Pulse-Based Music Education

I'm back!

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 08:49:00 +0000

Hey everyone, hope this post finds everyone still eager to read regarding Pulse! I'm planning to redo some things to this whole blog because it's a huge field to talk about but I shall write up some of the goals and aims of the Pulse-Based Music Education Programme has.

Here we go!

Directory

For my earlier blog posts, you can find them at Welcome!

For my latest updates:

Lesson 1: What Is Pulse-Based Music Education?

Lesson 2: What Is Pulse?

Lesson 3: Overview of Pulse-Based Music Education

Lesson 4: Lessons Shared On Pulse-Based Music Education

Lesson 5: Do Not Pigeonhole Yourself

Lesson 6: The Pendulum Swings... Part 1

Lesson 7: The Pendulum Swings... Part 2

Lesson 8: The Pendulum Swings... Part 3

Btw, if you could spare some time to answer some questions here. Click here to take survey

The Pendulum Swings... Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 01:53:00 +0000

The Pendulum Swings... Part 3

Mood swings are a well known part of human behaviour in modern day, because of portrayal of such behaviour on television, books, radio programmes and the likes. However, mood swings are actually signs of a kind of addiction.

Addictive Lifestyles

We are in a day and age where it is easy to get addicted. Our bodies and our minds were tuned to avoid pain and maximise pleasure - that was how it was when resources were scarce and we had to fight hardship to reach our pleasure. However, nowadays, with the way our easy access to everything we ever want or need - high caloric density food, satisfaction of primitive desires and quick access to virtually everything that makes us feel good about ourselves - we have a tendency to get addicted, which ironically causes more pain than pleasure.

And because of that, we actually have more and more people having mood swings. I was in class regarding addictions and substance use for my psychotherapy course last week and it hit me as to why people have mood swings (it's not absolute but a continuum): because they are addicted to a particular process.

Process Addiction

Process addiction is an addiction for a behaiour, action or activity that leads to dependence, tolerance and withdrawal. When we're in the process, we are gaining huge amounts of pleasure from it, but tolerance builds up and we need more and more of the process to feed our pleasure. Dependence happens as a result of relying it for psychological well-being, even if for a short moment. Withdrawal is where the mood swings comes into the picture - after we had our high from the process, we actually suffer from withdrawal when we're without it. We become emotionally labile and irritable and the moment we get the same fix we suddenly become alright for the day/hour/minute again. This process includes many things, whether is it ego-boosting events, or beating others, or whatever it is.

We all look to get pleasure, it's just the process that differs and how much we depend on it that defines whether it's an addiction, which is something dysfunctional, or something which simply maintains pleasure.

Short Term vs Long Term

We always hear the differences of short term vs long term gain. Singapore is a great example of how this point is used to argue a case for an unpopular policy, or for causing problems due to the constant change of environment and its side effects. However, it is true that short term gains are not always in line with long term gains, such as the pleasure for eating Carls' Jr everyday vs the pain of coronary diseases when you're 30+. There is an unending list of things in our lives nowadays that give us pleasure in the short term but ultimately cause us to lose sight of the long term happiness, including excessive gaming, television watching, etc., creating regret when we are older. In the same breath, what is difficult and causes pain for the short term does not necessarily cause us to be able to happy with what we have in the long term.

Then What Is The Key That Gives Us Long Term Happiness?

Being accurate, precise, strong, powerful, rich or famous does not give one happiness on its own, and we all know that. Instead let's concentrate on the one thing that is the commonality amongst lasting happiness - good self-esteem. What often happens in short-term thinking is that we often neglect our "bigger self", ie our idealistic and social side of ourselves, resulting in a sense of loss and regret over time lost and inability to accomplish personal achievements, leading to a burrowing of oneself into what already gives one pleasure and an avoidance of the idea of dealing with the pain of not achieving one's ideals.

Instead if we build our own self-esteem through means which are long-lasting - benchmarks set by oneself and regularly checked as to whether it lives up to one's image of oneself - we are likely to find that we can fulfill both short term and long term pleasures. As one of my tutors just recently told my clinical group last week, "The better you are, the less you have to second-guess yourself. The less you second guess yourself, the more time and peace you have."

Is It Normal To Have A Process Addiction?

Everyone wants pleasure. And the most amount of long-lasting pleasure we seek tends to be that of a solid and good self-esteem. (Though there are also many things that simply just give immediate pleasure) Temporary boosts in ego (often mistaken within oneself as self-esteem) very often give immediate pleasure and therefore are often easily preferred over long tedious processes of building self-esteem. Examples such as winning a political competition, getting a new branded bag, or getting good grades for a test without effort, as ends themselves, are common. These boosts are harmful because they are not actually not permanent (i.e. a skill or a personal achievement), are short-lived as only ego is boosted, not self-esteem.

The pleasure derived from direct stimulation for pleasure as well as ego-boosting events are actually what all of us tend to go for in the modern world with a strong excess of pleasure-stimulating opportunities. So yes, such addictions are very common, and can explain a person's mood swings and chase for same inane things that they themselves don't understand.

So What Is The Way To Deal With This?

There is truth in a statement that I've been reading a lot about lately, "no one truly believes their evil, even the hardest criminals believe that they were right". Everyone's ideal self-image is often that of a noble one, even if one denies it. Most people, when they realise it, will want to have contributed to mankind or their community in some way, or wish to leave a legacy that immortalises them. Recognising this is key in finding your way to a good and strong self-esteem because when you recognise it, you can identify what you're doing right, and move towards your goals.

The moment we accept our ideals and our addictions as normal, we can start realising our dreams buried beneath the mountain of "instant fixes" in our lives.

Moderating The Pendulum Swing

The day that we establish our self-esteem and recognise our true goals such that we can go towards it, many processes that used to be addiction-based would often lose its addictive flavour. Also, if allows one to moderate our pendulum swings such that it does not swing from extreme to extreme so easily, but instead tilt our centre of gravity to be more towards happiness - leading to a much better moderated life.

Why We Want Moderation

A small swing is much better than extreme swings because the average might be same, but the effects are very different. The most important reason for moderation is because of the fact that strong negative emotions have a lot more effects on our bodies and our minds than a long time in pure happiness. An analogy is driving, one moment of bad judgement can cause way more damage than many years of safe driving can repair. Another one would be of music, where the moment a mega boo boo appears and kills the momentum of the music, all the good will come to a naught. Therefore it is very important for the pendulum swing to not swing to the extreme side of negativity too often.

Countering The Effects Of Addictive Lifestyles

With new found awareness of one's own actions and dreams, I believe it's easier to conquer one's ego and build self-esteem for long-lasting happiness. The concentration should be on happiness, not avoiding the negative extreme, because that will tilt your pendulum the other way. The aim is to build a good esteem to allow reaching of your dreams and to maintain happiness.

I shall end it with an article that I read recently. Here's the link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128200.200-psychologist-why-we-screw-up-when-the-heat-is-on.html

The Pendulum Swings... Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 03:40:00 +0000

The Pendulum Swings... Part 2

The art and the science of everything is really about the duality between technicality and artistry. Rather honestly, I think art and science were actually largely the same until industrialisation and extreme separation of these subjects through education - just so that you could figure out who's better at what. However, many of the best scientists in the past were also great writers and were highly philosophical, as the true scientific method is actually an art in itself - figuring out what's false through logical methods with logical assumptions, which requires a lot of personalisation. There's no real way of separating the two completely, which is why I'm talking about this.

The Duality

Arts and science have always been polar opposites in this day. However are they really polar opposites? I would beg to differ from the "conventional" wisdom and say that a more conventional wisdom would actually argue that they're actually two sides of the same coin.

Science

Science talks about things which can be objectified, such as precise measurements or large sample studies having things which can be defined to numbers. But at the same time the scientific method is actually about disproving rather than proving anything, as the only empirical way of ever proving something right is through mathematics which is not a valid for many multi-factorial situations. (Or at least we haven't reached the level to be able to do prove all these ideas).

Art

Art, instead, accepts the fact that many things are not able to be fully explained purely by measurements and things which are "objective". It recognises that there are many layers and a lot of depth in a person's and in nature's structures that cannot be easily explained, or should be left unexplained as it's a lot more about perspective than overtly obvious evidence. It embraces the subjectivity of the situation, therefore also recognises the need to share views in terms of interpretation and experiences from situations or works, to widen perspective and increase awareness. However, art believes that all views are valid as long as there are logical steps taken towards understanding and appreciating situations and perspectives.

What it Means

Science and art are simply two different ways of viewing experiences. One talks about the objective measurables while art talks about the interpretation, perspective and openness. In music, that would be the duality of technique (chops) vs musicality. In medicine, that would be diagnostic and management knowledge vs ability to set up a therapeutic alliance. In research, that would be accuracy and precision vs originality and presentation. The list goes on indefinitely. And we actually all know that the success of a person or a group of people in an area is about the balance between the art and science of it, when put into practice it's hard to do.

What's Easy To Do

The easiest thing to do is actually to concentrate on one aspect and completely stick to it because if you stick to the subjective then there's no good or bad, no wrong or right, everything is gray. Meanwhile, if you stick completely to technique there's always a wrong or right, and it's much easier to dictate the lines and stick to the rules. Both are extremist, and thus are very clear guidelines are set: it's either everything is right, or there is an obvious split between the two. Neither of these are human though; to be too subjective is equivalent to no ability to learn or gain new appreciation as "every opinion is valid", while being too objective is equivalent to having the Ten Commandments - no one can truly achieve it. Thus both lead to A. frustrated people B. bigots C. pampered kids.

What's Difficult to Do

If you want to blend the two it's as difficult as trying to get that perfect shade of gray for yourself from black and white. It takes a long time because sometimes just a drop of white makes it too white, while adding black into it just spoils it again.

It takes a lot of trial and error and a lot of reflection for one to be able to reach a level where there is ability to separate as well as mix the two viewpoints together into one. But once you've found the right balance for yourself, it suddenly becomes easy and a part of you until your taste changes (but even then you would've found the new level of equilibrium already).

