kindly hit that subscribe button if you're interested! helps out a bunch :) Follow me on Instagram: / sergescardigno #Pinegrove #Pinetabs #IndieMusicTheory
HELLO and THANK YOU for watching :) If you enjoyed this video, check out the one I just did on Big Thief! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-U-TGVLhGBOA.html
Sergio I really enjoyed this video, you are awesome and i love the band. I was blown away by your description at the end. That's exactly what I think & that's exactly why it resonates so much. They've perfected it. Keep up the good work.
Most bands I get tired of listening too nonstop after a year or so. But I’ve been nonstop listening to Pinegrove for like 3 years now and never get tired. I think it’s safe to say this is one of my top bands of my life
no way i was just watching your videos to find videos of FOD and i just saw your comment while listening to pine grove live performances lmao. that’s sick that you like them and moto
i feel like pinegrove has introduced a lot of country elements to a scene which previously did NOT embrace country elements. i NEVER thought i would like something so country, but their usage of it is truly masterful.
Enjoyed this - thank you. I find Pinegrove so sonically interesting that it never seems to get old. You can listen to Pinegrove records regularly for months and they still sound great.
I just doubled my knowledge of music theory from this one video, and got 4 songs down. Excellent use of concrete examples. Great work being accessible, actually showing the chords, as I was able to pause and play while watching.
when i found pinegrove, i found them off of midwest emo & pop punk spotify so i'm partial to the idea that they're more midwest than indie. either way, i love how they're not a single genere but more of a blend! my all time favorite band !
hey! I guess this is slightly contradictory to my "pause and read", but it seems like there was enough interest here for maybe another one of these. I was looking to make the channel slightly less tech focused anyway, and I think this could be an interesting place to start that. kindly hit that subscribe button if you're interested! helps out a bunch :)
haha trust me, there are lots of people who do this way better than me, but I'm glad you enjoyed! maybe I'll take a look at some other artists I'm into in the future if there's enough interest :-)
Love that you mentioned that the songs are written "for guitar." It's one of the first things I noticed when playing the songs, the voicings and progressions flow so easily on the guitar with little usage of alternate tunings
This was so useful in finding out why my brain loves this band so much, thanks! A part of their value is how hard it is to find another band that fills the same void as this one!
This is cool, like an academic study of PG. I listen to all the mentioned genres, so it's making a lot more sense why their music is on my daily playlist.
pinegrove songs just have a sound that brings about nostalgia to me. i'm not sure where it comes from but I can't help but to think about my childhood when I listen to their songs
true, i think nostalgia is the agreed upon adjective by most pinegrove fans - i think it’s just timbre and lyric selection coming together in a nice way
Happy I stumbled upon this! I love Pinegrove, and their music is great! As a music enthusiast for many years, I love watching videos breaking down the theory behind my favorite music!
Loved your commentary, they're one of my favs right now. I would say aphasia is a LOT more than just love and loss lyrics. The song is about aphasia quite literally. It's about overcoming the inability to speak and the way it feels for the words to just start flowing after months to years of silence.
Great video! I especially appreciated your emphasis on Pinegrove's unique dynamic structure. As a musician myself, I sometimes get tripped up into thinking that every song needs to have a certain amount of chord changes or fancy voicings to make it special. But as you show, the feeling put into each song is what gives it its unique character. Everyone puts little flares of inspiration from their favorite artists into their work until they eventually develop a sound of their own. Hope the finals went well! Peace!
You packed in so much great analysis via 8 songs. I really appreciate your concise breakdown of each. Altogether great content and amazing subject, hope to see more!
not even done with the video but this is insanely good content man. earned my sub for sure, it's nice to see breakdowns like this for music outside of the box
thank ya :-)) while I'm not necessarily a music channel, I did enjoy doin this, so I'll definitely come back to another artist I like sometime soon :-)
Thank you for this video! Just got hooked on this band a few months ago. I totally agree with your analysis. Interesting that you did not even mention Old Friends to talk about their style! Love Big Thief too. So I will listen to your video on them.
Love this video! My only nitpick is how Everything so Far is so often treated as one album when it's really a compilation featuring several distinct eras of Pinegrove, including their real first album (Meridian) and 3 EPs. Recognizing these as separate projects paints a richer picture of how they developed their sound; contrast the lush, abstract approach they took on & to the more stripped back Mixtape 2 where they first really embraced the direct, vulnerable lyrical style they're known for today It's not as big of a sonic change as the albums you covered, and I understand the video can only be so long, but it's an era of Pinegrove I love so I thought I'd point it out!
