@Crystal since you've expressed interest in what songs I like, I figured you might be interested in the following, which is sort of my "analysis" (with my opinion of course) of the song I posted above (AKB48's "Sakura no ki ni Narou"), and trying to figure out why I like it so much. This will just cover one verse and one refrain, but similar comments may apply to the rest of the song.
I suggest you take a listen to the song, and maybe contemplate your own reactions to it, before reading this.
Just a few quick terminology comments before we start: the song is in G major, therefore do re mi fa so la ti respectively correspond to G A B C D E F# respectively. The most important chords are G major (the "tonic" or I chord), C major ("subdominant" or IV chord), and D major (the "dominant" or V chord). You don't have to know exactly what I mean by the stuff above, but you might just see terms like these come up in my commentary.
0:00 instrumental intro, which foreshadows a few elements present in the rest of the song, specifically the beginning motif of the refrain (with its octave leap), and how it starts on a IV chord. 0:17-0:41 the first "sentence" of the verse, consisting of two phrases which are similar. A few things to point out: 1. The verse starts on a IV chord, which is a little unusual -- a lot of good songs start on a I chord, which is sort of the home chord for what key it's in. But that's not to say this song has a problem -- the chord progress goes with the bass line that just goes down from C ("fa") to G ("do"), going right back to that home chord, in both phrases. This ends up with the effect of starting the verse with a little gentle bit of tension, and then letting it go. 2. The first phrase of this sentence has a relatively small range, going just from G to D ("do" to "so"). This is also in a relatively low register relative to the singer's vocal range (it's the bottom of a standard alto range). The first phrase, while it ends on the I chord to give a sense of stability, doesn't give a perfect sense of stability because it ends on a B in the melody ("mi") rather than a G ("do"). It also has a relatively weak cadence from A minor to G major (a "plagal"-like cadence). 3. The second phrase has the same chords and starts the same but takes a different tack, going up to an F# ("ti"). But after two downward scales it ends on a G, ending the sentence more conclusively. The chords also end with a D major to G major pair, which is a strong cadence (the technical term being "authentic" or "perfect"). So this result is that the first phrase feels sorta like it's just there, with intervals in the melody (moving between notes that are close together), but the next phrase goes a little further and then ends back in a comfort zone. 0:42-1:04 the first sentence is repeated again, but with another singer joining in. 1:05-1:16 (first phrase), 1:17-1:29 (second phrase) The next musical sentence opens much more dynamically -- an arpeggio (G B D ^G) going up to the "do" of the next octave higher. The melody goes down and back up to that G and then dwells on it a bit. The chords are also different -- E minor, A minor, D major, G major for the first phrase. The feeling this creates is there's a lot more "motion" going on -- things are less settled. They do gravitate back toward a strong cadence (D major to G major) in the middle, but the motion starts up again immediately. But the second phrase of this sentence keeps that motion going, again starting like the first phrase in this sentence but going elsewhere. You may be able to hear the melody making more and bigger leaps -- each phrase in this sentence begins with a series of leaps spanning a whole octave, and the melody, after coming down, goes back up with leaps of a fifth and a seventh respectively in the two phrases before coming down again in stepwise motion (like a scale downward). The second sentence of this phrase also introduces a chord that doesn't normally occur in the key of G major -- the A major chord. It's the "secondary dominant", a dominant to the key of D major, which is itself the dominant of G major. So to end this sentence we have a "half cadence" ending on the dominant of G major -- the chords of the second phrase are E minor, A major, D major, and then stops there, as if leaving a question mark. This sets up a feeling of wanting to go back to a G major chord, as we head into the refrain.