Practical Tips to Find Your Equilibrium

Another word for it would be balance of course. Well, to find the great point of the pendulum where you can define as your equilibrium state you have to start by knowing which obvious preference you have - towards musicality or technique, and going to the other end of the spectrum completely.

Much like the previous post, the best way to learn is by going to the other extreme end - put yourself to in a position which is by far uncomfortable such that you can experience something completely different and pick up a completely new skill. And to put yourself to that extreme the mindset must be there - to take on a new perspective and new knowledge altogether. You have to unlearn everything you learned (ie don't look at anything as if you know anything anymore, but instead be like a sponge and learn).

When you have taken both extremes, it is then possible to modulate as you're now able to see which perspective is really yours, the artistic or the technical one. It's the same with music - if you love Tchaikovsky's melodies, try out Schoenberg for lack of one. If you love complex harmony like Debussy, Brahms, Ravel, try going to Vivaldi and Haydn for lack of overtly complex ones.

Most Importantly

With that, you are able to find your true equilibrium rather than settling for an extreme and never feeling happy with where you are. Find your niche and the area you're happy with. Find people who belong to the extremes to experience their point of view but don't go fully in, instead find out what fits you the most. This is one you'll experience ease towards happiness, never really needing to work just to feel happy.

Lesson 6: The Pendulum Swings... Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 05:49:00 +0000

The Pendulum Swings... Part 1

This statement can be interpreted in a few ways when I'm connecting music to life. One of it is the obvious idea of going to the extremes of any field. Another one is about the balance between art and science of anything worth mentioning. And there's another idea is about the way we play our life and music's state of emotions - extreme euphoria or depression and the likes, the way we can approach them to ensure a healthy sound/mind. This also includes issues regarding inferiority complex which was discussed in Lesson 4

And comes the most obvious one which is related to the whole topic above - Pulse.

Just a quick mention is that this idea came about in my mind thanks to my mentor at TTSH, who's a fantastic psychiatrist and a mentor. =) And I need to thank Meryl for an interesting insight that I learned through discussion with her.

Let's Go EXTREME

Being extreme about everything can be really good for us sometimes. It really allows us to push the limits of our own capabilities, knowledge and awareness. I'm pretty sure everyone who knows me would know by know I'm quite obsessed when I go into something, last there for quite a while before I come out with a whole bunch of (mostly) useless knowledge but probably learned a good lesson from within. However, I'd like to state that living in extremes isn't such a great thing for our health, mentally or physically, in the long run.

Who're the extremes?

Our world shows us many great examples of extremes gone bad - religious extremists being a really harmful example, as well as people like Lady Gaga who go for extreme quirkiness (while everyone is cheering her on/laughing at her/hating on her, I can only imagine what insecurity she must have within to do what she does). There's something mentally disturbing about Lady Gaga that I suspect is affecting a lot of people who listen to her/watch her videos, but that's for discussion for another time.

There are many... neutral... extremes such as Bill Gates (watch Pirates of Silicon Valley, the fact that he has done a lot of good was neutralised by the fact that he has also done much harm), and people like Mark Zuckerberg (we still can't say Facebook is necessarily the best thing to happen to humanity or the worst...). There are also some examples of... mostly good extremists such as Ghandi, Mother Theresa and many other passionate activists who never become famous.

Pros and Cons

When one takes to the extremes, chances of them doing harm and good is almost equal, because extreme always means something is sacrificed. Most of the results are dependent on hindsight rather than anything else; most harmful extremes such as Hitler started with a noble vision in mind (patriotism, a greater Germany), just tainted by fear and hate which resulted in such horrific consequences.

Hitting the Threshold

The most important thing to note is that the idea of going extreme is nothing wrong. I actually would advise everyone who wants to really improve in a particular area to go really extreme when you first start (at least it's what I do). It's like making efforts to make sure that you cover all the basics as there is a threshold that after one reaches what they learned would've become a skill rather than just pure knowledge - it's like when you go up the pyramid on the Do You Want To Be A Millionaire? show, where every time you go up a certain number of questions you're guaranteed an amount of money regardless of whether you answer the next few questions correctly or not.

After you hit the threshold, you will definitely feel something majorly different, and might even plateau. That's when you hold back and learn to moderate. Short stints of extremes are often very effective in getting things done - such as practising 8 hours a day for 2 months; but after that you would need to take a breather (we all need to sleep after working for a day, it works the same in practising) such that we can let our mind consolidate.

Climbing up the scale

There will be many thresholds to hit as you improve, and there'll always be good times to push to the extreme and times to stretch to get more width. You have to let the pendulum swing all the way to the max in the area that you want for a while, and then moderate and come back, then swing again; this gives you maximum efficiency in the long run as our brain actually cannot "multi-task" as much as we'd like to imagine. If we concentrate on depth we should work almost completely on it; if we concentrate on width we should work mostly on it. This gives us the ability to use momentum to our favour like the pendulum - it covers larger area if it swing in one direction rather than multiple.

Especially in this day and age, you have to push yourself to be an expert in some sense (meaning unique skills) in order for you to even make a mark. This is because information is readily available and the capabilities of people around us seem to be just that high (with this competitive environment). Extremism can give you the edge initially, but the width gives you a much larger scope for you to be able to redirect energies. Such a breather will ensure that you can climb up your individual ladder efficiently and quickly, rather than charging down one path which might be guiding you to a different end point from where your strengths lie, limiting your true capabilities.

That's how you climb up the scale/ladder in anything that you do. It'll give you the depth and the width that you need when you're self-learning anything (this method is often difficult with conventional curriculum nowadays, but still usable if you have enough time).

It's all about Moderation

Looking at Steve Jobbs (hurting his health by his very extreme ideas), the long list of people who go to the extreme to earn money, leave a legacy, and religious extremists, sometimes they might be more "successful", or more "powerful" but at the end of the day it can take a toll on their lives, or even worse, others' lives. Another kind of extremism is the extreme cynicism leading to even nihilism (we just exist, with no meaning) leading to a destructive lifestyle or passive person. We need a bit of everything to function as humanly as possible.

We need to be overtly passionate/extreme about something, at least just for a while, so that we can reach a threshold before we move away, or we'd never improve in the long run. At the same time, making sure that you take breaks at suitable intervals will make you improve all the more when you restart your engines and push your way through to the next threshold. It's never easy, because if it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and there would be no real value added for you (no new experiences, unique skills and personal achievements that can help you fulfill your dreams)

Practical Tips

The most important part of the lesson is always the practical tips: concepts can only get you so far. Like what I tell everyone, start extreme - like if you want to learn jazz, listen to ONLY jazz for 2 months and reach the new point before you take on anything new; or if you want to learn about guitar-making *hint hint to a junior*, spend the next 2 months reading up on forums and reading guitar-making books and consulting everyone you know about it, and do the practical side of things too.

Immersing yourself in the field will gain you that extra insight into what you want to do and give you a lot of skills that you will never gain unless you put both feet in and go crazy.

After the 2 months though, please take a break because any harder you push might not give you that much of a gain. The 2 months can extend up to 6 months depending on individuals' capacity, but the best gauge is when you feel the change upon you, and have solidified it through a couple of experiences.

Create your environment to go EXTREME

What I do for others, and myself, is to create an environment for you to obsess about something, i.e. buy/grab tons of recordings of the genre of your choice and just spam it; leave your Firefox tabs on as all being about the topic of your interest; force yourself to read books/buy books and leave them in obvious places to remind yourself; leave post-it notes everywhere to create a billion and one reminders. And most importantly, envision yourself being at the level that you wish to be every night before you go to sleep. This encourages motivation and allows you to be extreme.

When you want to take your mind off it, just reverse the whole process and hide everything. Make it difficult for you to obsess. You'll see the effectiveness of this through measures you take every day.

Personal Experiences

A good friend of mine had a jazz burn out, and I see many people who are extreme for too long hurting their bodies and not being able to break out of the mold that they already pigeonholed themselves to be in.

I am thankful I have an angel who ensures I don't go too obsessed for too long, so she's my moderator. How about you? Remember, the moderator does not have to be a person, it can be a reminder on your handphone, it can be just the change of environment. Whatever it is, try to adjust your surroundings to facilitate your growth, not hamper it. =)

Additional Added Notes

I learned a few more things today that I thought I would share regarding extremism. One of the things that is really interesting about Jack/Jill of All Trades (genuine ones... meaning being actually good in many areas just not great) is that they are not actually very "split amongst a thousand things", but instead they went into each area of interest for a specific amount of time and created a skill as opposed to simply a knowledge. This is why extremism is a useful trait.

Another sad truth is that our education system doesn't inspire that - firstly we don't inspire learning skills but love rote-learning to the max. It also does not inspire us to dabble and obsess/delve deep into something because we always need to care for everything else even as a kid. It's really nice if you can go deep in the cave as someone/something is holding anchor for you on the other side, but such environments are hard to find, and it is also a good thing to take turns being the anchor too, that's when you get to see the breadth of things.

Lesson 5: Do Not Pigeonhole Yourself

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 08:30:00 +0000

Do Not Pigeonhole Yourself

Have you ever heard guys who go "I'm a ____ musician, and am too good for ____!"? I'm pretty sure all of us have heard that line somewhere before. I've spoken it myself many times when I was younger when I thought that classical music and jazz were superior to everything else (unconsciously actually, if I knew I was doing that I might've hated myself).

The Superiority Complex

It is natural for people to want to be part of an exclusive bunch or do something that they think is "superior" to the rest. That's because of the fact that there seems to be some kind of hierarchy in everything that we do in life - most people believe that being a doctor is "superior" to being a lawyer in terms of nobility, though I know for a fact that isn't true; being financially rich is always better. The list is non-exhaustive and in every field in the world there is such thing as a superior person/career/position/ability/whatever.

