“Spies,” Parachutes, Coldplay
I was listening to Coldplay’s first CD, Parachutes, in my car this week. Released in 2000, it’s not up to the high bar set by the albums that followed, but it’s still a good listen and I enjoy hearing where my now-favorite band started out. I was struck by a particular chord in the song “Spies,” which is track 3; I have no idea what the song is talking about but I like it nonetheless.
I always appreciate it when songs evolve, when they end up somewhere different than where they started, particularly lyrically. As I’ve written about before (see the fifth paragraph in the linked post), I learned in my composition studies that it’s bad form to write something in a song that’s an exact repeat of what’s happened before, since you’ve already heard it and it tends to diminish any momentum that the song has. This is a particular danger for pop songs, because they tend to have a chorus that comes back and repeats itself. We need the repetition in order to create a coherent form to the piece (as I’ve also written about; last paragraph in that one), but the repetition should be balanced with contrast so you’re not hearing the exact same thing twice. In light of that, I appreciate songs and particularly choruses that evolve, so that (for example) the final chorus has words that are slightly changed, to reflect the progress on the journey that the song has taken us on; see, for examples, my songs “The Aisle”, where the last chorus is altered, or “Flame,” which doesn’t have a chorus but rather a single line that’s repeated after each verse, which is changed the last time around.
Coldplay’s song “Spies” goes through this change as well. The first two times, the chorus goes like this:
“And the spies came out of the water
But you’re feeling so bad ’cause you know
That the spies hide out in every corner
But you can’t touch them no
‘Cause they’re all spies
They’re all spies”
The final time, however, there’s a change:
“And the spies came out of the water
But you’re feeling so good ’cause you know
That those spies hide out in every corner
They can’t touch you, no
‘Cause they’re just spies”
And in typical brilliant Coldplay fashion, the band musically highlights the lyrical change from “feeling so bad” to “feeling so good.” The first two times through the chorus, the chord at the end of the second line is G-sharp minor (the G-sharp comes on the word “know”), which is the minor v chord in the song’s key of C-sharp minor. But the last time, the chords on the first and second lines are slightly changed–slightly enough that you only catch the difference if you’re listening carefully–but those slight changes set up the surprise change of the G-sharp minor chord to an F-sharp major, the major IV chord in C-sharp minor. This is a completely different chord than the G-sharp minor, and it serves to create a completely different, brighter feel to the line–which corresponds to and highlights the change from “feeling so bad” (minor chord) to “feeling so good” (unusual major chord).
You can hear the song “Spies” in its entirety, courtesy of our good friend Last.fm, here.
The Matrix Score, Don Davis
A little while ago, my lovely wife and I made a movie-watching deal with each other. She wants me to watch the 6 hour BBC version of Pride and Prejudice; I’m not opposed to watching it, but since it’s such a feat I thought I’d make a deal out of it. So the deal is that I’d watch Pride and Prejudice with her if she would watch the Matrix trilogy with me. (She had seen the first one and parts of the second one before.) Last week we watched the original Matrix film to start off the deal.
I was reminded why The Matrix is my favorite movie of all time. Great story, brilliant symbolism, great casting/performances, innovative special effects, killer action scenes, trenchcoats and sunglasses. And a stunning score. The composer is Don Davis, who scored all three Matrix movies and The Animatrix, but otherwise nothing too significant. After listening to the score again, though, I’m not sure why. The score is just as brilliant and innovative as the rest of the film, and is a perfect counterpart.
The main motif of the movie, which most people would immediately associate with the Matrix score, is swelling brass chords in alternating octaves. You can hear them in the opening moments of the movie, over the Warner Bros. and Village Pictures logos, and throughout the movie, usually at points where something particularly unbelievable has happened in the Matrix (Trinity’s leap between two buildings in the opening sequence, for example). On the Amazon product page you can hear them in track 8, “Bullet-Time;” if you watch the movie, listen for them as a recurring motif throughout.
The score also makes effective use of a wordless choir to evoke the otherworldliness and horror of the human fields (which you can hear in track 3, “The Power Plant”). The choir enters in very close intervals, creating clusters of notes that grow with the addition of brass clusters and other elements to create a big dissonant soundscape that corresponds with the emotions that the visuals create. Another effective use of vocals in the score is the wordless boy soprano, who sings a simple alternating melody over the montage of Neo’s awakening in the real world and being restored to health. In a similar manner as the choir, the wordless voice creates an otherworldly effect that corresponds to the literal other world that Neo is experiencing.
