Jacob Collier interviewed by Leo Sidran at TriC in Cleveland (2015)

morning this is such a rare treat not just for us in Cleveland but for really anybody in the world to see Jacob Collier in person because most of us know him from these videos that Tommy mentioned on YouTube I think this is an incredibly unusual and special thing that we're gonna see today so Jacob thank you so much for being here and sharing your craft with us yeah it's cool hey everyone how's it going yeah it's so cool to be here man it's really really really cool I'm very excited yeah fantastic awesome good stuff so before we talk about your process can we have a look at one of the videos that David's done this is going to be fascinating rhythm yeah yeah this is a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so before we talk about that video I guess my first question is man who are you like where did this start for you alright that's a good question so I'm from London I was born in London to a family of musicians sort of everybody plays in the family so it's kind of never a moment's silence actually so it's kind of nice because it's the sort of chaotic environment where creativity is encouraged as opposed to stymied so it that's cool I was I was kind of offered instrumental lessons at quite a young age and I declined the offer I sort of thought I don't want to do that and actually that kind of maybe that one of the best decisions I've made I've sort of built my own framework of understanding music and harmony and rhythm and things like this and when you do it this way things that you learn you kind of learn and they go straight into your heart instead of coming through it kind of intermediary means like you know being imposed by somebody else it's kind of it's an interesting thing I mean you know obviously you learn so much from from everybody that you meet if you allow yourself to but I think you know that's that's maybe something important to mention it's just that I've constructed and this kind of thing for myself I really encourage everyone to do that because I mean you know as far as I can see all of the you know many of the greatest musicians have this way of working where they have this kind of insulate this world inside their inside their mind where they understand things and that's kind of like in that that's an emotional place and it's a musical place to kind of join together I think one without the other just doesn't it doesn't really work but going back to the to the question I was I was kind of raised on good music many of Tommy's records I can guarantee you were in my collection as a young young boy and I suppose when you have good food you just like spew out good food as well I suppose so it's important to fill your your ears and your with interesting stuff and challenging things and stuff that makes you think and if you can think about these kind of things in like an emotional way then they kind of they they unite with the world around you and and suddenly everything's kind of relevant instead of it being something that's in the distance or something that you don't you don't really feel like you can access I mean even people that don't you know have a really deep theoretical understanding of music can still access this stuff because it has like an emotional anchor and I was I was encouraged very much to think about music as something that was emotional like all the time you know whether it's something that's phrased in a kind of way or voice in it in a kind of way or just kind of the hombro you know if if I if if a musician expands one's arsenal of like emotional devices then that's it man you got it it's kind of that's the that's the secret weapon and I think with those things in your under your kind of belt as it were then you and then you have the tools to communicate with with people across the whole of the world not just kind of like freakish musicians or people that are like music nerds and stuff it's kind of if you want to be universal you got to you got to be emotional about it that's that's how I was brought up anyway what were some of the primary influences in your developing this this approach what Stevie Wonder is this is so good man it's really good and I was brought up with Stevie Wonder's every record he ever made sort of thing and and the way he phrased the way he kind of arranged stuff and he played every instrument and I was like fully inspired by that that was really cool and then you know people like songwriters like sting for example I was really interesting Bobby McFerrin the singer I was brought up on him in the deep way and that was obviously really ridiculously cool because he can sing this great big range and when I was younger of Si couldn't sing the lowest of the low stuff and I've just kind of I guess I was kind of lucky because I've got I've got a vocal range that can sing deeply and and highly I suppose so that's that was cool I mean bobby was bobby was the man as far as I was concerned but I remember I discovered take six the a cappella group take six man you know I freaked out it just it was like everything I loved in this environment where it's like spiritual and like you know energy everyone was just like in the in this and everyone was digging it and it was just such a kind of energetic way of communicating music and all the songs were about kind of things they believed in and I was really struck by that as much as the Harmony you know which I was freaking out about but yeah I suppose that yeah take six I have to I have to sort of say that was that was big for me cuz it was pretty big for me but then you know when I was when I was a bit younger I was about 12 or 13 I sang classically that was the only thing I was really trained in was classical singing and I sang in a couple of operas by Benjamin Britten for example who's a composer from England serious stuff man it's like the harmony he gets into it's kind