How Music Works 1 - Melody - Part 5

Back to Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnbOWi6f_IM

Part 5: Looks at melodic developments in 20th century popular music, including Sting's: "We work the Black Sea" - using the ancient Dorian mode! Looks at how Irish and Anglo folk traditions and the Shakers' religious music, met African music. Concludes with Paul Simon's "Bridge over troubled Water."

Thanks to PeterInglisGuitar for the video summaries. ;)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• how
• music
• works
• howard
• goodall
• melody
• theory

[ronzy]

That piano intro to 'Bridge Over..." sent shivers down my spine.

[FretboardToAsh]

I like it, but they should indeed piss off with all the coldplay. It's not like it's the only pop music around if I even had an interest in pop music in general.

[andrew625]

"tits the gift to be simple".... (yelling at myself) NO BRAIN NooooOOO!!!!! :facepalm:

[abbanaratana]

I don't like the fact that documentary implies music was developed mostly by british and americans. The fact is, it was mostly created by germans, austrians, hungarians, french and polish.

[superluckyangelstar]

I know that this might sound weird but at 4:35 the left side of her face looks off but the right die of her face looks good

[Reisgar42]

@FretboardToAsh Piss off? They played it once for about 20 seconds without any vocals and didn't mention who it was.

[TFrenchy]

@FretboardToAsh Their just trying to save production costs

[alphabet661]

In sum, some of the oddness and difficulty one may encounter with contemporary classical music Shoenberg, Ferneyhough, Babbit stems from the use of "microtones" as found in blues and the desire to explore new scales outside major/minor AND the ancient modes.

[alphabet661]

Also, the bending of the rung in the blues in a way forecasted profound developments in classical music. Such bending actually was notated in some music of the 16th century - Despres. But it is rare. There may have been more done by improvising musicians because the ficta the commentator mentions - that is the sharpening and flattening of notes was at first left to the performers in ancient music - just as in much blues music - when it was first notated the "bends" were not notated.

[alphabet661]

Ah, what about the rise of serial composition and its influence upon melody?

It would explain in greater depth why some composers rerturned to the ancient modes.

[vonNaaat]

@bsbsnuck It's

still the same Coldplay song from earlier: 'Fix You'

[ainhoator]

@DemoticVEVO But Heavy Metal stems from blues ultimately and therefore one could argue that Heavy Metal touches the flat 5th because it is a "by-product" (not meaning no offence by "by-product") of blues.