Strings
Johnny, rosin up your bow. Guest host Samantha Grant welcomes Pandora music analysts Alan L. Lin and Yair Evnine. Alan, a violinist, and Yair, a cellist, give us a primer on string theory as it relates to legato and staccato, arco and pizzicato, and other aspects of bowing and plucking in both the classical and pop (singer-songwriter) realms. (9 mins.)
In addition to their work as performing musicians, Alan and Yair have both spent a lot of time analyzing music for the Music Genome Project. You can hear songs that both of them have analyzed on your Pandora stations.
The Trumpet
Time to warm up your mouthpieces, empty your spit valves, and get your brass on. Composer and Pandora music analyst Gene V. Baker shows the ranges, tones and techniques of trumpet and cornet. We look at how partials allow multiple notes to come from the same finger position, and show ways to get different timbres and effects. Jen Baker, Gene's bandmate in the R&B Freejazz Gospel Supreme 80, drops in to play some trombone for us as well. (10 mins.)Continue reading "The Trumpet"
Synthesis
How does a synthesizer shape soundwaves to emulate the sounds of bells or helicopters or organs? Pandora's Music Operations Manager Steve Hogan joins host Kevin Seal to look at how a basic square wave or sine wave can twist and morph. They break down the Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release model of synthesis, and show how to sculpt some sounds that go from beeping to birdsong, and from white noise to whistling. (10 mins.)
Click the "Continue reading" button below to see the shapes of the actual soundwaves, and to hear clips of analog synths being used in everything from the Monkees to Kraftwerk to the Killers and the Rapture to Dr. Dre's productions.
The Guitar Riff
There is a science at work in the construction of a riff, and in this episode we peer over the shoulder of guitar shredder Will Redmond as he designs some blueprints for guitarchitecture. Will and Kevin go into the subtle distinctions that have given great riffs to the legendary guitarists -- the anticipation of Angus Young, the patience and pull of Tony Iommi, the chromaticism of Jimmy Page, the muted riffing of Tool's Adam Jones, and more. (11 min.)Click the "Continue reading" button below to hear both classic and modern riffs in these styles, and to see Will demonstrate natural harmonics, tapping techniques and more.
Continue reading "The Guitar Riff"
Upright Bass
Pandora Podcast Nine catches up with Seth Ford-Young and his standup acoustic bass. You can hear Seth's upright playing on the latest Tom Waits album, Orphans. In this show, he and Kevin Seal talk about arpeggiated bass lines, bowed bass, and how to get percussive sounds by smacking the strings. They also talk about how bassists choose their notes when improvising a walking bass line in jazz or blues. So much variety can be plucked out of just those four strings. (10 min.)Click through to the next page to hear bass examples in rock, jazz, swing, pop, R&B and punk. Also see Seth demonstrate arco and pizzicato techniques, and view a list of the musical terms discussed in the episode.
Continue reading "Upright Bass"
Electric Guitar Effects
The third episode in Pandora's podcast series demonstrates how pedal-board trickery makes for distinctive guitar styles. Host Kevin Seal talks with Pandora music analyst Patrick Greene about the tremolo of Dick Dale's surf guitar, the distortion of Jimi Hendrix, the wah-wah of the funk masters, and the delay of U2's the Edge. (9 mins.)
On the next page, see a list of the musical terms discussed in this podcast, check out pictures of Patrick kicking his stompboxes, and listen to examples from well-known songs that feature these effects.