of beyond anything you've you've maybe heard I mean I had ever heard before that was that was the that was the new benchmark I mean he gets into like twelve tone stuff and that the store I mean did they all pride I sang in what's called the turn of the screw it's like a horror story and so I got to examine his emotion of the way he communicated this stuff and and how he got he you know he'd haunt the audience so he'd he'd kind of tantalized the audience or he'd like charm the audience and all this stuff and I was I was very young but I kind of memorized the Opera just because I'm bird of a weird weird person with memorizing stuff and and it was it was crazy and so yeah Benjamin Britten sort of collided with take six and then sort of I was I had this I had this thing and I found that I mean I always loved to sing and one one dude a friend of mine just sort of said we'll look man there's there's YouTube and you could you could do that and and so I just put it up for fun and I still put the stuff up for fun I mean I think the day that changed it's kind of like death for creativity and humanity but yeah I just sort of put it up there and the responses to be kind of crazy man really overwhelming you know and here I'm talking to you guys it's kind of it's amazing how it just sort of shoots out there but you know it's it everything that I do are there it just has an anchor in something I really love there's no point in doing something if you don't really love it and that's what I think anyway really you are I guess nobody has mentioned I don't know if Tommy mentioned it you're now 20 years old Wednesday yeah so I think we can all agree pretty pretty young and it seems like as you've been developing technology has been right there like you sort of have been coming into your own in a world where YouTube exists and you can make these things on a on a computer at home yeah oh yeah the world is a different place with regard to creativity I mean like my bedroom is here not here but it's at home sort of yeah and then under straight underneath it is my music room so the same size I really wanted to get a trap door that was like you're gonna go down in the middle of night but it's so expensive I didn't do it but the music room is it's just filled with instruments so many instruments it's kind of like outlandish unreasonable but I just I loved collecting instruments and sounds and so I just I've really got a thing about it so it lists a space and I live at home and like I'm still at college but at home and so it's really a treat to be able to kind of go out of bed downstairs like get a glass of water and then go into the music room and just kind of work at home it's it's a luxury I can tell you that but yeah I mean even ten years ago you couldn't really build yourself a little studio what I've really got at home is it's kind of like a couple of microphones I had one microphone one sm58 microphone for pretty much well almost all my life eighteen years and then I got in Oh 19 years and then I got a couple of new ones recently but it's far as the set up it's kind of simple it's I've got you know sound card I've got you know say this sm58 which is what I did I got a couple of c4 14s recently which is kind of like a different different game but sm58 and I got a sound card and I've got logic on a computer and then and this is this is all you really need and that like and your imagination which is kind of dust that's thus I've built up this world which is it's kind of my world it's a bit like the inside of my mind it's kind of it's my space but it's really cool to share it with people so yeah this it's just kind of worked out that technology is developed and then I've kind of grown up and we've reached a place where you one can make some make some stuff and then you can sort of just press go and and see where it leads you and you know now I've got there kind of thousands of people looking for my new video which is just really overwhelming and weird but really lovely as well it's kind of it's awesome but you know I think if you take - if you take technology too seriously then you sort of go down a massive weight like this like I sort of rabbit hole just because it's so easy to lose yourself in it you know if I if I just if I started sort of taking my whole career seriously you know yeah you know I've got it's weird I mean the whole thing it the purpose of the whole thing is to have good fun and it just happens that you know the Internet's there and that the power is in like your hands to do some stuff if you want to do something you just you do it and and it's as simple as that and if you've got it I think you've got a strong enough vision then it'll probably find the people you want to find you just gotta sort of keep going with it really just gonna be true true to that vision I guess so could we talk about a little bit about the process of how you approach and arrange mental like for example fascinating rhythm yeah how did you imagine that arrangement how did that come to you what were the first thoughts that you had about it okay yeah so when I think about a song which song to arrange I mean like there are lots of good guy like there are people on YouTube who arrange songs that are kind of famous and so therefore they get lots of it like it's social acclaim and it's like really funny and it's like really hip and stuff and people who know the songs watch the videos and and take that I've never I've never been massively into like I've never gone out and searched for like fame really I've just sort of done the thing I want to do and so whenever I choose a song I just choose a song and I really love this song I mean all the songs on on my YouTube account songs I really love this one I mean a lot I love it I've known this song for many years and it's a really it's a kind of catchy think it's kind of repetitive and and I you know so I thought hey I could I could do