If you haven’t seen The Matrix in a while, or if you’ve never seen it, give it a watch and let me know what you think. Were there any other aspects of the score that you noticed, liked, or disliked? What stood out to you?
Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale
Check out this video–Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the pentatonic scale with audience participation. Interesting and very cool. (HT to @joshthemoore on Twitter)
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.
For the full World Science Festival video, check out http://vimeo.com/5732745.
Drums’n'Bass
My lovely wife and I went on a bowling date earlier this week to Strike OC, which is nice if a bit on the pricey side. We went after 9 pm, when there’s a special for unlimited bowling and shoes, drink specials, etc. It was interesting listening to the music that they were playing; I don’t know for sure but it sounded like “dance” remixes of pop and R&B music. I recognized two of the songs, Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” (which I only know because my mom’s into Glee) and Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” (which I only know because I listened to a few of her songs after hearing about her for a while). Now, no offense to either of those artists, but these are not exactly the most substantial pop songs to begin with. They’re light, they’re catchy, they are what they are and they’re not meant to be musically complex or weighty. But the remixes we heard at the bowling alley were bare-bones versions of the already skinny pop songs: basically drums, bass, and voice. Anything that was musically interesting in the original song apart from the beat and the bass line–anything interesting in instrumentation or arrangement–was stripped out. I realize that you don’t go to a bowling alley or a club or anywhere they play this kind of music for the listening experience, and my wife suggested that perhaps the reason for the remixes was that in these situations it’s all about “feeling the beat.” But it seems a little strange that this kind of music, which isn’t complex to begin with, is stripped down to something that is little more than what you could create with a sequencing program, a library of loops and 30 seconds of picking and choosing.
TLB Update
Greetings, readers! (If there are any readers left…)
I apologize for the lack of posts recently–I’ve been posting only about once a month for a while now. There are basically two reasons for this. First, I’ve been extremely busy. I’m currently leading worship for my church, recording hymns of the month for the same church, recording my own CD Songs From My Shelf, rolling out new website stuff, composing concert music, trying to practice guitar and piano more, etc.–I’ve been too busy creating and playing music to write about it on the blog. Second, writing blog posts has become less enjoyable and more of a chore for me, so I’m not nearly as excited about it as I used to be.
However! I’m not ready to give up on the blog quite yet. So I’m going to give it one more try. I’m going to try to post more consistently, but it’ll be more along the lines of one or two posts a week than the three or four I’d originally hoped for. There are several ways you can follow the blog (apart from just checking www.thelisteningblog.com) if you’d like to stick around:
- Subscribe via RSS–click on the button in the sidebar to add TLB to your favorite RSS reader.
- Subscribe via email–enter your email address in the sidebar and you’ll receive an email whenever there’s a new post. I won’t give your email address to anyone and you won’t get any emails other than TLB posts, I promise.
- Subscribe to my Facebook notes–if you read TLB via the Notes on my Facebook page, you can subscribe with the link at the bottom of that page, or paste the following link into your RSS reader: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/notes.php?id=577755429&viewer=577755429&key=447a546248&format=rss20.
And one more thing: if you’d like to see TLB continue, I would love for you to comment on my posts. I know that comments, or lack of them, don’t by themselves indicate how many readers I have; but it’s so much more encouraging when I receive comments, even if it’s just to say that you liked the post or you’ve listened to the same piece.
I hope to be able to post some new content this week. Thanks for your support–and thanks for listening!
La Moustache Score
A few nights ago my lovely wife and I watched La Moustache, a French movie with English subtitles that she had heard about somewhere. It’s a story about a man who shaves his mustache on a whim, but is then baffled when his wife and friends don’t notice–and then is more baffled still when they insist he’s never had a mustache. We weren’t sure whether it was a comedy or a drama–since it seems like that premise could go either way–but it turned out to be a mysterious drama which was kind of frustrating because it never explained all the weird happenings in the movie. I don’t mind ambiguous endings, in general, but it never even tried to explain the increasingly strange things that kept happening. And the hilarious part was that in the special features, even the lead actress admitted she had no idea what was happening in “the mustache story,” and even the director himself said he didn’t really know what was going on. Weird.
