Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
Pacing and interpretation of musical events, dopamine thrills, the pop "music" state machine, Chopin
Once you get past the part on Despacito & Friends (however, the Scorpions "still loving you" was apparently cued into 2012-2021 pop tastes)
the interesting study on dopamine thrills, pacing of musical resolution, possible self-induced effects of musical expectation, etc, and the requisite blather about music being a language. (actually it was about brain centers stimulated with/without prior experience with a musical piece...) starts around 12:00
Sr. Martíns, it occurs to me that I want to say that I left Sr. Jernigans comment as last on that thread for moral reasons, but that you are right in that I am at least indicating the «structure» behind what musical theories attempt to elucidate is the data. I have since thought about this and I have decided to propose that the data or meaning also rides on the musical carrier wave, as in radio modulation, and our brains demodulate it. The stream of changing harmonic partials (sound) can be interpreted as music, as linguistic vocalizations, as non-linguistic vocalizations, as dangerous predators, as electric tools, motor vehicles, bird song, or the hum of an unplugged electric guitar cable with the amplifier still on. There IS data in the sound, but there is also data the rides on top of the sound that may at least require some understanding of the intentions of the sound source (they sit at the piano and then begin pressing keys)
_____________________________
List of Arts Where Experimentation is Dangerous: 1) Sword-Combat 2) Aerial Acrobatics
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Pacing and interpretation of mus... (in reply to aaron peacock)
quote:
Once you get past the part on Despacito & Friends
I know your purpose was the music language connection part of the video....however, I keep seeing these “chord progression” videos, and they point out usage in pop music and such. These people that present these examples fail to see the concept of “song form”. By that I mean you can have variations on the same song form. It is such a non obvious concept that I feel I have to constantly bring up the “blues” as the singular western example to make an analogy to song forms of flamenco to people because the idea of pop/rock music composition is that every composer has to be “original”. How about we accept that I-vi-IV-V or I-V-vi-IV are song FORMS and simply name them as such? Another favorite is IV-V-III-vi....I guess people can’t see that thinking it is VI-VII-v-i in minor...but these “progressions” are actually all MODAL VAMPS....that is why it is so black and white to me, modal stuff vs tonal progressions that use functioning V-I harmony. The more chords you add to a modal vamp, the more ambiguous it seems. But if you understand your circle of 5ths, that ambiguity doesn’t matter.
It is like those math riddles that go viral to fool adults...the ambiguity means two interpretations can be correct. If you know math there is no problem there, so if you know the circle of 5ths then your IV chord in major emphasis or VI in minor, are simply “lydian”. I see the same in flamenco with the II chord. Three interpretations of the same “thing” and all are “correct”. But an extra bit of info, and the state of being 3 things at once might collapse in favor of a bigger or better picture. That is why, as an educator, rather than argue about terminology, I prefer to steer students to understanding more completely the circle of 5ths, so videos like THIS one you shared don’t really need to be made.
Pachabel cannon in D has a descending bass line D-C#-B-A-G-F#-G-A repeat. The harmony is I-V-vi-iii-IV....to start. That accounts for “don’t stop believing”: I-V-vi-IV, I-V-iii-IV, and all the pop derivatives. It is an “incomplete” progression leaving ambiguity. Yet none of those music nerds point out the connection to Baroque sequences that serve as the model for anything you can find today.
RE: Pacing and interpretation of mus... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
These people that present these examples fail to see the concept of “song form”. By that I mean you can have variations on the same song form. It is such a non obvious concept that I feel I have to constantly bring up the “blues” as the singular western example to make an analogy to song forms of flamenco to people because the idea of pop/rock music composition is that every composer has to be “original”. How about we accept that I-vi-IV-V or I-V-vi-IV are song FORMS and simply name them as such?
It is original due to melody. One can write or come up with different songs (different melodies with lyrics) using the same chord progression. Maybe you're confusing music composition with songwriting.
