Building A Song From The Ground Up
It's been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. If that is true, then let's look at the recording studio as if it's an architect's drafting table. Pandora music analyst Scott Pinkmountain pulls apart a song brick by brick, and we hear the thought processes that informed his decisions. From the drummer's British-style swing to the method they used to alter the piano's tone with a tissue box, we hear how "You Gave Me This" was constructed, layer by layer. (10 mins.)Continue reading "Building A Song From The Ground Up"
The Blues Scale
Modern American popular music all traces back to the blues in one way or another. Guitarist and Pandora senior music analyst Bob Coons swings by the studio to talk about the blues scale, a six-note (heptonic) sequence of tones that appears in countless tracks. It's a scale that changes the feel of any song in which it appears. We show how the scale is fluid, with bending pitches and blue notes, and Bob plays some blues-inspired passages to show this scale in action.Hop onto this link here to see images of string bends, to hear examples of songs that feature the scale, and for some great blues stations.
Continue reading "The Blues Scale"
Quiet & Loud
Marimbist Matt Cannon meets up with host Kevin Seal to dive into quiet and loud, soft to screaming, gentle to gigantic, whispered to wailing, and the other ways one can describe the spectrum of dynamics. Matt shows how marimba is especially well-suited to dynamic playing, and the two gents show how pianissimo, fortissimo, and all points in between are employed in different kinds of music. (11 mins.)
Click the "Continue reading" button below to hear examples of dynamics in the works of Radiohead, Bjork, Shirley Bassey, Sinead O'Connor, Sunny Day Real Estate and more, and to see photos of Matt at the marimba.
Continue reading "Quiet & Loud"
Three Chords
Classical Music Analyst Russell Johnson and host Kevin Seal talk about the harmonic primary colors. The chordal holy trinity. The triad of triads. In other words, they break down the three chords you hear most in blues, rock, country, and folk, which are the I-IV-V: the tonic, the subdominant, and the dominant. Find out why the rock mantra of "three chords and the truth" is so prevalent (and yep, it's these three chords they're talking about), and hear how these chords work together to create tension and resolution. (10 mins.)On the continuation page, listen to songs that share these chords, and see a list of the musical terms defined in this podcast.
Continue reading "Three Chords"
Major & Minor
Like the alpha and omega, or the proton and electron, major and minor are the polar centers of music. Some music tends toward the major (country), other styles tend toward the minor (hardcore), but most music plays between those tonal poles. In Episode 11, Scott Pinkmountain of P.A.F. and Pink Mountain demonstrates the push and pull of major and minor chords, and re-harmonizes one of his own songs to be fully minor, fully major, and fully ambiguous. We also talk about how the Romantic composers used parallel keys to create moments in which "the ground just falls from below you and you're instantly in another world." (10 min.)Click the "Continue reading" button below to see illustrations of relative minor displayed on a piano keyboard, and to hear songs by Neil Young, the Police, David Bowie, and Howie Day that use parallel key and other major-to-minor flavorings.
Continue reading "Major & Minor"
Pedal Point
In the seventh installment of our podcast, host Kevin Seal talks with Pandora music analyst Michelle Alexander about pedal point. Michelle and Kevin perform live examples, and explore the ways that composers from Beethoven to Pete Townshend to Prince have used this technique to build tension, create drama, or establish a feeling of triumph and joy. Take a peek under the hood with us and listen to Pedal Point (9 mins.)
On the next page, you can check out the audio examples, see the musical terms we're talking about, and check out session photos and other images of slash chords and organ pedals.
