A Music Video I Always Recommend

There's one music video that I always recommend to people regardless of their musical preference. It's because the story/concept in the video is good enough that the video stands on it's own (that being said, the music obviously is important in the pacing etc, and the song is also one of my favourites).

It won't make much sense until you watch the whole thing though, so be patient if it's not the sort of thing you usually listen to!

Radiohead - Just

Radiohead - Just
by steveo_russianspy

Drums made of... Cheese?

Here's an addition to - what might end up being - the ongoing series in the "drums made of..." entries. Today, we have a drum kit made out of... cheese!

It's part of an art installation, so the focus perhaps is not musical in its entirety. Amusing to watch, regardless!

Cheese Kit Diptych, by Walter Willems. Drums played by Han Bennink:

Music in Nature: Music from a Tree

Here's something a little different. This is a project in which all the sounds were created by bowing, hitting, and shaking different parts of a tree. It's amazing how musical it sounds, even though there's nothing but sounds from a tree.

We've probably heard these sorts of sounds coming from trees before. I wonder what other sounds - natural sounds that are all around us in our daily lives - could be utilized into musical arrangements?

Diego Stocco - Music From A Tree from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

For more details, go here.

Balloon Bass

One of the unfortunate realities of playing music is the cost of the instrument. Most traditional instruments cost several hundred dollars, and it is an expense that many of us cannot afford. Sometimes though, there are fun, tonal instruments that can be made at home for next to nothing. Such as an instrument made entirely out of a few balloons!

The name says it all - a bass like instrument, where both the string and the resonator/body is made out of balloons. It has 3 and 1/2 octaves, which is a larger range than most smaller instruments - and you can make one too!

I've never really made an instrument myself, most often because I feel like I need a garage full of woodworking equipment etc. This instrument makes me wonder what other kinds of instruments could be made out of stuff I have lying around! Do you have any ideas?





- If you want to see more detailed instructions about how to make the diaphragm part of the balloon bass, go here and watch this video.

For more details about the instrument, and the artist who is recording/performing with this instrument, go to his website here.

Music in Nature: The Lyre Bird

The lyre bird is one of the coolest sound phenomenons in nature. A native species in Australia, they are the musical equivalent of a chameleon: That is, they can mimic the sounds of birds, other animals, and human machinery! This includes dogs barking, human voices, chainsaws, car alarms, and human instruments.

A natural synthesizer!

Collaborative Guitar Playing - On One Guitar

Today I'm going to talk about a few videos that showcase guitar playing in a completely different way: Two people playing the same guitar, at once.

The first, is a bluegrass number, and is self-explanatory. It's an old one, so if you've seen this, go ahead and skip to the next video. A Fun song, and great showmanship too!



Believe it or not, this next video is much, MUCH more technically impressive, and here's why: If you notice in the first video, the guy standing is constantly playing the bass line. Both of their right hands are playing the strings that their left hand is holding down - in other words, it's as if they are each playing half of the guitar. This is still really impressive, since there's no way to play this song on your own because we don't have enough fingers etc.

However, take a look at this second one. First of all, the song itself is much more complex. But more impressively, pay attention to around 0:53. They SWITCH the strings that they hold down, such that person A is finger picking what person B is holding down. If this doesn't seem quite obvious, it becomes more clear around 1:04-1:08. The lady is holding down the strings with the right hand, while the man is playing the strings with the left. Now imagine doing this, but doing the exact opposite roles with the other hand, on the same guitar, at the same time! It's as if you're playing one song on the right hand, and playing another on the left... all the while coordinating it with someone else!! Mind blowing ability!



Finally, something a little different. The guitar is typically strummed/picked in two ways: with a pick, or with your fingers. There's a lot you can do with those things, but it's still just two ways of hitting the strings. Here's something a little different: a guitar being played with a couple pencils, ala a Yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer).

The Chromatone

The piano, is in many ways unintuitive. The fact that the arrangement of the keys is not in consistent intervals makes it a harder instrument to play. What do I mean? I am speaking of the fact that there are black and white keys. If you were to play all the white keys in a row from C, the intervals would not be consistent: it would be whole step, whole step, half step, whole step...etc.

This makes it fairly difficult to transpose songs into different keys. If I wanted to play a song so that it is easier to sing, I might need to lower or raise the key of the song. Doing so involves shifting all of the notes up or down a certain amount. But since the keys on a piano are arranged irregularly, shifting notes becomes more difficult to do.

The Chromatone is a new piano design, in which the keys are arranged in equal distance. It's not just a flat keyboard though: there are 5 sets of keys that are arranged on top of each other. Take a look, it's quite interesting:

Piano Stairs

Today's entry is actually a part of an ad campaign by volkswagen. It's fairly self-explanatory, so I'll just post it here. It's basically a set of stairs that have been refitted to mimic the piano keyboard, and it produces the sound that corresponds to that key:



From the perspectives of urban planning, marketing and other angles, it's definitely a cool concept. From the perspective of a musician, it makes me wonder how we can better integrate musical creation - as opposed to listening - in every day life. It would be neat if there was some simple way to create music with the people around you, easily and in a fun way. Hmmmm..

Music In Nature: Birds on Wire

I've posted about the moonbell (using the landscape of the moon as the basis for composition), and PI as music (using the number Pi as a basis for composition).

This is something in the same vein, using a picture of birds on a wire and transposing their positions into musical notations. It sounds surprisingly good!

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Using an Old Nintendo as an Instrument

Anamanaguchi is a band from New York which consists of 2 guitarists, a bassist, a drummer... and an old NES. You know, that fun little gray machine that you play games on. Or at least games from the 80's.

Instead of using regular keyboards however, they hacked an NES to enable the designing/programing of sounds. Now that's a fun concept! The music is obviously very "video-game" like, but because of the "real" instruments that play with the NES, it has an added depth that's interesting. Check it out!



The Anamanaguchi Website

Using the Landscape of the Moon to Compose Songs

I once posted about composing a song based on Pi. Here's a website that's based on similar principles, but instead of using an irrational number, it uses data from topography maps. In other words, the notes are based on the height of the landscape.