this and once you kind of make that decision what I find any ways that you can't sort of go like you know kind of running off to after the thing you can't I can't sit out and say you know I really want to get loads of hip and then it's like that will be great you know you can't run after that you had to just kind of let the stuff come to you when he wants to come to you so what I found was there was there was one day I think I was I was born I think I was like procrastinating I was supposed to be doing something and I suddenly had a lot of ideas for this which often happens but I was sort of I was eating my lunch and I and I thought oh man don't be that would be cool I just thought something came into my mind like oh I could do this what about that and I'm suddenly I I was kind of on fire with it and I went into my garden and I walked around in sort of circles and I got up my iPhone device and and got my voice memos application on it and I sort of walked around in these circles and I recorded all the ideas I thought of so backing you know little backing figures voice things I'd sort of sing the note in the voice thing I'll explain the way something would like zoom in the in the filming or something harmonic or I might modulate to this or the bassline would move in the cycle of fifths or something and and I begin to piece it together I got about half an hour's worth of footage on my iPhone went inside finished my lunch and then I went into the music room and I caught I put the voice memo file into logic and I chopped it up into every single different idea and I made different tracks so I had verse 1 verse 2 verse 3 melodica solo a compliment I had the funky section the intro in the ending and I just dragged them to where they might be appropriate and in the end most of the ideas were appropriate for verse 3 because they were all like super crazy right which is which is fine and and so I had these things in place I had a few different decisions to make just regarding which ideas would be appropriate I wanted to pace out the energy you can't throw it all in at once even though I kind of maybe did that but you have to make sure that the air can you can't just throw a bunch of stuff with people you have to kind of ease it in so you know I space out the ideas and then it was then it was just a matter of kind of just kind of filling in the gaps where there were gaps you think are you know this needs to do this and if you think about it kind of emotionally you think well this I want to just hold it back or I want to just release it I want to put some like fresh air into it or I want to like it just open it up or release it or you like clinch it up and then sort of open and if you think about it in this way is it's kind of more Universal but this is how I thought about it anyway so you know I got these ideas put them into logic put them into different places I began to kind of notate them out on paper I'm really bad at really music that's that's the truth of it and so as far as the notation was concerned it's cool because you can you can you can play it back and listen to it and it you can back it up on your hard drive so that's cool but I think most of the conception wasn't done on paper but it was useful to see you know you can kind of examine the voice leading when it's in in this environment you know so I wrote the thing out I think I have it here yeah I forgot to put the Sibelius on my computer so I can't open the file cool but anyway yeah so that was I had this thing and then I guess once the arrangement thing is put together in your mind then you start recording and that's kind of where it gets really fun you know so when you took these ideas put them in the computer and then decided to start recording what's the first thing you start with so I mean this is there's a bunch of different sections going on here there's the a cappella stuff and then there's there's kind of funky instrumental stuff then there's the kind of hybrid stuff where it's kind of both and then there's the introductions the ending and stuff so what I actually did is I made different logic projects for different parts of the track because if you put everything on one then the computer decides to not not play ball anymore and and also you don't like you lose track of what's going on because it's like 200 tracks and and you just sort of sweating and stuff like that so you know so I've got a bunch of different projects for different parts and the first thing I normally do is I'll go into the music and close the door get a glass of like something nice and then and start recording the acapella and when I do the acapella I start from the base most of the time so you know put the whole bass track down that's kind of the first thing and then I worked my way up so you need got the other other five parts sometimes more and then I guess the thing is when you sing the melody in the end and it works it's like you're yeah that's great you know and if it doesn't work you just that sucks but you're just holding the melody kind of in your mind as you're yeah yeah yeah that's right yeah so you have to kind of visualize the melody and and you know you build up these parts and I guess you know when the melody rise over the top and it works and it is it's a really thrilling feeling but what you find is that you know the arrangement is one thing but you can't take it too seriously cuz when you start recording everything gets real and everything changes as well and you know I think the whole idea notation is it's kind of it's not it's not the thing the thing is the music so the notation just kind of stands for certain things but I kind of screw over there's all over the score and sort of write really weird like jokes to myself and weird weird stuff and it just kind of makes makes me bring it too much so when you record it you bring it to life you know so it's not really that I kind of sit down