But in any case, the music for the film was interesting. There was really only one piece that was used throughout the film, and really only two sections of the piece. The main part that was used consisted of repeated chords and arpeggiated figures in the strings. It had a haunting, ominous quality to it, so it was used effectively in situations that required that feeling; but it seemed a little repetitive by the end. As we watched the credits, I discovered that the piece was the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by Philip Glass, one of the most successful modern American composers. The piece is from 1987 and is a good example of his tonal, repetitive, and minimal style. And it worked, more or less, as the only score in La Moustache.
You can listen to clips of Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by clicking here and then clicking the “listen/watch” button on the left side of the page. Then click on “Violin Concerto” in the second list that pops up.
P.S. I’m sure most, if not all of my TLB readers have heard this news through other channels (email, website, Facebook, Twitter…), but just in case you haven’t: I’m going to be releasing a new recording of an original Christmas song, called “Paradoxology,” this Christmas Eve 12/24/2009. It’ll be my first released recording in four years–the first since my album Following A Star was finished, on Christmas Eve of 2005. You’ll be able to download “Paradoxology” from my website, for free, next Thursday. So check it out! http://www.ajharbison.com
“The Sound of Home” by Mark Harbison
N.B. This essay was written for this past Thanksgiving by my brother, Mark Harbison, and I thought it was so well-written and pertinent to this blog that I wanted to repost it. “The Sound of Home” is here reprinted in its entirety by permission of the author. – AJ Harbison
I always like being home. I love Biola, I love my friends there, I love Torrey, I love my major, and I wouldn’t want to go to school anywhere else—but I always like coming home. Even when nothing exciting is happening. This week, I came home knowing that there was nothing particularly fun or exciting happening this week (my family is just having a quiet dinner at home on Thanksgiving), and that I would be spending most of the week doing homework, as I have a major paper to revise, a major paper to write, Greek exercises to do, and the first two books of “Paradise Lost” to read. And yet I still woke up this morning with a smile on my face (something which is an extreme rarity for me) simply because I was physically at home instead of at school. Waking up this morning, I felt less stressed than I have in weeks, even though I still have a ton of work to get done this week.
After waking up with a smile, my expression changed to a quizzical frown as I wondered why I was so happy. I’m always happy to be at home, regardless of what’s actually going on when I’m here. Why is this? I wondered.
Unable to come up with an answer, I picked up my computer and proceeded to surf through my usual daily internet sites, concluding as always with Facebook. While on Facebook, I came across this status and comment:
“Blaire E. Hunt was woken up this morning by her sister barging in her room and jumping on her bed! Quickly followed by her mom and aunt entering her room. HOME!!!! 
Comments:
Tatyana Catalan: YES!!!!! i woke up to the vaccuum in the next room (with kitty frantic) and gershwin’s rapsody in blue blasting on the radio!!!”
This sparked my thought process and I think I finally realized what it is that I love so much about being home.
It’s the sound. I woke up this morning to a sound that I never hear at Biola, ever: silence. In my room at school, we almost always have the AC/heater running, or the window open, or there’s people running up and down the hallway outside, or yelling, or playing ping-pong—and once you actually leave the room, you can certainly forget about silence. There’s always something HAPPENING at Biola, and the evidence of that hits the ear every second of every day.
This morning, I woke up and I heard nothing. This is always what it sounds like waking up at home. If there ever are noises (which is rare), they’re quiet, or at least muffled. Even when my dog is barking, it’s less harsh than the air conditioner in Sigma 122. And throughout the whole day, even when there are noises, there’s a perpetual undercurrent of silence that’s always in the background. Even when I’m listening to music, and the television is on in the next room, and my mom is mixing something in the blender, if you listen REALLY carefully, you can hear the silence underneath it all.
This silence is, I think, the defining feature of home. It’s inherently calming. I hear the silence and I wonder how I ever felt stressed in this room, ever felt scared or sad or angry in this house, because all I can feel now is calm. Sure, I can have emotions, but underneath them all is the unmistakable calmness that everything is all right. Even when I’m extremely happy, there’s a calmness mediating it and holding it back from sheer euphoria. When I’m home, what’s just happiness at school becomes joy. What’s unbearable sorrow at school becomes a momentary (if not light) affliction.