Subscribed my friend - been super into music theory and harmonic usage has been a part that I'm trying to make more connections with and Pinegrove is one of my all time favorite bands. This felt super digestible for some learning while also breaking down what makes the songs so great. Plus just watched some other videos and you cover a ton of great music and topics! Best of luck - love your stuff. Will be watching more! Cheers!
Fantastic video man, really interesting analysis and I love the way you presented it. I’ve been captivated by Pinegrove and it’s really cool to see a concise explanation of the key techniques here
I love how you try to pin this band into categories. This is a way of listening to music I am not familiar with but I appreciate your interpretation. This is great.
Well done my friend. Don't know how I stumbled onto this link but it was a perfect introduction to what appears to be some great stuff. I'm a fellow musician and I enjoyed how you broke it down. Simple and concise. I love me some dags so I was hooked the moment I saw the star of the video was a black lab with a greying chinbeard. Do yourself a favor and check out the first 3 albums by A.A. Bondy. The progression from his first into American Hearts and then Believers is quite a journey. His newest stuff is quite the curveball but hey, he's an artist what do I expect hahaha. Enjoy.
everything so far is a collection of cohesive albums! problems-need 2 is “mixtape two”, namesake-unison is “&”, palisade-sunday is “meridian” and on jet lag and days are “mixtape one”. i know you acknowledged their ten year discography but it’s just a lil pet peeve of mine when people don’t talk about the album and eps that make up everything so far. great vid!!
sergio. Im a huge fan of your videos. 1. Thank you for creating beautiful, accessible, great content for the music lover with an insatiable appetite for all things music. 2. You know so much about music theory, what recommendations to you have to broaden that knowledge. because 3. I write songs too, and I feel like i can only benefit from understanding the harmonic bedrock of progressions, or to even understand what I harmonically tend to in the over 30 songs i've already written. Sincerely, a friend, fan, and fellow traveler.
I was trying to figure out the acoustic version of Phase and ended up stumbling on your video and really enjoying this. You really threw some nice words around that ineffable quality that makes them special as a band. I'd like to see more of these dissections of sound and diving into what makes a band sonically interesting n such.
Haha thank you! Ah idk I'm debating - I think she definitely writes her solo stuff noticeably different than BOCC stuff, so it might be a tough parallel to draw. Although I do personally bop to BOCC a lot more :)
As someone who has really been into Pinegrove for the past 2 years, this was a super enjoyable video to watch. You really know your stuff, and it was a pleasure to hear somebody dissect and analyze their songwriting in the way that you did.
@@sergescardigno Your description of their genre-blending was on point too. I never know how to describe them to people haha. I usually just say indie emo country, but you really put their genre blend into context nicely.
thank ya! yeah man it's just a lot of open chords - seems like Evan is the kind of songwriter than tests moving a few fingers around and does it by ear yk
Great video dude, super interesting and well done! You could to consider calling 7 and 3 in the minor key bVII and bIII as the roman numerals still relate to the major scale keys even if you're in a minor key!
I'm gonna blabber about Pinegrove here if that's okay. I love Pinegrove, I think they really grow on you. They have been the soundtrack to some life events and they're just great. Size of the Moon is absolutely my favourite, but god Endless is a really strong second.
Nice vid, just stumbled on this channel as I just found Pinegrove and have been going down the rabbit hole. I just learned Aphasia acoustic and definitely see what you mean about the cowboy chords and them being close and easy to transition to. I'm a beginner when it comes to music theory, so it's interesting to see you point out theoretical reasoning behind the obvious jazz and country undertones that are so easy to hear but tough for me to put my finger on. I will say, I personally think Evan would be just as successful solo. I think the most unique and alluring part of this band are the lyrics, and the delivery of them. That is more on display during singer/songwriter type performances, and it's no surprise that Pinegrove's most popular songs like Old Friends and Aphasia have amazing solo acoustic versions on RU-vid, both of which have more views than any of their other songs. Anyway, hope the final went well!