The landscape in this case though, is the moon! Moonbell is an interactive website where you can dictate the topographical line you want the program to follow, and the musical scales to base its composition. A neat little idea.
Moonbell Website

Playing Songs Backwards

I'm a genuine believer in coincidence. I also know that we have the ability to see things in places where there is nothing. Combine the two, and we have the ability to see faces, hear voices, and essentially humanize all kinds of things that happen by chance. Music is no different, and one of the classic claims that takes advantage of our gullible nature is the idea that there are hidden messages in songs. Granted, there are some songs that have hidden tracks and the like, but that's not what I am referring to here. As the title may have suggested (read: given away), some people claim that if you play certain songs backwards, you can hear hidden messages. They supposedly refer to Satan or something sexual. I personally think it's all just coincidence though.

Here's a fun little flash thing that I got from this site. It's a great way to test your intuitions about these "hidden message" claims. I honestly couldn't guess what they were supposedly saying until I checked the "hidden message" lyrics, but maybe you'll hear it on your own:

How did you do? Were you able to hear it before you checked the lyrics?

...Now what do you think would happen if an artist actually planned backwards lyrics? Or a wrote a whole entire song that is meant to be played backwards? Enter Radiohead, and the songs "I Will" and "Like Spinning Plates".

These two songs are actually the same song, except one is forward - "I Will" - and the other backwards. While Radiohead was recording, they found that the melody line in "I Will" sounded really great played backwards, so they decided to make a song out of the backwards version of the song! They then listened to the backwards vocals and tried to choose words that matched the backwards sounds...and that's how the lyrics were born. So technically, the lyrics to "Like Spinning Plates" should sound a lot like the backwards version of "I Will". What makes this even more interesting is the fact that the backwards version - "Like Spinning Plates" was released first! It took them another few years to release "I Will", the forwards version of the song. Fun stuff.

Here's a version of the two songs, one playing backwards and one playing forwards in sync to each other. The first half is "I Will" played forwards with "Like Spinning Plates" played backwards at the same time, followed by a switch:

Modifying the Guitar Hero Guitar into a Real Instrument

So following a post about a Guitar Hero type program that teaches you how to play the real thing with this post... is perhaps overkill, but this too excited to ignore. It combines my geeky yearnings with my musical needs!

This video is of a guy who has modified the Guitar Hero controller for the Wii, and turned it into a synth. It's basically a synth controller that is triggered by the Guitar Hero controller, so in reality it's not that impressive - in terms of a new instrument, it really isn't one. Except that it's just plain awesome, because it's a Guitar Hero guitar being used as a real instrument! Hahahaha---!

Watch him play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with it. It actually works!

Guitar Hero for Real Guitars (plus hilarious variations)

I have mixed feelings about Guitar Hero: On the one hand, I can understand how it's fun. I also think it's a really good way to integrate and market music, since it's not just background music, but integral to the experience. Yet the experience.... is essentially just karaoke for guitar, an enhanced "air guitar" experience. Don't get me wrong, I actually think Air Guitaring is really neat, especially those competitions they do - If you've never seen clips of it, you should check it out.

My hesitations however, come from the fact that there are people out there who are REALLY good at it. The time spent perfecting a song on guitar hero... could have been spent playing and learning the real thing, and it just seems like such a waste. Perhaps I'm being harsh here, because it's not like anyone says "the time spent jumping in Mario could have been used to become a better high-jumper"... because it's a video game after all. Yet because the experience is so close - the finger movements, the picking, even the whammy bar - it seems like it's a relatively small jump to make (that being said, I actually play guitar and I can say with confidence that I suck at "guitar hero", so I'm not saying the two are THAT similar. I'm just saying that it's relatively similar, compared to say... jumping in Mario, and jumping in real life, where there is really nothing in common at all).

Enter "Guitar Rising". Guitar Rising is a game that is currently in development, which can be easily summed up as: Guitar Hero.. for Real Guitars. Using an electric guitar as the controller, it's essentially a rolling, colour coded guitar tablature that follows the music. The biggest challenge for the developers though, is in making this an entertaining experience, rather than a chore. Learning an instrument involves lots of mistakes, frustrations, and patience - which is why learning an instrument isn't necessarily all fun and games. But as Guitar Hero has shown, people are willing to learn difficult and repetitive motions so long as it keeps entertaining. It will be very interesting to see how this product bridges the real instrument with the entertainment that guitar hero provides!

GuitarRising
by jakeparks

-----
Bonus Section!

Here's some hilarious Guitar Hero/Rock Band accessories and variations that exist...

Air Guitar Hero - Now you can play guitar hero, but without the plastic guitars!! Get closer to the real Air Guitar experience right at home!


Rock Band Fog Machine/Strobe Light!! - What good are the screaming girls and guitars... if you don't have a fog machine and a strobe light? Well fret no more! Rock Band has an official fog machine and strobe light. Hilarity.


And Finally...
Guitar Praise, because God hates rock music - Sick of the secular and sinful nature of popular music? Want to play Guitar Hero but your mom won't let secular music into the house? Then Guitar Praise is for you! ...Even if you don't like secular music, both guitar hero and rockband support custom songs, so why is there a need for this??


If you know of any other hilarious variations or add-ons, please share!

The Sony PS-F5 & F9 "Flamingo": The Portable Vinyl Player

Back in April, I posted a blog entry on Mister Disk, the portable vinyl player. Since the statistics on this blog indicate that it's the most popular entry, I thought I would post another entry on a similar, rival machine.

Sony also released a similar machine to Mr.Disk in the same year as Audio Technica - 1983. That they look eerily similar seems strange, but the Sony machine has several differences from Mr. Disk.

Known as the Sony PS-F5, Sony's machine also has the cool ability to play records upright due to its record clamping system, direct drive capability and linear tracking. This meant that you could actually mount the PS-F5 on a wall and play the record, which is pretty neat. Like Mister Disk, it has dual headphone sockets and runs on batteries as well as on external power supply - but I don't know if the batteries last as long as Mister Disk (12 hours for Mister Disk is pretty damn impressive). You could also buy rechargeable batteries, and a car battery cord (I'm not entirely sure what that means - I assume it's a car charger, used through the cigarette lighter).

Its cousin, the Sony PS-F9, had a few more features than the F5 (What I state from this point forward is based upon the Japanese brochures, so I don't know if the overseas releases were different in specs). In Japan, both models were sold as the "Flamingo". The PS-F9 has a quartz lock system (better speed control), a line out, and an automatic record clamp (instead of the manual clamp that the F5 has). The coolest thing about the F9 though, is that it comes standard with an internal stereo FM transmitter. That's right, it's not a receiver, but a transmitter! so you can broadcast the record over FM radio in your house! Very cool.