This gives people the wish to tag themselves with terms such as "lawyer", "doctor", "banker", "socialite" and feel good about it. It's what they identify themselves as, and they try very hard to live up to it. Just to upkeep one's image, many people go to great extents to make sure that they fit the image, often trying to change characteristics of themselves, following particular trends religiously, and more importantly needlessly spend lots of money to maintain the image. For musicians, many pick up drugs, destructive lifestyles, practising habits, snobbishness, and a whole range of unhealthy things for their bodies and their minds in order to keep with the image that society has of their ideal self.

Isn't that tiring and painful?

That was pretty much a rhetorical question. Many of these expectations are either unrealistic or often misguided. We try to hard to mimic what is only a portion of the image - the doctor who's always kind and warm and never wrong; the lawyer who fights for justice and earns barely enough to eat, or sells his soul for a great income; the banker with a high income high expenditure lifestyle who does not need to sleep and wines and dines at the highest end places; the musician who takes drugs and mulls over people not appreciating their music and therefore they start self-destructing; and as again the list goes on. The actions and ideas above are due to the images that we assume is the role of our ideal self, and it ends up killing us spiritually, financially, and physically. It trades our true sense of self-esteem (ie accepting yourself) for a false sense of identity of what you are not.

How about try being yourself?

The overwhelming effort one takes to pigeonhole oneself can easily be channeled into being the best version of yourself, which is far more rewarding and effective. Everyone has different experiences and the whole interplay of the same factors, whether be it environment or habits, will affect everyone differently. And the beautiful part about humanity is that completely mimicking only results in an inferior version of the predecessor, purely because it's always going to be following the original, never exceeding the original.

Why being yourself is better

You can't change your basic fundamental self in some sense, we all come with inherent values and morals that were shaped by the way that we were brought up, as our brains are wired to be different. You can change the way your values, such as helpfulness, optimism, etc, and package them in a different way that is healthier (mentally, such that you can be happier), but you can't really change their presence. So the best way is to adapt your skills and values such that it becomes uniquely yours. There's no true basis of comparison when something is genuinely and uniquely yours, and is the best of yourself, for you will be the expert of your own ideas, sounds, skills or taste. So there's no such thing as being truly "superior" other than being "more of yourself" (that's of course my view).

The Most Important Questions

Some tips on how you can start really finding out whether you're pigeonholing yourself:

Are you doing some things you yourself think is not-exactly-wise because you think that fits the image of what you want yourself to be but you can't come to terms with it?

Is your aim your own, or directly lifted off someone else?

Is there someone, or some people, you worship and can see no flaws in?

Do you feel you're superior to everyone else because you are a ______ (label)? Do you feel like therefore you can't connect with others because they're inferior?

If the answer to any of the questions is yes, chances are, you are likely to end up pigeonholing yourself if you haven't already done so.

How To Fix It?

Steps to take would be to ask a billion and one why's to everything that you are aiming to be. Such as, "Why do I want to be ____?", "Why do I like ____?", and at the end of it you will have to find out whether you've been honest with yourself and see what you're truly about. At that time can you distill what is it that you want. The process is often tedious and painful, and probably take a lifetime because we have many areas of ourselves that we never knew existed. However the concept is simple, but it's difficult to achieve as it requires strong reflection, which incidentally wasn't a strength of mine either.

In music, you have to do this repeatedly before you can find the sound you want to achieve (ie something of your own). And through music appreciation, you can also find ways to appreciate how people are different, and how great art comes from people who choose to be the best that they can be even if they're in an anguished state, as they are honest to themselves and the art (even if they might not be to everything else).

That's why art is beautiful.

Lesson 4: Lessons Shared On Pulse-Based Music Education

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:03:00 +0000

My whole drive to do music education and my whole idea of coming up with Pulse is something of a personal journey for myself. My love for music keeps me alive and gives me perspective, but my love for mental health is guiding me to my true dream - happiness through honest, sincere connection through the medium of music, for everybody. It was these two passions that gave rise to this singular passion - Pulse and its effects on people. So you can view Pulse-Based Music Education on several different levels: on a musical level, on a technical level, on a psychological level, on a humanistic level; and they're probably all be correct for this is the reason why such an idea even spark.

So what has this got to do with anything? Pulse-Based Music Education is in its infancy stages and not going anywhere yet, so why am I saying so much? Simply because I want to share my vision who anyone who wants to read this too. =)

Lessons learned in music are not often exclusive to music alone; often times the source of the problem when we're playing music is not really a "musical" one, but instead a mindset issue, a psychological issue. So in the same breath, I'd like to also argue that great music is usually created from people who either actually made effort to deal with their own personal problems or made the effort to come to terms with one's weaknesses and strengths and to accept them. There were many great musicians with a wreck of a personal life, but that's actually where the grit in their stories when they create music comes from; they embraced their predicament and expressed it through their voice in music, rather than putting another front when they played music. This vulnerability and honesty is what gets people to connect, much like how we like to share stories of vulnerabilities with our closest friends and family; that's what makes art art, and the struggle to improve is also a great story to be told.

The fact that one is able to fully share one's true vulnerabilities, through whatever means of art, is cathartic, and is highly therapeutic to a person. At the same time, this release of emotions is precisely what keeps people attracted to the arts, where imperfection is perfection, because it is human. Pulse has one of the explanations as to why human emotions in the crowd greatly affect the abilities of the musicians to speak honestly through their music; and it has nothing to do with pride, instead the common Pulse that is generated by the musician and even the audience (such that if they're not matched the meaning is often lost) gives the energy and the experience to everyone, dictating what the final experience might be.

That can explain why a music performance can be life-changing to a "non-musical" person - it touches the very depths of a person's emotions and shares a common thread with him/her, but in his/her own perspective. That is the power of our auditory experiences when we listen to great music. That is also why we should always go to a performance with positive outlook and a willingness to let go of oneself to truly enjoy the music if we want to truly appreciate a performance.

So on the same line of thought, the pretense of a performer can greatly affect the crowd as well. As this is a public blog, I will reserve my (rather subjective) take on some particular types of music that are detrimental to a person's mental wellness by putting up false fronts, and everyone can get in on it, causing a mind-heart rift that will persist if one immerses in the music for too long. But this is for another day. =)

Back to the idea on why I wrote this post as well; the aim is to share why I'll be sharing a lot of personal life lessons that I hope will inspire and/or create discussion regarding personal growth and acceptance, as well as ways to a more mentally stable self. They will be covered during courses by me, or future license practitioners of this education system, but more importantly, they will be contextualised and repeated here, as many life lessons benefit from repeated learning.

Hope you will enjoy reading this blog. =)

Lesson 3: Overview of Pulse-Based Music Education

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:53:00 +0000

Overview of Pulse-Based Music Education

Definition

Pulse is an innate, inaudible structure to music, organised by the factor of time, to lay the foundation on which the harmonic, rhythmic and melodic ideas are presented. Pulse-Based Music Education is a system in which this phenomenon is explained and shared in words such that it is comprehensible through a formal language.

Objectives

Bring consciousness of Pulse to everyone, such that everyone can enjoy the true joy of music.

Create a community appreciators, musicians and educators together to share their joy of music.

Use Pulse and inspiration as a tool for self-improvement and arts appreciation.

Pulse as the foundation of a new type of therapy approach to be used for mental wellness.

Pulse Classification

Pulse Unconscious
A state where one is unaware of Pulse (i.e. unable to pinpoint location, tempo and logicality of Pulse) and the ability is thus dormant. Most people actually do not belong in this category because as long as you can genuinely dance with some sensitivity to the Pulse and/or play music to a certain degree, you probably are sensitive to Pulse despite not knowing it.

Pulse Conscious
This, of course is a rather large classification on its own, with three different levels. They are a continuum all the way from Pulse unconsciousness to Pulse generator. We have varying levels of Pulse consciousness for different types of music and sounds, and it is normal to have even Pulse unconscious to a particular genre of music.

The three levels are:

Pulse-sensitive - a state where one can identify where the Pulse is when listening to music.

Pulse-dependent - a state where one can depend on another person, the strongest Pulse generator, for reference of the Pulse, when playing music

Pulse-generator - often the source of energy and time for the band, the Pulse generator is a person who indicates the Pulse with or without playing notes (remember it's inaudible, though usually it's through indication through playing notes). A band full of Pulse generators is the stuff of legends, with plenty of legendary bands and musicians to cite as great examples, across genres.

Note: Not every member of every legendary band is a Pulse generator, which often explains why when a band breaks up the individual parts are not always ending up with great music thereafter.

Method of Teaching/Learning

Pulse-Based Music Education Programme believes in using the powerful effects of positivity and inspiration to approach education and sharing. Conceptual learning and experiential learning are the two critical foundations of Pulse-Based Music Education and will be carried out simultaneously through discussion, examples and experimentation.

Rote-learning as a modality will be used sparingly as it is a useful source of muscle memory as well as theory knowledge, but will always be paired with the other two modalities for more efficacious and contextual learning.

The courses will always begin with music appreciation, regardless of target audience's abilities and experience, as the root of learning in Pulse-Based Music Education is appreciation. Of course, the level of difficulty would be moderated to abilities of individuals in the class.

The aim for Pulse-Based Music Education is to be able to bring out individuality in the context of a community, i.e. honest opinions and discussions regarding relevant topics and healthy discussions. This is to allow free-flowing of information between different people with different ideas to come to understand and allow for understanding.

More importantly, for those who are simply music lovers who want to learn more about Pulse, the classes will be gearing more towards exposure and experience of various life-like music performances (ultimately) such that you can understand the joys of the art and have a new facet to your life. The Programme aims to help you find your personal favourite artists/bands/genres such that you can find connection with someone communicating with you through this beautiful medium, across cultural and geographical boundaries. Also, it also aims to give you a wide spectrum of experiences to enrich your life.

As for homework, there will definitely be. You'll be tasked to enjoy music, and expose yourself to a variety of different sounds, genres and styles; and that is the key to Pulse-Based Music Education - enjoying and appreciating a variety of sounds in music. =)

Lesson 2: What Is Pulse?