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Pacing and interpretation of mus... (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
It is original due to melody.
Yet the idea of jazz is to improvise ie “create” new melodies every pass of the chart. The chart is the thing I am getting at....it’s called a “standard”. That is what is meant by a song “form”. Also lyrics....somebody added words to “spain” by chick corea. Again...that is not composing really, they already are working from the “form” that is in place. Nobody would say, if I added lyrics to the song “yesterday” and changed the melody a little in spots, that I wrote a “new song”. But the concept of “form” I am talking about in pop rock music is simpler, more like blues, which again is just a chord progression amigo. The problem is, these pop progressions are not defined as such.
RE: Pacing and interpretation of mus... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
I know your purpose was the music language connection part of the video....
I agree with the other things you were saying. My motive was far from the alleged video topic, however, but more focused on the musical pacing topic. There's an interesting actually sciency study in there too- someones doctoral defense, who knows...one could follow up. observe the sudden switch to fluent académese.
12 minutes or so and the good stuff starts. basically, you can't just play people's favorite parts of songs or they don't like them as much, the approach is important, even in allegedly modern pop fruitfly-attention-span contexts. gives/doesn't give dopamine rush.
I was piqued by the part on the Chopin (etude em? i forget) piece that had exactly ONE tonic resolution, and the approach was telegraphed from afar etc, the OPPOSITE of these short-term-fruitfly-memory functional pumps or even modal vamps.
...or rather, 2 Chopin pieces, one resolving at the end, one resolving at the golden-ratio (dubious to me, but I can accept that Chopin might do this on a lark to send a message of comprehension to a peer/friend etc)
basically, yeah the tagline ostensible point of the video you speak of, well, so many amazing songs are constituted by bits of exercises, due to the reasons you mention. It's like the Jazz ii-V-i , just a slice of the circle of 5ths, which is the same as the circle of 4th backwards (no i don't accept those "it's still a circle of 5ths backwards C-B-A, etc... " approaches- "no dude it's C-D-E-F...", as one must always flatten octaves and yet remember repetitions, etc. plus, on the guitar-neck it's so obvious, a 5th up = 4th down, we transpose even in root positions) the circle of 4ths, and half of that is our beloved cadence, etc. double helix, musical DNA, secondary doms, etc. ONE ring to rule them all, not two. One mans dominant is anothers sub-dom. What more to say.
sorry, i'm under the influence of alcohol at the moment, so I apologize if i am typing poorly, and I hope not to get my computer license revoked.
So, Ricardo and Mano del Diablo, surely you both saw «Born in East LA» where Twist and Shout meets La Bamba :)
_____________________________
List of Arts Where Experimentation is Dangerous: 1) Sword-Combat 2) Aerial Acrobatics
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Pacing and interpretation of mus... (in reply to aaron peacock)
quote:
just a slice of the circle of 5ths, which is the same as the circle of 4th backwards
Yes well as a guitar centric player, I guess I felt the forward direction being B—>E or D->G as a falling or downward feeling or concept. Cuz you want the final bass note low as possible. A->E<-B7...gravity center on E. 5ths falling back if on the right side. Likewise a plagel cadence is falling 4ths in my guitar brain, not rising 5ths. And lastly I distinguish the circle as a “thing” that lives inside music itself and it is a construction of 5ths. That construction shows you are correct in a sense of stacking upward by 5ths. However, the chord sequence of 4ths advancing forward or any sequence, as a separate concept from the circle “5ths thing”.
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Pacing and interpretation of mus... (in reply to Fluknu)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Fluknu
Reminds me of a sentence from an Indian Sarod player: " the meaning of indian classical music is freedom within discipline".
Yes, I heard it from Mclaughlin too regarding improvisation...”there is no freedom without discipline”. And not to rehash, but that was my point about flamenco “improvisation” a while back. The work needs to be put in first before it is “valid”.
Printable Version
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread