“It’s full of sharps and flats!” – Rose Elinor Dougall & The Weave

I don’t remember the path I took to discover The Weave. I’m 56 years old and almost completely disconnected from “what’s happening” – even more so because I know that today’s music world is like a vast, uncharted forest.

Nevertheless, I found myself returning to The Weave multiple times a week.

Today, I asked ChatGPT to tell me about them. One member is a guy from Blur (okay) and the other is Rose Elinor Dougall. Ohhh, I remember now that I listened to her 2019 album “A New Illusion” quite a bit. I recall the fantastic cover art, and something clicked in my head: harmonic richness.

Now I want more, and I’m curious to know if Coxon is such a composer, the “full of sharps & flats” type.

Dougall’s “A New Illusion” is a cool attempt at crafting “a cool pop song” (oh, that bass line), while her “Something Real” leans more towards the dreamy side, navigating through intriguing harmonic staircases. The piano in “Christina in Red”…

With “The Weave”, they’ve created a perfect song, an… unfolding. It starts with Dougall’s universe (voice, piano, twisted harmonies) and suddenly takes off like an old New Wave track (Clan of Xymox?). The arrival of the saxophones and the incantatory lyrics make it peculiar enough to raise an eyebrow, right?

This “pop with twisted harmonies” is what I love. The Bird and The Bee. Goldfrapp. Agnes Obel. Vienna Teng.

So I asked ChatGPT for “Female Singers and Strings Arrangements” and got this list. Some names I do not know…

1. Björk
2. Bat for Lashes (Natasha Khan) (great production & voice, poor harmonies)
3. Lana Del Rey
4. Tori Amos
5. Kate Bush
6. Enya
7. Of Monsters and Men (very interesting!)
8. Aurora (I want to listen more)
9. Agnes Obel
10. Austra (cool universe, original)
11. London Grammar
12. Cocteau Twins
13. Dead Can Dance (Lisa Gerrard)
14. Goldfrapp
15. iamamiwhoami (Jonna Lee) (Don’t Wait for me, Fountain, Canyon: arrangements)
16. FKA Twigs
17. The Sundays (Harriet Wheeler)
18. Daughter (Elena Tonra)
19. Regina Spektor
20. Emilie Autumn (OMG this universe! Misery Loves Company)

Well, thank you guys! I discovered some cool musicians/singers!

Who else?

L’Agogique

Strangely the “Agogique” Wikipedia article is in French only, here:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agogique

Thus I asked Oxford about “agogic”, I copy/paste:

1 An adjective indicating a variety of accentuation demanded by the nature of a particular musical phrase, rather than by the regular metric pulse of the mus. The first note of a phrase, for instance, may be felt to suggest a slight lingering which confers the effect of an accent: similarly, a leap to note significantly higher or lower than the preceding notes, or a strong discord resolving to a concord, may convey an effect of accentuation (by means of lingering, pressure, etc.) and there are other examples. The complementary term to ‘agogic accent’ (accent of movement) is ‘dynamic accent’ (accent of force), which implies the normal and regular rhythmic accentuation of a piece of music.

2 In a wider sense, ‘agogic’ covers everything connected with ‘expression’, e.g. rallentando, accelerando, rubato, pause, accentuation as described above, etc.

Well of course it’s a tool, a state of mind.

I read about this in a Sol Gabetta (a cello player) interview. If we follow the score, it’s gives a computer mood. One needs groove, or rubato, expression. And it’s linked of course (because we follow the sheet music score, right?) to the idea of “freedom blossoming on constraint”. And it’s linked to the two-to-tango idea of “singing melody seems free but it’s conducted”, enchanted and tamed at the same time.

“The interpreter juggles with spells”. Ces sortilèges sont l’agogique.

Of course we have to dig the “-agogy” word. Pedagogy. Andragogy?

And also, seeing this as a pattern for life, action, methods, rules, creation, art. Follow some rules but add some life, some “expression”, freedom into frames, etc.

Have a nice Christmas!

My last Shazam, in no particular order

Greg Kurstin, the guy behind

Nobody knows who Greg Kurstin is. I suppose.

With no reason I had in my head this Lily Allen music, which is like… the perfect pop song for me. The little acoustic guitar, the beats, the chorus, the sound, the whole harmonical chemistry…

When I see the 53 millions views on YouTube I’m a bit jealous. Who wrote that? Google, tell me!

Greg Kurstin

Okey! He’s good! What did he do?

• Co-wrote and produced Hello (Adele), produced Chandelier (Sia). Okeyyy…
• Has a Wikipedia page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Kurstin ) AND a “Greg Kurstin production discography Wikipedia page!” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Kurstin_production_discography ).
• Won 7 Grammy Awards.
• There’s a 437 (!) “songs produced by Greg Kurstin” playlist on YouTube.

–

But well, he’s the half of The Bird and the Bee! That’s him! That’s the guy!

With Blonde Redhead it’s a group I adore, because of… constant modulations.

That sounds so British, right? Good influences, I bet.

OK, bonjour, Mister Kurstin, I kind of like you!

Thanks for reading!

Music Chronicles 7: Drip Drip & Fan

I wanted, at the beginning, to sound like English New Wave from the eighties, but I added some percs, and a piano, and I lost everything about this, so there.

I tried many ways to sing the words, then the “Watch it drip, wait for it”, and failed. This is why I whispered all of it.

Really, I like to destroy the usual structure of a song. This is why it doesn’t verse/chorus. This is why I changed the beat in 1’44”, mutation, towards a “walking thing”.

It’s again about “modulation in the 4th bar”, and I think the reason this song exists is in the two guitars in the end.

I used old picture of my mom’s garden in the rain.

Eventail means “fan”, it’s a very complex poem from Mallarmé, which is really funny to interpret. Again, the usual song structure is melted. I added some tunnels with rockets of sound, which lead to this synth sound I love.

I tripled my voice I had to sing very low. The end brings a sweet chaos.

Same garden, another year: rain, birds, insects.

Eventail

De frigides roses pour vivre
Toutes la même interrompront
Avec un blanc calice prompt
Votre souffle devenu givre

Mais que mon battement délivre
La touffe par un choc profond
Cette frigidité se fond
En du rire de fleurir ivre

A jeter le ciel en détail
Voilà comme bon éventail
Tu conviens mieux qu’une fiole

Nul n’enfermant à l’émeri
Sans qu’il y perde ou le viole
L’arôme émané de Méry.

Google translates:

Fan

Frigid roses to live

All the same will interrupt

With a white prompt chalice

Your breath turned to frost

But let my beat deliver

The tuft by a deep shock

This frigidity melts

In the laughter of blooming drunk

To throw the sky in detail

Here is a good fan

You are better suited than a vial

No one enclosing with emery

Without losing or violating it

The aroma emanating from Méry.

Someone tries this:

Fan
Belonging to Méry Laurent

Frigid roses to exist
all alike will interrupt
your frosted breath
with a quick white calyx
but should my fluttering liberate
the whole bunch with a profound shock
that frigidity will melt into the laughter
of a rapturous blossoming
see how like a good fan
you are better than a phial
at carving the sky into fragments
no flask could be stoppered
without losing or violating
the fragrance of Méry.

New Progressive Albums I found

Yesterday I needed complex powerful music. It’s a kind of drug for the musician’s mind!

This I went to ProgArchives to find the, well, “Best Albums 2020” :

http://www.progarchives.com/top-prog-albums.asp?syears=2020

Voilà.