and record the parts like this because that's kind of sterile in some ways I mean when you when you do it you know you might think oh that's that's a good idea you've something occurred to you that you could maybe try and do or you know there's something comes in your mind something doesn't work you've got to change it around you can you can't be too precious about it but you know yeah so as far as the recording is concerned a cappella wise I start with the bass work my way up and yeah well so what I find when I'm recording this kind of stuff I can show you the project in its in a second but obviously we need something about harmony different notes in the chord had they have different personalities right they have different kind of purposes so say like the root of the chord is going to be your anchor point and that's not necessarily at the bottom but sometimes it is often and so that has a certain thing and then you've got the melody which is the melody and then you've got you know different parts of a voicing and and so you know when you're talking about harmony and that these different notes the they all they all have different ideas and different different stuff that they do you kind of approach recording them slightly differently you know so say in a chord I've got a note which is kind of angular kind of weird like the sharp 11 or something in and of course something that's been off-the-wall then you know as far as recording that's concerned I might I might record that with a slightly different tone of voice or I might double track it to emphasize it to the ear or I might pan it right in the center or you know yeah maybe if I double checked it in hard palate you know - one at one other size so it sounds like it's just surrounding you these these are like emotional decisions that you make when you start recording and so each part you know has it has kind of a different a different thing but this is like an interactive process you know the moment you start recording the parts you realized that the parts have a kind of life of their own and you have to you have to follow it follow those through you know when you make these videos you know you style your hair differently for every part and you put on a different shirt and I always sort of thought it was just a nice way Julie to understand that these were different parts but it sort of occurs to me that you see each one of these individual parts as having its own personality yeah I guess that's right yeah that's a visual way to represent that yeah yeah I mean I think some people like people love the hair different and that I don't I mean it's really fun to do it you know when I go into the loft I've got a sort of law firm in my house with a white row of cupboards like just cupboard doors and so I sit with the cupboards one here and one here and there's like a crack that goes down the middle because it's their cupboards and well hide the crack quite sitting in front of it and so it's like a white backdrop and and then on the floor it's just like a bunch of shirts and t-shirts it's like a mess it's really cool you sort of borrow away and all that all of your clothes and like the cat comes in and so that goes crazy but yeah you're people people like it I think it's engaging for people to see you know this kid with the different hair and the shirts even if the music is something that they can't relate to at all at least it's fun to see it and and it's simple if you want to communicate with people it's kind of nice to present it well you know so I do take a kind of I take time to get it right but you know yeah I guess yeah each part does have different personalities you know so you know the base guys kind of got like a duck's thing on any kind of hazards hair down a lot the time and just if it's kind of cool and then you know the other guys have different stuff and I mean when you get to the filming stage you have to kind of be aware that each part seems kind of different different quirks in the arrangement so one guy's going to go do the other guys are going to go but on the other side and that you know that the base is one of the hardest things to get right because you know obviously there's there's so many different vowel sounds that are possible if it's like dual or do or bar or anything you like really good and and even get one of those wrong you got to start again so you it's kind of like a process where you just have to be patient but it's really fun this it's a good it's good fun when you're choosing those vocal sounds in the recording process is there something that happens naturally or do you sit with it and think in this section where I'm gonna do do and then I'm going to do God in this section yeah I guess it kinda happens naturally I mean you know so for example in take six Alvin the bass dude he ever goes do like that and I guess that's kind of stuck with me just as I loved love to do so you know that will occur this is kind of what I was saying before if you fill your mind with good food then when you get to the creative situation then all kind of it's in it's in your peripheral vision and all you have to do is just like like not necessarily like you know you know if you're in you know this in the nighttime and and you look at a star and if you look straight at the start then it's invisible but if you kind of look at it off then if you've seen a provision and it's there it's kind of maybe it's a bit like that because if you if you look straight you can't look at your peripheral vision because then it's not peripheral you have to just kind of trust that it's there and so you know that if you trust your peripheral vision then the things that you've heard in the past things that people have said ideas and it's kind of just there and all you have to do is just learn how to grab it and use it where it's appropriate I think that's really important and to not be too kind of striving