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:10:00 +0000

What Is Pulse?

Pulse, in music, is a phenomenon no different from Pulse in our bodies. It is the basis on which music is structured upon such that one has the freedom to express. As with everything else, music requires a universal structure which is the foundation behind every note played or sung, or every moment silent, in order for it to have a semblance of logicality or continuity that allows the music to be perceived much like a language as well as an art. Just as much as you can't write literature without sentences, you can't express music without Pulse. (This statement might incite some people to accept a challenge to create pulseless music, which challenges even our innate rhythmic senses)

Pulse doesn't refer to obvious, repetitive, strict time that is always 4 crotchets to a bar or even 23 quavers to one. Instead Pulse refers to an intrinsic organisation of time that all humans have, as in the basis behind our ability to dance to music and feel a structure and passing of time through music. Even "free time" is done best with a strong sense of Pulse behind it, such that if you can sense the Pulse from the start to the end there is always a constant rhythm going behind which is the Pulse that might be grouped in different ways according to the logical flow of the musician.

Another critical factor of Pulse is that it is ideally an inaudible sense of time, meaning that no notes would ideally be played precisely with the Pulse but instead around it. This defies most conventional idea and is probably the crux of what Pulse is all about. Think about it: Our bodies contain a heart which pumps pretty much steadily for most of the day depending on your mood, activity and many other factors which affect our heart rate. However, do we ever physically feel our pulse most of the time? If you do, I would suggest you see a doctor regarding palpitations. Our perception, our movements and our thoughts are actually running in relation to the Pulse. We think faster when our heart rate is sped up (and vice versa), and we do things slower as our heart rate slows down (and vice versa again), but we would never thinking and moving exactly as our body's Pulse does, if it does it'll probably cause awkwardness, robotic movements and weird sensations (which is why if you always feel your heartbeat there's something wrong). Being organisms, humans are meant to be organic and fluid, such that movements are gradual rather than step-based. It is the same with music, when we play music that is always on the Pulse, it basically becomes robotic, because it is like moving together with your own body's Pulse.

Before the advent of technology, due to the fact that there was no such thing as digital or robotic, music was made mostly with a strong sense of Pulse but never on it. Live music never aimed to be on the Pulse despite the metronome and the over-dependence on it because there were no sounds and music that was on the Pulse. But don't take my word for it, feel the difference when you listen to these two famous pop songs done differently.

Case Example 1
Sara Bareilles' Love Song - Studio Version

vs Sara Bareilles' Love Song Live At Abbey Road

Case Example 2
Bruno Mars' Nothin' On You Studio Version

Bruno Mars' Nothin' On You covered on YouTube

Can you feel the difference in the emotional texture and the groove of the music? One was basically on the Pulse and the other was somewhat around the Pulse especially for Sara Bareille's live version, and the vocals of the guy who covered Nothin' On You.

So, in summary, Pulse is the organisational structure on which musical structure, complex or simple, is built upon. It is the basic building block - not harmony nor any strict rhythm. It is an inaudible component of music that gives direction to the music and allows music to spring forth but when the Pulse becomes audible (or simply that the music/notes are all on the Pulse), very often the music would end up being robotic and awkward.

This is a simplistic and rather directive way of describing Pulse as like most things, a short overview is unlikely to completely explain the full idea behind Pulse, therefore if you're interested, feel free to explore further into this blog for more ideas on Pulse-Based Music Education. =)

Lesson 1: What Is Pulse-Based Music Education?

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:51:00 +0000

What is Pulse-Based Music Education about?

There are so many music education programmes out there, ranging from classical violin to rock guitar, from theory of music to instrumental technique, from operatic vocals to extreme death metal shred bass, and each of them further one's aim to go deeper into one's own niche and expand one's ideas within the area which they love or simply want to learn more from. All of them try to equip the eager student who desperately want to evolve from a young student to a genuine musician, who gets one of the best jobs in the world: to earn a living doing what you love.

Pulse-Based Music Education's aims are no different from most of these programmes; the aim is to help students reach their dreams of being a musician. However, the music education programme does not only cover music students or musicians, it also includes the everyday music aficionado that wants to delve deeper into this beautiful world of aural artistry and understand how the music makes us move, so that we can extract more pleasure from every song that we listen to, and to further the deep interest in this wonderful art. Pulse-Based Music Education is an education programme to rekindle passion for music, as well as to revolutionise one's way of thinking, feeling and experiencing music, while serving to help you find your individual preferences and sound, empowering you to be more of the best version of yourself, musically or not.

The programme aims to give different skills to different groups of people:

Music-Lovers

The world is constantly flooded with music nowadays. From the stereo from the car on the street, to the lounge music playing in the background in the departmental store. Of course, the most important music that everyone would rather listen to the most is the music that they have in their MP3 Player that stores their treasure trove of their favourite music. Every music lover has his/her favourite artist, favourite track and probably a different playlist for a different mood.

Would you want to take your music appreciation to the next level? The programme will expose you to an array of new listening experiences and share a new, engaging and fun approach to listening to music which will allow you to take your appreciation of the music, regardless whether it is modern or classical, simple or complex, to a whole new level. It shall allow you to understand what it is about a band, a singer or a genre of music that appeals to you so much, and allow you to appreciate other genres that other people around you like, further understanding their preferences and characters by proxy.

Another great opportunity offered by the programme is to help you find the artist/genre/sound that fits you the most. The system aims to help you abolish all pre-conceived notions about a genre, an artist or a particular sound and instead build a strong foundation to explore emotions and ideas channeled through the music without much work other than simply listening to the music through a new lens.

Pulse-Based Music Education is a means of heightening one's senses for music, without having the hassle of learning the intricacies of music theory and formal education that bog down rather than enlighten if done before one is ready. What is taught is actually a very primitive way of sensing music: by its pulse; and from there we can learn to interpret and understand music in vastly different ways that we've ever done before. It will also enhance your learning if you were to ever pick up any instrument in the future for fun, shortening the process required to be proficient enough to create the music that you want, simply because your musical senses would have been developed.

The next few posts for you will give you an insight more into this idea.

Music Students

Feeling a musician's block for the longest time? Unable to improve your own musicality despite following your teacher's every word, and spending many hours practising your instrument? Or are you really good at playing but find it hard to find real joy out of playing music anymore? There are many other things that music students, and musicians, suffer that affect the quality of their music and the ability for them to truly express themselves. These are common things that afflict many of us as it's just as much a personal growth issue as it is about learning the ethereal parts of music that can't be easily quantified by words.

Well, at least what used to be ethereal parts of music, because the idea behind pulse is a means to actually explain the phenomenon of musicality. It does not fully explain everything in music, but it serves a template to analyse and appreciate music on a details-based level, for you to make the further analysis on the other elements of music. The first part of any musician's journey, and arguably the most important part of his/her entire journey is musical appreciation; without it most of the time musicians flounder and often fail to express anything meaningful in the music. You have to start as a music lover before you can be a musician; you have to be a fan of music, any type of music, before you can start creating your own. And Pulse-Based Music Education is helping you achieve your musical aims by providing you the resources to revolutionise the way you perceive music and its role in your life, and how to make use of what the masters had to turn into your own - not just the notes and the compositions, but their energy and their expressions as well.

No matter what level of playing a musician is at, Pulse-Based Music Education aims to help you explore your ideas on music and find a community of people who are as eager about music as you to find your direction in music with a supportive environment. Another thing that Pulse-Based Music Education aims to do is to use fundamental principles to help you achieve your personal sound and ideas to the maximum of one can be; i.e. as a choice but not completely due to limitations. Pulse is a very personal and strong motivational force one can utilise purposefully to produce a more personalised sound rather than that which is an exact copy of another person or independent of your current scenario. The most important question in Pulse-Based Music Education is whether you are expressing the best you can, not anything else.

Music Teachers

There's this one thing which most music teachers have to admit - it's hard to teach musicality to students. It's like this elusive thing that everyone's working hard to get to but very often can't reach due to a host of reasons. Another thing that is difficult to explain is how this elusive thing appears in a person's playing and how we can reach it. Can we quantify how this person plays this phrase in a more musical manner than another person? How do you put words to something like this which is almost impossible to explain in words? Pulse-Based Music Education intends to break that cycle and bring to you the ability to talk about musicality in a structured and logical way, without taking out the beauty and subjectivity in music.

Another point that I believe many people will agree with is that teaching music as a career is hard. Many-a-times the students are not inspired and unwilling, or unable to improve because of various reasons. It becomes a slow and draggy process where every time you meet your student there's barely any improvement, if any, and there's barely energy for you to carry on. What is it that keeps the best teachers going, and create so many wonderful students along the way? And how is it that they can love their job? There is one word which can change all of this - inspiration. There are teachers who whip their students into shape, there are teachers who magically lift their students to a higher plane of playing by constant encouragement, and there are those with a few simple words of wisdom drastically change a music student's life for the better. They all work, but are very dependent on individual, because no matter what method you choose, if you don't learn that important aspect in education, your results would vary. It would vary because different students will be intrinsically motivated at different levels, but if you were to base whatever methods you have with inspiration, you're bound to get somewhere. An inspired student will be far more inspiring to teach than a student who drags himself/herself into your room to go through same few things again.

Pulse-Based Music Education aims to reduce the difficulty of both aspects of teaching by providing a new set of analysis to allow yourself to explain things which were previously difficult to explain, as well as showing you ways of inspiring students, and yourself, through simple daily measures that one can take to keep the momentum going. It is a course specially tailored for individual strength of each participant, and prescribes no fixed method to deal with inspiration, but instead "what works best for you" in a package.

That's the introduction to Pulse-Based Music Education. In Lesson 2 I'll start covering what Pulse is all about.

Welcome

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Welcome to my blog of Music Appreciation and Education.

Dear Friends, I am sorry that I haven't been updating much on Rock due to a whole bunch of commitments. More importantly, I shall be starting a new vlogging session soon. Still in the process of getting it out. Meant to make it easier to learn. =) Thank you for your understanding!

