We are making music with one
of the most talented people I've ever met named
Jacob Collier. So you go, (SINGING) you
don't wanna be my savior. And you don't want to--
especially with the-- you don't wanna be my savior. In the music world,
Jacob's huge, you know? And so in some
ways, for him to get to work with all these
musicians, it's the best thing. We were able to get
him to come to MIT and kind of do a
week long residency. MIT's visiting artist
program is trying to bring great artists
in substantive contact with our students. It's all about music
education experiences. I wanted them to feel the
sparks of Jacob's creativity firsthand, and I wanted
them to go beyond that, to get inside his music and to
be able to make it their own. For this kind of thing, it's--
all you really need is-- is like a-- you
know what I mean? More than like-- you know,
you could even find like a-- I mean, I'd do your
own thing but you could find a riffy thing,
that's just kind of like-- you know what I mean? And just like-- because
I guess the guitar is like basically a
drummer here as opposed to being a harmony instrument. He creates a really
great atmosphere for working with people and
bringing the best out of them. That sounds amazing. It's a creative environment,
and that really feeds me. Their minds are obviously
so sharp, you know? And it's not even
necessarily musically sharp in the foreground, but these
guys think about stuff. There's this gig on Saturday
that if don't have tickets to, I believe there's a waiting
list, but you should come. It's going to be so crazy-- 200 musicians on the stage. I'm performing with Jacob
Collier, which is amazing. When I listen to his music,
it like sends chills up my spine, especially "Hideaway." Like, that's my favorite song. A sense of peace
a sense of calm, and something making sense. When I started
listening to the music, I realized this was a
lot more complicated than most arranging projects. As a music nerd, it's a
beautiful looking score to me because there's all
these things that didn't appear like they should
be there from the beginning and they start to show up. His music is in many ways
like classical music, which is that so much of
it is specified. Take me anywhere you want to go. You know that my love is strong. It's pretty moving for some--
well, "Hideaway" especially. There are certain
points in the music where it's pretty overwhelming. [MUSIC - JACOB COLLIER,
"HIDEAWAY"] (SINGING) Softly, like the
calm that follows storms So he states the melody. He sings the melody. It's all very tonal and
pretty like a pop song. And then we get to the
bridge and suddenly he throws us for a loop. (SINGING) In my hideaway. Even when I close
my eyes, darling I will always stay wide
awake in my hideaway. Touch me like I've never
loved before in the place the I adore in my hideaway. The drummer has one of
the hardest things of all. He's got to play the
fives on the symbol but still maintain the
slow four with his foot. (SINIGING) I know whichever
way the wind may blow, there will be a place for
me to go in my hideaway. Whether you be lost
or found, darling, I will always stay wide awake
in my hideaway, my hideaway. Down, falling down. Down, falling down. Down, falling down. Down, falling down. In the second verse, he
adds this layer of fives. So, 3, 4, 5. [TICKING] And it's made more
complex by the fact that the fives are grouped in
fours and threes and sixes. falling down, falling down,
falling down to the ground It's-- you know, you don't
hear the math of it when you're listening to the song. You just suddenly
become unmoored in this kind of dreamlike state. And yet you still
hear the slow pulse from the original
part of the song. He's kind of playing with this
notion of you, the listener, thinking you know where you are. And he'll throw something
at you that unmoors it but without completely
divorcing you from the structure that you knew before. [OOING] It's just-- it's a revelation. It's amazing. And all of this is happening
in what at the beginning seemed to be a simple
four chord pop song. [SCATTING] This is kind of
what our lives are like is that we try to
reduce them so that we can get through the day. But there's stuff going on that
if we just pay attention to it is beautiful,
inspiring, frightening. And he's kind of encapsulating
all of this in a five or six minute song that appears to be
a pop ballad at the beginning. [SCATTING] Let me feel the sky
and feel the moon. Let me sing and always
tune to my hideaway. It was just like
everything I had ever wanted to hear in music because
it's so intricate in detail, but it's purposeful, and like,
he has a purpose for everything he does, every note he hits,
every weird beat that he plays. Find a home in everything
in my hideaway. Maybe you can come to stay. And I will meet you here
someday far away in my hideaway. What my mom did is
recognize that I had some kind of weird brain
that was very thirsty and very inventive and quite
emotionally mature and presented lots of
different things to me. Like, this is Bach. This is Stravinsky. This is Bartok. This is Britain. This is Earth, Wind, and Fire. This is Bobby McFerrin. This is Sting. Those are like a lot of
my heroes growing up. And I wasn't told to
do anything with them. I was just told to enjoy them. She used to do things like
turn on the vacuum cleaner or, as we say in the UK,
the Hoover and plug it in and it would go [VACUUM SOUND]
and she would say, Jacob, what note
does that feel like? This is when I'm
two, two years old. I was like, G? yeah, that's a G.