*If you want to know more about the specs, and some detailed information about the PS-F9, go to my blog post here, where I go into further detail.*

If you want to see a larger pic, just click the picture and it will open in a new window. It's an old Japanese brochure, basically stating all the specs:


The PS-F5 in action:


The PS-F9 in action:


If anyone knows of any other portable, battery operated vinyl players, please do share!

How Dancing Should Be

I recently posted about dancing and why I don't understand it. There's a video that's been making the rounds though, that I feel captures my personal understanding of dance.

In my previous post I talked about how I don't quite understand why people are moved by dances. They can look sexy and impressive, but in the end I felt that dances were not very emotionally moving - at least for me.

That being said, I personally enjoy dancing. I think it's a great way to just let go, and be yourself. Enjoying music is often not just about listening, but moving to it. It's for this reason that I used to go to raves back in the day, because unlike clubs, there's a true sense of everyone being themselves. No one is judging how you dance, and no one cares - in fact, if anything, you get compliments for doing the strangest, craziest dances. Why the compliments? It's not mockery: It's a recognition that they are really getting into it, and really enjoying it.

That got me thinking, that perhaps dance is supposed to be emotionally moving because you can easily relate to the experience. I was comparing dance to music, or paintings, or film... but perhaps it's a very different type of art. I think the way to enjoy dance is closer to the way that we enjoy someone else smiling. It's contagious, we recognize what it means, and it makes us feel something because we know what it's like to be smiling, to let go and be laughing. Just like a smile, when we see a good dance, we can relate to that moment of musical immersion. It's that ability to relate to that moment, which makes us enjoy dance.

So, for me personally, the dancing in the next video is much more moving than most choreographed works. It's honest, it's spontaneous, and it's fun to see this immersion and how it spreads across several people. We all want to be there! How great would this be? How awesome is it that the guy who starts the whole thing is completely into it and doesn't care?



I think that part of the reason - because there's more reasons than just the dance - that the "where the hell is matt" videos were so big is because of this (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go here. If he was doing the same thing but just standing there, I suspect it would not have been as popular as it became.

What do you think?

Simulating a Guitar with your Voice

I seem to be posting about vocals a lot lately...

Continuing on with the trend, here is a neat clip of a guy simulating a guitar with his voice, and - I presume - effects pedals. It's actually quite indistinguishable from the real guitars which are playing along side him, so I found it quite impressive.

We've all seen beatboxers simulate drums, cymbals, and all kinds of synth sounds and DJ scratches, as well as the "mouth trumpet", but I don't think guitars are that common. I've seen a couple other videos of people doing it, but it's never quite blown me away in its accuracy like this video. I tried to find out more about this guy, or where this came from, but I haven't had any luck. If anyone knows, please share!

Makes me realize what an awesome instrument we all have. What other instruments do you think could be simulated with your mouth?


The Man is Playing Guitar with His Mouth - The best video clips are here

Screaming Dance Music

It's funny how life works. A couple of posts ago I talked about the art of screaming, and now I come across this...

I have to admit I wouldn't actually listen to this on my leisure time, but it's certainly an original idea. I'm sure it fills a niche that never existed before!

What am I talking about? Ever wonder what would happen if dance music incorporated death metal screaming? Me neither. But someone did, and here's the result. Whatever you think of it, I think we can all agree it's worth listening to once, because this is definitely different:



I checked out their other videos, but they seem to be more of a rap group than a dance group. Screaming and rap didn't surprise me as much, so I posted this video instead. If you like it, they are called brokeNCYDE.

Dancing?

I've posted about different aspects of music here, from instruments, performance, vocals, and even music videos. I think all have the potential to move people, to touch people in ways that are impossible to describe in words. However, I had a very awkward realization when it was made apparent that I have not talked about dancing.

What made me realize this? This is even more embarrassing - the youtube video from "So you think you can dance", where all the judges were crying. I guess I will embed it here. The performance is supposedly extremely moving.



But I don't get it. Nada. I thought it was entertaining to watch, but in the same way that I am impressed with gymnastics. I felt nothing watching this. Believe me, I tried though. Hard.

So it is with this realization that I reflected upon my understanding of dancing, and came out wondering: Am I missing something here? Because I really don't think I get it. Perhaps the above video is just a bad example, but I still have yet to ever see a dance that moved me. Dances can look sexy, can look strong, can look impressive...but I can't imagine a dance that could make me feel something the way music can, the way a painting can, or the way that actors can (for me personally).

If anyone has any thoughts on this, please feel free to share! I would love to understand dance. It's so utterly tied with music, yet I am completely ignorant of it.

Screamology

I can understand that people have different tastes and preferences in music. So I can appreciate people not liking, or even hating certain styles of music. But it's a whole other thing to deny the musicality inherent in different genres just because you don't appreciate it. What do I mean? I'm sure you've heard people say things like this: "That stuff takes no musical talent. It's just computer bleeps." Or "They aren't playing music, they're just screaming."

It's an unfortunate, yet common statement. Unfortunate, because I think it's not that these people don't see the musicality of these genres, it's just that they don't understand it. It's a knowledge issue, and hopefully this blog contributes a little bit towards learning more about different types of music.

On that note, I want to focus on the screaming that is used in hardcore and death metal etc. Unlike what it might seem, screaming takes a lot of proper vocal technique, and is extremely difficult. It's not just pushing your vocal chords until they crack: in fact, that would be completely wrong! I found a great Discovery Channel video about Melissa Cross, who is essentially (from what I know) the only person who teaches the proper technique to screaming. This video goes through some basic motions of what it takes, and the difficulty involved in producing these sounds.



I've also added the video of when she was on Conan, because it's pretty hilarious.

Seperating Performance from the Recording

I've debated for a long time about whether to talk about today's topic. I generally like to post things that I genuinely feel are really great aspects of music, but today's topic is something that I am fascinated by, but also quite uneasy about at the same time.

The video today is a lecture from TED.com again. It involves a project in which the performance of a song is separated from its recording. Confusing? It's a new way of thinking about music and what we mean when we refer to "music" (the ontology of music is a whole area of philosophy that I won't bother going into now, but maybe another post some time...). The idea is that instead of capturing a specific recording with mics, or writing down specific notes on paper, another way (and supposedly a better way) to capture music is to digitize the actual keystrokes, how hard a piano is struck, and how far the pedals are pushed down etc. In other words, it captures all the personal choices that performers make, and turns it into digital information.

With that information, an instrument, and a computer... theoretically you can make the computer play the instrument exactly like the original artist , thereby enabling the listener to truly experience the piece as it was played.