If you're new here, or wondering what this blog is about, please read:
First Post - Introduction

For Basic Listening Skill knowledge, please start with:
How To Start Listening To Jazz
and
How Do You Start Analysing

The current series: Basics of Listening - Genres - Classical 2

Basics - Genres - Classical 1
Basics - Genres - Classical 2

Basics - Rhythm - Rock
Basics - Genres - Rock 1
Basics - Genres - Rock 2
Basics - Genres - Rock 3
Basics - Genres - Rock 4

Basics - Rhythm - Funk
Basics - Rhythm - Funk 1
Basics - Rhythm - Funk 2
Basics - Rhythm - Funk 3
Basics - Rhythm - Funk 4

Basics - Rhythm - Swing
Basics - Rhythm - Swing 1
Basics - Rhythm - Swing 2
Basics - Rhythm - Swing 3
Basics - Rhythm - Swing 4

Basics - Genres - Pop
Basics - Genres - Pop 1
Basics - Genres - Pop 2
Basics - Genres - Pop 3
Basics - Genres - Pop 4

Reference for dissection of a song: Stacey Kent Series

For a run through of her series to join me in analysing her piece "The Best Is Yet To Come" on YouTube from a live performance:
Stacey Kent 1
Stacey Kent 2
Stacey Kent 3
Stacey Kent 4

Random Comments:
Random Comments 1 - Audiophiles

Thank you.

Basics - Genres - Classical 2

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:30:00 +0000

Mozart

What would classical music without dear Mozart? One of the most brilliant composers of all time. And one of the most difficult to truly understand.

His music is perfect, yet in its perfection it is riddled with so much feelings and imperfection of humanity. Like how my piano teacher liked to describe him, "Too simple for beginners, too difficult for the masters", Mozart has this amazing quality of making simplistic rules still sound so filled with emotions.

The biggest difficulty of all time to really play or experience Mozart's music is to understand his difficult life despite having that immense talent within him. Confined by the rules of the aristocrats and the ideas of the people of his time, he still managed to bring forth his cynicism, and true emotions into his music despite the constant need for "happy music" by the nobles.

Here is his masterpiece, in a few excerpts. Please do listen more if you find this emotional scintillating, for it is for me.

Haydn

Again, one of the best composers. One who had to continuously produce symphonies after symphonies because of the fact that he was commissioned to do weekly symphonic pieces for the ones who hired him. He was ingenious with his ideas throughout these symphonies, but couldn't fully expand his music to its full potential until he left the service later in his life.

That's when some of his best works were produced. My personal favourites are his quartets; actually my favourite music within classical is chamber music to begin with anyway. Despite the largely classical framework, Haydn, much like Mozart, inserted his own ideas and beautiful feelings in every piece.

Here is a beautiful cello concerto written by him.

Gluck

One of the greatest violin masters playing this beautiful piece. Gluck was more well known for his works in operatic work. Operas are amazingly difficult grand works in my opinion. Firstly, plot, characters and lyrics are some really difficult things to do. On top of that you have to work on orchestration, arrangement, and melodic writing and present it all in a coherent form with thematic repetitions (repeating themes, which are melodic phrases or certain sounds that reminds people of each individual in the opera or characterises the ideas behind the opera) so that people can relate to the piece and understand it as a play and a symphony all at the same time.

Enjoy. =)

Beethoven

Everyone trained in classical music would be able to identify Beethoven as one of the great masters. Much like Mozart defined the transition between Baroque and Classical, Beethoven defined the transition between Classical to Romantic.

He wrote so many amazing pieces that till now everyone knows the melodies at the very least. But not only are his pieces filled with great melodic value, they have amazing arrangements. He magically uses different instruments to bring out the melody to bring contrasting sounds and emotions within his works. His usage of instrumentation to colour his chords in the way to evoke emotions is still one of the most studied materials for all classical composing students.

The piece coming up is one of the most well-known pieces ever. Used over and over again in movies and played virtually everywhere, this piece of music was only but one of the masterpieces that Beethoven created.

Remember that Beethoven slowly turned deaf as he progressed through the years. He might have lost his hearing, but that might have been the secret to his amazing ability to compose new melodies arrangements - for all those music were in his head and he had no other distractions. This is an amazingly important thing to note - for in music, if we cannot even begin to hear the sound within our own mind, how would it ever come out any bit meaningful and powerful. I think that Beethoven is a great proof of that point.

Hope you enjoyed this one too! =D

Basics - Genres - Classical 1

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 03:40:00 +0000

Hi everyone! Will be covering Classical in 4 periods... Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Contemporary. So it'll be with each post.

I know I haven't been updating much... Sadly school is a very taxing process and getting out there is even more difficult. Haha.

Anyway so to start everything, I'd like to show you THE composer, the one who started our whole knowledge of the Western Music Theory; the one who wrote the "Well-Tempered Clavier" and started the equal temperament which became a standard for most of music for a long time.

Bach

One of the most famous pieces of all time. In my opinion, as any kind of musician, if you cannot appreciate Bach's grandiosity in the sphere in music, you're probably better off not playing. Why? He was pivotal in the development of music as we now know it. Almost everyone has been inspired from him...

Great examples in jazz are people like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, who got a large part of their early sound in bebop through going through Bach Preludes and Fugues. He had a super advanced way of thinking about music, beyond even classical and romantic theory in large parts. The concept of time being involved with harmony was unthinkable for most even after him, but he did things instinctively, creating music and writing it so organically.

Another part of his brilliance is the amazing ability to create great 2-4 part melodies and lines which give such amazing texture to any music that he creates. Listen to this piece, there are so many counter melodies and ideas running through, it's almost like a full 4 piece band running through different lines or an orchestra going through different lines. Of course there were plenty of people after him who could create such music but he was an unstoppable force in terms of influence.

There is another thing to note about Baroque period. Right now, because the scores are virtually empty rather than the notes and some important notations left by the composer due to the fact that the printing press was still primitive and making of the scores was through carving of a mould which was very difficult if you had so many markings and notes. So a lot of ornamentation and details were left out and left to the discretion of the musician.

Vivaldi

Interesting rendition of the piece. I don't know if I completely agree with some parts of the piece with all the phrasing short. But that's me. Great technique, horrible video and I do like her overall idea of the piece.

There's this edgy feel to this music. Vivaldi probably never really intended this, but this is where classical music goes into an area of "craft-based" thing. Vivaldi wasn't a great arranger, if you notice the lines are pretty much simple. The good part about all of this is that Vivaldi has composed a no of pieces where the violin really stood out. And therefore it always being utilised.

His is the Russian Baroque sound. A bit stiffer, a lot more notes and a lot more bombastic in my opinion. Not that it's any worse than other Baroque music. I think that it's definitely one of those more easily palatable music that wows people without any musical knowledge, while still keeping the art form alive.

Handel

A lot of Baroque music is still used nowadays in Catholic churches and some Christian churches due to the fact that many hymns came from Baroque and Renaissance, but since Renaissance did not have much notated music (mostly aural), most of the music retained were mainly adapted from the Baroque period.

Handel was one of those great composers who composed brilliant tunes, for many purposes, including his beliefs. The Messiah is one of his most famous pieces, and is probably one of the most overplayed classical piece over Canon in D. Here's Hallelujah

Grand music. Not like the Russian sound, but more on harmony and inter-weaving lines. This version is also well-known to be "romanticised" meaning made to be less "staunch" and more towards a modern sound in many sense. This is what's commonly done to much Baroque music because of the nature of the lack of obvious notation of "emotions" by the Baroque composers.

Henry Purcell

Here's the jazz/classical snob himself - Wynton Marsalis. This is a recording trying to stay true to the original sound of the Baroque music. Almost completely emotionless and staunch. This is one of the beauties of the music actually - most of Baroque music was meant for Church or dancing. These were the two large functions of music in the past (still used in those areas obviously). Other than that were enjoyment for the royalty obviously but that's also rare.

Henry Purcell to me was a great melodist and had quite good arrangements... Do check out more of his music if you're interested. =)

Pachelbel

The man himself...

I'll take this opportunity to introduce to you the original Baroque instruments.

All Baroque instruments here. It's quite amazing because most people don't dare to use such instruments because it is rather different from the modern instruments. And such it's easy to mix up the two unless you dedicate yourself to the Baroque instruments like these people did.

YouTube any other Canon in D to compare. It's actually a great piece illustrating the methods of composition in Baroque. Canon itself means people taking turns one after another to play the same line/melody. This is really brought forth by this piece and is one of the more accessible tunes till this date.

Imagine if Pachelbel got royalty for every time this piece is played in this day and age. He'd probably be super wealthy. Too bad that by the time this piece is popularised, he is long gone. Haha

That's the nature of classical music mostly anyway.

Next up will be the Classical era. Hope you enjoyed this post! =D

Basics - Genres - Rock 4

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:55:00 +0000

Blogger's Notes

It's quite interesting that there's a growing awareness in RJC Jazz Club of issues. And the fact that J1s are being left alone is kind of unnerving for them I believe.

Anyway I have to say that the Singaporean music scene is horribly hilarious. From mainstream to the supposed-niche we're still dealing with people going for things purely because it confers a status... When are we going to move to a better society?

To talk about rock in a modern day context... Everyone knows a lot of modern rock guitarists, so I don't need to over-introduce. But nowadays in the truly rock scene there are mainly guitar heroes, not so much of bands anymore interestingly enough. At least from what I've been seeing. Not that guitar heroes are bad at all... Great musicians will still produce great music regardless whether they're the leaders of the band or not. Haha.

Derek Trucks

I have to thank Tzung Siang for this introduction. I love this guy to be very honest. Derek Trucks has the old school sound while still being modern and crossing many genre borders with his music.

Slide guitar was something I thought to be quite obsolete until I hear this guy play with it. He's amazing! Great intonation, slides and versatility for a slide guitarist. His tone and phrasing are bluesy but forward and modern at the same time.

