AROIOS

February 7

4 minutes ago, Dave Bryce said:

IIRC, Mr. Lange was married to Ms. Twain when he produced her record.

dB

That's how I used to delude myself: My producer hero got dragged into Country because of the power of love.

4 minutes ago, Docbop said:

Country is where old Rock and studio musicians retire to it's been going on since the 80's.

True, Dan Huff immediately comes to mind.

February 6

For the longest time, I've had a hard time understanding how Robert "Mutt" Lange went from producing Hard Rock for Def Leppard and Bryan Adams, stuff I absolutely love; to Country for Shania Twain, stuff I absolutely abhor.

I'm big on self-reflection and calling out my own BS. So I resisted the urge to throw up and played a couple of Twain and Leppard songs back and forth.

To my utter horror, once you look past the twang, the fiddles and mixing differences, they actually don't sound that much different.

Now I have to face the painful realization for the rest of my life: I might actually be a closet Country fan.

February 6

1 minute ago, CyberGene said:

I think almost every keyboard has a similar Rhodes sound. A bit too bright and bell-like for my taste though.

That bright, bellish sound is likely the biggest appeal of the "Model E" and "Dyno" mods. I certainly wouldn't use them for Funk tracks, but for WestCoast style ballads they are a staple.

February 6

2 hours ago, jazzpiano88 said:

Pure guesses
1. Motif

🤝 I would have guessed Motif's ChorusDyno patch on a blind listen too.

1 hour ago, TommyS said:

This is a wild guess: the Famous E

🤝 It's certainly got that "Model E" vibe.

February 6

1 hour ago, o0Ampy0o said:

...Maybe you could provide some hints?...

Let's just say that the reveal will be surprising for a lot of us 😃

February 6

2 hours ago, Dave Number Four said:

I'll be impressed if someone gets this. Could you give us a dry version without the chorus?

Happy to oblige.

February 6

February 3

I don't get the point of archiving/locking older threads related to music theory.

They are not information that goes out of fashion like gear news.

For example, this question from @zephonic can be answered 20 years from now for all we care, and still retain its relevance to the viewers.

For what it's worth, here's my response:

Thanks for sharing this piece. I'm an Azymuth fan but have never heard that piece before.

To my crude ears, the first two chords are a rootless A13b9 and a DoM7 (diminished major seventh). "maj7b5" doesn't work here because a diminished 3 is present in both chords.

"A13b9", because I hear a V7-I progression, as evident in the attachment, once we give the 1st chord a root and finish the progression with a Dmaj7.

It can also be seen as a polychord: F#(upper)A9(lower). But that's just over-complication.

And the 2nd one can be seen as C#/D, if only for the ease of recognition.

It's interesting that you mentioned the 2nd chord's symbol on the 1st one. It points to the similar upper structure between the two chords, but the B and E in the 1st chord prevented it from being a GoM7.

February 1

My favorite is the 6th piece. However, there are quite few nits in the transcription:

1) It's in the key of F, not Eb.

2) The first chord is a C major or C dominant, serving as V, not a minor.

3) The second chord is Eb13b5 with 9. Marking it as F/Eb misses the quiet Db note and obscures its dominant 13 nature. This is a benign one since F/Eb is easy to play at a glance and only sounds slightly blander.

4) The third chord is D9sus4, the piano staff missed both an A and E note, and sounded too bland as a result. Marking the chord as Bb69/D not only obscures the dominant nature of the chord, but also risks introducing a Bb note that significantly changes its sound, in a bad way.

5) The top G note of the third chord is already played by both the guitar and the vibraphone. Repeating it yet again, on the piano, is just bad arrangement that wasn't in the recording.

January 31

https://theproaudiofiles.com/midi-basics/

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/midi-basics-part-1

If you had experience with computer programming, it helps to start by asking yourself: "How would I represent all value changes on a synth (pitch, velocity, filter cutoff, attack time, LFO speed... etc) with 7 bits of data (128 levels)?" and "what if I want finer levels of control than that?"

January 31

On 1/30/2024 at 7:42 AM, 16251 said:

...I watched these videos to get a better understanding of this thread...

The only thing interesting about that song is the first 5 seconds of drum loop. The arrangement, Alicia's singing and her body jerking all sound/look [deleted].

John Legend and Alicia Keys are two of the least soulful artists out there, it takes quite some effort for a piano player to be that boring.

(Now Jordan better pay me up for sidetracking the bashing)

January 31

18 hours ago, BluMunk said:

@AROIOS, that man is lying.

Of course he is. It's satire.

January 30

14 hours ago, Paul Woodward said:

Taking this even further, I know of a kid who identifies as a cat. The parents insist the school make the necessary arrangements and staff have to go along with this too.

January 30

8 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

..."Rising" vs. "Falling" isn't an either/or...

Yup, "mirrored" voice leading, in both "contracting" and "expanding" directions, is also very common. Unfortunately...

8 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

...Try Cm/F and D7+/F#, you'll like it. You can also do Bbdim/F, Adim/F#, you'll like that too. But don't do rising chromatic motion based on the "root" notes, that's not what's happening here...

that is 1) inaccurate transcription; 2) over-complication that'll only serve to confuse the OP again.

It helps to point out that OP used a live version in his original question and later shared a lead sheet based on the studio version. And the last two chords in question were slightly different in these versions. It was F6 - D/F# (or sometimes referred to as "m#5") in the original recording (1st progression in the attachment) and Fadd9 - F#(b9) in the live version (2nd progression in the attachment).

