What Makes Music Good, part 3
"If a thing is worth doing at all,
it is worth doing badly."
Gustav Holst
Studying music has ruined popular music for me.
I realize that this is a horribly pretentious thing to say to anyone who has not studied music, but I stand by the sentiment. And, to be perfectly fair (and honest,) studying music has ruined all music for me, to an extent.
HTT, Here's The Thing: I can write an eight page paper on a book I've never read (Frankenstein) while listening to the London Symphony Orchestra play The Planets, get an A on that biotch, and not think anything of it. That's just how I roll. Passive listening is easy, and everyone does it, no matter how hard they try not to. But, if I sit down and actively listen to, say, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, two things happen: a) I don't get shit done for a week, because b) I'm depressed for a week. I know why this happens to me, and I know why it happens to three or four other people, and I know why this will not happen to you if you do happen to have clicked on the link above.
What will happen is this: you will click it, it will open a new tab in your Firefox (or your Internet Explorer will open, causing your computer to crash, or your Safari will open up on your Mac, and you will still be a douchebag,) and you will listen as you read, just as I am listening as I write. You will not listen to it, hearing every note, played by every instrument. You will not see the incredible motions of Mravinsky's conducting, nor will you see the epic faces he makes. You will not know when it is over, because you will have stopped listening long before the piece has come to any sort of climax.
Let me be clear about one thing, first. You don't have to pretend, it's OK. I sort of tricked you. There are only three people on the face of the earth who know more about this Symphony than me, and one of them wrote it. I have written a dozen (completely different) papers on it, I have written a conducting map to it, and I've conducted it into a mirror more times than you probably would like for me to admit. I don't need to actively listen to this piece to attain the affect it has on me, it just happens. But it happens from years and years, and several thousand listens, where all I have done is listen. That is more than I can say for any other piece of music ever written. To say I have actively listened to every 311 song thousands of time is completely fathomable, while utterly preposterous and comical, to say the least.
But I could if I wanted to, and this is the reason studying music has made enjoying (most) popular music for me virtually impossible.
It's difficult to explain to someone who has never really listened to a song before. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to listen to a song, and I'm going to break it down for you, and I'm going to list all of the reasons it's awesome.
Ok, ready? Here we go.
"Gunman," by Them Crooked Vultures (Them Crooked Vultures.)
0:00 - 0:03: Very interesting choice of intro, if you ask me. It's very quick.
0:03 - 0:10: This riff is badass. And it's playing a trick on your ears. It sounds like continuous guitar, but it's not, half of it is bass. It's very deceptive. Also, does Dave Grohl have three feet?
0:11 - 0:11: The tag at the end of the riff is sweet. Stop-time is almost always awesome, but it's always better when it's over before you realize that it actually happened.
0:12 - 0:54: First verse. The lyrics aren't really about anything, which is fine. The fact that the vocal line is different from the riff - which continues without losing any intensity - makes me happy. There's also lots of space between each line of lyrics, allowing the riff to come through to the front quite often. Josh changes the quality of his voice towards the end, and it's awesome. The turn-arounds (every 4 bars) done on the drums are very simple, but they add so much to the sound of the verse.
0:54 - 1:17: Key change and chorus. This is in a different key, but it's a relative key, which is why you can't really tell. (It might even just be a tonicization of the dominant, which would make it twice as difficult to notice, and ten times as awesome.) The riff goes away, and the accompaniment becomes much more calm and broad, but the vocal line becomes more intense without getting any faster. The drums turn into a bare-bones beat, and something tells me it's so Dave's arms don't fall off. It's not an altogether interesting chorus, and it fits with the song, but it's still different. And not in a bad way.
0:17 - 1:20: Return of the riff. The song immediately goes back to its original intensity, and no one is any the wiser that it has changed (there's more of it in the bass.) Is that a siren in the background?
1:21 - 1:22: THAT is a strange tag to the riff. It's almost a halfway mix between the original intro and the stop time tag. (I've tried to write out this rhythm a thousand times. Nothing. No idea.) The band is, at this point, doing equal parts keeping the listener on their toes and fucking with you.
1:22 - 1:39: Guitar solo. No, it wasn't a siren, it was the start of the guitar solo, not at all where you expect it to be, and not evident enough that you actually hear that it has started. It's also not too long, not too short. It's not one of Josh's best, but he's clearly done worse. It fits really well both rhythmically and melodically with the riff.
1:39 - 1:56: Verse 2. Yes, the guitar solo continues, but in more of an accompanying manner. With that exception, this verse is almost identical to the first one.