From Symphonic Prog to Progressive Metal, from Rock Progressivo Italiano, Neo-Prog or “Canterbury Scene” (which I love!)…

=====

Wobbler (hello Norway!) has all of it, bass like Squire (Yes), fractured building, fast organs, mellotrons and all, but I don’t feel the delicious thing along my back. See by yourself:

Logos (Italian Prog music, which is a genre!) is much more colorful, sharper. Harmonies are interesting, sounds are surprising (this sax!). Here’s a track:

Scardust is constantly playing with the “too much”, navigating between broadway-like choruses to growling metal. It’s strong and exhausting! But Break The Ice catches me:

The Reticent is too much Post-Metal for me, and Pendragon (I had their first EP!) too clean.

I LOVE what Mister Robot does to me. I listen and it’s “Nope!” but I can’t help go on listening. They’re ridiculous but they’re good. Childish but tasty. Plastic but delicious.

Zopp:

Etc. Have fun!

Music Chronicles 6: Tricky Creatures & The Old London Voice

I went on using poems for music (do you have some for me I could use?). Today: Verlaine!

Léandre le sot,
Pierrot qui d’un saut
De puce
Franchit le buisson,
Cassandre sous son
Capuce,

Arlequin aussi,
Cet aigrefin si
Fantasque
Aux costumes fous,
Ses yeux luisants sous
Son masque,

— Do, mi, sol, mi, fa, —
Tout ce monde va,
Rit, chante
Et danse devant
Une belle enfant
Méchante

Dont les yeux pervers
Comme les yeux verts
Des chattes
Gardent ses appas
Et disent : « A bas
Les pattes ! »

— Eux ils vont toujours ! —
Fatidique cours
Des astres,
Oh ! dis-moi vers quels
Mornes ou cruels
Désastres

L’implacable enfant,
Preste et relevant
Ses jupes,
La rose au chapeau,
Conduit son troupeau
De dupes ?

Colombine

English Translation here: https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/5112

Again, a walking bass. I love them! Dong dong dong dong dong. I tried to add less mechanical music. I added string chords, but interrupted them sometimes. I tried another style for the end, a long stroll of bass string going nowhere…

The pictures I took along a long walk strangely fit the song: creatures. Birds. Drawings. Things.

=====

For this one I found an old voice from the London docks, with a bell, announcing something.

The game is the Moby one: add drums, JP, bass, strings, saxes and whistles. Then it’s a puzzle around this loop: adding things/cutting things. I should chorus but nope. I should double the bass with somme upper pianos… maybe.

I stole some pictures to clip it.

Have a great day!

Music Chronicles 5: The Past & The Little Queens

I’m casual, I know. When I compose I don’t finish. I draft. I need a producer!

Also, I sing and I shouldn’t. But well, I’m the only singer around 🙂

Also, I build films with a few pictures and the Ken Burns effect. I don’t want to finish, it’s boring. Voilà.

These days I have fun with poems.

=====

“Aimez-vous le passé ?” means “Do you love the past?”. I googletranslated the poem for you:

Do you like the past And dream of stories Evocative With erased outlines?

Old rooms Widows of steps Who smell all low Iris and amber;

The pallor of the portraits, The worn-out relics That the dead have kissed, Dear, I would like

May they be dear to you, And talk to you a little Of a dusty heart And full of mystery.

“Veuve de pas” : widowed of steps, meaning “deprived of people walking in these rooms”.

I found pictures I took in Cabourg ten years ago in Normandy (yes it’s near the D-Day beaches), hop, iMovied.

The music is an exercise about obsession: there’s no change, no chorus, it “walks” all the time.

I wrote the bass after hearing “In the Army Now” by Status Quo : dong, dong, dong, dong, adding a tatatatata guitar over it.

The game was to weaveknit chords under this walk. I added little dissonnances in the piano, it’s a bit irritating for ears and all – but now so much. Here it is:

Aimez-vous le passé

Aimez-vous le passé
Et rêver d’histoires
Évocatoires
Aux contours effacés ?

Les vieilles chambres
Veuves de pas
Qui sentent tout bas
L’iris et l’ambre ;

La pâleur des portraits,
Les reliques usées
Que des morts ont baisées,
Chère, je voudrais

Qu’elles vous soient chères,
Et vous parlent un peu
D’un coeur poussiéreux
Et plein de mystère.