1:30-2:02 Refrain. This refrain, like the first sentence of the verse, is four phrases long, but each phrase is half as long (only eight beats, as opposed to sixteen-beat phrases), except the last phrase. It starts with the four-note motif (containing an octave leap) that we heard in the instrumental intro, and puts a IV chord on the first downbeat. Several things are notable here: 1. The melody goes quite high, hanging around the high G and the A above it for the first and third phrases, and all the way up to the B above the higher G, in the third phrase. 2. The melody also goes as low as it went in the verse -- down to the low G. In fact, it has the biggest leaps ("do, re, mi do ^do...") we've heard so far, so it's a very dynamic refrain. The first and third phrases take place mostly in the higher pitches, while the second phrase is mostly in the lower pitches, creating a sort of call-and-response effect. 3. The last phrase uses that octave leap twice in almost succession creating a sense of anticipation, which ends with the melody on the higher G. It also 4. The chords change faster in the refrain than in the verse, giving more of a sense of motion. 5. Remember how we had a "tonicizing" of D major when the music was made to sound a little bit like it was in D major, by introducing an A major chord that functioned as a dominant to D major? The refrain tonicizes E minor and C major a bit, as it has the following chords: C major, D major, G major (with B in bass), E minor, A minor, B major, E minor, G7, C major, D major, B7, E minor, A min7, D7, G major (with a 4-3 suspension). B major is the dominant of E minor, and it goes to E minor. G major is itself the dominant of C major, especially in its G7 form (which introduces an F-natural, not part of the G major scale), and G7 indeed goes to C major. (D7 is another form of D major as the dominant, with more notes to tie it to resolving to G major. The 4-3 suspension at the end is what sounds vaguely like you could sign an "Amen" to it; it's another release of tension.) 6. Just before the end, when we get two octave leaps in a row, we also get a sort of "stretching" of the time by adding two extra four-beat bars to the rhythmic pattern of the phrases -- the last phrase is twice as long as the other three phrases in the refrain.
So we have a refrain that's more melodically and harmonically adventurous, resolving onto a long tonic note in the melody and the tonic chord in the harmony. Back to home, for eight beats, before we start up again at the beginning of the verse.
It's like we've basically started from something relatively calm, and gradually introduced more elements to the music and built on it, and we arrive at a climax which uses those big octave-leaps almost twice in a row to ramp up the tension...and then it's finally resolved.
My favorite part of all this is probably the second sentence, which uses a part of the circle-of-fifths progression, which is one of my favorite chord progressions, but honestly, without the context to put it in to make it feel special, it wouldn't quite be the same thing.
(I think the circle-of-fifths progression is one of my favorite progressions because it's basically like an overlapping series of those dominant-to-tonic (V to I) chord motions, but all of them are not quite perfectly dominant-to-tonic, except the last one (and the first if you write the whole eight-chord sequence). The strength of the dominant-to-tonic cadence is a very big feature of most classical music, and a lot of other chord motion is used to set up this cadence in various ways, to play with it, to subvert it, or otherwise work with or around it. This cadence always suggests a strong sense of direction, which means that you can use (or not use) it to control the feeling of tension in the music, as a composer. And this is probably why, when I hear stuff in pop music that doesn't use this sequence as a sort of tension control mechanism, such as anything that involves "the four chords of pop" in their typical I V vi IV order (notice that the dominant cadence is V to I, not I to V), I feel a distinct lack of a sense of direction.)
But yeah...I don't actually think consciously about these things as I'm listening to the music. This is all after-the-fact analysis to try to figure out why it is that I like this. Rather, what I do get from the music is a feeling, a feeling that changes over time as the music progresses. Like how it starts from stability and then goes into more turbulent waters, with some slightly darker colors (such as minor chords) and some brighter colors (such as that strong dominant-to-tonic motion set to major chords), and it culminates in a refrain that's got those octave leaps that span the entire vocal range of the melody and then settles in a way that feels like it goes back to that sense of stability and comfort that characterized the beginning of the song. It's a journey of emotions.
So I've had this one tune swimming around my head, and I remembered it as a sort of techno/trance/eurodance thing, but it turns out to actually be the OP of Darker than Black. I was surprised Midomi picked it up but then it turned out to be the actual sung melody, which generally means other people sang it, which means it can figure out the song. (In my mind it was an instrumental tune which means it's less likely for other people to have sung it, and thus harder for Midomi to figure it out. Though maybe this was my mistaking it because maybe I actually remember a voice part as an instrumental because if my memory is lossy, it usually first remembers melody and harmony before instrumentation. Alternatively maybe I really did hear it in a trance remix.)
I first listened to Rie fu's self-titled album many years ago, around 2006-ish I think? I was first introduced to "Life is like a Boat", which I fell in love with. (It wasn't through Bleach, for what it's worth. A friend was listening to it.)
