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    • #37111
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      I signed up for an online class called “American Popular Music” using this textbook. So I will post my notes and thoughts from the class here, should be fun. It seems this textbook is popular. I’m using a paper copy of the book. It could be cool to follow along with the text (5th edition) if anyone wants.

      Screen-Shot-2020-01-21-at-10.32.52-AM

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

      Attachments:
      1. Screen-Shot-2020-01-21-at-10.32.52-AM.jpg

    • #37115
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Melisma in vocal melodies

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37189
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      The pdf has this quote regarding pre-WWI era pop. It makes me wonder since I have never tried a mouth instrument. Is playing brass much easier than guitar? “modest technique” lol, I guess thrash brass didn’t exist 😇

      • BRASS INSTRUMENTS WERE INEXPENSIVE AND THE MUSIC REQUIRED ONLY A MODEST TECHNIQUE, EXEMPLIFYING THE CONCEPT OF DEMOCRATIC MUSIC MAKING BY AMATEUR MUSICIANS

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37191
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      One of the listening tracks that I dug.


      Old Regular Baptists – “I am a Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow”

      (not a fan of bible themes but love this minor tone)
      It is being explained as the early sacred music which later becomes blues music.

      it can be contrasted to the other early american music which personally I don’t like at all, never have (always wondered about my quirky taste really), stuff like “yankee doodle” type stuff, of british or german origin. Probably I just don’t like most stuff in major.

      Ok I will contrast it with this track, which is like fingernails on chalkboard to me, I cant see how anyone would like this tone, lol.


      United Society of Shakers – ‘Tis the Gift to be Simple

      aaahhhhh turn it off, turn it off!! lol

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37193
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      my weak transcription of the poor pilgrim melody, starting with the first vocal “I….am…a..”
      because I’m wondering if it is pentatonic or blues scale or what.

      
      F#
      (I) 1 (am a) 2/m3\2\1  (poor) 4   (pilgim) m3 1 1\m7\5  (of sorrow) 1/2/m3/4\m3\2/m3\2\1  (cast out) ♭5/5
      

      how’s that for the practice of the day 😇
      so because of the ♭5 I think I found, I will call it, a blues scale. 😁 🤘

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37395
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      One of the articles in the class is about Duke Ellington and I’m struck by the idea that this would be a great songwriting exercise:

      Duke Ellington composed some of the most enduring music of the 20th century, producing more than one thousand lasting works during a career spanning more than 50 years. “Almost every human emotion is covered in Ellington’s music,” according to composer James Newton. With groundbreaking hits such as “Sophisticated Lady,” “Mood Indigo,” “Prelude to a Kiss” and “In a Sentimental Mood,” Ellington vividly communicated universal ideas, while inventing musical concepts that helped elevate jazz to a sophisticated art form.

      Ellington’s heightened sense of the human condition enabled him to capture a mood and render it in music. His pieces often told a story, using precise musical imagery enhanced by harmony, rhythm and melodies derived from the blues and other folk idioms.

      “Practically everything we wrote,” Ellington once said, “was supposed to be a picture of something, a representative character.”

      So the songwriting exercise would be, to find a photo of someone or something (easy, with web image search) and then write a song about what is expressed in the photo.

      Also.

      One killer track in the song list is this grammy award-winning one from 2010 which is a throwback to 1900’s carolina roots, “old country blues”. the solo is amazing. Phrygian?


      Snowden’s Jig (Genuine Negro Jig) · Carolina Chocolate Drops

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37453
      superblonde
      Keymaster


      The Land Where the Blues Began – Documentary (1979)

      Alan Lomax documentary.