ty!! yeah i think if you’re getting into songwriting at any point, learning these songs is easy, fun, and can teach you a lot. sure maybe evan would be successful solo, but idk having seen them live a lot and the chemistry they have, i don’t think i’d wanna break that up yk
@@sergescardigno Good point, and to be fair, the old friends acoustic video that is really popular is actually not solo, he's got a guy on the synth adding a lot of depth to the performance. Some points he's not even playing guitar. I should try to check these guys out live one day, once shows are actually going on again :(
Love this video dude. I think you unpack the songs in a way that make them so approachable while appreciating the complexity of instrumentation and musicianship. The only thing I disagree on is you saying it’s unfortunate that marigold has less banjo. I personally love it a little more for that reason. I feel like the use of the banjo in pinegrove music, although beautiful, was always a grasp at a “we’re a folky band” vibe. But I think you sum up the true essence of pinegrove with your conclusion that it’s more singer songwriter with instrumentation highlighting the extra stuff. Really thoughtful analysis of an incredible band. Thank for sharing this ♥️
Wow, thanks a ton for this, means a lot :). I personally love the vibe of marigold still even without banjo, and totally understand what you're sayin. I guess I'm just a little partial to the older stuff, and the banjo thus has a slightly more nostalgic context for how I discovered them, if that makes sense.
@@Heisenbrick so weird that toy replied to this today because I was on a run and randomly thought about this comment I left on this video and about how I think I’d go back now and maybe take back my statement about the banjo. Maybe it was after watching Amperland, NY that sold the banjo Pinegrove vibe to me. I’m definitely way more into it now.
i loved your analysis, i'm currently watching all youtube videos on pinegrove since i missed three of their concerts due to the virus, you made me feel so much better. i was wondering what font you used in the video, cause it looks so much like their font?? i hope youre doing well
heyhey thank ya! sorry to hear :-((( , I probably would've seen them again this summer too. The font is called "Island Roman", it's similar but not exact since I think the pg is custom. cheers!
I love your commentary an I agree with you all the way but my only critique is that even though the cowboy chords in the song “neighbor” may make it the bands most country “song” I feel that their tiny desk concert is the most country they ever sounded and is my favorite set list... It’s dat banjo that really drives it home!
Good video, I would also argue a huge part of my synthesis of Pine grove is the way they use totally unique ideas for unison accents! I.e. listen to “Days” where they go to a fortissimo dynamic and use a quarter note pulse in a 6/8 time feel starting on the six so the first measure of each two-bar idea is played straight and the second sounds incredibly syncopated and very interesting! They make brilliant use of rhythmic dissonance. A few more microcosms of this concept would be how the my accent the “&” of two when Evan comes in with the vocals in verse two of “Angelina”. They do something very similar on “Peeling off the Bark” (I realize I’m highlighting some of their earliest discography but it’s just such a cool sound”, where they also use odd time signatures in a cool way. As opposed to in jazz or progressive music where a song might be written in an odd time signature, Pinegrove fits the time signature around the melodic idea. For example in the last song I mentioned in the coda of the song where the chord progression changes (which is maybe my favorite example of Pinegrove harmony as well), the band plays a motif that lasts two bars of 4/4 and then use one bar of 3 to turnaround into the next phrase. They do this on “over my shoulder”. I also love the little phase flip during the accelerando in the bridge of “visiting” where the drums switch from unusually accenting the 1 & 3 with the snare to hitting the snare in back to back beats to imply a move to double time and then releasing that rhythmic dissonance by lining up the snare on 2 & 4 again. I feel like a HUGE part of earlier Pinegrove is their rhythmic ideas that really are unique to them and only them. I’m curious how much drummer Zach Levine has to do with that behind the scenes, in my experience those are often ideas that drummers have because they just get so fucking bored playing regular beats behind the set lol
lmao really great ideas here!! but yes i’m not sure zach is really thinking about it on this deep a level - since it’s mostly singer-songwriter material, a LOT revolves around that melody, including the rhythm as you said. it’s a lot of familiar time signatures most of the time, but with breaks here and there to fit vocal phrasing - just one of a bunch of techniques they use to amplify what Evan writes :)
This is exactly what I was thinking about while watching this! Over the last two albums I was able to find some little subtle decorations in the rhythmic section of their songs like how the drums in “rings” stay in the same tempo and dynamic and every other instrument fades away (which they even perfect in the live version), and the syncopation on the and of the beat in “the alarmist” near the end (3.38 mark), but I do feel that the older content had a good amount of rhythmic decorations that were so refreshing to add onto the simplistic chord harmonies The beginning of “Cadmium” in Cardinal also has the band behind the beat of the drums which they do live pretty well!
@@guillermoaranda4006 Great observations! Admittedly as I move forward in time in their discography I'm less familiar with each album, I still really enjoy Marigold and Skylight but the first two albums spoke to me on a way deeper level, thanks for the input with Alarmist, Cadmium, and Rings, I wasn't considering those songs but I love them all!