That song is definitely my favorite, though "decay" is another one that I like. The others are a bit on the quirky side I think? Like they don't quite strike me as the kind of song that I'd call my favorites, but on the other hand, they're certainly memorable and have certainly left an impression that has stayed with me for over a decade now. Now I did listen to the album a bit more than a few times back then, partly because I didn't really have that many albums to play around with at the time, but that's not to say the songs are bad. The first track has appealing harmonies overlaid with a melody that is often curiously awkward in an intriguing way, for example (the beginning of 2cm has an awkward jump from the fourth scale degree to the tonic, over a tonic chord, which is very much not how I'd write a melody, but for that reason it stands out). And various other tracks have English lyrics that became memorable sometimes because I just couldn't make sense of ("what if our life is on every weekdays from ten to eleven thirty-five?", "we're only two centimeters away now / I'll be home again / I'll be home again / to a place I might have been").
This combination of simple instrumentation, tonal (and mostly diatonic) harmonies, and intriguingly awkward melodies is something that would come up again when, much more recently, I listened to Vienna Teng's "Waking Hour", and to a lesser extent (with more complex instrumentation and less awkward melodies) some songs by Michelle Branch and Owl City's "Ocean Eyes" (which has more rhythmic singing than Rie fu). Also contrast with Ritsuko Okazaki's songs, which also have simple instrumentation and tonal (mostly diatonic) harmonies, but very smooth and simple melodies, and besides the harmonies aren't just tonal but also follow very predictable and thus comfortingly familiar patterns (that are much closer to classical harmony than the somewhat more pop-inspired harmonic progressions the others have).
4:55 AM] Quint Lindwurm: this is something that might play during the scoreboard display after a mariokart style race 4:55 AM] Quint Lindwurm: maybe a battle victory fanfare? 4:55 AM] Quint Lindwurm: or some other short-term moment of relaxation after a stressful activity
this chord (iiø7) may sound "Christmasy" to these people but this progression (I Ib7 IV iiø7) instead reminds me of this very memorable tune from Tail 'Gator That these two share a common harmonic ancestry (old jazz, like swing jazz) is not a surprise, of course.
[03:41:30] * GMH is now playing: Vienna Teng - "Lullabye For A Stormy Night" - {Waking Hour} [03:41:31] <GMH> very nice song.
i want to stress that further. it is a beautiful song.
[unrelated]
[03:50:08] * GMH is now playing: Sergei Prokofiev - "II. Andante caloroso" - {Piano Sonata #7 in B-flat major, Op. 83} [03:50:20] <GMH> this specifically might be my own performance of the piece [03:50:27] <GMH> since i can already hear one mistake i know i've made before [03:50:38] <GMH> the 7th sonata is wild. [03:51:56] <GMH> the first movement is like a military march with a stated goal that's strangely twisted in every way possible while clinging by a thread to that goal [03:53:10] <GMH> (specifically, it's declared to be in the key of B-flat major, but it barely only hints that it's supposed to be in B-flat major, even going as far as to have no key signature [03:53:14] <GMH> ) [03:53:35] <GMH> its second movement is like having a strange, surreal dream after falling asleep in the back room of a brothel [03:54:35] <GMH> its third and final movement is...a thing going out of control despite being very "tight" in rhythm and form [03:54:54] <GMH> partly because it has an unstable rhythmic pattern that just never stops [03:58:35] <GMH> it's a lot more in B-flat major than the first movement (where the tonality is almost a sarcastic suggestion), but instead it goes nuts in a very very driven, stubborn, unstoppable way, a glorified path of destruction. [03:58:46] <GMH> or a destructive path of glory?
After listening to this song (courtesy of Jane's posting it but I'm not mentioning her because I don't think she actually likes the song), I was reminded of this song.
"How does this harmonica work?" The holes are C to B, with C, E, and G being blow and D, F, A, B being suck.
"How do I play non-white-key notes?" You press this button on the side, which increases the pitch of everything by one half-step.
"How do I play flats?" You translate them into sharps via enharmonics and interpret them as sharp notes.
