Jacob Collier Answers Music Theory Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

back in the day you know so talking a few hundred years ago people thought that an interval called the tritone was very very devilish and and this is what it sounds like no i'm just joking it sounds like this what's up everybody my name is jacob collier and this is music theory support [Music] we have a question from david brown i don't know the difference between pitch and timbre pitch and tombra are two very different things the pitch of a note is how high or low the note is so here's a high note that's a c sharp and the pitch is quite high and here that's a very low note that's an e timbre is the kind of texture of a note or the the quality your note has so i play a note right e flat and then i sing oh that's an e flat ah they're the same note they're both e flat but one has the tomb rover midi piano and then the other is a oh it's a human voice so both very important variables i'd highly recommend you explore them both i love this question her name is rachel chop suey and the question is omgong like what the hell is reharmonization well reharmonization is when you take a harmonization and you sort of um shuffle it up a bit just so you know there are infinite ways to harmonize everything but just by way of example let's take the song hey jude which you probably do know and if you don't know it's pretty tragic i'm not gonna lie now hey dude i think he's in an f major so if i harmonize that melody it's gonna go something like this [Music] right so when we think about reharmonization we take that melody and we think how else can we harmonize this melody this is these first two notes right well what other chords go with the note a this is the note a now what other chords go with a there's tons of them for example d whoa that's cool it's completely different sound so crazy [Music] so he means c that's the one he meant but what are the what other chords go with g well like e flat for example whoa so suddenly we've got [Music] it's like what are you doing bro and [Music] then they all have different feelings there's not really right and wrong it's just what do you feel is good what do you feel is right that rachel is what reharmonization is here's an excellent question from ethan high and ethan what's up and the question reads as follows what would you call the second mode of the major pentatonic scale and see it's the note c d f g and b flat i've seen suspended doing penciling some other terms i love this guy i use it a lot but i'm not sure what to call it suggestions well this is the sound of it so i guess that's what it's called really this is a question from scott just now it's a short question very simple very important it's a what is middle c middle c is is the note that's kind of in the middle of the piano kind of kind of because you've got c you've got c you've got c and you've got c you've got c and you've got c and then in the middle you've got this one but yeah what's called c4 it's like the fourth c on the piano and i guess it's like the most accessible c which is itself the most accessible key here's a question from ralph question is it ever too late to learn piano keyboard i'm about to enter my fourth decade of existence and i told myself this year for my learn something new it would be piano keyboard ralph it's never too late to learn anything in life and i would highly recommend you learn the piano keyboard there is bottomless discovery and creation and storytelling and enjoyment to be found it doesn't matter how old you are there's there is no cap on how relevant music can be in one's life so i highly recommend you do it and i'll hold you to i'll give you a call ralph in about two years time next up the question from roy wall the question goes why does music theory sound good to our ears is it science someone please answer i guess first of all music theory doesn't really sound like anything music theory sounds like parchment music sounds like stuff though and i guess the honest truth of the matter is uh no one really knows it's a bit of a mystery next up here's a question from trivia mafia what's the saddest key in music there is no answer to this question there's not one so objectively saddest key some people tend to well opine that minor chords and major chords tend to reflect certain moods which i think to a certain point they do so we take you know e flat minor versus e flat major one perhaps slightly brighter than the other yeah now i personally think what makes a chord sad is not necessarily whether it's major or minor but the context within which you hear the chord so say i'm in a flat minor for example sometimes i'm in a flat minor [Music] right if i go [Music] say i did that most of those chords are major chords that last chord for example is b major but if i go that's really sad to me the the context of b major coming from a flat minor is what makes that sad first of all i have to commend this username human equivalent of arson and the question is uh can someone explain the circle of fits to me because it's gibberish and means right now i've come to realize uh circle of fifths well there are 12 notes on the piano right here they all are and one of the best ways to display these notes is in a circle so this is a circle and the circle of fifths goes c and then it goes g and then d a e b f that's at the bottom six o'clock then it goes c sharp a flat e flat b flat f c that's a circular face [Music] i find this a really useful resource um because keys that are close to each other live in a kind of similar space and cause that far away from each other they have a very different relationship but you can see some of those patterns very clearly every note is a fifth apart which is also as you may have learned earlier a fourth it's the same thing you also say it's a circle of fourths for all i care here's a very good question from anthony rice music what's the music theory concept that you find interesting hashtag music hashtag music theory one music theory concept that i find interesting that i haven't already mentioned swing percentage if you take a little bit if i go [Music] that's really swinging that's like really hard so there you go there's a music theory concept that i find interesting and you may not find it interesting and i don't mind here's an absolute classic question from janet brooks what's up janet what is the devil's interval and why is it so evil back in the day you know talking a few hundred years ago people thought that an interval the tritone was very very devilish and and this is what it sounds like no i'm just joking it sounds like this here's another one there's another one there's another one the tritone by nature is not resolved at all it's very uncomfortable to stay here it's called a tritone because it's three tones added together and in the usa you would say it's a whole step but here in the uk we see a tone a tone is this distance so you've got tone tone and tone three tones added together there's a tritone going back to say you know the the 