Now the question is: are you really listening to the original artist? Or anything resembling what musicians actually do when you listen to them play live? Or is it missing something?

I am torn about this. I think it's unfair to immediately dismiss this, because we have some precedent for this in the music world. When recordings came out, people were fascinated, but also scoffed at the idea. When CD's were invented and recordings shifted from analog to digital, people also thought it lost something. Finally, when mp3's further compressed the sound, some people were uneasy as well. While all these criticisms are totally correct in their points of argument, it's also true that the majority of the public has transitioned, and it has changed the way we experience and listen to music (I realize that just because lots of people are okay with it, it doesn't make it right...but if people enjoy it, then arguably it's still doing what music is supposed to do in the first place).

That being said though, I do feel like this still fails to capture what he claims - the "spirit" of the musician. Being a musician myself, I know that playing music in front of people involves more than just the notes I play, the strength and lengths of the notes I play.. in fact, it involves more than me, my music, and my instrument. Playing in front of people involves a dialogue with the audience, much like a conversation. Depending on the mood of the crowd, my mood, the room, the mood of those I am playing with... it all changes. The people conducting this project don't seem to understand that, and it frightens me that they are thinking ahead to the point where they think they can play/compose a piece of music in place of the actual composer/player.

Either way though, an interesting thing to ponder, lots to think about. Let me know what you think!

A Thunderstorm With Your Hands

Back in January, I posted this blog entry about Evelyn Glennie, the deaf percussionist. One of the eye-opening moments in the video involves a challenge she presents to the audience: She asks the audience to recreate the sound of thunder/rain with their hands. The results were fairly disappointing, as the audience simply clapped their hands quietly, but overall it was unconvincing as rain. She then proceeded to reveal that children, when asked the same question, tap on different parts of their bodies, on things etc... thus showing that adults are often confined in the way they think and experience the world. This includes the way that we think about, and listen to, music... and she continues her lecture.

That kind of left me wondering what a GREAT example of a thunderstorm (with hands) would sound like. I think this next video would fit the bill. It's an acapella choir called "Perpetuum Jazzile", doing a rendition of Toto's "Africa". The intro though, is where it really shines. You'll see what I mean (Turn the volume up! It's fairly quiet)

Bach and Counterpoint

I'm sure most people have heard that Bach is an absolute genius. But it's one of those things that is hard to fully appreciate without understanding musical theory. However, a few months ago I came across a video that easily and convincingly illustrates how ridiculously amazing he is.

Today I'm going to write about the namesake of this blog: contrapunctus, aka counterpoint. "Counterpoint" is a relationship between melody lines that each have their own independent rhythm, contour, and also are not in harmony. In short, it's when there are two or more melodies that aren't in harmony, but they sound good. It's easily one of the most complicated theoretical relationships in music.

Bach is an absolute master of this relationship, because he was able to write 4,5, lines of music that were in counterpoint, IMPROVISED, on an organ(so that's 2 hands, 2 feet going at the same time!!). That alone is otherworldly, but the things he created when he actually sat down and composed them...are completely unfathomable.

Bach would write fugues (contrapunctal music) where one melody would be played straight forward, another would play the same melody backwards, and another would play the same melody but inverted (so imagine a sheet of music being played upside down so that the notes correspond to different things), and at varying speeds.... yet sounding perfect!

To visually understand what I'm talking about, watch the video below (from strangepaths.com).



Is that not mind blowing? I can't get over how incredibly complex his music is!

If you want to learn more about the genius of Bach, I highly recommend this article on Slate: Bach on Top: How one of the most esoteric musical works ever written became an unlikely hit. It's a short article that explains the counterpoint of Bach in further detail, but it's still written for the general public.

Finally, thanks to Rose for sharing this video with me.

(I am extremely busy this month, so updates will be slower. Sorry!)

Indian Sweet Child of Mine

A quick update today.

This is from a commercial for a TV channel. I would love to hear a full rendition of this cover...

Participatory Music

I really had to think hard about the title for this one, but I think "Participatory Music" really captures the essence of this little project.

In Bb 2.0 is a project that explains itself, but here's the idea: Invite people to submit a video of themselves playing music in Bb, but with no set tempo or groove. Provide a backbone idea of what to play, but let the submissions take their own course. The end result is a collection of videos with mostly random notes being played....yet they all strangely fit together nicely. ...But at this point, it's just the "typical" web-produced music thing. Which is itself neat, but this takes it one step further...

The truly amazing part of this is that the listener can choose to begin, stop, skip, change the volume etc. of each video at their own will. But because of the style of music and the type of submissions that have been made, the "listener mix" always works! I've played around with making specific trumpet notes come in at my own will. This type of work is really quite inspiring.

I've seen "listener mix" type of websites before, but those ones are essentially just a collection of on/off button for different instruments in the track. In those websites, the tempo and groove remain the same, so the song is really just the same thing with different volume levels. This project however, really lets you move around the different instruments at will...yet it will always work. Awesome.

To check it out yourself, go to their website here . Unless you have a kickass computer and high-speed internet, I would suggest closing all your windows before though, because you're about to load 12+ youtube videos at once.

Enjoy!

(Thanks to Brian for the link)

Not Only Is This One Continuous Shot, It's Also A Live Recording!

I've lately been playing a couple music videos over and over again. It's pretty neat that both of these were introduced to me very recently, yet they happen to share a really rare quality/achievement in music videos:

1. It's one continuous shot. From start to finish, the whole thing is done with one camera, one take. Neat stuff. The earliest version of this (as far as I know) is with Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (but it's actually just a part of a documentary film). Since then, it's been done by U2, Feist, to Miley Cyrus...so it's not as rare as you might think.

However, the 2 videos I've been obsessed with also have this...

2. The actual music is being recorded/performed live as the tape is rolling. Music videos are always lip synced, and the audio itself is previously recorded in a proper studio... which is why when you hear the album version, it sounds exactly like the music video. These two gems however, decided to record the audio live as well! So not only are they performing to the camera in one take, the artists must also perform the music correctly. It really feels "raw" and personalized...and I find the musicianship that is required to pull this off to be extremely impressive.

Anyways! 2 genres, 2 indie artists, 2 videos with one shot, with live audio. Enjoy!

An Instrumental Shopping Mall

First, sorry for the lack of update in the past little while. I've been pretty busy lately, so I haven't been able to get around to this.

Moving on...