Really, the biggest gift I was given as a child was
a space and the affirmation to create in it. And I was never, ever
taught to practice ever. I was never taught to practice. And people don't believe that. No, no way. where's the discipline? Sort of thing, and it's
funny because it's true, but people have an
idea of how to learn and how to teach that I think
is horrifically out of date. Do my dreaming and my scheming. Lie awake and pray. Do my crying and my sighing. Laugh at yesterday. Now it's dark and I'm alone. But I won't be afraid in my
room, in my room, in my room, in my room. I like the idea of at the
beginning of "Hajanga," the first thing you hear
is the strings come in. It's like the announcing
of a new song. Yeah. So I quite like the change
of texture for that. That's cool. Do you want to do those edits? You can plug in the
speakers and do those edits. I'd love that, yeah. Can we plug in a microphone? Yeah. Ah, sweet. [SINGING] I saw one of his
videos on YouTube and I thought, oh my
gosh, this guy's amazing. He's got this great sense of
aesthetics and editing skills and mixing and all these things. And I like to build
music tech stuff. And so I sent him a
Facebook message saying-- I'm at MIT and I make stuff. Have you any ideas of
stuff you'd like to make? And I said, oh, yes I have. I've always dreamed of
singing harmony on the spot, be able to essentially
improvise a choir. Singing in the life time. Take these broken wings
and learn to fly, oh, oh. A harmonizer takes
whatever you're singing. And there's a keyboard and
you can play different notes. And the notes that you
play are transformed so that what you sing is spread
across lots and lots of notes-- basically multiplies
his voice up in stacks. Take these broken
wings and learn to fly. Oh, all your life
you were only-- you were only waiting for this
moment to-- moment to be free. Blackbird, fly. Blackbird, fly. Because this is like
woodwind and then sax. Those sounds go
together, don't they? Yeah. I'm going to be creating this
kind of improvised harmonic, more spontaneous technological
musical compound piece where I can send the
musicians information during the performance via
maybe iPad screens or something like this where I say,
you play these notes now. And they play it. It swells up and swells down. And then I can fill in the gaps. And it's like a
big conversation. And this is one of the
main pieces of work that will be done
between now and December. I think on stage,
you'll need one laptop. That will be the MIDI input. OK. And that will have a keyboard. We each open up a web page on
our phone, and there's a staff. So he's picking all these
different notes, chords, rhythms, everything for
every different instrument. And we're playing them as
they come up on our screen. It's allowing Jacob to literally
play the band in real time. I'm a scientist. I'm an engineer too,
so I like to tinker. I like to explore things. And one of my best
laboratories is with music. So I think if anything
Jacob, has made us into bolder, more risk
taking experimentalists. I learned perhaps more
about how it's best not to learn and not to
teach than how to learn and how to teach. Don't give people all
the answers to things. If you give people
all the answers, then they are the
subject to your criteria. But if you give them all
the questions and the clues, then they find
their own answers. And actually, the process of
finding an answer is almost all of learning. So I think teachers
have a responsibility to trust their students
to find not only answers, but their own answers that might
be different from the teacher's answers, especially when
it comes to something like jazz which is so vague
and so expressive and personal. (SINGING) If I let
your mind create me, the work will never end. I don't wanna be a preacher. I just wanna be a man. I won't let you exaltate me. Just to keep me as I am. I don't wanna be a--- We have to take
the cue from him. I had an idea for like-- for the section that
it goes [VOCALIZING].. I could be there like
with the [INAUDIBLE] I'm getting stuff. [VOCALIZING] Just to give them
the rhythm there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [INAUDIBLE] OK. At what stage in