The reason I didn't bother with these details in my previous replies, is because the OP is clearly no harmony buff and simply sharing the essence of the progression will offer him most help. The b9 is just an incidental pedal note and the 6, add9, and m#5 variations are just toppings he can sprinkle on later as he grows more comfortable with the lick.

And regardless of the differences between the studio and live versions, the last two chords in both were "lead-up"s, and have nothing to do with the dim stuff you kept bringing up, as can be clearly seen and heard in the attachments.

(BTW, I like the voice leading in the D7+/F# - G progression you shared, the Cm/F? Too bland.)

January 29

On 1/27/2024 at 6:48 PM, musicbysterling said:

...Am I understanding correctly that I can play a Bb diminished over the F and an A diminished over a Gb and resolve to the G6?

Although there's nothing illegal with playing that, it helps to simply treat the "Bbdim - Adim - G" progression MOE mentioned as a lick totally separate from the last two chords you asked about.

What happened in JT's recording was a "lead-up" lick, where the chord notes move UP toward the target (I major or I dominant).

What MOE offered, was a "lead-down" lick, where the chord notes move DOWN toward the target.

The easiest way to nail the "lead-up", is to simply move the same voicing (of the target) chromatically from 2 steps below towards the target.

Attached is demo of how this trick is commonly applied to "lead-up" from IV/VI to I major, I7 and I13 in Blues/Gospel.

January 29

16 hours ago, Tusker said:

...The reverbs we are discussing like Shimmer and Blackhole and Supermassive, won't help place sound precisely. But they will work better if you can use early reflections to place sound within the vast spaces these reverbs can create...

Thanks Tusker, that's another great insight.

I've only used room/hall size and mix ratio to control the perceived distance of instruments from "the listener", and density/diffusion to emulate surface materials, but never paid much attention to early reflections.

Will definitely experiment with ER in my next mix, to see what I've been missing this entire time.

January 28

17 hours ago, Tusker said:

Yes, and he is showing extreme examples of it, but it’s handy in smaller doses too. A serviceable tool. The pitch-shifting aspect of it is orchestrally the same as gently bringing in a sine oscillator a couple of octaves above the main tone in a pad. Or high flutes rising slowly over the warm bed of strings. You don't need it all the time. But it's brilliant icing on a cake.

Thanks for the insight, Tusker. Those techniques apply perfectly well to pads programming.

January 27

3 hours ago, Tusker said:

Love the guy. Here he is demoing Shimmer ....

Excellent demo, that MS-20 sounded great with it.

January 26

A picture is worth a thousand words.

January 25

Was noodling around and got this version of the bVII - VII - I progression in discussion. This is the kind of modern sound I can't get enough of from 80~90's Pop Jazz.

January 25

9 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

...mumble-mumble IV# "vibe" chord...

The publisher should have put that on the lead sheet instead, along with a note in fine print: "play with a ton of grease".

9 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

...The key to this is understanding that #IV chord. In the most general sense, you can start by thinking of it as a mi6 or dim built on the bIII of the key--so on Bb in this case...

You risk confusing him and others by explaining why that #IV chord works, with an example that builds off of bIII.

It's easier to simply look at the #IVdim - I/V or bIIIdim - I/V progression from an Idim - I angle.

Since #IVdim7, bIIIdim7 and Idim7 all share the same notes (from one of the three diminished scales), either C#dim (the actual #IV of G) or Bbdim will resolve to G or G/D nicely, for the same ole reason Idim resolves to I nicely in Classical music: proper voice leading.

It's for that same reason the Bbdim - Adim - G progression you mentioned works beautifully. Proper voice leading is beyond obvious there. IIdim has the same notes as IVm6/I, and Idim - IVm6/I - I (1st progression in the attachment) is one of the most commonly heard progressions in Classical music. Bbdim - Adim - G, or IIIbdim - IIdim - I in general (2nd progression in the attachment), can be simply viewed as an inverted version of that.

January 24

On 1/22/2024 at 3:31 PM, Reezekeys said:

...to call any key "sweet sounding" has to be opinion!

Yup, at best an opinion, just like the also frequently touted myth of 432Hz.

January 22

21 hours ago, Kawai James said:

An older example, breaking down a Donny Hathaway classic:

Thanks for sharing it.

A small nit: at 1:30, he starts spreading the bad ole urban myth of the "sweet sounding key of F#". While it's perfectly possible that many folks might find that particular maj7 voicing he played more pleasing at F#, it doesn't prove that F# has this magical "color" he described.

The pleasing sound is much more likely just a result of proper voicing, in other words, avoiding muddying up the lows or thinning out the highs.

To those with golden ears (and imagination) like that YTber, see if you can pick the "best sounding" version of the maj7 chord played in the attachment.

January 22

1 hour ago, Floyd Tatum said:

...As for that chord (#5 chord) that I call an Edim (and later a Gdim): ... I don't hear an Ab there...

That's why I called it "vagued hinted". Trust me, it's there.

January 22

1 hour ago, Floyd Tatum said:

I tried playing it with a Db9 (i.e., Db7/9) because of the Eb at the top, and that doesn't sound right to me...

With some good voice leading, Db dominant chords could totally work here. Although not as safe as Dbdim7 would sound in this context, bD9b5 is no more exotic than the bD Lydian played in JT's recording.

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