after it but just can't just be aware that it's kind of hanging out in the back of your back of your mind yeah we're talking about so can we look at let's look at the session okay yeah and maybe you can start with the base and show how you built that initial layer good show good show all right so welcome to this is logic welcome to the what's going on here oh okay say we are okay the bailout come dude up so yeah this is being done don't pop to do when you stop do but happy so you know this is the first thing I do and yeah as you can is you can probably see I've double tracked this track makes it sound kind of beefy gives it a bit of a kick gives it a good strong anchor I think without a good bass track you're kind of bit lame you just sort of it doesn't you need to have a great big like good odds floor to just like put your feet down on so yeah the bass track is the first thing I do if I bit if I just loop a section I can build it up for you so you can just see mm-hmm yeah so I've got a click going give any pitch any page reference no I don't have any pitch reference oh I think it's yeah I mean I I have I have perfect pitch which means that I can I know what the notes are without touching the piano which actually it does come in handy because some chords you don't actually tune the way that they the way that you play the way that the piano plays them because it's kind of wrong I don't how much of you guys know this but the whole of tuning is like a scam the piano is not in tune okay this is the truth of the matter so yeah just quickly to explain that in the harmonic series which is kind of actual harmony like where a lot of the harlot comes from the major third for example is it slower than on the piano the pianos about 16 cents sharp or 14 cents sharp sharper the third so yeah yeah so yeah so if you if I play a major chord on the piano it's it's not actually quite right so if when you when you sing I'm gonna want to tune that third a little bit lower just because it sounds better it's actually this is just true back in back in Bach's time they the church decided that the pianos were too expensive to be made one for each key because the piano could only play in one one one or two keys so you know they thought well let's just kind of let's cut the budget and make sure we can get one piano that does everything and thus the twelve tone equally tempered piano was born which is great because you mean I mean a lot of jazz harmony you can't get with true like it would just lead to the chords but when you get into a situation like this where I'm just at home and I'm singing I've got loads of options and you know that's why if I like if I oughta tuned it or if I use the piano all the time then it wouldn't actually sound right so you just bear that in mind if yeah if you check out a bunch of a bunch of stuff that's to do with just intonation it's kind of a I'm wondering I can maybe show you because this is a this is F and a two good friends of mine and the a is a it's too sharp because it's on a piano and so if this is this the gun and if I think that the property about trying something properly that would be like [Music] just like allergy I was I was really blown away when I discovered this I didn't know about it and I know it's kind of figured out that cause didn't sound quite right sometimes on the piano but I really like understood this fully and it's it's crazy it's really crazy but we can talk about that a bit later because there's there's a really fun bit in this where the to negate it gets kind of crazy but anyway so yeah so it going back to your question I don't have a pitch reference I just kind of stuff in because then you can use your position of the piano and so then I work my way up so [Music] [Music] but I used to be the whole Harlem to be to be the man that I used to be but oh haha to be to be the man that I used to be but oh haha to be to be the man that figures to be thought to be to be the bad news to be so they're thing missing now is the melody let's put the melody on see how it sounds oh this is an interesting section I got a kick out of this because it's it's like microtonal a little bit so this chord this chord is it's made up of fourths right for so like a really cool interval really really cool the chord is this right and then I was I was saying before how on the piano things aren't tuned right so actually all these faults are a little bit to that they're too big yeah they're too big so if you actually think this properly then the top note ends up like lower than this is like if you general the force right so thank you big relative to what the true harmonics here yeah naturally occurring yeah that's right yeah so so and like a proper forth in a harmonic series it's a little bit bigger than it is on the piano so so I just I thought about this and I did that and so this is the first chord the second chord I think is this it's kind of a fun chord and that these two chords are made up of fourth over the first ones force on the second ones fits right I'm a huge fan of fifth and fourth so cool man it's seriously really cool and so and you have these two chords sitting on table yeah yeah so the first chord you've got this like this they're kind of like f-sharp you could say it's F sharp half diminished but it's not it's just gonna be F sharp thoughts and then this one you could say that's super ultra Lydian which is like my own invention but it's not really it's kind of like C sharp major 7 over T but it's made up of fits so that's kind of like going [Music] and all of those fits are too small on the piano so they need to grow they need to be bigger and all the forth and too small or too big so they need to shrink so what you get is this thing of the first court it's crazy and I can't believe I got away with it and a couple of people sort of you can't believe you got away yeah because it's not I mean the the the the notes aren't