His band is often rather big with big bombastic sounds... But no instrument is out of place. I would say that his arrangements and choice of musicians are impeccable and by far one of the best rock musicians of nowadays within my knowledge.

Eric Johnson

Tone-freak extraordinaire. Everything about his rig is so precise that even a wrong battery in a pedal can give a wrong sound. Can completely understand the feeling...

He released too little music because of the over-obsession over his tone (he said it himself) and now quite regrets it. However, I think his amazing tone is one of the reason why he's still so respected and stunning because no one ever really could go down to such details in the tone.

Great example of a person who actually has great sound and ideas but gets bogged down by the too-highly-tuned sense of tonality. But seriously... He has more than half the battle won in my opinion... Hehe

Great musician nonetheless.

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai

Here I'm going to be talking about a couple of very very popular guitarists who I've never liked....

But I'm going to talk about them in the same thread nonetheless....

To be honest I don't like either. Neither match with me in terms of musical ideals or sound. All the guys before hand are that much better in my opinion.

Joe Satriani writes pretty nice lines; and has pretty good ideas in my opinion. However the music is very... Stale. No matter what great riffs (honestly he does have a few) and how much he jumps around, the music is overly stiff. A lot of flashy stuff which don't make musical sense.

Ultimate showcase. Talk about Lady Gaga being flashy... At least Vai actually has substance actually...

For me, the effects are okay... But depending on it and the whammy stick way too much gets to me. And to have that fan blowing his face the whole way through? I actually heard his older stuff, he sounds like a typical sessionist even in his own solo works. Why do I say that? I don't get a hint of genuine expression from him. I know this would be blasphemy that I'm burning two biggest guitarists out there right now but Satch and Vai are both musically dead compared to all their predecessors and many current guitarists in my opinion, including Eric Johnson.

Conclusion

I'm talking mainly about mainstream rock music from the beginnings till now. Mainly blues rock and rock instrumentals or classic rock which was the main bulk. There are many great fusion players and other classifications of rock that I will be covering when I start going into sub-genres.

Artistically speaking, I prefer a lot of the older stuff; other than for people like Derek Trucks and Eric Johnson and Paul Gilbert (but because most of his solo works and more famous works are in metal); and feel that mainstream rock sound is just quite diluted with a very sessionist sound which I'm very much against.

As again this is a very opinion based stand for this portion.

Basics - Genres - Rock 3

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:13:00 +0000

Blogger's Notes

Hey guys, yes it's been ages. School + playing + arranging + exercising is very tiring stuff... Haha

Plus trying to start a music vlog is rather difficult. The usage of YouTube videos and all is gonna be slightly tougher than I thought. So I shall try to work out something before I continue down that path fully. I thought I might as well finish this series on Rock.

Guns and Roses

I'm pretty sure everyone knows them. With Slash coming down and everything. Great licks, druggy attitude, lots of push pull effects (yes especially in this track actually).

A unique vocalist, strong lead guitar, steady bassist and rhythm guitar, and a hard hitting drummer spells a great rock band. They have good songwriting but the variations are not as vast as Led Zep or Queen. I have a feeling that they listen to less varieties during their time, which gives them a much stronger rock feel and attitude, but comes with the drawback of sounding a bit stale across their albums...

But nonetheless a classic band you should never miss out if you ever want to know what rock is about. =)

Now... Guns and Roses is left with only Axl Rose with a completely new set up. I personally liked Chinese Democracy for its audacity and new sound it put to the band... But I understand the frustrations - they went back to using "dynamic sounding" music. Basically to say it does not something which perpetuates the loudness wars. If you wanna read more about Loudness Wars, go Google it. =)

Rush

Probably one of my favourite bands from the rock genre. Firstly they stuck together for like the longest time, secondly they kept moving and evolving their overall band sound. There's to be a lot of respect given there.

They obviously listen quite widely and change their sound with the time. They have a super nice long history on Wikipedia: Rush. And I still think that their music has always been that filled with the freedom and energy of rock with the adaptability of any great musician. =) So yup.

Mr Big

Now this band is probably my favourite out of all the rock bands. Why? Great vocalist with a bluesy feel to his great husky voice (which interesting lasted for so long!), an insanely technical bassist who has great appreciation for rock and knows how to overplay just right for rock (stunning stuff), a great energetic drummer drives the band like a b**ch and of course, who could ever forget, that great legend of a guitarist who gives the modern edge and kick in the music.

Mr Big is also one of those diverse bands which looked for different sounds. Sadly they never lasted long with one another and went off to each do their own projects or support others in theirs. Of course then they were smart enough to cash in on that recently and had a reunion. One of the smartest financial and commercial move for the music. But revival of their great tracks is also a great thing in my opinion.

A band with a bassist and guitarist who overplay by most definitions coming together to create insanely cohesive and powerful music without sounding like they're playing too much, because they can play as a band. Thus I have to give them respect. Though usually such projects don't last for long... That's why Rush is such a gem.

That concludes Rock 3 =)

Basics - Genres - Rock 2

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 10:57:00 +0000

Blogger's Notes

Been listening to Led Zep's box CD set for the past 2 days. Haha awesome stuff. Will be talking about them later on. They're one of those bands which are so all-encompassing and so individualistic that no one can say that they are not on a league of their own.

This part will be talking about bands who made a big difference, which is why Cream was planned to be put here. Previous was about "Guitar Heroes" of rock.

I won't be touching on a lot of the people with crossover sounds like Beatles (pop rock and psychedelic rock later on) or Frank Zappa, but concentrate on the mainstream rock people.

And I forgot to talk about something which is very related to the energy behind rock. It's a subversive way of expressing one's freedom - freedom being the centre trait of all American music. It's an "I'm speaking out! I want my freedom!" It's when people still had tons of ideals and people dreamed of a free America.

Cream

Bad mullets + lots of drugs + bad facial hair + weed hanging from a bass and what do you get? One of the best bands ever in the history of rock. Constantly getting stoned before playing or singing, the band is infamous for playing like spastic people (in terms of looks) but still creating this amazing sound that transcends time.

Constantly out of tune vocals, grit in the voice, clean but more staccato drum sounds (and amazingly well-phrased), hard bass plucking with slight bit of compression and distortion, and of course an insanely sweet distorted SG with great bluesy licks always succinct and beautiful.

There's a lot in this kind in this music which is similar to jazz than one realises. The constant improvisation in the background by both Jack and Ginger are essential in keeping the energy and spirit of the music up.

Led Zeppelin

Epic band. Epic song. One of the most overplayed guitar lines in the history of guitar-dom. Haha.

I think that they were the few guys who made rock really epic. Probably the most experimental of their time, ranging from shuffle to reggae and all kinds of sounds. This song is a great testament to their great musicality, arrangement and song writing. From the starting of the song with this haunting guitar line and flute ensemble patch (on keyboard), leading to a point where after the vocals come in, they slowly build up with introduction of another guitar and keyboard synths, and doubling of melody. They start layering the sound and slowly build up the energy of the music and push before they release it with another sudden holding back, then slowly build it back up. The music is like a roller coaster. Then comes the drums and they slowly build up the energy of the music to that energetic rock sound at the end.

Throughout the whole song you don't sense any sudden changes, everything sounded very organic and powerful. That was how beautiful rock music had been.

Yes I'm a big fan of their ingenious sound and arrangements. It's simple, but beautiful.

Queen

Anyone musician who hasn't heard of Queen should be shot. Then revived again just to be shot again. Brilliant arrangements, catchy hooks, classical ideas mixed with rock sound. Haunting melodies with haunting arrangements and amazingly heartfelt sounds.

Need I talk more about this song? Led Zeppelin and Queen are some of the best bands ever.

AC/DC

This band is probably the epitome of clean in rock for their era. At such insanely high quality recordings, you can hear every single note on the guitar played with precision and clarity. The drummer is also by far one of the cleanest in my opinion.

Clean sounds from rock? Yeah; clean ideas of very gritty ideas and very strong opinions. It's like a razor tongue which is always precise and to the point.

Any rock band should always aspire to at least have such a level of cleanliness in their playing in my opinion. And the groove and the energy of the music. The vocals fits their sound (though the sound of nodules is always kind of painful to me) perfectly too.

Want to be a rocker? Learn from the best and the guys who made it what it is today. =)

That ends Rock 2

Basics - Genres - Rock 1

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:44:00 +0000

Blogger's Notes

Been taking a short break (2 days) from blogging to re-think my ideas on what to write about. I have no idea what everyone needs/wants from this blog. Any ideas? Perhaps I should put up a poll.

And now that I got an HD Cam, I'm hoping to possibly start vlogging. So that no one has to read so much... I can talk like Leonard Bernstein to the camera and talk about each genre and rhythm in music. Haha

But that would take a while before I start too. Please those who are reading this feel free to suggest to me new ideas! =)

What is rock?

I'm personally a big fan the good ol' days of rock. I'm pretty sure there was a lot of tainting, but at least the music was still much about its ideals. Nowadays rock-stardom is all about being flashy and "who's more gimmicky". That's the evolution of the genre for the last 20 years at least - thus emo-pop-rock came to be.

I'll be going back into the past to look at key individuals who made rock what it is. I'll show you how all-encompassing rock used to be and how it's really all about a subversive edge with some gimmicks but it's all about making a point. What's more is the fact that those who went into it really listened very very vastly and had their own opinions.

I shall be covering blues rock mainly for this part of the series, which was the basis behind rock in many sense till today.

Jimi Hendrix

No rock musician can ever truly say that he/she is a rocker until he/she has heard Jimi Hendrix; at least one, if not extensive.

Yes he realised he was out of tune unlike most other trying-to-be-rock musicians. A guitar god, and one of the greatest pushers for rock of all time. What is rock about?