1500s or so there wasn't really a good use for this interval because a lot of the music that was written there was built out of fourths and fifths right the idea of doing this was completely insane and so it was such a dissonant sound with no context that all people could say it was this must be satan this is this is the devil speaking through music in jazz we like dissonance and and it's really interesting [Music] here's an excellent question from janet brooks i think this is the second question from you janet i'm glad you're asking so many good questions how do you change a c major chord into a c minor chord i've been there let me tell you i've been there well i think we've all been there you've got c major chord and you just think i want this to be c minor and it's a very very simple equation to solve you take the e and you weigh her down one two three that's a minor chord just just make that make that third slightly flatter put some weights on it you know give it some luggage or something yeah here is a more practical question from kk what do the piano pedals do a piano uh has normally three pedals the pedal on the right which is a bit like the sort of accelerator you can say the gas pedal that one uh is called the sustain pedal and so when i play lots of notes with no pedals pressed down they are what's called staccato but they're short if i put the pedal down sustain pedal down they sustain and when i lift the pedal they cease sustaining that means i can go and all the notes ring and when i release the pedal they all stop it's kind of like magic so then there's a pedal on the left of the of the three is usually what's called a soft pedal and what the soft pedal does is it makes all the notes just slightly quieter and this is good say if you have like um sensitive roommates or it's just very late or you're just not in the mood for making loud noise now the pedal in the middle um i know of two uses of this of this pedal one is what's called um the sostenuto pedal i play a chord i hit the societal pedal and only those notes are sustained and around those notes i can actually still play staccato notes right which is kind of fun because it means that certain notes will stay insert notes won't sustain and you can change that chord all the time so it's almost like a sort of halfway sustain pedal where you choose which notes you would like to sustain the other use of the middle pedal sometimes in upright pianos like the one that i have at home is um the mute pedal and so i have a bit of felt inside my piano at home that goes when you put the middle pedal down and when you lift it up then it comes off and that bit of felt it makes it sound really really warm it's like you put a blanket over all the where you you literally do put a blanket between the hammers and the strings so when you play it goes instead of banging and there's a really beautiful kind of softness about that sound excellent question here next up from richard jarrett blue heart what's the difference between 3 4 and 6 8 time there are different ways in which you can divide time and space within music now there's actually a lot in common between 3 four and six eight because three four and six eight take up the same amount of time if you're good at maths you would've already noticed that the main difference between these two time signatures is where where the emphasis is so with three four there's an emphasis that happens thrice within that space one two three one two three and with six eight the emphasis happens twice waltzes right any fans of waltzes amongst listeners leave a comment below uh waltzes are in 3 4 famously [Music] and what's a good example of eight um there's a tune called uh my bonnie lies over the ocean so thank you lenny and i hope that helps in your rhythmic quandary here's an interesting question from nick berry why are the black and white keys on the piano keyboard spread the way they are i don't really know i'm not exactly sure why but i guess i'd say that all of these notes are are naturals you say c natural d natural e natural but you have e flat or d flat or f sharp these are different versions of these natural notes and all the sharps and flats those are the black keys so you've got the naturals and you've got the sharps and the flats and the sharps and flats are always the most interesting notes because they really add stuff they add color they add interest they add motion so it's laid out where a tonality in its basic form is the white notes and then the black notes are all of the kind of tributaries that lead out of that tonality here's a question uh from trakdo and the question is does music theory matter anymore i would say the short answer to this question does music theory matter anymore is is i i don't know if it ever really mattered i don't know if anything really matters actually but i think that as a musician the more options you have to intuit through or with the more interesting your palette is there's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of of zoning into the things you like and trying to understand them in more detail so yeah does music theory matter anymore sure it does but nothing really matters so i wouldn't take it too seriously hope you have a good time this is a question from joe weisenthal the different keys presuming the mode stay the same have distinct characteristics like is there any other objective difference between a c f sharp etc besides higher or lower joe it's a great question the short answer is yes every key has a different characteristic from every other key is one of the joys of traversing the world of music is changing keys at least that's you can quote me on that that's one of my favorite things to do if you take a different frequency you know take a s [Music] that's a different feeling from [Music] yeah it's different different vibe every key is a new world and so the more ways you have of changing key and opening doors into new keys the more exciting it is to be a human on planet earth ladies and gents that concludes this session thank you for such brilliant questions i hope that i've been remotely helpful and it's been wicked fun answering them all and it's made me think of my feet which is great thanks for sticking around let's do this again sometime catch you later

Channel: WIRED

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Keywords: explained music theory, jacob collier, jacob collier explains music, jacob collier music, jacob collier music explanation, jacob collier music theory, jacob collier tech support, jacob collier theory, jacob collier wired tech support, music explained by jacob collier, music theory explained, music theory wired, tech support, wired, wired interview, wired music theory, wired tech support, wired tech support jacob collier, wired tech support music

Id: hyXCWYqpId4

Length: 15min 21sec (921 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/houseplant14]

he’s so hot-

[u/Inner_Climate9569]

Jacob: *Makes noises to represent circle of fifths*

Me: :| that makes sense

[Jazzy Piano Music]