really notes on the piano but this is the kind of thing what like I would never afford this when I was writing it out but when I was recording I thought you know oh why doesn't why doesn't the chord sound right oh it's cuz the this fourth you know you've soul of each interval between I must have looped that baby thing for maybe like two and a half hours or something just kinda like you know what what what's going on and and iswhat I just I reward all the tracks you know one by one you get you know you go into the core do you think that's not right got to do that one against you record it again and I ended up with this really like low fourth chord and then this great big fifth chord and I just thought it was really funny but this is a function of the fact that you so much of this arranging is happening acapella yeah exactly yeah so I mean more arranging is happening in the recording process than it really is it on paper so you know if if you ever want to like to start recording it just just yet you know get something at home get even if it's really kind of really just like a basic set up you know just like a USB microphone and logic or even GarageBand or something because when you sit down with yourself you learn so much about everything like harmony you learn about like patience and all that stuff but you know I haven't as far as learning harmony and rhythm and anything production is concerned you know it's kind of Queens if you see to be sitting in front of Tommy liPuma sort of saying this but you know I have never I've never really learned how to do it so what I've really done is I've sat at home and I've worked out the things that work for me and you know so when I was younger I used to think that compression just made stuff louder so you put compressor on you just put the gain up and it's like that's louder that's cool and I've since learned that compression does more things than just that but I mean did the basically think that I'm saying is that this stuff is stuff you can work out on your own and I'd really really encourage it don't don't wait to be told just go out and search for the solutions to your problems because they are out there you just need to sort of just kind of seek them out and you end up finding things like this where you know you can't really write it down but I just I stumbled across it and I know how to achieve the results of things that I'm kind of looking for it seems like in general the prettier process of arranging and your creative process is a kind of process of discovery of kind of discovering what you know or what you feel already and and then working it into the into the the piece yeah that's true you you always learn you always realized that you know more than you then you knew you knew especially when you you draw from things that aren't like theory based I don't say that I draw from a bunch of like theory based things I'd say that I draw from a bunch of like devices that I know feel certain ways and if you can navigate harmony via the way you feel about it instead of the things you know about it then it's kind of really it's better and also I think the whole thing of like kind of being in college and learning about harmony and there's so much harmony to be learned and you just kind of can feel really overwhelmed like oh man you know I've never checked up quartel voicing I got to go home and do that you know put it up and that's kind of that's it that's kind of a disempowering thing to say to yourself so it's better to to just kind of you know you you you find things that you really enjoy listening to and that you love and and then you kind of think about why you why you love them and how they fit together just for yourself in your own in your own world and then gradually these things will join up in your mind and the more you learn about music which you will know about music these things were kind of they'll come together but yeah I definitely every single time I do this I learn a bunch of stuff because this is this is like my school you know me in the room and just trying stuff out and things that don't work you know you you know you don't get too precious about it you just say well cool man that didn't work that's awesome let's find what does work and then I've learned something and then you know some things are too complex to have to take stuff out sometimes very occasionally things aren't complex enough so you've got to put more stuff in but you know it's cool if you approach music as a learning experience but not as a kind of you know a really kind of judgmental student-teacher kind of vibe sometimes it can be kind of destructive to learning it's better if you if you think of learning as coming from from you I think then coming from somebody else I don't know I just think that's cool when you know you sat down at the piano and you mentioned c-sharp super ultra Lydian or C supe super ultra Lydian it sort of reveals a little bit of a window into the way you've invented a kind of a system for yourself about thinking about harming but you're also a student right now yeah what what is the relationship between what you're learning at school in college and the work that you have already started to this process that you develop for yourself already yeah that's a good question so if you go to school then you learn about lots of stuff and often it's just a lot of stuff schools I think sometimes miss out on being emotional about things so you'll go sit in the classroom and you're fed they're streaming it's a stream of information and and it's kind of not it's kind of foreign to you and it's kind of going back to what I've seen before but if you can relate things you learn to things that you know and you do know the stuff even if you don't know what it's called or even if you don't know how it sounds you you you understand the emotional impact of things because that's why you enjoy listen to music you know