It's very heavy on the 1 and 3 and loves distortion on guitar and sometimes bass. It's an attitude of its own. Notice how Jimi is like "who cares what song you guys want to hear? I'm gonna do something I like!" Btw, please utilise the skills shared in previous parts to analyse the rhythm. Because I'm not covering rhythm but the attitude and sound of the genre therefore I wouldn't go in-depth into this until I go through the rock rhythm.

That is the subversive, "I love to do it my way, so what if I'm famous" attitude. They did exactly what they want from the start of the song (massive "wanking" session by most people's terms nowadays), but it was filled with the energy of individualism. At the same time it was not each person going off on his own, but instead a group of musicians coming together to create a collective sound.

Bassist and drummer are great example of people who fill the sound nicely in rock. The drummer does a lot of fills and a lot of sound, giving a strong beat at the same time. The bassist also does similar things on his P Bass (like that tone with a pick) and keeps the sustain going to bring elevate the atmosphere.

Notice that this early rock style is vastly different from a lot of the later trying-to-simplify-too-much rock of the later days which doesn't make any sense. That is much like the oversimplification of R&B and other genres.

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Slow blues rock. Stevie Ray Vaughan is one of the few guys you'd always feel it's such a waste that he died young - even though he didn't OD. He died from a plane crash which was meant for Eric Clapton. Till today I'm still wondering what would have happened if it was Clapton on the plane... Either way the world would have a tragic loss...

Anyway he was the "guitar hero" in many sense. High gauge strings, tone running through one fender and one marshall to bring out different frequencies and different distortions... He's quite picky about tone and his sound. He's one of those guys that people would love to slam as being picky and overplaying and "not about the music". But he was all about the music.

Every note has its reason, every phrase has its direction. He plays way longer than any rock guitarist, and has more interesting lines than anyone else. He works with big phrases in music, even when he sings. His voice is husky and powerful, with tons of grit and soul within.

Notice his band barely need to do anything. If I was his bassist I'd probably be kicking back and just keeping the groove going while listening to him soulfully sing and play. Notice how they keep the groove - I'll cover this next time when I'm doing rhythm of blues rock.

He had the element of blues - storytelling, as well as the individualism of rock, which made him still a monument in rock and blues equally for such a long time.

Eric Clapton

Hearing this song every day because my brother is trying to play it on guitar (not as high level of course). But it's really a beautiful song which Eric Clapton wrote because of the death of his son.

Anyone who doesn't know Eric Clapton and claims to be a musician should be shot. Haha. I didn't appreciate him till the last 3 years when I realised how to enjoy every music in every genre with the same attitude. It's really guitar heavy and it's more of a ballad than purely a rock song or a typical one at that. But this shows you the other end of the spectrum from the same series of legends - Jimi, SRV and Clapton - they have multiple sounds though all of them are rock.

Will dwelve into this for the next part. For now, please enjoy the music. =)

Basics - Rhythm - Funk 4

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:37:00 +0000

Fourplay

I listed them as a great crossover for most people who cannot get past pop and want to get started on jazz. Smooth jazz is a very common reincarnation of what jazz is like. However if you listen to it, it does not have the hallmarks of funk of the "grooving" I was talking about.

What does that mean? I did mention I was going to talk about more poppish versions of funk didn't I? This is funk like how Michael Jackson did it - completely in time. This gave you an exact groove and exact pulse that you couldn't miss it unless you really have no concept of rhythm.

Same strong back beat groove from the drums, and the same repetitive bass groove and one which actually matches the bass drum in this scenario. This is funk in smooth jazz - the "pop" side of jazz which is meant to appeal to the general masses, much like all those random smooth jazz tracks you hear from shops like That CD Shop and those kind of music which sounds high class but probably has no artistic value ironically.

Okay I shouldn't slam this down too hard. It is a great crossover without the most important elements of truly good music (as opposed to Stacey Kent) because of the lack of rhythmic ideas. Thus poppish reincarnation of funk. This is actually one of the most common reincarnations because smooth jazz being so popular has generated a rather large audience and of course that also means quite a number of bands taking up this sound.

Maroon 5

Obviously funk-inspired, Maroon 5 is one of those gems in pop music that makes you really enjoy the groove because it actually exists.

Firstly, I have to say the drummer has got the groove down-pat, he laid back from the first beat, and he was the guy who started the whole sound. Bassist lays back slightly less than him, and the guitarist comes slightly on top of the beat. Pianist is also leaning back slightly.

Backbeat groove, repetitive bassline with laid back sound, repetitive guitar funk lines and a repetitive piano line. However the whole way through there's a lot of push pull and a lot of grooving, keeping the music going. Rhythm wise this is not really pushing the boundaries because it is just a swung funk with a bit of variations. However when you match the vocalist and the sound of the music (production is very much the sound of "pop" rather than funk with emphasis on the vocals and drums) you get something that can really sell.

What's more is the sweet fact that the chorus is almost completely off beat which is a great pushing factor for their music to actually have a drive despite the slow laid back funk groove.

That marks the end of the rhythm of funk. =)

Basics - Rhythm - Funk 3

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:31:00 +0000

One of my all-time favourite bands - Jamiroquai. Was first exposed to them with their hit single Virtual Insanity when I was younger. They are essentially an acid jazz-funk band that is really all about the grooving and dancing.

Notice the repetitive bassline, with extra fills and fast runs in between, together with a new kinda grooving on the drums where the hi hat fills all four semiquavers of the beat. The bass is just BARELY behind the beat, but it's obvious when you beat out the pulse. The drums is almost completely on the beat, giving the full sound for the music to drive by. And this time the guitar lays back slightly further than the bass. It's quite a sweet groove.

Plus on top of that, they have strings to add on a new layer to the music. This is part of JK (lead singer's) experiments into using orchestras into the band's music. Notice that the orchestra is also slightly behind the beat - a common trait due to the nature of string instruments' response time when bowed.

Sidenote: Great triangle work if you noticed. It's really sweet. It's a small but powerful instrument in adding the subtle drive to the sound. It's slightly ahead of the beat and is also part of the drive.

And as for the vocalist, he tends to lean back mostly, giving the groove feeling, which matches his dancing throughout most of his songs anyway.

This is one of the branches of how funk has gone.

All time favourite fusion band - Weather Report. And one of the most beautiful pieces written, by Joe Zawinul, about Birdland, one of the revered places in jazz history till now, called Birdland. Notice that the starting starts with a riff from the synthesizer, which immediate indicates a kind of funk groove in the music.

Then comes the drums. Obviously way ahead of the beat. Again, with semiquavers played out at the back beat emphasised. The bass comes in with a groove nicely placed just behind the beat. This was the power of the wonderful Weather Report. Funk groove with a lot of R&B flavour and jazz sound in their midst.

Jaco provided the R&B lines and groove for the bassline. And Peter Erskine adds this almost rockish groove to the mix, while Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter add their jazz and world sounds in the midst. This is where funk was also utilised after its creation.

It was this catchy groovy thing that could be used as a hook to portray the power of dancing and happiness that is now pervasive in fusion and a lot of similar music.

Next up, more "poppish" versions of funk.

Basics - Rhythm - Funk 2

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:47:00 +0000

Parliament Funkadelic. Some of the grooviest stuff in the world. Repetitive groove again. Drummer just keeps time and just keeps the backbeat going. That's the rhythm driving this band.

Notice this time that the drummer is on time, but the guitar and bass are actually laying back. They have a unison straight funk groove. Notice there's no more emphasis on the offbeats, and a lot more driving force straight down into the ears. Horns and vocalists all lay back quite a bit, and that's the sound of funk groove.

Suddenly the middle part comes at 3.30. Amazing stuff. Notice how the drummer suddenly pulls back and lays back, still hitting a strong back beat but suddenly it feels as if the music has slowed down. Suddenly the horns and bass and guitar sound
ahead of him. Some of the best examples of push pull in funk. Groovy rhythm starts from here.

One of the best, and most groovy bands of all time: Tower of Power. Forward pounding 16ths as bassline. Guitar is FAAAARRR behind the band, but the horns are ahead of the beat. At the same time the drums are laying back slightly behind the pulse. It's an amazing band dynamic that is hardly reproduced. Rocco Prestia is one of the few bassists that really amaze me with his ability to drive the bass with his 16th notes. Almost no one I've heard so far can do it anywhere nearly as good as him.

Vocalist comes behind the beat. And the soloist is always behind the beat as well. Phrasing tends to aim at the 1 or 3 on the on-beat for straight funk due to the nature of the groove. This leads to a groove which leads people to dance on the on beats.

Rhythm is the most important thing in funk. And actually in almost every music. As you can tell from these two videos funk can vary a lot.

More in 3. =)

Random Comments 1 - Audiophiles

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:10:00 +0000

Best comments about audiophiles and listening

Just want to express my exasperation of the world's attitude towards music listening and a whole host of other things. The weirdest thing is that every company selling these earphones and mics and all think that they're doing something that's great, but they seem to just colour everything.

I wonder what companies truly care about neutrality in music.

Let the music speak for itself. Stop colouring it with your own ideas, leave that part to within your own head.

Basics - Rhythm - Funk 1

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:43:00 +0000

Marvin Gaye

Motown legend, Marvin Gaye. This was the black pop of the early days, and funk was a direct result of such music.

Funk and Motown, and a lot of similar black music, like gospel, are very bass and drum groove heavy. This is a "swung funk" groove, where it's not completely straight, but instead more like swing with triplets involved rather than the pop/rock style where the quavers are evened out.

James Jamerson on the bass; the biggest baddest bass legend with a groove to kill. Notice his lines, these were the lines which led to a lot of development in R&B, funk and other groove-based music, and most importantly, funk that came soon after.

In case you don't know, Motown was actually a label, much like what Sony Music is nowadays, but they had their unique sound which was a blend of R&B, gospel and became a genre on its own. It influenced a great deal of music nowadays.

Also, notice that the drum groove is this steady laying back groove. The bass is placed slightly earlier than it, but still laying back, while the vocalist plays around with the rhythm around the pulse. Meanwhile the guitarist is about on the beat while still laying back slightly. Meanwhile the auxiliary percussion also lays back together with the drums. This gives you the sound called Motown which led nicely to a genre called funk.