Paul-Jean Toulet, Chansons

=====

I wanted to try another one, so I googled “dance in poetry” to find this “Dansez, Petites Reines” (Dance, Little Queens). I found a possible translation (I did not use the whole poem) which changes things a bit:

THE GRANDFATHER'S SONG. 

Dance, little Queens, 

All in a ring ; 
Loves to Lasses 

Sweet kisses will bring. 

Dance, little Madcaps, 

All in a ring ; 
The crabbed old mistress 

Will grumble and fling. 

Dance, little beauties, 

All in a ring ; 
The birds will applaud you 

With clapping of wing. 

Dance, little Fairies, 

All in a ring ; 
With corn-flower garlands 

And fair as the spring. 

Dance, little women, 

All in a ring ; 
Each Beau to his Lady 

Says some pretty thing. 

The game here was to alternate a crappy vintage sound and a more luxurious one in the choruses (voices and instruments). I had fun with the bass line, and linked parts with a golden trumpet.

I found images with ducks for YouTube, because why not, right?

Here’s a remastered version: https://soundcloud.com/user-894673824/dansez-les-petites-reines-24-04-2021-14-54-mastered

Good day!

Dansez, les petites reines,
Toutes en rond.
Les amoureux sous les frênes
S’embrasseront.

Dansez, les petites folles,
Toutes en rond.
Les bouquins dans les écoles
Bougonneront.

Dansez, les petites belles,
Toutes en rond.
Les oiseaux avec leurs ailes
Applaudiront.

Dansez, les petites fées,
Toutes en rond.
Dansez, de bleuets coiffées,
L’aurore au front.

Dansez, les petites femmes,
Toutes en rond.
Les messieurs diront aux dames
Ce qu’ils voudront.

Some 2020 Pearls of Avant-Garde

I explored, methodically, the Quietus Top 100 Albums of 2020 (https://thequietus.com/articles/29302-the-quietus-top-100-albums-of-2020-norman-records), and found a couple of things I could love.

( thequietus.com ) is a magazine about intelligent music, movies and some other arts like graphic novels or architecture. It’s typically the chest-like website, full of possible discoveries.

Many (most of the) musics I don’t like here, but it’s always interesting, even when it’s awful or ridiculous. My brain is playing like a kid with colorbricks, analyzing how the artists push the cork a little or much too far.

Even the texts, the critics, are cool. Vocabulary gives a hint for each musician. “an album designed to both inspire calm as well as disrupt it” makes me want to listen.

What I selected here is, I agree, the less avant-garde possible. My pearls, emeralds and nuggets come often like this, digging, finding

I’ve been amazed by Hen Ogledd (26), who begins like Robert Wyatt then develop a… splendid pleasure of making music (I’m probably influenced by his great eyes). The most adorable guy of the list?

Katie Gately (49 )surprised me with her Waltz. I loved, immediately, the way she marked the first beat of this dance. Then, it’s a crescendo, weaved with surprises, sounds, breaks. It puts her into the territory of Björk, Kate Bush, even Dead Can Dance. Lyricism! Modulation under a bridge, responding voices, changes, this climbing. Fascinating, right?

I found another clip (same musician), which frightens me a bit more, but the clip is so fantastic that I had to keep listening. She explores limits, between pleasure and chaos. This music is like… growing like she’s alive.

I listened the broken things of Malibu Liquor Store, the swarming The Homesick (try The Pawing), the floating pedal steel guitar or Susan Alcorn, the acid synth loops of Lorenzo Senni, the rotating sickness of Sex Swing, the laments of Keeley Forsyth, Nadine Shah, the strange clips of UKAEA, the silly repeats of Horse Lords.

Then Memnon Sa (76 ), an insisting music with synths. Simple and haunted.

Mary Lattimore (35)? Quiet, but neve too much (which is always hard to achieve). Try Ana Roxanne too.

Thanks for reading!