"So if we can spell everything using sharps, why would do we need flats? Why not just spell everything as sharps?" Well, consider the following scale: Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb What if we tried to spell everything in sharps? D# F G G# A# C D D# Okay, now let's try to write a key signature with this. All Ds are sharped, all Fs are natural, all Gs are natural, all Gs are sharped...wait, that's a problem. Which Gs are sharped? And now all Ds are natural too...except no. Meanwhile, we're not even using E and B for anything. Not to mention that this is simply a transposition of the C major scale. If we can spell that neatly using all seven letters, C D E F G A B, why can't we spell this one neatly using all seven letters, just with accidentals? Okay, D# E# Fx G# A# B# Cx D#. Or we could just, like, not deal with doublesharps, and call it Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb.
"What if we need a note flat and sharp at the same time?" Okay then you're just writing modern music with tone clusters, or you're spelling something wrong.
> looking for a French-style courante amongst Bach's cello suites > not in 1, not in 2, etc. > is this style less easy to write in than the Italian-style courante, given the textural limitations of a single bowed string instrument? > finally find one in suite 5 in C minor > okay cool > go listen to it on youtube > hmm lemme try to find one that lets me follow along with the score > follow along with score > the score is really wrong? wtf? > go to imslp > download score > wtf the score really is like this > also weirdo key signature > wtf??????
> top string supposed to be tuned down to a G > learn about scordatura
strange realization: the ideas i come up with, for piano, without a piano keyboard in front of me, are different from the ideas i come up with, for piano, messing around on an actual piano keyboard
right now i'm writing a baroque suite for left hand alone
obviously, writing for one hand alone means you can't have that much in the way of chords, while multi-line contrapuntal textures and such often end up being either as arpeggiated chords/intervals or offset in time
when i'm simply imagining the music in my head without trying it out by hand, even when dealing with the same basic formal structure where i know where the melody is going and how long stuff will last and so on, i end up thinking up more chords, more pure homophony (i.e. melody + harmony), which ends up being translated into the score as arpeggiated chords/intervals, but when i'm messing around on a keyboard with those same musical ideas as a basis, i end up using a lot more rhythmic offsets, making which flows a lot better for single-hand writing and also makes the music sound more texturally and rhythmically interesting
I just wrote the first half of the first movement of a sonata (in so-called "sonata-allegro" or "first-movement" form).
The only problem with me sharing the MuseScore MIDI version is that it horribly mangles the dynamics -- forte is WAY louder than piano. Also it has no sense to balance the hands properly -- the repeated left-hand notes are way louder than they should be.
Well, here's to starting another faux-Mozart sonata. Just with a few touches suggesting that it's not Mozart but rather me who likes deliciously rich harmonies.
I did finally get to use this little tune that I came up with many, many years ago. It's fit for the last sentence of a section, and it just showed up in my mind in the right place at the right time.
This was admittedly directly inspired by my thinking about Joseph Haydn's Piano Concerto in F major, Hoboken catalogue number XVIII:F1. Especially the finale.
I played this as a kid. It was strange and long to me as a kid. It was the third concerto I learned, or more like the first real concerto because the first two were actually divertimenti by Haydn (i.e. shorter multi-movement pieces for soloist and orchestra). I never got to perform this anywhere. But honestly, this is a really pleasant piece to listen to, and I'm quite fond of it.
Unlike those two divertimenti, Haydn's authorship of this concerto is considered spurious -- meaning that people aren't sure that he actually wrote this. Still, it's a nice piece, and I like it.
listening to this famous tune EDIT: turns out i thought this was gonna be "Gonna Fly Now" except Midomi mis-ID'd it as "War". but anyway, "War" is also interesting in its own right
the intro strikes me as similar to some Contra music actually, with its particular use of quartic harmonies and trumpets
incidentally i wonder if videogame music was basically a strange and intriguing vestige of (stuff descended from) 70s/80s-style music well into the 90s and 00s and now the 10s
elements of that were certainly part of the dominant style of videogame music, e.g. Konami on the NES, back in the 80s/90s
vgm became more varied later, but there's a revival of "retro" music and i get the feeling that composers like virt are reviving those stylistic elements as well
I once suggested that this track be used for a "Mayincatec" pyramid ruins set in Dracula's Castle in a Castlevania game. If I recall correctly, Jorge D. Fuentes, the well-known Castlevania music remasterer/remixer, commented that it wouldn't make sense because it's uses harpsichord and organ, which don't match the cultural context.