Now to the Grandfather of Funk: James Brown

Notice the same back beats on the drums, the groove sound from the drums. The laid back groove from him. Now the bass is actually ahead of the beat during this groove (fast grooves tend to have this going), only time laying back is during the hits. The bassline is riff based and is repetitive but the lines are very similar to the groove lines played by James Jamerson (except he had a lot more flexibility and changes).

The use of organ sound was from gospel sound, and the big band sound was influence from the big bands of the early era. Plus starting with Misty shows the obvious influence from early jazz.

Funk was a lot about the dancing, it was a music for people to really dance with, as with much music even till this date. James Brown was THE dancer of the funk style and started a revolution on his own. But you can listen to the whole band do the same riff and groove a million times and not get bored because the energy is always up and the groove never gets bored when everyone gives their 100% every second. Why? Because like great orators, repetition, with conviction, do not get boring because every time it is said it still has much impact. That's what I personally feel is the power of funk.

That's for the first song before they went into the second song Maybe The Last Time. Notice the groove, the repetitions again. But every note seems to be just as important as the previous time. You can feel the musicians dancing just listening to the music. This time the whole band lays back, because it's a slower groove and laying back gives the chill feel which is so powerful in funk...

Together with James Brown's always-on-top-of-the-beat feel, the music can go on forever and just charge a person with energy to dance all night. This is why funk actually became a highly used groove throughout all of music ever since. From fusion to smooth jazz to even Maroon 5, funk has infiltrated much of music as we know it.

Will talk more about it in the next installment. =)

Basics - Rhythm - Swing 4

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:20:00 +0000

Modern version of swing. Not exactly the same as the old school swing... This is what I'd say is a lot more organic. There's still a lot of similarity, from the big phrasing and hits of Keith Jarrett's left hand comping to the walking bassline to the ride pattern, there is are a lot of similarities, but at the same time a lot of difference.

No more hi-hat at 2 and 4. A lot more responding from the drummer and bass than old school swing. Bass has a rather modern take on the bassline (mainly started by individuals such as Ron Carter) with a smooth walking bassline which uses melodic control to guide the song rather than just simply pushing and rhythmic methods. And at the head out, notice that there's this open sound that came. This was largely inspired by the Bill Evans Trio, but developed to this sound...

And alas it leads you to a pianist like Brad Mehldau and a whole host of other musicians who bring it to what most people in the past might not count it swinging... People like Brian Blade, Jeff Ballad, and a whole host of new breed of modern drummers who sound vastly different because they're inspired not only from old school swing, but a whole bunch of other music like World music and the rest.

Also bass has become a very organic style of playing. The 2-feel thing taken to a high level gives the bass almost infinite amount of freedom to phrase and displace and do a lot of rhythmic ideas, but at the same time able to keep time without explicitly keeping time.

Pianists basically develop so much that the emphasis is no longer just keeping time and playing lines... Each line has developed to be a colouring as much as it is a melodic idea. The harmonic ideas developed to an extent that they are able to express and convey a whole host of new ideas. New even bigger phrases, odd timing phrases and a lot more things.

And for the band as a whole, hits became a very interesting thing. Progressive rock was about change in time signature and developments in grooving, modern jazz is about that and metric modulations, displacements and harmonic pushes.

Swing was redefined after the eras of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Was developing ever since the 70s with the influx of Fusion and a lot of other genres. Nowadays free jazz, modern jazz, hip hop, R&B, funk, fusion, gospel and many of these genres mix and match to give a very modern sound in jazz.

Here are a few more links to give you and idea of "swing" and "jazz" nowadays. These are still songs which "swing" but don't...

And some really cool stuff like

Hope you guys learned quite a bit from this. It's about exposure and noticing the music that is already there. Remember that listening is just as important as practising! =)

Basics - Rhythm - Swing 3

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 07:27:00 +0000

John Coltrane. With as usual Paul Chambers on double bass. Haha. I'm going to talk about the bass walking. Remember how the ride pattern is about the crotchets then the skip notes? Same with bass. It's all about the crotchets, or quarter notes. From the end of the head, the moment Paul Chambers came in you can feel the push in the music.

Most probably would feel as if the music is being sped up, but the truth is because of the fact that he was pushing so hard that it sounds rushed, but if you counted through, you'd realise that the pulse remained.

The walking bass is a very interesting thing. It's supposed to be smooth yet have its emphasis and as "walking" goes, it is not really meant to be a line that's jumping around. The imagery is that it's supposed to flow from one chord to the other and using small steps to walk the way, but of course it's not a hard and fast rule. More importantly it's about the big phrases, like 4-bar phrases before the next key change or to keep the phrasing open to give the soloist the freedom to start and end their phrases as intended.

More importantly is the fact that the bass is the driving force for the rhythm of the band, keeping the music going and flowing forward.

Another form of bass rhythm. 2-feel. Playing on the 1 and 3 mainly. But still ahead of the beat and adding a lot of triplet phrasings and a lot of rhythmic lines into the music.

The importance of a bassist is just like the drummer, giving good subdivided beats, and giving more of the big beats than providing every single beat. It gives freedom of expression for both the soloist and the drummer, to colour and fill as and when they want. It forces everyone to feel the pulse more rather than just depending on standard "metronome click"-like walking bassline. This gives a lot more freedom into the music and a lot more organic a sound. It also frees up the bassist to do more interesting lines and fills which can be interlocking with the pianist or the drummer.

That is the rhythm for bass. =)

Basics - Rhythm - Swing 2

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 05:05:00 +0000

Classic recording. No one who claims to be a jazz musician should not have heard this recording at least once. If you haven't, listen now. Haha.

What are we concentrating here on this recording? Ride pattern. Drums style. Why is this so important? The rhythm section is by far the most important thing to define what jazz was like last time. All classic swing groups which worked had a great rhythm section - so good that no matter what notes you played you'd sound good. Let's listen to Jimmy Cobb and his rhythm.

From the start you can already hear his ride pattern. What are the things that define a ride pattern? The most important thing would be the crotchets/quarter notes. It defines a lot about the beat. Sets the tempo and the groove. There's this unconscious little emphasis on the two and four. If you listen in very closely to the ride pattern you can hear a slight difference between 1 and 3 from 2 and 4 every single time. There's a slight ring to the 2 and 4.

Note: This is NOT something that one can train to play like. When you actually try too hard to emphasise a bit too much on the 2 and 4 you'll have a natural tendency to overplay the 2 and 4. Then how do you get to play like that? It's an unconscious rhythm thing. Listen to Jimmy Cobb play, feel his sound. Feel his groove. You'll realise that the reason why jazz musicians snap on 2 and 4 naturally is because they DO feel it on 2 and 4. Because of that feel, they play it with the feel on 2 and 4, developing such subtle nuances.

He also started with the hi-hat on 2 and 4. It's a standard in jazz playing but not absolutely mandatory. It's one of the things which help to get down the groove on 2 and 4 and is supposed to be something which is completely unconscious.

What's more is the ghost notes on the snare, and the bass drum hits. Mostly on the "ands" and more importantly, always phrased. Those are some of the hallmarks of great jazz drumming. It gives the rhythm and it gives the groove.

Also, for the skip note, or "offbeat" note, of the ride pattern, notice again that this is medium swing, and the swing beat is closer to a semiquaver rather than a pure triplet. =)

Orinthology - A bebop song. Notice that the drummer is doing phrasings still a lot on offbeats and phrasing in relation to the front players. And if you can hear the ride pattern (hard to hear unless you have good equipment) you can hear that it sounds more towards a quaver this time, because of the speed of the music. It's not a hard and fast rule that the swing beat is a triplet.

With that, hope that you kind understand some of the fundamentals behind the swing beat from the perspective of the drums. =)

Basics - Rhythm - Swing 1

noreply@blogger.com (Seow Yi Zhe) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:47:00 +0000

What is swing?

The one question that can never be completely quantified in most people's opinions, including jazz greats. Why? Because the swing beat is not truly about the triplets, because it changes according to the speed and the feel of the music. What's more, even if you play everything correctly, but don't phrase like a swing player, you're still not playing swing.

How do you then tell what's swinging, and what's not? The best is by listening to the legends. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and everyone along those times whose names were probably not as famous, though just as important in the development of jazz, were the pioneers of this beautiful thing called swing.

One of the most famous pieces of all time by the Duke Ellington Orchestra. All the way from the start, with the famous piano intro, you can get the swing beat. Starting on the offbeat and ending on the on beat, then next phrase is starting on the on beat and ending on the offbeat. Then comes a lot of hits by the orchestra throughout the song, all on the of beats. These swing beats are almost triplets, but because the whole orchestra is laying back behind the drums and the bass, it sounds further than a triple if you count according to the drums or the bass.

Try it for yourself. So to say it is a triplet is true, but in different circumstances it can sound like a triplet yet not a triplet...

And when the vocalist came in, she lays back yet the swing beat is in between a quaver and triplet and even more interestingly her emphasis and phrasing is very related to the offbeats. Very often people will naturally emphasise the onbeat after the offbeat, and choose to accent it, but in swing, the swing beat is the emphasis and it serves to propel the on beats, giving this flowing feel as long as you do it right. That together with laying back is the common soloist swing phrasing and style. That's only just simplifying it.

Same band with a walking pace swing. Notice that the swing beat is closer to a semiquaver. Still laid back, but the phrasing is closer to a semi-quaver; still very close to a triplet, but slightly shorter (except when it's Duke Ellington's trade 4 with the bassist).

Even closer to a semi-quaver. But even more laying back for this one, because it is none other than the great Billie Holiday!

Do you know what the swing beat is about yet? This is only part of the sound. This is a generic thing, which changes not only by the song and band, but within the band itself and the section of the music itself! Like everything else in jazz, swing is a highly organic thing, which is identified with some characteristics, but mostly for that "sound".

Hope this can help you start thinking about swing.