Next to this I found two names you can explore : Chapelier Fou & Olafur Arnalds. Good day!

And what about Japanese Post Rock?

It is the moment to explore Japanese Post Rock because why not.

So what is “Post Rock”? Let’s Wiki:

Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with electronics.

Good! The tool here is easy:

• Find a field you don’t know at all
• Explore a micro-part of it

It can be Hungarian jewelry, or Italian photography, and then you choose a century, or a single artist…

The game here is to listen to things, randomly, like a kid picks up shells on a shore. Here we go:

A Picture of Her is a bit boring with their jazz-rock, technical and with a always-the-same guitar sound.

Anoice: Quiet music with piano, sometimes a little dissonant, sometimes a little “japanish”. Climates, like sad movie music. Some violin. I like it, and some colors are interesting, but… too shy.

Behind the Shadow Drops: simplistic naive melancholia is terrible, right? It is! There’s a laziness, here. Dumb ideas stretched for too long. Not a single harmonic spark. Shame!

Floating in Space has the same problem, but it’s a little better. Too much sugar, and no colors. I couldn’t find a single good track.

Gargle is mildly more interesting, because of the accordion. But, well, sigh…

Kukangendai is Math Rock (a subdivision of Post Rock, more complex). This music is pulsating, it’s like watching fabric, or machines. I find it boring but interesting. Brain, brain, brain. No body.

Lite is much, much better. They’re good, fast, intellingent, complex :

Mono seems the most prolific band on this list. Plenty of albums, between prog rock and film music. They take their time, and they like big badaboum crescendoes. It sounds sometimes like Joe Hisaishi. It’s too conventional for me, but many people love them! Here’s a best of :

Mouse on the Keys, two keyboards and a drummer! More dynamic, more jazz, I like it with a but, always. A bit too… disheveled, maybe?

Nabowa? Cool! :

Ovum seems to like loud music and electric guitars, hmmm.

Qujaku, dark, intense, too much.

Toe, math rock, it knits! :

World’s End Girlfriend, the lone young genius type. First album, 15 years old. Devilish energy in the 1st vid, and a cool waltz to finish this page.

Thanks for reading! What did you like here?

(For this last one wait until 5:20 for a cloud of fantastic harmonies)

What did I shazam recently?

What did I shazam recently?

Most of the time, I don’t listen to my Shazams afterward. I did it because of “an element”, a sound, an idea, something which made my eyebrow upping up. If I “like” the YouTube film, I’ll find them back one day. Maybe.

=====

S. Decoster, because it was the end credit music of a great quirky French movie called “Perdrix” (“The Bare Necessity” in English). Nothing great here but I Shazamed it though, probably because the movie was hilarious and balanced.

The loopy “Je veux être à vous” means “I want to be yours”, BUT as you know, French has two “you”, the you for the persons you know well, and the you for the persons you don’t. Thus “I want to be you” with the “polite you” is charged differently, because it’s adressed to someone you don’t know from a long time.

Poltrock, Mute #2, navigates in interesting waters. Quiet piano music can easily be sugary – here it’s not because of the modulations of course :

Bon Entendeur, Basta Cosi, a sound, and a singer who does not sing but speaks.

Portugal The man, Fell it Still, the groove?

Lana Del Rey, For Free, a Joni Mitchell cover??! The song is splendid, and Del Rey has a good idea to sing un-reverbed, it whispers in ears. It modulated all along like smoke. Joni’s version stays much better of course. Here are some of the lyrics:

I slept last night in a good hotel
I went shopping today for jewels
The wind rushed around in the dirty town
And the children let out from the schools

I was standing on a noisy corner
Waiting for the walking green
Across the street he stood and he played real good
On his clarinet, for free

Nobody stopped to hear him
Though he played so sweet and high
They knew he had never been on their TV
So they passed his music by

Sting, Mad about you. Great song, right? Production is strange, it’s like… rustling, quivering:

Mahsa Vahdat & Mighty Sam McClain, Ambassador of Hearts.