Shopping and music tends to... have a weird relationship, at least in my mind. There's statistical evidence that if you play soft, adult-contemporary music while shopping, sales go up. Which is why when you go to shopping malls, muzak is playing on repeat (speaking of muzak, THE muzak company filed for bankruptcy in February. Seems like even their omni-present musical output has been hit by the economic crisis. But what if the music that is playing is not a pre-recorded song.. and the instrument is actually the mall itself?

Macy's in Center City Philadelphia is a National Historical Landmark because the building itself is an architectural masterpiece. It boasts Italian and Greek marble arches in it's Grand Court etc, which make it an amazing building to look at... but by far the most interesting thing in it is the "Great Pipe Organ". Built in 1904, it's a massive organ that is one of the world's largest. I like the idea of a shopping mall being something more of a focal community area where you can enjoy just sitting there and listening to music. It's amazing how having great music can change the perception of a space...

Flaskedrengene: Beer Bottle Music

As most of us know (and have done), blowing over a bottle can make a very musical note. It's a pretty neat phenomenon, and I tend to take advantage of it whenever I have a bottle in my hands (...sometimes to the chagrin of my peers).

I've seen some youtube videos of people performing small pieces on pre-tuned bottles, but most of them are essentially stop-motion compilations, and usually with a limited range of harmony and complexity.

Enter Flaskedrengene, known in English as The Bottle Band. These guys actually perform this stuff live, in harmony. Unfortunately I know nothing about them except that they are street musicians from Denmark (the info on them in English is next to none, but if anyone else finds more info, please do share!). They even performed on "Denmark's Got Talent" last year. Something about the innocence of bottle blowing and the sheer oddity of it makes it highly enjoyable and a pleasure to watch. I'm also impressed that they can keep carrying bottles with water in them for several songs in a row... that's gotta be cumbersome and tiring.



The DK Talent show segment is here. Check out the creative use of thumbs around 2:14.



For those geeks out there, if you want to know more about the physics behind this phenomenon, go and check out this description.

As a bonus, I present to you Michel Lauzière and his use of beer bottles:

Mister Disc: The Portable Vinyl Player

Back in 1983, Audio-Technica created a portable vinyl player, a walkman for records if you will. Except you couldn't really use it in a moving vehicle, let alone walk with it. Basically any vibrations would disrupt/stop the audio. You would also want to avoid playing it in the sun, because the records would start to warp. And finally, even if the player is portable... the records are still bulky to carry around. So lots of limitations for sure, but it was still a pretty neat concept: It ran on batteries with a battery life of up to 12 hours (as well as an adapter). It played both 33.5 RPM records and 45's, and you could plug in 2 earphones directly into it.

Audio Technica released two very similar versions of this neat piece of hardware, the AT-727 sold as the "Sound Burger" and the AT-770 sold as Mr.Disc.

Pretty damn cool I think, and it's one of those things that audiophiles and geeks would probably want to get their hands on these days. Except most of us won't, because as of today, it was selling for $450 US on ebay! I have heard about people finding them for under $20 at second hand shops, so let us know if you end up finding one that way.

To see a bigger version of the pictures, click on the image and it will open up in a new window.





The Instruction Manual:


Here's a video of it in action:



The Sound Burger on the other hand, came in several different colours:







What do you guys think? I'll be posting a couple of other entries on other portable vinyl players, since this seems to be one of the most popular pages on the blog.

Drums Made of Ice

This is part of an ad for the Icehotel Jukkasjärvi in Sweden. It's pretty self-explanatory, but make sure you watch until the end when he trashes it all to pieces. The second video is a short "making of" video.

...It is taking me lots of self-restraint to not describe it as "cool"...

So this is what the most annoying and most enjoyable song sounds like...

This is well over a few years old at this point, but so is the Armonica, so who really cares? My non-existent readership? (That will either be slightly funny, or incredibly depressing...depending on your own opinion of this blog. hahahaha)

I'm talking about the Komar & Melamid and David Soldier compositions. It's an attempt at composing the most annoying/hated song, as well as the most liked song.

What they did was conduct a survey which tried to find out what instruments, topics, styles and so forth, that the general listener enjoyed/hated the most. Using that data, they combined all the most "enjoyable" elements into a song, and combined all the most "hated" elements into another song. The results? ...strange... very...strange.

The most unwanted song is statistically likely to be enjoyed by fewer than 200 people in the whole entire world. It is 25min long, with children singing holiday songs and jingles about Walmart, bagpipes, opera and rap etc.....dysfunctionally pieced together in abrupt changes. There's actually hardly any dissonance, which is pretty neat: They created the most "listenable" unlistenable music. It's totally fun to listen to, although yes, it's pretty bad. Check out the opera singer rapping. It's hilarious:


Right Click to Download "The Most Unwanted Music"

In comparison, the most liked song is statistically likely to be enjoyed by 72% of the population, plus/minus 12%. It is of radio friendly length, moderate tempo, with guitar, piano, low male and female vocals singing slow rock/r&b etc. So what does that all add up to? Easy Rock. Adult contemporary, easy-listening. I have to admit, the string-swells, the key changes, and the sax...kinda made me cringe. But don't take my word for it! Experience it yourself:


Right Click to Download "The Most Wanted Music"

I copied these links from the Wired blog, so for more information check their page.

For more detailed information about the compositions, check the composers webpage.

Instruments That Blow Your Mind

I haven't yet promoted a webpage on this blog, not because there aren't great resources out there, but because I want to focus on one sound, one aspect, one instrument at a time. Most webpages that are concerned with music tend to be of a wider scope than I could write about on any given post in this blog. However, I think I'm going to have to make an exception in this post though, because this is one hell of a resource.

The Oddmusic gallery is a wonderful project, in which strange/relatively unknown (new and old) instruments are showcased. Videos and sound clips are also available for many of the instruments listed in it's impressive list. Among some of the wacky instruments:

- A guitar with 5 necks
- The Guitarangi da Gamba: a 30 stringed guitar/viola/sarangi hybrid
- Didjibodhrán: Half didjeridu and...half bodhrán
- The Fire Organ: An organ that creates sound through propane flames
- The Sea Organ: A wind instrument that is "played" by the sea

And so on and so forth. Fun stuff to browse through. Not all of them are "serious" musical creations, but it's still pretty neat! I'll probably take up my favourite ones in individual blog posts... eventually.