you you think oh man that's such a kind of touching little chord sequence oh I love the way it goes modulates to thing oh I like I love it a sus in September you know I love that sound and something like you know I think we've all had these these thoughts before I love an ASUS in like you know the bass like the chord yeah so thrilling it's not one of the best moments in all of music but you know so at school you're fed look lots of things but I think it's important to go and work things out for yourself you know I sometimes sit in classes and I disagree with us through the teachers I would necessarily kind of stand up and stomp my foot and then like that's just kind of that kind of sucks but it's cool to go home and just consolidate things on your own and work out you know you need to have your own anchor in the floor before someone else's anchors it's like spewed all over you and school is just an awesome environment for just collecting as much as you can it's kind of you whatever you want to take from it you can take from it it's not the gospel truth but you know so at college I learned jazz standards I'm exposed to really cool musicians who come in and do classes it's fine as far as far as to kind of you know being in the Harmony class and stuff is concerned you have to kind of t take it with a pinch of salt just because harmony is like it's up to you what you want to do but yeah I definitely be up for learning stuff because it's this is the this is the time in one's life where one learns about loads of stuff including music if one seeks to do that so yeah it's not good to be close-minded but it is good to be open-minded and it's good to just kind of yeah have your own space I asked that what that was big for me anyway just having my own space and and the freedom to play with it and kind of challenge when I was challenged what I was being told you know so getting back to fascinating rhythm yeah one of the other things I think about it's amazing that because you're so young and and you've been doing this already for a few years the world is watching you kind of unfold right like we see your influences we see when you start to develop new technique so your initial videos were much more acapella as you develop they're becoming more instrumental and I wonder if like what you're listening to at the time or whatever you're kind of thinking about musically works its way into the the project oh really yeah that's massive that's that's absolutely right I mean it's really fun to kind of revisit these these files because I haven't opened up these far since I did that did the stuff and I find little kind of jokes of things that I've put in and I think I want when I do that on it's because I was into this girl at the time and I sort of like did this or or I was I listen to this record was like huge for me and so I just kind of slip slip bits in right and sometimes I do I generate ideas and then I'd realized the ideas from something I've heard before I bet you guys have had that experience you you think oh man I'm a genius this is so good and then it's like oh no you know Steve like Stevie Wonder did it you know in the 70s but it's it's good that's kind of a sign that you really are in being involved in the music that you're listening to so that's that's cool but yeah absolutely the stuff that is in my life for any kind of time you can't be you can't be separate as a musician from from the way you are as a person I don't think if you're gonna be honest to yourself you got to embrace every single part of of you and community and just kind of communicate that as best you can and so you know if I'm if something's happening in my life or whatever it is then that will probably come through and if it doesn't then it's kind of a sign that I'm being dissonant with my own energy you need to be true to your own energy and so things that you know I'll stumble across like a friend of mine will hit me to something and I think hey that's great and I'll put it in it will find its way in here because there's kind of a osmosis think yeah happily so what were you thinking about when you did this arrangement so I I got obsessed with D'Angelo I don't how many of you guys are obsessed with the islands although I really am obsessive and I was in 2d and I was into this guy J Dilla who's a producer from the early 2000 so he's kind of a revolutionary both of those guys they developed this thing where a beat is not quantized and by quantized I mean you know it's putting it in a rhythmic grid you know so it's like and everything's in this grid I've never been a huge fan of this just like I've never been a huge fan of Alta tube but James Lo and Jenna did this thing where the beat was kind of kind of out and you can theorize it and I kind of have a little bit but the basic idea is that it's kind of like a drunken groove in the groove doesn't gel as as a sort of quantized groove it's much more like a loose thing so they developed this little thing so instead of it being like it's like which is cool I really fell in love with it and so I I was just like really into that and then it I I thought I'll do a function a funky section in the middle that'd be fun and I ended up putting it in you know this this little groove thing that I was so fascinated by and and and so that that was that was one thing that really fed on I can I can maybe show you how now that really fed into the into the process big-time so quintal groove yeah and why is it called the quintal groove a quintal groove is something I kind of I kind of coined the kind of coined the phrase it's not really real but quintal means it's in five divisions so you know how you know in a groove muscular and four divisions you know like for you know watches people and in every beat so that is so and then you get moves in three like three five is awesome and check out five check it yeah five is so cool there's like this ancient