1:57 - 2:22: Verse 2B. The riff and pulse stay exactly the same, but Josh changes it up by singing in a different way, and the second half of the guitar solo makes a reappearance. The turn-arounds on the drums here are different, too, and the tag that signals the key change again is different from everything we've heard, but similar enough that you don't notice.
2:23 - 2:56: Chorus. Identical to the first one, but Josh seems to be hitting those guitar impacts a little bit harder, no? The turn-arounds (no, I can't get enough of these) are different too, yes? Yes, they are. They add a lot of intensity to the chorus that was not previously present. This chorus seems to building to something...
2:56 - 3:05: Drum break. Nothing special here.
3:05 - 3:11: Josh enters, singing. The style and lyrics are completely different.
3:12 - 3:13: This is exactly the same as the beginning of the song, but you still get the feeling it's not the same.
3:14 - 3:21: Verse 3. Same music, different lyrics.
3:21 - 3:38: Verse 3A. Similar to verse 2A, but different from it and any previous verses. It's a lot more intense, Josh is almost yelling. The riff changes a bit, too. It's now almost completely done by the bass, with very little guitar being heard.
3:38 - 3:46: Verse 3B. Completely different. Josh and the guitar (Josh and himself?) are doing a call-and-response type of thing, and it's very interesting. It's almost a tag, but the tonality definitely lends itself to leading somewhere.
3:46 - 4:32: Chorus. Same vocal line, different lyrics. The guitar plays a much more integral part this time around, but you can hardly notice it. Josh takes the vocal line up instead of down at the end, and we all know how I feel about that.
4:32 - 4:35: Return of the riff. Almost. It sounds like it's going back to the riff, then as soon as you recognize it, it does that weird-ass tag, and then does the stop time. THE TWO OF THEM TOGETHER = AWESOME.
4:36 - 4:40: Again.
4:40 - end. It sounds like it's going to do it again, then it just stops. It sounds like it's an abrupt ending, but it is, in fact, the exact rhythmic opposite of how the song started.
That was fun. And I bet you thought you were listening to the same Verse-Chorus-Verse-Solo-Verse-Chorus song you hear every day on the radio, twice on Tuesdays.
Music like this is what makes music interesting. The lack of it is what makes popular music so boring.
I realize that this is a horribly pretentious thing to say to anyone who has not studied music, but I stand by the sentiment. And, to be perfectly fair (and honest,) studying music has ruined all music for me, to an extent.
HTT, Here's The Thing: I can write an eight page paper on a book I've never read (Frankenstein) while listening to the London Symphony Orchestra play The Planets, get an A on that biotch, and not think anything of it. That's just how I roll. Passive listening is easy, and everyone does it, no matter how hard they try not to. But, if I sit down and actively listen to, say, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, two things happen: a) I don't get shit done for a week, because b) I'm depressed for a week. I know why this happens to me, and I know why it happens to three or four other people, and I know why this will not happen to you if you do happen to have clicked on the link above.
What will happen is this: you will click it, it will open a new tab in your Firefox (or your Internet Explorer will open, causing your computer to crash, or your Safari will open up on your Mac, and you will still be a douchebag,) and you will listen as you read, just as I am listening as I write. You will not listen to it, hearing every note, played by every instrument. You will not see the incredible motions of Mravinsky's conducting, nor will you see the epic faces he makes. You will not know when it is over, because you will have stopped listening long before the piece has come to any sort of climax.
Let me be clear about one thing, first. You don't have to pretend, it's OK. I sort of tricked you. There are only three people on the face of the earth who know more about this Symphony than me, and one of them wrote it. I have written a dozen (completely different) papers on it, I have written a conducting map to it, and I've conducted it into a mirror more times than you probably would like for me to admit. I don't need to actively listen to this piece to attain the affect it has on me, it just happens. But it happens from years and years, and several thousand listens, where all I have done is listen. That is more than I can say for any other piece of music ever written. To say I have actively listened to every 311 song thousands of time is completely fathomable, while utterly preposterous and comical, to say the least.
But I could if I wanted to, and this is the reason studying music has made enjoying (most) popular music for me virtually impossible.
It's difficult to explain to someone who has never really listened to a song before. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to listen to a song, and I'm going to break it down for you, and I'm going to list all of the reasons it's awesome.
Ok, ready? Here we go.
"Gunman," by Them Crooked Vultures (Them Crooked Vultures.)