My response was that the instrumentation itself shouldn't be the issue. If I were to have an issue with the track it's that its loop is relatively short. And apparently Yuki Kajiura agrees with me: Here's a track for duel to the death between assassins clad in Roman-style gladiatorial clothing, set amongst ruins with Greco-Roman columns: https://soundcloud.com/u210472947/noir-original-soundtrack-2 (go to 19:30) Yes, those are a bunch of bagpipes.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Comments
I suggest you take a listen to the song, and maybe contemplate your own reactions to it, before reading this.
Just a few quick terminology comments before we start: the song is in G major, therefore do re mi fa so la ti respectively correspond to G A B C D E F# respectively. The most important chords are G major (the "tonic" or I chord), C major ("subdominant" or IV chord), and D major (the "dominant" or V chord). You don't have to know exactly what I mean by the stuff above, but you might just see terms like these come up in my commentary.
0:00 instrumental intro, which foreshadows a few elements present in the rest of the song, specifically the beginning motif of the refrain (with its octave leap), and how it starts on a IV chord.
0:17-0:41 the first "sentence" of the verse, consisting of two phrases which are similar. A few things to point out:
1. The verse starts on a IV chord, which is a little unusual -- a lot of good songs start on a I chord, which is sort of the home chord for what key it's in. But that's not to say this song has a problem -- the chord progress goes with the bass line that just goes down from C ("fa") to G ("do"), going right back to that home chord, in both phrases. This ends up with the effect of starting the verse with a little gentle bit of tension, and then letting it go.
2. The first phrase of this sentence has a relatively small range, going just from G to D ("do" to "so"). This is also in a relatively low register relative to the singer's vocal range (it's the bottom of a standard alto range). The first phrase, while it ends on the I chord to give a sense of stability, doesn't give a perfect sense of stability because it ends on a B in the melody ("mi") rather than a G ("do"). It also has a relatively weak cadence from A minor to G major (a "plagal"-like cadence).
3. The second phrase has the same chords and starts the same but takes a different tack, going up to an F# ("ti"). But after two downward scales it ends on a G, ending the sentence more conclusively. The chords also end with a D major to G major pair, which is a strong cadence (the technical term being "authentic" or "perfect").
So this result is that the first phrase feels sorta like it's just there, with intervals in the melody (moving between notes that are close together), but the next phrase goes a little further and then ends back in a comfort zone.
0:42-1:04 the first sentence is repeated again, but with another singer joining in.
1:05-1:16 (first phrase), 1:17-1:29 (second phrase) The next musical sentence opens much more dynamically -- an arpeggio (G B D ^G) going up to the "do" of the next octave higher. The melody goes down and back up to that G and then dwells on it a bit. The chords are also different -- E minor, A minor, D major, G major for the first phrase. The feeling this creates is there's a lot more "motion" going on -- things are less settled. They do gravitate back toward a strong cadence (D major to G major) in the middle, but the motion starts up again immediately. But the second phrase of this sentence keeps that motion going, again starting like the first phrase in this sentence but going elsewhere. You may be able to hear the melody making more and bigger leaps -- each phrase in this sentence begins with a series of leaps spanning a whole octave, and the melody, after coming down, goes back up with leaps of a fifth and a seventh respectively in the two phrases before coming down again in stepwise motion (like a scale downward). The second sentence of this phrase also introduces a chord that doesn't normally occur in the key of G major -- the A major chord. It's the "secondary dominant", a dominant to the key of D major, which is itself the dominant of G major. So to end this sentence we have a "half cadence" ending on the dominant of G major -- the chords of the second phrase are E minor, A major, D major, and then stops there, as if leaving a question mark. This sets up a feeling of wanting to go back to a G major chord, as we head into the refrain.
1:30-2:02 Refrain. This refrain, like the first sentence of the verse, is four phrases long, but each phrase is half as long (only eight beats, as opposed to sixteen-beat phrases), except the last phrase. It starts with the four-note motif (containing an octave leap) that we heard in the instrumental intro, and puts a IV chord on the first downbeat. Several things are notable here:
1. The melody goes quite high, hanging around the high G and the A above it for the first and third phrases, and all the way up to the B above the higher G, in the third phrase.