Naïssam Jalal, Un sourire au cœur.

Duran Duran, Save a Prayer, and old thing I listen today with new ears, the bass line, the attemps for vocal harmonies, the chorus which climbs then falls back, modulations like stairs.

Mansfield. TYA, Ni morte ni connue, for the “old French new-wave” sound. Neither dead neither well-known.

Celeste, Love is back, because the vintage sound, the smiling desire to compose a similar base, and the broken Amy-like voice.

Colman Jones, Kiev, a dreamy walk in an unknown city under lukewarm clouds:

Ophélie Gaillard, Dos Gardenias, makes me ask someone to dance in the dark:

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(…)

Have a nice day! Je vous souhaite une très belle journée.

Music Chronicles 4: Little White Behind, and a Sad Violonist

I heard some music from Brazil, but I did not want to learn about their rhythms or about their scales, thus I wrote stupid lyrics about a guy in love with a contrary of a Brazilian girl : slow, pale, with a small behind. Found a beat, a big Liverpool bass (because why not) and played with bars where the 2nd bar is dissonnant.

I added “my idea” of an Elton John’s piano, sang (4 layers!) in Portuguese (like a Spanish cow), added a storm, a crowd, whistles, and voilà!

====

I saw this violonist, walking, a sad Hungary figure, on a Sabine Weiss photography. I wanted to build a Tom Waits’ like waltz, a slow one. I sing very badly, so I added this sad harmonica, a crazy fly-like Chinese violin, and silly noises of a dog and cars. The waltz itself is broken, not following the 3/4 at times.

Totally drafty, but I posted it eventually. Non Finito.

Thanks for reading!

Music Chronicles 3: Silly French blursed song

I don’t know how to write a song, therefore I wrote one!

I wanted to talk about Pop Figures collectors. The title is “Faut qu’j’aille en ville” (must go to town).

I must go to town to buy my figure it’s a limited edition, etc.

I added silly voices, noises and whistles to this reggae-like “thing” based, again, on transposition.

My pleasure was to disturb the “idea of a song”, breaking the normal structure, adding random chaos in the end, putting the chorus in no matter what places.

Primitivism is an energy you can insufflate in things. It comes from prehistoricness, silliness, childhood, savageness.

One little jab (or two) of untamed elements.

Have fun. Thanks for reading!

Music Chronicles 2: “Déguisée” – the dress the night the house before the ocean

The sea, the waves in the night, Pacific. A tall woman, in an evening dress, solitary. It’s all blue-gray.

So, I wanted to write a song, but I’m not a lyricist, and I’m not a singer. I tried many things, then I made it an instrumental.

It was made to be “De Façon Déguisée”, in disguise. For Dominique A.

A slow dance, with a big pensive bass, marimbas in echo, brushed drums and a mattress of strings.

For chorus I wanted to add an… irritation. Thus I added a too-loud snare drum, an insisting piano, like an itching.

She dances alone, therefore I added flutes, and doubled the marimbas with a sound on the left.

But maybe she sleeps now. It stops. Birds in the morning patio give her the sun.

Music Chronicles 1: “Sharp Bent Dervish”, or how to weave on one note only

Hey!

I’m having fun composing music on GarageBand. I draft little things to get used to the interface and tools.

For this one, I chose a limit, the “one note only“.

I struggled a bit to find a dry sample of the Art of Noise “Moments in Love”, but… I found it.

It is my note, like a synth-voice, “AAAH”. There’s like silver in it. I like it.

I’ll just repeat it, like a broken machine, a breathe maybe… Ahh Ahh Ahh…

Four bars, strings, and a cringy modulation in the last one (of course). Then, well, I loop, I weave!

Strings (see the ##?):

The bass:

I like the idea of a loop, a non-developping “machine”, something like a little robot dancing on a spot.

Do you like it?

Have a great day!

Risky suites of chords (and how to get them) ?