the process do you write the lyrics to the song? It depends. Sometimes they're the
first thing that I write. I write a lot. I write-- I have a
thought book that's filled with words,
really dense imagery, like really interesting,
dense imagery. And when I come to write lyrics. I try and write as
little of it as I can because the music
is already complex and I need to allow
people to find their meanings in the words. Like the song "Hajanga"
it's just a number of seven syllable lines. Everybody near and far,
come together as you are. And to the ocean, to the sky,
sing that cosmic lullaby. That could mean lots
of different things. That could mean life and death. It could mean a simple
song that your mother sings to you before you go to sleep. It could mean the
actually universe-- like, lots of different things. I'd rather write words
that invite people to understand them rather
than project my understanding onto other people. Everybody near and far
come together as you are. And to the ocean, to the sky,
sing that cosmic lullaby. Sing that lullaby. Sing the hajanga. Sing your pleasure,
sing your pain like I'll never sing again. Let it echo loud
and clear across the ancient stratosphere. And when the good
days pass you by, there's a spark of
joy that can be found. And when those dark clouds bring
you down lift your hands up from the sky singing [SCATTING] As the words go round and
round and round and round, let the tears roll
down and down. [SCATTING] Sing the way you
wish to be across the ancient stratosphere. Even when those dark
clouds bring you down, there's a spark of
joy that can be found. Oh, even when things
break and fall apart. Lift your voices from
your heart singing-- [SCATTING] So every morning
and every night, from that darkness to the light,
like a beacon shining bright, sing the hajanga. You'll be all right. From the winter
comes the spring. It don't matter
what life may bring. Said you can do most anything. So give your hajanga
a song to sing. So tell your mama
and tell your pa. Sing it near and sing it far. Be exactly the way you are. See the hajanga. It's your guiding star. So every woman, every man, in
every nation, in every land, I said please you've
got to understand. Now sing the hajanga
and take my hand. Then one day, your
life is through. Nothing more that you can do. So give away the things
you know, things you know. And tell your friends
you love them so. Tell them hajanga. Probably busy this whole
week, but if you ever find like an hour and you want
to go grab a pint anywhere-- yeah, yeah, fantastic. Are you're going-- you
coming on Saturday? I am. Just find me after the--
find me after the show. I'll be hanging out. Cool, all right. Fantastic. All right. So-- Yeah, yeah, so nice
to meet you too. Yeah, see you soon. Thank you. Cheers, see you later. I really feel like MIT is a sort
of second home in some ways. I've always felt
some kind of kinship with this kind of idea of
celebrating the introvert. At MIT, it's a sort of sublime
understanding of the people who think inwards first. And I would count myself in
amongst that group of people. So I'd like to celebrate that
idea, I think, and being at MIT consistently reminds
me how wonderful it is when people
think beyond this level and up and down into the
other realms of things. So I'd like to just sort of say
thank you to MIT as a concept. [INAUDIBLE] If the groove's
going [BEAT BOXING],, and the bass is going
[BEAT BOXING WITH BASS NOTES],, that's cool, right? It's like, it's more cool
than [BASIC BASS LINE].. Yeah, [COMPLEX BEAT BOXING],,
because they have a gravity that goes
towards the same place, but they don't
have a unison line. Let's try a different groove. This is a groove
that's hard to nail, but it's the groove
on the record. And it's like a lilt groove. So it's less of a shuffle. And it's like halfway between
a shuffle and a normal groove. So this is straight, and
then this is triplet. It's like halfway
between like this. It's less about putting
the high hat later. It's more about bringing
the snare earlier. So it's like-- [BEAT BOXING] Actually, if I play and
then you guys can join in, maybe that's a good
