Category Archive for 'Simple music analysis'

Is music analysis interesting for regular folks?

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I struggle writing my book analyzing songs by Rufus Wainwright because I keep forgetting who I am writing the book for. I simplify the language so that regular music lovers can appreciate it, but then I address issues that are more appropriate to graduate music analysis seminars for composers or music theorists.
What is it [...]

Back to Rufus

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

Having finished my composition projects for the summer, I am finally returning to finishing my book on Rufus Wainwright. Having bought Robert O. Gderdingen’s terrific publication “Music in the Galant Style” I have found the book format that I’d like to have for my book: one with relatively large type, but most importantly, a hardback [...]

Leonard Cohen: Avalanche

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

An early Leonard Cohen song revisited in a live performance in San Sebastian in 1988. Cohen’s performance here hasn’t changed much from his original recording. A dark and galloping song. There is no dominant in the opening verse. His sexy flat-six chord has three notes of a French augmented-6th chord (F A B) with a [...]

Making it different

Saturday, November 17th, 2007

Last month I wrote about the very popular chord progression from the 50s: I vi IV V and played you a video of seven versions of that song. In case you didn’t read it:

Paul McCartney said that he and John Lennon always tried to make their songs “a little different” [...]

Heart and Soul: the harmonic core of the 50s

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

Hoagie Carmichael
Paul McCartney said that he and John Lennon always tried to make their songs “a little different” implying that they prefer to not repeat themselves.
One of the most popular chord progressions of the time (1950 – 1963) before the Beatles came on the scene was the I vi IV V [...]

Byrds: Mr Spaceman

Wednesday, June 6th, 2007

Here is a lip sync performance of The Byrds singing their UFO hymn, “Mr Spaceman” on The Smothers Brothers show, and judging by the way the band looks, it’s 1967–the year of their NOTORIOUS BYRD BROTHERS where David Crosby had been kicked out of the band. (Funny. It is indeed David’s high harmonies on the [...]

Parys/Renoir: Complainte de la butte (1954)

Monday, May 14th, 2007

One of my favorite songs to sing in the past few years has been “Complainte de la butte,” which I found on the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack, sung by Rufus Wainwright. I knew that he didn’t write it and read that it was chosen for the soundtrack because of its reference to the Moulin Rouge, central [...]

New ways to describe musical styles

Sunday, May 13th, 2007

The Rolling Stone has a regular section in its online magazine dedicated to new artists called ARTIST TO WATCH. In it they have photo equations that best describe what to suspect if you don’t have the courage to hit the play button on the sample song, and that song in this blurb is called “The [...]

Difference between songwriting and composing

Friday, May 11th, 2007

Last night I met, face-to-face, the brilliant and multi-talented PK, of Loose Poodle fame. We overlapped one year at the New England Conservatory from 1976-1977 and thought we knew each other. We’ve corresponded via emaiil and blogs for the past year, and knew each other that way, but when we sat and looked at each [...]

PK’s questions

Sunday, April 29th, 2007

In response to a recent Joni post, PK commented by asking some very important questions. I don’t pretend to have the answers, but will individually tackle them later this week. So that you can think about them, here they are. (PK is the proprietor of the fab blog LOOSE POODLE.)

1) What IS the difference between [...]