I downloaded French magazines like “Best of Music 2016“, and I dig, je creuse, through torrents or YouTube. I trash everything (rolling my eyes), but, well, I keep digging.

There’s a very lazy Radiohead album (A Moon Shaped Pool), an “I see what you’re doing, sillies” with rolled-out vowels I pfffed all along. But there’s this one: Burn the Witch, propelled by unstable harmonies, I found it… interesting (I try to forget the rolled out vowels). It floats in some uncertainties.

–

So there’s a lack, everywhere, I think, in the pop-rock field, of a producer saying: “No, dear, this is not good enough”.

This morning I listened to Paul McCartney’s Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, which is curiously entirely good. It was produced by Nigel Godrich (the, hmmm, Radiohead producer), who was tough enough to fight the myth, to push and jostle the singer:

According to McCartney, Godrich was at times blunt in his appraisal of McCartney’s songs-in-progress during the making of Chaos and Creation in the Backyard:

“Nigel… refused to allow me to sing songs that he didn’t like, which was very cheeky of him.”

Ah ah! I like this! Well, today (and then), the whole profession says it’s a masterpiece, an instant classic.

So I played the game of listening to the previous album and the next, entirely, and hmmmm, nope, it’s not that good, by far (but there’s one exception, a song named : “I do”).

I know exactly what Godrich did. Because what he got in “Backyard” is… harmony complexity (and surprises), which come from risky suites of chords and the subsequent modulations he has to make to follow).

Cf Friends to Go, very John Barry-esque (and oh, the lyrics!)…

–

This is such a good lesson. Good things appear when sometimes… we need someone we trust to say: “Hey, silly: not like that!”. Cheeky but lovely, right?

How do we find someone like that? Someone we trust enough? And more: when do we need this “coaching”? What kind of “producer” relationship is it? A superior? A lover? A Friend? A collaborator? A “push-me-out-of-my-comfort-zone” guy? What if we need this and we don’t know it?

Have a great day!

What did I Shazam recently?

The Uncle Albert’s trick – juxtapose, juxtapose, juxtapose

ONE

“Uncle Albert – Admiral Halsey” is a Paul McCartney’s song from the album RAM (1971). Here’s a little text I found on songfacts :

McCartney combined pieces of various unfinished songs to create this; in the later years of The Beatles, they did this a lot as a way to put unfinished songs to good use. As a result, “Uncle Albert – Admiral Halsey” contains 12 different sections over the course of its 4:50 running time. This jumble of musical textures, comic character voices, sound effects and changing tempos turned off a lot of listeners, but many others thought it was brilliant. The song wasn’t released as a single in the UK, but in America it became McCartney’s first #1 hit as a solo artist.

Oh, lovely, isn’t it?

I love this song, because it prevents you from drowning after one minute of a “cool seventies slow” with noises, surprises, changes. A big smile gets bigger all along : “Is Macca silly?”. Yeah!

TWO

There’s a famous Medley at the end of the Beatles album “Abbey Road”. McCartney says that they wanted to create a sort of “opera structure”. Lennon despised it, though. It’s considered today as one summit of the group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Road

THREE

When you listen to that (structure, noises, guitars), you think about Pink Floyd, who created in the Seventies like the epitome of this structured, fractured tracks sticked together in long classical-music-like “movements”.

Some examples : Pink Floyd “Pigs” (11 mn), Supertramp “Fool’s Overture” (11 mn), Genesis “Firth of Fifth” (9 mn).

FOUR

The pleasure is bigger than the juxtaposition of tracks, you get pleasure in transitions (closing door, opening door), in contrasts, you get it in subsequent modulations, you build like a “little travel”, like through the rooms of a big surprizing house…

Lennon is funny, when he says it’s a very practical to dispose of music you don’t know what to do with!

Lennon is COOL because he uses this game, in a fractal way, in other songs like Did A Pony, sticking words together (like Dylan, he says) to see if something appears, AND sticking two different song together to make a new song.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juxtaposition : Throughout the arts, juxtaposition of elements is used to elicit a response within the audience’s mind, such as creating meaning from the contrast, an abrupt change of elements. In film, the position of shots next to one another (which montage is) is intended to have this effect.