Kanye Samples

This vid has been making the rounds for a couple of months now, but I feel compelled to share it here anyways. Hip-hop is a genre that's built upon sampling, and while I could go into the issues surrounding the use of samples, this video is about comparing the original to the sampled product. It shows the original sound-bits that Kanye West used in his songs, followed by his own rendition/usage of the sounds. It's really neat to see how these songs emerged. I also find it's really eye-opening, in terms of the work/thought/talent it takes to do this sort of thing. I know Kanye has an annoying ego, but it's still undeniable that he does neat things.

Pi as Music

A couple days ago was Pi day (03-14)! I recently found something that sounded a lot better than I would have anticipated... so I'm posting it here. It's a composition based on the number Pi.

The idea is simple: transpose each digit into a corresponding note. The problem is that our number system is base 10, but Western music has 12 notes. So what this person did was use the C major scale (the white keys on a piano) as a basis. So 1234567890 became CDEFGABCDE. So 3.14... became ECF... and so on.

This is the result, kinda fun and technically never ending:

"Speakers" for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

A few days ago in Toronto, there was a concert held for the deaf and hard of hearing. No, not a benefit concert: This was a concert held specifically tailored to the deaf and hard of hearing, for THEIR enjoyment.

It was a concert which utilized the Emoti-Chair, a chair developed by researchers at Ryerson University. I've talked about the concept of deaf people "hearing" and enjoying music before, and this is essentially taking that and making it accessible.

If you recall, the difficulty with detecting sound by touch is that the lower frequencies are much more prevalent. The higher frequencies require training, and even then, the lower frequencies tends to drown out the other vibrations.

What this chair does is give each frequency prominence. By taking a piece of music and dividing the frequencies apart, the chair mimics the workings of the human cochlea (the inner ear that picks up sound waves). Each frequency is then given a separate rumbling motor in different sections on the back, thus using your whole back as a substitute for the inner ear membrane.



In fact, after repeated usage, people have claimed to recognize different genres, instruments, and whether or not there are vocals! Fascinating stuff.

To learn more about this, start here. To see this chair, watch the video below. I highly suggest hearing the testimonials that starts a couple minutes in:

Bluegrass Music Played with Chinese Instruments

The title says it all.
What makes this particularly interesting is that it works. Notice how the Chinese instruments generally stick to an Asian scale, and that the Western instruments play a very bluegrass scale. Yet it still sounds natural. Who would of thought that Chinese instruments had the bluegrass twang in them!

The Fastest Tempo in a Song Goes To...

Here's an old track that I show to people once in awhile... It's "Thousand" by Moby. Released in 1993, the title comes from the fact that the speed reaches 1000bpm (Beats Per Minute) at certain points.

To put that into perspective, most slow songs hover at around 60-90bpms. Fast songs (such as Punk and Drum & Bass) clocks in at around 160-175bpms. 1000bpms is unheard of. Ever. Which is why it has the Guinness world record for fastest BPMs of any released singles.

There are actually practical reasons for this. Once you pass a certain threshold, a beat becomes a single tone (because they happen so close to each other). It's also hard to maintain interest/be taken seriously when a song goes THAT fast (imagine any of your favourite songs being sung at 5-10 times the speed. It will sound fairly comical at best, not listenable at worst.).

So while being fairly gimmicky, this song DOES manage to sustain a level of listen-ability, which I think is no small feat. In fact, it reached #38 on the UK singles chart back in the day! It becomes quite unnerving as you listen to it, but I am fairly certain that it's intentional. In any case, definitely worth listening to at least once:

Chord Progressions in Pop Tunes: Revisited

A while ago I posted an entry about Top 40 pop songs . I talked about their chord progressions, and specifically about how a certain one comes up all the time. There's a video that's been making the rounds on the net that actually highlights this even more.

In fact, as I perused youtube, I found lots more videos based on this chord progression, so I'll probably revisit this topic again.

So without further ado, here it is:



Also, I had a great response with a great video (to the last entry on this topic), so I'll share it too. A comedian's take on this whole idea of recycled chord progressions. It's based on Pachelbel's Canon in D, which isn't exactly the same chord progression I mentioned, but it's really close:

Music in Nature: Singing Sand-Dunes

For hundreds of years now, there has been documented records of those who have heard the monotone eerie sound phenomenon of the singing sand-dunes. Different tribes in the Sahara have attributed it to God's voice, and Marco Polo called it the sounds of evil spirits.

In an article entitled "Sound-Producing Sand Avalanches", physicists from The University of Michigan give a short history of the phenomenon:

"...[The]rarer type of sound-producing sand occurs principally in large, isolated dunes deep in the desert (Nori et al.,1996; Criswell et al., 1975). The loud, low-frequency (typically 50-300 Hz) acoustic output of this "booming" sand, resultant upon avalanching, has been the subject of desert folklore and legend for centuries."

"Marco Polo (1295) wrote of evil desert spirits which "at times fill the air with the sounds of all kinds of musical instruments, and also of drums and the clash of arms." References can be found dating as far back as the Arabian Nights (Carus-Wilson, 1915), and as recently as the science fiction classic Dune (Herbert, 1984). Charles Darwin (1889) also makes mention of it in his classic Voyages of the Beagle . At least 31 desert and back-beach booming dunes have been located in North and South America, Africa, Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and the Hawaiian Islands (Lindsay et al., 1976; Miwa and Okazaki, 1995).

That's right. Sands that produce a resonant sound, one that can be heard audibly a kilometer away! It can easily be created by causing a sand-avalanche artificially at these deserts, and it can last several minutes after the avalanche itself. However, it only works in about 30 locations around the world. So there has to be something about the sands, the dunes etc, that enables this phenomenon to occur. Yet scientists have yet to come to a conclusive explanation for it. With 3,4 competing theories, the debate is still going on (I won't get into the science, because that's not what this blog is about).

I find this interesting for two reasons. One, it's just plain neat. Anything that produces sound in a musical sort of way makes me giddy. Two, the more research they have done, the more they are realizing that the method of sound production is incredibly different from any instrument humans have designed, or any other sound producing phenomenon on earth. What does this mean? It means that if and when they figure out how this works, it could lead to a whole new category/sound instrument!

Because right now, you can roughly categorize all sound production into four categories: Chordophones (sound produced by vibrating strings, like a guitar), Aerophones (vibrating columns of air, like a pipe organ), Idiophones (vibrating objects, like xylophones), and Membranophones (Vibrating membranes, like drums).

