the stress relative to the underlying beat, duration, pitch, volume, tone, and so on. Strength could be measured not necessarily in numerical form where like “note x is 2.37 units strong” but rather like “note x is weaker than note y, stronger than note z, and even stronger than note a but is for all sakes and purposes equal in strength to note b.” I also think two notes can be relatively equal in strength but be different kinds of strength. In the classical piece you mentioned, I also feel stress on notes 1, 3, and the and of 4, but the kind of stress on 3 and the and of 4 is *different* than the kind of stress on 1. I think of it as kind of a drum groove, where 1 feels more like a bass drum and 3 and the and of 4 feel more like snare hits. On this framework, I do feel a medium strength note that I would think of more as a bass drum on the and of 3. In beatbox terms: btttkbtk btttkbtk.

@violacola 2 года назад

Maybe it's just me not having a background in music theory and not thinking about this in terms of music but instead in the same way I think about poetry, but this doesn't feel ambiguous to me at all. All three syllabals are stressed.

@ZipplyZane 2 года назад

I also note that neither of you quite notate it the way I would. I think Adam has it right that "feel" is two syllables on two different notes. However, I think "good" is a single note with a fall at the end. If I would notate the ending pitch at all, it would be with a little grace note to show where the fall ends, rather than as if "good" had two distinct notes. And if I did use two notes, I'd still have the F go across the bar. The D is only barely touched--hence why I hear it as a fall. It's the same fall I would do by accident in choir when I first started. I naturally would fall to that tonic (or occasionally dominant) if the phrase seemed to end early.

@drunkshinx 2 года назад

I think this is a very interesting question because all the notes have different ways in which they are strong and weak. The "I" has metric stress but not note length or pitch stress. The "feel" has note length and pitch stress but not metric stress and the "good" has note length but not metric or pitch stress. Personally I hear the "I" as weak, the "feel" as strong and the "good" as somewhere in between

@robertoriggio117 2 года назад

One thing that seems to be lost here is that the D at the end of the phrase occurs before the downbeat, which is silent. :) Here’s something else I’d love to hear music theorists argue about: Is the song “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac in Lydian on F or Aeolian on A? I hear it as Aeolian on A, which makes the whole song rather remarkable because it only goes to the A minor chord in the guitar solo bridge. The rest of the song is F to G. But, to me, F does not feel like “home.” It feels like it’s creating expectation, but never getting to where it’s going, never finding “home,” which actually suits the sentiment of the lyrics quite well.

@btat16 2 года назад

I hear it as 5 notes “I fe-el go-od” with the strong accent on the “-el” and a weaker one on “-od”

@jkf9167 2 года назад

Part of the reason this one is so odd is that everyone has heard it so many times that's hard to imagine hearing it without expecting it to sound the way that it sounds, or at least the way we think it sounds. To me vocal accent is clearly on "feel", while "good" sounds more relaxed, and it's also descending toward the introduction of the kick drum and bass on the one of the next measure. "Feel" stands on it's own, where "good" has a transition built into it saying, "lemme tell you about it" right before the music gets all discursive. Oddly, when I sing this to myself, I put the syllable "good", the kick drum, and the bass all on the same beat. I never noticed that kick and bass started on the one, with "good" on the previous upbeat.

@pasivirtanen4134 2 года назад

As James Brown doesn't feel things in just the intro, I think it's worthwhile to also analyze what the same part sounds like when it occurs later in the song where it's incredibly obvious that "feel" is the most stressed part in that phrase. Listening to all the occurrences of "I feel good" or "I feel nice" also makes it clear to me at least that trying to do a binary division to "weak" and "strong" just isn't enough really. For me, "I" is almost always and definitely in the intro a quick relatively "weak" pickup, "feel" is always strong and emphasized, "good" or "nice" varies a bit, I think in the intro it's weaker than "feel" because the rising pitch gives it so clear emphasis, but "good" gets a little extra oomph because the word is still hanging around when the bass and drums come in which is a rhythmically strong moment musically.

@christophernguyen1750 2 года назад

I like to offer a perspective from a musical theatre guy. In theatre, we’re taught to sing songs not through metric emphasis but through natural word stress. It’s how we act through songs. We take the lyrics and perform them as straight monologues. Its strange but once you master the song monologue, it sound less of a poem where there’s rhyme and rhythm but actual speech and emotion. And when we place the lyrics back to melody it doesn’t necessarily align with metric emphasis. Additionally, when analyzing the energy to the words and shout from before “I feel good” it sounds like he’s just shouting out how good he feels not that he, specifically, is feeling good.

@paullebon323 2 года назад

It could be any of the words depending how you hear it. I can make myself hear it different ways.