2. The melody also goes as low as it went in the verse -- down to the low G. In fact, it has the biggest leaps ("do, re, mi do ^do...") we've heard so far, so it's a very dynamic refrain. The first and third phrases take place mostly in the higher pitches, while the second phrase is mostly in the lower pitches, creating a sort of call-and-response effect.
3. The last phrase uses that octave leap twice in almost succession creating a sense of anticipation, which ends with the melody on the higher G. It also
4. The chords change faster in the refrain than in the verse, giving more of a sense of motion.
5. Remember how we had a "tonicizing" of D major when the music was made to sound a little bit like it was in D major, by introducing an A major chord that functioned as a dominant to D major? The refrain tonicizes E minor and C major a bit, as it has the following chords: C major, D major, G major (with B in bass), E minor, A minor, B major, E minor, G7, C major, D major, B7, E minor, A min7, D7, G major (with a 4-3 suspension). B major is the dominant of E minor, and it goes to E minor. G major is itself the dominant of C major, especially in its G7 form (which introduces an F-natural, not part of the G major scale), and G7 indeed goes to C major. (D7 is another form of D major as the dominant, with more notes to tie it to resolving to G major. The 4-3 suspension at the end is what sounds vaguely like you could sign an "Amen" to it; it's another release of tension.)
6. Just before the end, when we get two octave leaps in a row, we also get a sort of "stretching" of the time by adding two extra four-beat bars to the rhythmic pattern of the phrases -- the last phrase is twice as long as the other three phrases in the refrain.
So we have a refrain that's more melodically and harmonically adventurous, resolving onto a long tonic note in the melody and the tonic chord in the harmony. Back to home, for eight beats, before we start up again at the beginning of the verse.
It's like we've basically started from something relatively calm, and gradually introduced more elements to the music and built on it, and we arrive at a climax which uses those big octave-leaps almost twice in a row to ramp up the tension...and then it's finally resolved.
My favorite part of all this is probably the second sentence, which uses a part of the circle-of-fifths progression, which is one of my favorite chord progressions, but honestly, without the context to put it in to make it feel special, it wouldn't quite be the same thing.
(I think the circle-of-fifths progression is one of my favorite progressions because it's basically like an overlapping series of those dominant-to-tonic (V to I) chord motions, but all of them are not quite perfectly dominant-to-tonic, except the last one (and the first if you write the whole eight-chord sequence). The strength of the dominant-to-tonic cadence is a very big feature of most classical music, and a lot of other chord motion is used to set up this cadence in various ways, to play with it, to subvert it, or otherwise work with or around it. This cadence always suggests a strong sense of direction, which means that you can use (or not use) it to control the feeling of tension in the music, as a composer. And this is probably why, when I hear stuff in pop music that doesn't use this sequence as a sort of tension control mechanism, such as anything that involves "the four chords of pop" in their typical I V vi IV order (notice that the dominant cadence is V to I, not I to V), I feel a distinct lack of a sense of direction.)
But yeah...I don't actually think consciously about these things as I'm listening to the music. This is all after-the-fact analysis to try to figure out why it is that I like this. Rather, what I do get from the music is a feeling, a feeling that changes over time as the music progresses. Like how it starts from stability and then goes into more turbulent waters, with some slightly darker colors (such as minor chords) and some brighter colors (such as that strong dominant-to-tonic motion set to major chords), and it culminates in a refrain that's got those octave leaps that span the entire vocal range of the melody and then settles in a way that feels like it goes back to that sense of stability and comfort that characterized the beginning of the song. It's a journey of emotions.
hahaha
it's like someone knows how to tease me
the sample ends right in the middle of the best part of the song
http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_input_org
probably track 2 of this album.
That song is definitely my favorite, though "decay" is another one that I like. The others are a bit on the quirky side I think? Like they don't quite strike me as the kind of song that I'd call my favorites, but on the other hand, they're certainly memorable and have certainly left an impression that has stayed with me for over a decade now. Now I did listen to the album a bit more than a few times back then, partly because I didn't really have that many albums to play around with at the time, but that's not to say the songs are bad. The first track has appealing harmonies overlaid with a melody that is often curiously awkward in an intriguing way, for example (the beginning of 2cm has an awkward jump from the fourth scale degree to the tonic, over a tonic chord, which is very much not how I'd write a melody, but for that reason it stands out). And various other tracks have English lyrics that became memorable sometimes because I just couldn't make sense of ("what if our life is on every weekdays from ten to eleven thirty-five?", "we're only two centimeters away now / I'll be home again / I'll be home again / to a place I might have been").