way to get the feel. So it's like-- I dig it. Can I have a go at the drum kit? [INAUDIBLE] [PLAYING DRUMS] He very carefully and
deliberately swings it in certain ways and
modulates the time and pulls and
pushes in a way that just gets this like
really visceral groove where you just like
get into it so much. [SINGING] That little bit of extra
effort to, you know, change it makes such a difference. And that's such a Jacob
kind of construct. It's like that extra
bit of intention that just-- you know, even
just a tiny little breath or a tiny little extra note or
something that doesn't quite, you know, fit in what the rules
say they're supposed to do. So at the end, were you guys-- had you guys split
into two sections, or were you singing
different things? Some of them saying, I don't
want to be [INAUDIBLE].. And the other one was going-- You don't want to be-- Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We could do girls versus boys. It could be so like,
I don't want to be, and then, you don't want to
be my-- you know what I mean? Put your hand in
the air if you'd be willing to sing along
in this next song with me. And by that, I mean
everybody raise your hand. This is a song called "Savior." It's the last tune of the night. Thank you so, so
much for coming. This must be what
Quincy Jones felt when he first encountered Stevie
Wonder or Michael Jackson-- that here's someone
who has really, really deep musical resources. He's marshalling
this at a young age, and he has phenomenal
performance skills, arranging skills,
composition skills. It's just incredible that all
this exists in a single person. Don't wanna be a-- [SCATTING] I don't
need you saving me. I don't need a savior. [SCATTING] She wants to touch me deep
down below and up above me. And I know that she's
never going to love me. I, I, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know she's always
gonna try to please me. But she can never find
the strength to leave me. You'll never be
the one to free me. Ah, ah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be on and I'll
be done watching life go round and round. I'm not the person you've
been searching for. So go and knock on
someone else's door. Because I don't want
to listen anymore. Oh yeah. You say that I'm
lost and you can help me find that I don't
want to be a savior no more. I wish you could tell me
something to change my mind. But you don't want
to be my savior. [SCATTING] The way he performs
is enthralling. I can't even begin to
imagine his potential. I mean, he's only, what, 22? I just think all of us
are so incredibly lucky. I'm gonna start with
this side of the room. Are you guys ready? Just a second. Say you don't want
to be my savior. You don't want to
close that door. I don't want to give a reason. Would you tell me what
we're searching for? Sing it. You don't want to be my savior. You don't want to
close that door. I don't want to hear a reason. Would you tell me what
we're searching for? Everybody You don't
want to be my savior. Come on! Say you don't wanna
close that door. I don't want to hear a reason. Would you tell me what
we're searching for? All right. Say you don't want
to be my savior. You don't want to
close that door. I don't wanna hear a--- I don't wanna be a preacher,
I just wanna be a man, I won't let you exaltate me. Just to keep me as I am. I don't want to be a preacher. I don't want to. [MUSIC PLAYING] He's one of those once in
a lifetime kind of people that changes the way
you look at things. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's really inspiring. It makes me think that there's
real divinity in the world. [CROWD SINGING] Black bird singing
in the dead of night. Take these broken
wings and learn to fly. Oh, no, in all your
life, oh, no, oh, you were only waiting
for this moment to arrive, for
this moment to a-- birds singing in the
dead of night, oh. Ba ba ba ba ba ba. Take these sunken eyes and
learn to see, learn to see, learn to see. All your life, oh, oh, you were
only waiting for this moment to be free, moment to be free.
Done
Timestamp: 1:06 to 1:19
Full notation would be great if possible - they're extremely short (about 2 bars each)