I’ve always pictured heaven as being bright and loud—everybody singing, worshiping, dancing, discussing, hugging and loving each other. Now I’m not so sure. Of course there will be worship, and there will probably be all of those other things, too. But I think heaven, like home, will have the undercurrent of calm silence beneath it all, as all of the redeemed bask in the glorious, calm light of God’s joyous smile.
And that, of course, is my true home. 1215 Via Antibes is only a temporary reflection of that. 1215 Via Antibes probably won’t even be my home ten years from now (hopefully won’t be, I’ll even say). But for now, this is the only place that I can really hear the silence. Every once in a while I’ll catch a strain of it somewhere else—I heard it briefly at AJ and Eleanor’s, when I went there for dinner. I heard it for a few minutes in Dr. Reynolds’ office once. I heard it briefly in the Sutherland hallway when a friend hugged me and forgave me for wronging them.
But away from home, that calm silence that forces everything else to be calm only comes in snippets. It’s only at home when I can hear it all the time. I’m not sure if it’s because my home is more familiar, or because I’m more emotionally attached to my home, or because my home is a holier place than the other places I frequent.
But whatever the cause, I don’t really care. It doesn’t matter so much why it’s silent here. It just matters that it is. This sound of silence is the sound of home, and the reason I love coming home so much is because, for however brief a time, I can let everything else be quiet and just listen to it.
Published!
I’m very excited to announce that I am now a published composer! Kallisti Music Press in Philadelphia has published an art song of mine that I wrote last year. Head over to http://www.ajharbison.com for the full story!
Songs From My Shelf Update
Good news, my friends and fans: I’ve started recording for my upcoming album Songs From My Shelf! It started last week with some guitar and vocal tracking for “Too Far.” I’ve been busy with lots of different things and I haven’t gotten “too far” along yet (ha ha), but I’m already very excited about this record and I can’t wait to share it with you all. Unfortunately it looks like the release date will be pushed out to early next year, rather than the end of this year as I’d originally hoped. But I’ll get it done as soon as I can so you can all hear it!
There are several ways you can stay updated on the progress of Songs From My Shelf, if you’re so inclined:
- Keep reading this blog. You can subscribe to get automatic RSS or email updates by using the links in the sidebar to the right.
- Subscribe to my email list. Shoot an email over to list@ajharbison.com to be added. And I promise I won’t deluge your inbox with constant updates–I’ll email you only when something exciting is going on.
- Follow me on Twitter. You can follow me on Twitter for exclusive behind-the-scenes looks at the recording process and for up-to-the-minute updates at http://twitter.com/ajharbison.
That’s all for now! Keep tracking with me using one or more of these methods, and I’ll make sure you’re in the loop as I make progress on the record. And thanks for all your continued support!
“Farm Machine Music”
I received this video in an email from my father-in-law this morning. This is what was in the forwarded message (not including his skeptical comment, “Is this for real?”):
Last seen and heard 2-3 years ago. Good to see and hear it again.
This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the
Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of
Engineering at the University of Iowa .. Amazingly, 97% of
the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation
Equipment of Bancroft , Iowa ..Yes, farm equipment!It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment,
calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see it
was WELL worth the effort.It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University
and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.
Unfortunately, it’s pretty clear that this is fake. The whole look and feel of the video is very computer-animated-ish, and it would be very strange if the xylophonic-type instrument would actually light up as its bars were hit. But the most important tell-tale sign of fakery is the sound quality. There aren’t any microphones visible anywhere in the setup, and obviously if this was an acoustic instrument as the quote claims, there would have to be microphones to pick up the sound. And even if there were microphones that somehow weren’t visible in the video, the sound quality of the audio would not be nearly as neat and polished as it is–there would be a great deal of ambient noise, both from the space in general and from the bleeding of different parts of the “instrument” into each microphone.
And to confirm my suspicions, the trustworthy rumor-busting site Snopes.com has exposed it as false in their article “Farm Machine Music.” It was created originally as a computer animation, but then was picked up by someone and passed off as a real video.
Nonetheless, it’s definitely an impressive animation and a fun song. Enjoy!