      Tuning the Brain with Music trailer

      The healing powers of music on the brain deserve to be recognized and above all heard. Tuning the Brain with Music allows us to discover cutting-edge research in musical neuroscience through the stories of people for whom music has succeeded where other therapies have not: premature babies, autistic kids, homeless teenagers with mental health issues, war veterans with PTSD, stroke survivors and even a woman who overcame pancreatic cancer.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37454
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Now here’s something ya dont see every day, a snake rattle put in a fiddle


      Sprout Wings and Fly (1983) Documentary

      “Sprout Wings and Fly” is a compassionate, life-affirming, altogether extraordinary document by Les Blank (www.lesblank.com) on old-timey Appalachian fiddler Tommy Jarrell. It’s a fascinating film on the theme that art, music, dance, food and earthly pleasures help human beings live joyously in the face of certain death. It offers fine old-timey music, crazy jive, and a fascinating cast of backwoods characters.” –Michael Goodwin, Berkeley Monthly

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37592
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      A kickin classic blues track Ive never heard before.


      Charles Brown Black Night (1950)

      In 2005, it was inducted into the Blues Foundation Blues Hall of Fame as a “Classic of Blues Recording – Single or Album Track”


      Brown re-recorded the song for his 1972 Blues ‘n’ Brown album. James Booker covered the song on his albums King of the New Orleans Keyboard[4]and Live from Belle Vue.[5] Dr. John covered it on his album In a Sentimental Mood. Buddy Guy covered the song on his album Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues. Joe Bonamassa also covered the song on his album Sloe Gin.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37593
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Talkin bout melody. This is a weird one. Not a fan but it really catches the attention. One of the oddest tracks so far considering that this was a mainstream song.

      This song has an intro of French horn according to the book “which foreshadows the vocal ‘There was a boy'”. The book describes both melodies as “a leap followed by a descent” but these melodies are slightly but importantly different.


      Nat King Cole – Nature Boy

      The horn’s first notes go.. A, A, F, Eb. Sounds really strange, right.
      The song seems to be in D minor so the Eb is the b2. Which is pretty metal.
      Then after that the horn plays an A7 arpeggio.

      After the intro the verse sings “There was a boy”
      Which goes A, A, F, D (not Eb).
      I bet the verse would sound pretty strange if the vocal uses the b2 as well.
      But anyway, it’s quirky that they are slightly different like this.

      nature-boy

      With that flute in there, which totally sounds non-metal, I dont much care about the boy either way, lol. It sure is a distinctive intro and vocal line though. The piano solo seems to follow the vocal line (not the horn with b2). There’s other strange things about the vocal line according to most songwriting suggestions. The phrase “There was a boy” would be considered weak. Placing the word “was” on the ‘1’ downbeat would be considered bad. Having the melody leap A to upper A, on the word “was”, would be considered bad because it places a lot of attention on a filler word. That note is also a longer held note which adds even more stress to it. I would think that a better lyric would be “I knew a boy” and then the meaningful word “knew” would get the stress. Overall there’s tons of songwriting rules broken just in that first phrase. It’s weird.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

      Attachments:
      1. nature-boy.jpg

    • #37710
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      The guitar on this song..wow A+


      Uptown – The Crystals (Original Quintet) 1962

      This song is described as “laying the foundation for rock & roll which followed” ..hmmm..

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37713
      superblonde
      Keymaster


      The Last Days of Disco (1998) ORIGINAL TRAILER

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37715
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Fictional film about reggae which supposedly “created reggae music’s popularity in the U.S.”


      The Harder They Come 1972 Trailer

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37718
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      this is hip. nothing more rock n roll than a song named “Bad Man” ☠️

      Lzzy Hale should totally do a cover of this.

      Cold-Hearted Man (lit. Bad Man)

      I was still a young girl
      when, by chance, you found me.
      And thanks to your worldly charm,
      you crushed the flower of my innocence.

      Later you treated me like all men
      who are like you, treat women.
      So don’t be surprised that, now,
      I tell you to your face what you are.

      Cold-hearted man,
      your soul is so wicked it has no name.
      You are a pig. You are evil.
      You are a cold-hearted man.

      To my sad fate abandoned,
      engaged in a fierce struggle with life,
      suffering the depths of cruelty,
      I was weak and finally defeated.