This combination of simple instrumentation, tonal (and mostly diatonic) harmonies, and intriguingly awkward melodies is something that would come up again when, much more recently, I listened to Vienna Teng's "Waking Hour", and to a lesser extent (with more complex instrumentation and less awkward melodies) some songs by Michelle Branch and Owl City's "Ocean Eyes" (which has more rhythmic singing than Rie fu). Also contrast with Ritsuko Okazaki's songs, which also have simple instrumentation and tonal (mostly diatonic) harmonies, but very smooth and simple melodies, and besides the harmonies aren't just tonal but also follow very predictable and thus comfortingly familiar patterns (that are much closer to classical harmony than the somewhat more pop-inspired harmonic progressions the others have).
http://www.opengoldbergvariations.org/download
http://music.kimiko-piano.com/album/j-s-bach-open-goldberg-variations-bwv-988-piano
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/271465015289053185/334256088109285377/comforting_loop.mid
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/271465015289053185/334258389897183243/comforting_loop.pdf
4:55 AM] Quint Lindwurm: 4:55 AM] Quint Lindwurm: 4:55 AM] Quint Lindwurm:
i am an al-ba-tross
but this progression (I Ib7 IV iiø7) instead reminds me of this very memorable tune from Tail 'Gator
That these two share a common harmonic ancestry (old jazz, like swing jazz) is not a surprise, of course.
[03:41:31] <GMH> very nice song.
i want to stress that further. it is a beautiful song.
[unrelated]
[03:50:08] * GMH is now playing: Sergei Prokofiev - "II. Andante caloroso" - {Piano Sonata #7 in B-flat major, Op. 83}
[03:50:20] <GMH> this specifically might be my own performance of the piece
[03:50:27] <GMH> since i can already hear one mistake i know i've made before
[03:50:38] <GMH> the 7th sonata is wild.
[03:51:56] <GMH> the first movement is like a military march with a stated goal that's strangely twisted in every way possible while clinging by a thread to that goal
[03:53:10] <GMH> (specifically, it's declared to be in the key of B-flat major, but it barely only hints that it's supposed to be in B-flat major, even going as far as to have no key signature
[03:53:14] <GMH> )
[03:53:35] <GMH> its second movement is like having a strange, surreal dream after falling asleep in the back room of a brothel
[03:54:35] <GMH> its third and final movement is...a thing going out of control despite being very "tight" in rhythm and form
[03:54:54] <GMH> partly because it has an unstable rhythmic pattern that just never stops
[03:58:35] <GMH> it's a lot more in B-flat major than the first movement (where the tonality is almost a sarcastic suggestion), but instead it goes nuts in a very very driven, stubborn, unstoppable way, a glorified path of destruction.
[03:58:46] <GMH> or a destructive path of glory?
posting to remind me of this later when i can actually open youtube links
It's more likely than you think.
After listening to this song (courtesy of Jane's posting it but I'm not mentioning her because I don't think she actually likes the song), I was reminded of this song.
I just now discovered that my very first game with Michiru Yamane music was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan.
i don't even remember what it was but it was apparently a symphogear thing
is that series basically a "buy nana mizuki cds now" thing?
"How does this harmonica work?"
The holes are C to B, with C, E, and G being blow and D, F, A, B being suck.
"How do I play non-white-key notes?"
You press this button on the side, which increases the pitch of everything by one half-step.
"How do I play flats?"
You translate them into sharps via enharmonics and interpret them as sharp notes.
"So if we can spell everything using sharps, why would do we need flats? Why not just spell everything as sharps?"
Well, consider the following scale:
Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb
What if we tried to spell everything in sharps?
D# F G G# A# C D D#
Okay, now let's try to write a key signature with this. All Ds are sharped, all Fs are natural, all Gs are natural, all Gs are sharped...wait, that's a problem. Which Gs are sharped? And now all Ds are natural too...except no. Meanwhile, we're not even using E and B for anything.
Not to mention that this is simply a transposition of the C major scale. If we can spell that neatly using all seven letters, C D E F G A B, why can't we spell this one neatly using all seven letters, just with accidentals?