@GolumTR 2 года назад

If you listen to the version without the echo - a few songs earlier on Star Time - it’s clear Brown is emphasizing all three syllables “I! Feel! Good!” (though this may also be a different vocal take). Also I’m pretty sure he’s not answering a question about how he feels, but rather he’s announcing the name of the song.

@lameplanet 2 года назад

So what we're saying is: he's right for his reasons, you're right for your reasons, there are a bunch of people in the comments with their own equally right interpretations and while it's an interesting discussion, no one has really solved the "puzzle" of James Brown. And everyone has.

@peabnuts123 2 года назад

My gut feeling agrees with WSS and I committed to it at the start of Adam’s and your video. However I can totally hear SSS if i imagine myself “playing” it in a musical context, considering the “WOW!” and the drum hit, it really can sound like a lot of emphasis on the “I”. My personal conclusion would probably be that as a song it’s probably SSS but as a standalone piece of vocals void of all context it’s WSS. The context-free interpretation carries more weight than usual because, as suggested in this video, the beginning is ALMOST void of it.

@kevinfarrellUK 2 года назад

As someone with the theoretical knowledge of an amoeba, the ‘I’ is king. If Mr. Brown had one thing in spades, it was his sense of self. He was front and centre of the performance theatre that housed him. Master of ceremonies, himself and all around him. ‘I’ is THE ONLY place for the spotlight. Such is his power over me, his ‘I’ transfers to me so that my only response is to hear it as if I were singing the line. Yes, I feel good! ;))

@kristijanpete4473 2 года назад

the physics drawings today... the Feynman diagrams? the equations? i love you

@picksalot1 2 года назад

I agree with your analysis. This is what I wrote in the Comments on Adam's video a couple days ago: "I think the "el" in feel, being the highest pitch in the sentence, has the most stress. That makes the word "feel" have the most emphasis. The melisma in this word and enhanced in the later repetition, shows his intent. James Brown lets us know what it is to really feel the music. 😎"

@ScottSF 2 года назад

I hear it differently each time but I think the stress is on "good" and here's why. We have to look at the stress pattern in syncopated music, in funk, or if nothing else, in THIS song. Syncopation effectively moves all the beats up one eighth note. So the downbeat of a measure is really on the "and" of 4 of the preceding measure. This puts the word "good" smack dab on the downbeat of the first "real" measure of the whole song. So whether or not you feel any meter in the pickup measure, the "Hey!" the drum hit, and "I feel" all lead up to "good" on the (syncopated) downbeat that starts the whole song. (Oh, the strong beats in the Bach piece are clearly the usual "1, 3, 1, 3." You could choose to stress the "and" of 4 but as it was played...uh, no. However, the Green Day song is clear: the strong beat is on beat 3, "lone-.")

@JbfMusicGuitar 2 года назад

Interesting take! What surprised me about Adam's video was that from memory 'feel' was the accented bit. But I didn't hear that with the isolated vocals at all. So to me, he's letting the rest of the band sort of help make that pop.

@tiigerpoiss2004 2 года назад

I have always felt it like "i FEEL good"", so the focus goes on word "feel" in my ears.

@masterofdesaster5367 2 года назад

same, for me I ist to short and good to low

@ajuister 2 года назад

How do you request a video on this channel? I’d love 12tone to break down some Tool

@user-uz7gb7gb4v 2 года назад

Here are my thoughts, written at the noted timestamps: 1:33 - I hear a stress on both "feel" and "good". In traditional prosody that would be called a Bacchius, which is not really relevant, but it is cool 2:33 - I absolutely do not hear an accent on the high note of the phrase from Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Both the 3 and the 4 sound stronger to me than the 3+ 5:42 - I'm a tiny bit disappointed that you didn't draw a wolf when Hélène Grimaud came up. Fairly niche reference, I know, but I'm a huge fan of hers, so it would've tickled me pink XD 5:55 - I also didn't really hear an accent on the 4+ of the Bach prelude at first, but I could sort of hear it after you mentioned it, so I can at least understand that bit (unlike the Green Day one) 13:50 - Both this and Adam's original video are great. I really like this type of academic back-and-forth. Keep up the good work!

@dpcubing1521 2 года назад

music writers: yeah, I guess that sounds pretty cool music theorists: Is that a challenge?

@agcummings11 2 года назад

Pausing at 1:37, hear “feel” as the strong syllable

@MrJoerT 2 года назад

Public RU-vidr disagreements like this are great. Videos like these show the public that it's okay to disagree or to have a different view. There is value in stating your opinion or viewpoint in a respectful and intelligent manner. Nowadays many people don't see that, and think that if someone thinks differently, that must mean they are wrong. Keep it up, and thank you for educating the crowd on much more than music theory today.