But the sand-dunes are supposedly producing sound in a way that does not fit ANY of those categories. How cool is that? What kind of instruments could we design when we figure out how this phenomenon works?

To find out more, here are some links:

From Physics World - The troubled song of the sand dunes
From National Geographic - Why Sand Dunes Go Boom
From U of Michigan - Sound-Producing Sand Avalanches

And finally... to hear it yourself, check the video below. Turn up the volume way way up though, because the recording is not very loud.

Stop Motion Bed Sheets? A Neat Video Concept.

This one is pretty neat. The song itself is pretty good, but today's entry is all about the video. It's a cool concept: A stop motion video, but all on a bed! You'll see what I mean:

Her Morning Elegance, by Oren Lavie.
To check out other music videos that are a little different, click on the "music video" label on the bottom of this page, or to the right.

The Fiel Drum: Drums with Training Wheels (or more specifically, Magnets)

Ahh, MIT. They seem to come up with the coolest gadgets. Their latest contribution is the FielDrum. It's a drum with a midi-controlled electronic magnet inside: depending on the polarization of the magnet, the drumstick either hits or repels. Very straight forward. It's supposedly a tool to teach new drummers what it "feels like" to hit certain drum patterns. So, it's drumming with training wheels!



They are also working on positioning systems (so you can specify specific parts of the drum). I am VERY curious what my drummer friends have to say about this...

To learn more about it, go here

1970's Blender as an Instrument!

You sometimes hear of artists creating their own instrument, but this is an amusing find. An old 70's blender! Who would have thought that you could make music and a smoothie at the same time.

A fun audio experiment for sure. I wonder what other electrical machines could be turned into instruments this way. All you need is something with varying speeds I guess. Explaining this is futile, just watch it.

*there's some unnecessary foul language in one part*



I'll explain a couple things:
"Gating" - refers to setting a volume threshold. So unless the instrument (in this case a blender) produces a certain amount of volume, that red, blinking machine won't play the signal from the Mic to the speaker (in other words, it's either pure sound or silence).
The part where he is talking about pissing on G&L guitars etc.. is just referring to some very expensive guitars and amps. This guy seems to have something against snobby guitar culture?

A Choir of Screaming Men?

I just heard about this choir yesterday, and I am now completely mesmerized by their existence (This one is courtesy of Benjamin): Mieskuoro Huutajat.

Consisting of 30 Finnish men, this choir covers everything from traditional Finnish songs to national anthems of several countries. What makes them unique though, is that they scream everything at the top of their lungs, all the while dressed in suits with black rubber ties.

The rhythmic choices and nuances are really interesting, and it is clear that each shout/scream is a practiced, orchestrated choice (In other words, it doesn't just sound like a karaoke booth full of drunk men). It's definitely intense, and I can understand why it would be a neat experience to see them live. Speaking of seeing them live, because of the ambiguity regarding the genre of their music, they have played in venues ranging from rock clubs, to chamber halls, to the MoMa!

That being all said, I wonder how hilarious they find their success. They've played in concert halls in Japan, all over Europe, and the Americas.... yet they confess that they only started this choir because they had nothing else better to do. Sounds like there's an element of tongue in cheek here, and I find that refreshing! For example, take their trip to the ice floes in the frozen Baltic, where they stood on the ice floes to shout (at? to?) the crew of an ice-breaker ship. ...and because of their attire, they kind of resembled penguins, which I am sure they were keenly aware of. To sum up their expedition, one member said:

"It is always something the choir has wanted to do, because such antics create a form of absurdity which we find works the best."

Awesome. To learn more about them, go to their website. To get a taste of their performance, watch the video below:

Can you listen to music when you're deaf?

Have you ever heard of Evelyn Glennie? Unless you're familiar with the classical music world, you probably haven't. She is the first person in the world to have a successful career as a solo-percussionist. She is an amazing virtuoso marimba player. She has won Grammys, collaborated with Sting, Bjork and others, and has been on Letterman, Sesame Street...etc. (Funny how being on Sesame Street is a great indication of success, like Letterman.) She also has the Order of the British Empire (so she is a Dame!).

...but there is an interesting twist to her story: She is legally deaf (known as being "profoundly deaf", which is not totally deaf). This isn't mentioned in any of her promo materials.

Fascinating isn't it? When she discovered that she was going deaf during her childhood, she re-learned how to listen to music through her body. This in principle isn't hard to imagine: We feel heavy bass beats through our body in clubs, annoying neighbours, and cars that blast their music. That thumping, rumbling feeling in the stomach. What's extraordinary is that she learned how to feel all sorts of tones, and to be able to distinguish tones through her body. Amazing!

Ofcourse, the natural question to ask then, is: What is it like to "listen" to music through the body instead of your ears?

To which she responds, quite cleverly, with the question in reverse: ...What is it like to "listen" to music through your ears?

Mind blowing! It's impossible to answer this question! We just "do"! These questions cannot be answered in any straightforward manner.

However.

What this does do is question our notions of music, and listening. How much of what we experience in music is non-aural? What IS the act of listening?
Questions like this (and the work of Evelyn Glennie) have since spurred an interesting partnership between the deaf and the hearing in music enjoyment. What do I mean? Deaf people are sometimes requested to consult on the quality of newly built auditoriums/concert halls. Why? Because they have learned to pick up subtle differences through their whole body their entire lives...such that they are more sensitive to sound than many hearing people. And that's just one example of the phenomenal changes that the notion of "listening to music" is going through right now.

If you're interested in this, and Evelyn Glennie, I would highly recommend watching "Touch The Sound", a film about her experiences with music. In the meantime, here is her talk at TED, which is in many ways even better than the film. She really challenges you to reconsider what music, and listening is:



Finally, if you're in the Toronto area, you have a chance to see her perform with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for...6 bucks. That's right: 6 bucks. January 28 and 29. If you don't go, you're just being lazy. Buy Tickets Here

To read more about her experiences of listening, go to her website.
Really interesting stuff.

-- update --
There's a project that took this notion of listening and turned it into special speakers for those who are hard of hearing, or even completely deaf. For more on that, read my blog post about it here

Write Songs on the Fly! Microsoft Songsmith...

Microsoft has come up with a program that - get this - automatically writes an arrangement to a melody you sing. Sing any jibberish you can come up with right now .. and the program will do the rest. It analyzes the melodic lines, and figures out the chord changes that work. It further simplifies it by having an adjustable "happy /sad" slider, as well as a "jazz" slider to change the feel of the music. Neat!