Okay, D# E# Fx G# A# B# Cx D#.
Or we could just, like, not deal with doublesharps, and call it Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb.
"What if we need a note flat and sharp at the same time?"
Okay then you're just writing modern music with tone clusters, or you're spelling something wrong.
> not in 1, not in 2, etc.
> is this style less easy to write in than the Italian-style courante, given the textural limitations of a single bowed string instrument?
> finally find one in suite 5 in C minor
> okay cool
> go listen to it on youtube
> hmm lemme try to find one that lets me follow along with the score
> follow along with score
> the score is really wrong? wtf?
> go to imslp
> download score
> wtf the score really is like this
> also weirdo key signature
> wtf??????
> top string supposed to be tuned down to a G
> learn about scordatura
right now i'm writing a baroque suite for left hand alone
obviously, writing for one hand alone means you can't have that much in the way of chords, while multi-line contrapuntal textures and such often end up being either as arpeggiated chords/intervals or offset in time
when i'm simply imagining the music in my head without trying it out by hand, even when dealing with the same basic formal structure where i know where the melody is going and how long stuff will last and so on, i end up thinking up more chords, more pure homophony (i.e. melody + harmony), which ends up being translated into the score as arpeggiated chords/intervals, but when i'm messing around on a keyboard with those same musical ideas as a basis, i end up using a lot more rhythmic offsets, making which flows a lot better for single-hand writing and also makes the music sound more texturally and rhythmically interesting
The only problem with me sharing the MuseScore MIDI version is that it horribly mangles the dynamics -- forte is WAY louder than piano. Also it has no sense to balance the hands properly -- the repeated left-hand notes are way louder than they should be.
Well, here's to starting another faux-Mozart sonata. Just with a few touches suggesting that it's not Mozart but rather me who likes deliciously rich harmonies.
I did finally get to use this little tune that I came up with many, many years ago. It's fit for the last sentence of a section, and it just showed up in my mind in the right place at the right time.
I played this as a kid. It was strange and long to me as a kid. It was the third concerto I learned, or more like the first real concerto because the first two were actually divertimenti by Haydn (i.e. shorter multi-movement pieces for soloist and orchestra). I never got to perform this anywhere. But honestly, this is a really pleasant piece to listen to, and I'm quite fond of it.
Unlike those two divertimenti, Haydn's authorship of this concerto is considered spurious -- meaning that people aren't sure that he actually wrote this. Still, it's a nice piece, and I like it.
For anyone who's interested in getting a full score, it looks like it may be available here: http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/concerto-for-piano-in-f-hob-xviii-f1-spurious-actual-title-sechs-leichte-clavierconcerte-no-6-sheet-music/3227994
https://henseltlibrary.wordpress.com/
A443 443 Hz -0.27 semitones tuning frequency standard
the intro strikes me as similar to some Contra music actually, with its particular use of quartic harmonies and trumpets
It certainly sounds like the right style.
edit: actually it ID'd it correctly but then picked out the wrong part of the track so I didn't know it was the right one.
elements of that were certainly part of the dominant style of videogame music, e.g. Konami on the NES, back in the 80s/90s
vgm became more varied later, but there's a revival of "retro" music and i get the feeling that composers like virt are reviving those stylistic elements as well
If I recall correctly, Jorge D. Fuentes, the well-known Castlevania music remasterer/remixer, commented that it wouldn't make sense because it's uses harpsichord and organ, which don't match the cultural context.
My response was that the instrumentation itself shouldn't be the issue. If I were to have an issue with the track it's that its loop is relatively short. And apparently Yuki Kajiura agrees with me: Here's a track for duel to the death between assassins clad in Roman-style gladiatorial clothing, set amongst ruins with Greco-Roman columns: https://soundcloud.com/u210472947/noir-original-soundtrack-2 (go to 19:30)
Yes, those are a bunch of bagpipes.
https://itjustbugsme.com/forums/discussion/comment/354702/#Comment_354702
"I want to listen to Waltzing Matilda, in B major, but with a better harmonization than the Game Boy version"
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/billy-joel/2017/bbandt-center-sunrise-fl-53e1d30d.html
...is "The Longest Time"?
I should go back to watching this.