FIVE

So here we are, on the path of Progressive Rock! But there are differences. Prog rock wants to build long pieces – maybe with “parts” -, and they are damned serious!!

McCartney and The Beatles constructions are more like… medleys. This + this + that. And they have fun!

https://afrenchtoolbox.wordpress.com/2018/05/07/the-juxtaposition-principle/

SIX

My principle/tool is :

• Choose the elements you already have and want to get rid of (things must probably be of the same nature (music + music))
• Juxtapose – stick!
• Be conscious of transitions
• Choose the order of parts
• Don’t take it too seriously
• Try, try, try

Whether you use it in poetry, novel writing, music, have fun!

Thanks for reading!

Here’s MGMT, 12 minutes of

Mike Oldfield, 24 minutes :

Autodidact or else-taught? Rules or whatiffing things?

Autodidact or else-taught? Rules or whatiffing things?

Big laugh hearing Paul McCartney he can’t read music nor name the complex chords he uses in music.

Explaining that he and John Lennon learned a bunch of new chords (and some complex ones!) watching other groups in Hambourg, or the guitar salesman’s hands in a Liverpool music instruments store, or playing other groups music.

They made a “chords stock” – and more : learned how to combine them into songs!

Lennon is said to be a composer who were used to “stack bits of songs”, even dangerously.

How does this evolve? What’s the structure of A Day in The Life? How many songs here, into one? :

Macca helped creating an Art School called LIPA in Liverpool, where he “teaches” music sometimes to some luck students.

He said in this conversation that he can’t teach music, because he knows no “rules” in making a good song – that makes people smile! He just helps the students to quit the normal, ordinary, boring, predictable ways.

Here’s a cool example, an ordinary Macca song, not a hit, it’s the first song from “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard” (which is a title I love). Fine Line :

Boring ordinay until 1’06”, where the piano wrings the song in risky harmonies like in a bridge (that soon?). When the second verse begins at 1’19” the rhythm is slowed down already. Strings come, and at 2’09” there’s another cool part, before coming back to the strange piano pulsation, ending in an oblique obsessive modal repetition…

It’s not even a great song! But I find it elegant, casual, there’s a freedom here, in the way the song unfolds into unexpected little ideas. I can almost find the “what if I do that?” pleasure into this music…

All this not in avant-garde craziness, but in a small song!

The tool is structural : Follow rules or try things? Stay on the road or try little paths? Go on a line, or draw yours? Where to do that : life, love, poetry, writing, marketing, photography?

Sorry for my frenchy English, sorry for the Beatles obsession, it’ll go soon, probably. Have a nice day!

Thanks for reading!

My best unknown Beatles songs

Here are a few Beatles songs I love.

For No One, a strange discarnate and quiet 4/4 waltz-like song written by McCartney for Revolver, to describe the end of a love story. Everything seems perfect in this song : the piano, the drums, the chorus modulations, the French horn, very little reverb (giving an intimacy), the non-ending end…

It’s a jewel, and one of the favorite songs of Lennon, who adored it.

Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all the words of kindness linger on
When she no longer needs you

She wakes up, she makes up
She takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry
She no longer needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years!

If I Fell is a Lennon song I adore because of its brutal modulations : it’s clearly a “chords game” – they change all the time!

If I fell in love with you
Would you promise to be true
And help me understand
‘Cause I’ve been in love before
And I found that love was more
Than just holding hands

Because, By John Lennon, on Abbey Road, has harpsichord and Moog (!), and splendid “three-parts backing vocals”.

Because the world is round it turns me on
Because the world is round, ah

Because the wind is high it blows my mind
Because the wind is high, ah

Love is old, love is new
Love is all, love is youBecause the sky is blue, it makes me cry
Because the sky is blue, ah

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!