      With time, you learned of my downfall,
      how my life had become a road to hell.
      Some told you:
      “Go save her”.
      And proving who you are,
      you just laughed.

      Cold-hearted man,
      your soul is so wicked it has no name.
      You are a pig. You are evil.
      You are a cold-hearted man.

      A short time later in the gutter,
      I defended my life in a shadowy world.
      One night, with another woman,
      you passed by me,
      and upon seeing my expression, she said to you:

      “Who is that woman?”
      “Do you know her?”
      “Soon you will see”, you replied,
      “she’s a nobody.”
      At the hearing from your lips the abuse,
      you were showing again,
      what you were.

      Cold-hearted man,
      your soul is so wicked it has no name.
      You are a pig. You are evil.
      You are a cold-hearted man.


      Lydia Mendoza – Mal Hombre-1934

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37906
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Here is something I have noticed for the past decade in music and cant quite figure it out. The closest alignment of social and cultural values of mainstream America can be found in the most popular internet-age streaming songs of all time [1], and the literal messages contained within those songs in which audiences sing along. Unfortunately, the popularity of a song within a streaming platform does not yield significant revenue for the artist themselves, even for a song being played billions of times by listeners. The most frequent image projected in America’s most popular songs is alcoholism. A message promoting alcohol consumption or overconsumption occurs so frequently that it could be debated whether or not it is planted deliberately, as the following top-ranked examples from the billions-of-streams list [1] illustrate:

      “The club isn’t the best place to find a lover
      So the bar is where I go
      Me and my friends at the table doing shots
      Drinking fast and then we talk slow.” – Ed Sheeran, “Shape of You”, Verse 1

      “Hey, I was doing just fine before I met you
      I drink too much and that’s an issue but I’m okay
      Hey, you tell your friends it was nice to meet them
      But I hope I never see them again”
      The Chainsmokers – “Closer (ft. Halsey)”, Verse 1

      “Threw a TV out the window of the Montage
      Cocaine on the table, liquor pourin’, don’t give a damn
      Dude, your girlfriend is a groupie, she just tryna get in
      Sayin’, “I’m with the band” ”
      Post Malone – “Rockstar (ft. 21 Savage)”, Verse 2

      “That’s why I need a one dance
      Got a Hennessy in my hand
      One more time ‘fore I go
      Higher powers taking a hold on me
      I need a one dance
      Got a Hennessy in my hand
      One more time ‘fore I go”
      Drake – “One Dance (ft. Wizkid and Kyla)”, Chorus 1

      [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2019/04/02/there-are-now-25-songs-that-have-been-streamed-one-billion-times-on-spotify

        Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
        Drake – “One Dance (ft. Wizkid and Kyla)”
        The Chainsmokers – “Closer (ft. Halsey)”
        Post Malone – “Rockstar (ft. 21 Savage)”
        Ed Sheeran – “Thinking Out Loud”
        Drake – “God’s Plan”
        Major Lazer – “Lean On (ft. DJ Snake & MØ)”
        Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee – “Despacito (ft. Justin Bieber)”
        Justin Bieber – “Love Yourself”
        Camila Cabello – “Havana (ft. Young Thug)”
        Justin Bieber – “Sorry”
        The Chainsmokers – “Don’t Let Me Down (ft. Daya)”
        The Weeknd – “Starboy (ft. Daft Punk)”

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #37928
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      The book has a cool section on mambo. I forgot all about the multiple mambo crazes over time. Its a cool groove. The fusion of heavy metal and mambo, maybe an obvious link?


      The Mambo Kings Trailer 1992


      How To Drum – Mambo – An Introduction

      Rolling Stones Satisfaction is a mambo beat, really? Something to listen for, definitely.


      Bobby Sanabria on Mambo and Heavy Metal
      Bobby Sanabria at PBS’ Television Critics Association Press Tour with Jimmy Smits and “Latin Music USA” producers explain how Latin Music has always been a part of mainstream pop, and Bobby also demonstrates how Mambo influences Heavy Metal.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

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