A Novel and Creative Use of Harmony...by Kelly Clarkson

I find myself often referring to this song, because it really does something quite unique. The song is by Kelly Clarkson, called "Breakaway", and it's written by Avril Lavigne. Yes, the song structure is typical, the melody is pop, and the lyrics aren't exactly Dylan. So what am I talking about?

The harmony line.

Now at first glance, it may not seem much. But there's something quite interesting going on in this piece of music. I won't go into the details of how harmony works, because it's not about the type or style of harmonization that is going on that floors me - it's the timing.

Usually, harmonies are sung right on top of each other. That's what harmonized melody is supposed to be (as opposed to counterpoint, which I talk about in this blog post.

Yet in this song, the harmony precedes the main melody line. In other words, it's not sung together, but before the main melody line. It's just a strange thing to do, but it works. And that's what amazes me about this song. It happens during the chorus, right here around 1:09 when she sings "Make a wish, Take a chance, Make a change." Right before Kelly Clarkson sings that line - you'll hear a faint vocal line that is actually the harmony to what Kelly Clarkson is singing...but it comes before. Wow. Whoever thought of this is really creative.

Some of you might say that this is basically a "call and response" (A call and response is typically utilized in African music, where a "leader" sings a short stanza and the rest of the choir repeats it right after). But I would argue that it's a little different, for three reasons. First, it's not timed right - if the harmony is the call, and the response is Kelly Clarkson, then Kelly Clarkson is coming in too early. Kelly Clarkson doesn't actually let the harmony finish before she starts singing. Second, the fact that the harmony is leading is very strange. Third, it makes no sense to de-emphasize the leader (in this case the harmony). In short, I think this is quite a unique way of organizing vocal harmonies.

Write Songs on the Fly! LaDiDa Iphone App

This is a neat little app, much in the same vein as the microsoft songsmith which I talked about in a past blog post. To quickly explain: this app lets you sing any melody you think of, and figures out the best chord progressions and arrangements that suit the melody. You don't have to have a clue about music theory or composition, but you can create a song.

Ofcourse, not everything is the same as microsoft songsmith. This app seems to use pitch correction more liberally, but more importantly, it's completely portable.

As the microsoft songsmith showed however, this type of musical creation software is probably still too early to be taken seriously as a musical creation tool for "serious" artists. If youtube is of any indication, songsmith was used as a novelty application, rather than a musical application. Indeed, it's used more as a way to insight laughs, rather than as a way to create music you want to listen to (although it was really fun to listen to "real" songs being put through songsmith, to see if songsmith would come up with the same chord progression as the original songs. It pretty much failed 99% of the time.).

Now that it has become portable, I wonder when this type of app will be good enough to break that "novelty" barrier?

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.

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.

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:

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

Musical Vocal Surprise.

Quick note: I apologize that many of the songs so far have been a little dated, especially by internet standards. That being said, these things are generally timeless, so I want to get through these first.

Moving along!

Check this one out. As usual...juuuust listen to the end. The vocal ability is pretty impressive, although admittedly the quality of the voice is slightly nasal in some parts (but really, that's an unfair criticism I think, given what happens..). Truly surprising.