0:00 - 0:03: Very interesting choice of intro, if you ask me. It's very quick.
0:03 - 0:10: This riff is badass. And it's playing a trick on your ears. It sounds like continuous guitar, but it's not, half of it is bass. It's very deceptive. Also, does Dave Grohl have three feet?
0:11 - 0:11: The tag at the end of the riff is sweet. Stop-time is almost always awesome, but it's always better when it's over before you realize that it actually happened.
0:12 - 0:54: First verse. The lyrics aren't really about anything, which is fine. The fact that the vocal line is different from the riff - which continues without losing any intensity - makes me happy. There's also lots of space between each line of lyrics, allowing the riff to come through to the front quite often. Josh changes the quality of his voice towards the end, and it's awesome. The turn-arounds (every 4 bars) done on the drums are very simple, but they add so much to the sound of the verse.
0:54 - 1:17: Key change and chorus. This is in a different key, but it's a relative key, which is why you can't really tell. (It might even just be a tonicization of the dominant, which would make it twice as difficult to notice, and ten times as awesome.) The riff goes away, and the accompaniment becomes much more calm and broad, but the vocal line becomes more intense without getting any faster. The drums turn into a bare-bones beat, and something tells me it's so Dave's arms don't fall off. It's not an altogether interesting chorus, and it fits with the song, but it's still different. And not in a bad way.
0:17 - 1:20: Return of the riff. The song immediately goes back to its original intensity, and no one is any the wiser that it has changed (there's more of it in the bass.) Is that a siren in the background?
1:21 - 1:22: THAT is a strange tag to the riff. It's almost a halfway mix between the original intro and the stop time tag. (I've tried to write out this rhythm a thousand times. Nothing. No idea.) The band is, at this point, doing equal parts keeping the listener on their toes and fucking with you.
1:22 - 1:39: Guitar solo. No, it wasn't a siren, it was the start of the guitar solo, not at all where you expect it to be, and not evident enough that you actually hear that it has started. It's also not too long, not too short. It's not one of Josh's best, but he's clearly done worse. It fits really well both rhythmically and melodically with the riff.
1:39 - 1:56: Verse 2. Yes, the guitar solo continues, but in more of an accompanying manner. With that exception, this verse is almost identical to the first one.
1:57 - 2:22: Verse 2B. The riff and pulse stay exactly the same, but Josh changes it up by singing in a different way, and the second half of the guitar solo makes a reappearance. The turn-arounds on the drums here are different, too, and the tag that signals the key change again is different from everything we've heard, but similar enough that you don't notice.
2:23 - 2:56: Chorus. Identical to the first one, but Josh seems to be hitting those guitar impacts a little bit harder, no? The turn-arounds (no, I can't get enough of these) are different too, yes? Yes, they are. They add a lot of intensity to the chorus that was not previously present. This chorus seems to building to something...
2:56 - 3:05: Drum break. Nothing special here.
3:05 - 3:11: Josh enters, singing. The style and lyrics are completely different.
3:12 - 3:13: This is exactly the same as the beginning of the song, but you still get the feeling it's not the same.
3:14 - 3:21: Verse 3. Same music, different lyrics.
3:21 - 3:38: Verse 3A. Similar to verse 2A, but different from it and any previous verses. It's a lot more intense, Josh is almost yelling. The riff changes a bit, too. It's now almost completely done by the bass, with very little guitar being heard.
3:38 - 3:46: Verse 3B. Completely different. Josh and the guitar (Josh and himself?) are doing a call-and-response type of thing, and it's very interesting. It's almost a tag, but the tonality definitely lends itself to leading somewhere.
3:46 - 4:32: Chorus. Same vocal line, different lyrics. The guitar plays a much more integral part this time around, but you can hardly notice it. Josh takes the vocal line up instead of down at the end, and we all know how I feel about that.
4:32 - 4:35: Return of the riff. Almost. It sounds like it's going back to the riff, then as soon as you recognize it, it does that weird-ass tag, and then does the stop time. THE TWO OF THEM TOGETHER = AWESOME.
4:36 - 4:40: Again.
4:40 - end. It sounds like it's going to do it again, then it just stops. It sounds like it's an abrupt ending, but it is, in fact, the exact rhythmic opposite of how the song started.
That was fun. And I bet you thought you were listening to the same Verse-Chorus-Verse-Solo-Verse-Chorus song you hear every day on the radio, twice on Tuesdays.
Music like this is what makes music interesting. The lack of it is what makes popular music so boring.
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