All you need is a microphone, and everyone can become a song writer!

The final product is fairly cheesy (because it's still a MIDI file with your original vocals on top), but it's a really eye-opening experience to see how a simple melody can be dressed up with an arrangement. ...And it's just plain fun watch it do its thing.

Try it out. It's pretty cool. And very laughable. It's free and downloadable Here

What do you think? Leave a comment!

In fact, here's a thought: If this technology takes off, and it actually made really great songs off the bat... would you listen to it? Would it still be on par with human made music? Or would it be lacking something? Fun thoughts to ponder...

Van Canto

A quick update today.

This is kinda neat. It's sort of acapella.. but I've never seen anyone do heavy metal acapella by actually simulating the guitars. A Metallica cover at that. Different!

Watch Here

Jaydiohead - Radiohead vs. Jay-Z

Remember the "Grey Album"? A mash up by DJ Danger Mouse between Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles White Album? (Danger Mouse has since then been involved with the last Gorillaz album, and one half of Gnarls Barkley. His big break was his self-produced mash-up!)

Someone else has come by mashed up Jay-Z with.... Radiohead! I personally like Radiohead quite a bit, and I like the swing that Jay-Z has in his delivery, so I find the resulting creation pretty neat. Certainly worth a listen if you like Radiohead or Jay-Z. It's interesting how the songs take on a more sombre, serious, non-bombastic feel because of the Radiohead influence. You can tell the guy who made this is a big fan of both artists.. a lot of these pieces are relatively obscure stuff from their respective repertoires (i.e. Black Swan is from Thom Yorke's solo album....which I guess isn't technically Radiohead, but whatever).

I especially like the tongue-in-cheek shout out at the very end of this "album". "It's only entertainment!" says the Jay-Z soundbite, as if to preemptively respond to the "Cease and Desist" letter that will inevitably be coming from the record companies.

What do you think?

For more information, and to download the whole thing (at least until EMI finds out..), go here!

Jaydiohead.com

Also, while we're at it:

Viva La Hova - The Jay-Z and Coldplay mash up that came out last Fall can be checked out, and downloaded here: Vivalahova.com

OJAYZIS - The Jay-Z and Oasis mash up that came out last Summer can be checked out and downloaded here: OJAYZIS

As you can see, Jay-Z is quite the mash-up star.

Musical Drums!

Q: What do you call a drummer that breaks up with his girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

Q: What's the last thing a drummer says in a band?
A: "Hey guys, why don't we try one of my songs?

...and so on and so forth. If you've ever been in a band, you know how often jokes like these pop up! As much fun as they are, I actually think drums are quite underrated by most people. The rhythm section alone can make or break a song, raise the intensity of the music, and completely dictate the direction of the music. In fact, if I am just jamming with people, I tend to grab the bass or the drums...

Part of the misunderstanding comes from the common misconception that drummers don't have notes or melodies to play...therefore less "musical" than other instruments. But that's actually quite mistaken. The big timpani kettle drums in an orchestra are tuned very specifically to different notes. African drums of various varieties are tuned as well, with a stand out example in "talking drums" (I'll probably talk about that in another post). ...and even regular drum kits are tuned. The art is to chose proper tuning, and know when to hit what drum.

Here's a fun video by someone I've followed for a little while..and it's brand spanking new for 2009. He clearly tunes his drums for each song, and the resulting arrangements really make you see how "musical" drums can be. Plus...anybody who plays arrangements of Super Mario, Tenacious D, and the Macgyver theme song is pretty damn cool. Check it out!

Fascinating top 40 right now...

What do the following songs have in common?:

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours (the verse, chorus)
Nickelback - Gotta be Somebody (The entire song, minus the pre-chorus bits)
Taylor Swift - Love Story (The chorus)
T.I. - Whatever You Like (The whole thing)

They all share the same chord progression. ...which isn't to say that they are the same song, and I'm not about to start talking about the demise of music and originality etc..etc... Instead, I am going to talk about how fascinating! This is.

Wait, let's back up. A chord progression is like the bones of the song. It's the underlying tonal structure that repeats over and over again (while the melody is sung over it). What the heck do I mean? Well..listen to the melody played by the bass guitar in this classic U2 song:

SeeqPod - Playable Search

See (...er..hear) how the bass plays the same 4 notes, in the same order...throughout the whole song? The vocal melody, and the guitar parts change change, but the bass doesn't... yet it all still sounds okay. This is because the bass is playing the "bones" of the song.

Those same "bones" that are used in that U2 song is used in all those songs I mentioned at the beginning. True, they are in a different key, but the "bones" are still the same...and hence the actual tonal structure is very very similar between all of those songs. In fact, this chord progression is EVERYWHERE. I can't think of one band/singer that does not have a song with this chord progression in it at some point. Usually it's fairly obvious. Listen to the guitar in that Jason Mraz song now, with the U2 bassline in mind.. I think you'll be able to tell:


All the other songs I mentioned are structured similarly. However, while the Jason Mraz, Nickelback, and Taylor Swift songs are easy to spot, the T.I. song is a little tricky! Instead of starting C-G-A-F, it starts at F-C-G-A.. so it's the same progression, just slowed down, de-emphasized and turned around a little. I absolutly find it amazing when somebody finds a new way to "hide" this incredibly common chord progression (because it's otherwise too easy to sound like some other song).

I go around "collecting" songs that hide this chord progression in a way that makes it sound different. Liiiiike, the pre-chorus and chorus of this famous song. It is structured similarly to the T.I. song, in that it starts this classic chord progression at what is "typically" the last chord (but since it loops around it's all the same really). Pay attention to when he sings "What have I become" and the chorus:

...in fact, this is in the same key as "Love Story", the Taylor Swift song! How cool is that?

Another song that hides it well..is from one of my favourite bands, Sigur-Ros:

What they did here was slow it right down..and play the third chord in the progression one beat earlier. All combined, even if the bass is playing the chord progression quite straight forwardly, it isn't immediately obvious! Neaaat.

There are SO many song with this chord progression, it's great as a medley. Why? Because the "bones" are the same, you can just keep playing the same thing on your instrument over and over again...and just sing a different song over it. Here are some fun one's I found:

I'm Yours (Jason Mraz) + No Woman No Cry (Bob Marley)


No Woman No Cry (Bob Marley), Glycerine (Bush), Damnit (Blink 182), When I Come Around (Green Day)


*I squashed the videos on purpose, because otherwise this post is going to take up too much space*