@CODDE117 2 года назад

It's amazing that the argument that you're making 3 minutes in is the exact same argument I made while watching Adam Neely's video

@musamusashi 2 года назад

The shout which falls on the one of the pickup bar and (secondly) the drums hit on the two is where the accents actually are. It's the same pattern the drums, bass and, to a lesser degree, the other instruments follow and it's a staple of JB's music and of Funk altogether. Check out the Godfather himself or many of his great alumni as Bootsty Collins or Fred Weasley explanation of the concept that was later further emphasised by P-Funk's "everything is on the One".

@sheccabaw 2 года назад

I love how this isn't the first video on your channel with "fight me, Adam Neely" in the thumbnail

@Musician837 2 года назад

Agree with your evaluation for the most part. Linguistic stress is a separate concept from musical or metric stress, but like you implied, rarely is lyric not bound to language and well, linguistics. Therefore, there is rarely a need in Western music for these to be treated as separate concepts.

@liquidsolids9415 2 года назад

Am I the only one who hears strong - weak - strong? Another thought I had while watching this was how important it is to pay attention to natural stresses when writing lyrics. If you try to shove a word into a song where it doesn’t fit stress-wise, it may come off sounding awkward and clunky. Anyway, great videos, Adam and 12 Tone! Thanks, and keep on rockin’!

@XuQifei 2 года назад

12tone I think you completely missed the point of Adam's video. Honestly most of the criticisms here were just misunderstanding of the original video.

@iAmGhostly313 2 года назад

This is how I personally hear it (Capitol letters emphasizing strong and lowercase for weak) - i FEEL GOod- The “i” for me is weak The “FEEL” for me is the strongest an holds the most weight The “GOod” for me is split. I feel as if the first half of good is strong, but not as strong as “FEEL” was. And I feel the emphasis fades off in the second half of the word. Obviously this is just my opinion but I believe he is emphasizing, overall, FEEL.

@tomchristie3199 Год назад

'Feel' is the accented note imo. He sings slightly softer on 'good' plus the notes descend, and 'I' is the same note as 'feel' but staccato hence feels less emphasised too. Also why not use contextual information from later in the song - the second 'I feel good' in the verse has 'feel' stretched even longer - and then later he extends the word 'feel' even more on the transition from the bridge back to the verse (it lasts for about a whole bar then!) Both Adam and 12tone fail to consider the song in its entirety. Why focus in on only the first acapella instance of a phrase which actually appears like 30 more times throughout the rest of the song? It's also super arbitrary anyway - the statement 'I feel good' is so obvious in its meaning - any variation in emphasis makes very little difference to the sentiment.

@janusrobson7516 2 года назад

Personally, I hear "I" as a half stressed syllable, "feel" as a fully stressed syllable, and "good" as an unstressed syllable. So on a scale of stress degrees from 1 to 10 with 1 being no stress and 10 being fully stressed, i hear the phrase as "5 10 3"

@Iramek 2 года назад

I think part of it is speaking pattens too. James sung like he talked (all over the place). Depending on how we speak can influence how we sing too.

@ChickenmanSC 2 года назад

First Steve and Mehdi, now 12 tone and Adam. I can't handle all my favorite youtubers fighting 😭

@harlequingnoll5 2 года назад

It feels like feel starts weak and ends strong, and the 'G' is almost as strong but moves down for the 'ood' (but not so far as the 'I' felt). Almost like there needs to be a "middle" joining "strong" and "weak"

@duowienermelange 2 года назад

If you turn around the task: take an arbitrary melody and perform a tempo and note duration detection, i.e. infer a score notation from audio or MIDI input, you immedately figur out, that you need to relay on relative note durations AND intervals between notes. Which strongly indicates that your approach is absolutely correct. Papers by Davied Temperley etc. (as cited by Adam) will contain similar ideas.

@alexcampos7953 2 года назад

Ow yeah, discussion between two music theorists is definitely what I miss from my time at university. Please keep this going, I feel the nostalgy.

@peperoni_pepino 2 года назад

I still hear it with emphasis on "feel", with slight emphasis on good as well but less. After all, which out of the following fit on the song: "I-hi feel good!" "I fee-heel good!" "I feel goo-hood!" To me clearly the middle one fits best, and that is also what Brown does himself. The latter is also technically possible, but only if the hood is quite a bit higher pitched and shorter than the feel; and it feels only fitting if the 'feel' is long as well. So emphasis of this sentence is probably not quite as binary as 'low emphasis' or 'high emphasis', I think it is low -- high -- mid. Alternatively, you could argue the start ("go") of the word "good" is unstressed but the end ("ood") is stressed.

@adriatic.vineyards 2 года назад

I appreciate the respectful/intellectual discussion, both videos are great

@clipsmasterproductions7479 2 года назад

To me “feel” and “good” are both strong but in deferent ways. “Feel” seems stronger melodically because it’s the longest, most emphasized syllable; “good” seems stronger lyrically in that it’s the most important word. (I’m writing this before watching.)