Tanzanian music that comes from like eight yes at ancient Tanzania where they did this way before I guess anybody else the rhythm in the in this village used to be like that get it up get it get it get it get it but I couldn't and then it softened over the years and it kind of melded into like - booty booty booty and it's so cool man it's like the best it's kind of just so late it's so laid-back and everyone else is going like I was freaking out man but anyway five divisions a kid is killing in like hip hop as well so if I get a groove in instead of going like this if I go this is five divisions five divisions and I got really obsessed with this um I checked it up in a big way and actually seven is cool as well but let's not get into that but so so for this one it's called quintal groove just because the tambourine is in is in five divisions it's going like duck Duck Duck and so that's kind of a way of understanding the J Dilla down approach to groove in a way which is kind of like you can understand in terms of a framework do you think that they did did this man I don't think they did I mean I've watched obsessively watched interviews with Questlove and dill about this and and they just said oh no man it's just a drunken groove you know we're just kind of like we were doing but it wasn't quantized so J Dilla was one of the first ever producers to turn the quantize off on his drum machine so he'd get samples that didn't quite fit there like the time he was filling and so the song ported to go and then thus the the kind of jilted groove was was born but I'd know they weren't doing five divisions that's kind of just me liking liking frameworks of understanding and figuring out that if you take that into you know playing in a funky funk scenario like if you get a bar of five eight for example you know it's just really cool it's a nice way of thinking about it but you know don't take it seriously don't don't go home and try this the J Dilla and just be kind of like that's because it's it's not the deal they did it was just having fun all right [Music] actually I went into every single room in my house there are 10 rooms and I took my laptop in every room of the house and I went in together and this is the synth bass and real yeah so I'm just nipping a few bars and then obviously you've got the sins going on I like kind of I designed my own sort of synth patches just because I don't like the presets so why not make your own ones the voices but I found the sound the combination of synth and vocals I just really enjoyed it so I just do you run into trouble in terms of tuning sometimes I mean for this for this harmony some chords some chords just sadly are impossible to tune correctly for example just to really quickly do a little example this a 6 9 chord such as this you can't tune it correctly because this D is the knight and that would that should be tuned you know so to fits off its kind of bit bigger but then this note is the third of it so that should be lower so these students can't be in the kitchen so for this kind of dense harmony unless it's like quintal or quartal harmony with fourths or fifths or pure triatic harmony it's kind of hard to tune it right so this kind of harmony is pretty much equally tempered just because it's so you know the same same as the sense because it's not possible vocal and synth when you built this groove and then you start to put together this sort of shout coracii elements of the voice and the synth what do you start with are you improvising is it written that was that was kind of improvised there's there's a way of building grooves that I kind of discovered where I'm sure you guys I check to kind of check this out without knowing it but the best grooves aren't just like in unison with each other so like say say the bass is going and then the John's going and then the burbs are going to go it kind of sucks just users like it's kind of like it's not a very mature way of making boots just because everything's the same as each other if that's like learning it's like it's like kind of black and white or learning the tension and release is either tension or release throughout there being anything in between the best grooves are kind of dissonant with with each with itself so you know that's why you know the bass is like on the back of the beat and the Hyatts pushing it forward with the milk thing and and that it's not it's not quantized you know I I I wouldn't advertise quantization really in general I think it it just puts you in a bit of a box that's hard to break out of and so you know yeah so do you start to improvise over the track yeah so so I got the I got the bass and I and I thought well where are the gaps in the gap so that's it just kind of [Music] so I might spend a couple days just making that groove grooving around my room just kind of standing up and moving around see how it feels the whole thing together the whole video yeah the whole piece this one was I was telling you just now this was this was 10 days so I on my on my birthday April the second I went into my music room and I I sort of said this is it I just got back from my holiday and when I was on the holiday I've got a bunch of ideas and I just thought I'm gonna do it so I'm kind of difficult to disturb in that time I said to turn my phone and Internet completely off which I really liked doing actually and close the door and just record so you arranged it first of all then you record it and then you and if you get bored of recording it then you can work on the groove and then vice versa and in the end you'll have two things which are kind of finished and then then you get to a stage but all the different sections are done and there are certain gaps you know so like for example one one such gap is a this might take a bit of a while to load up but you know there was a gap between the first person in the second verse and and so I had to think of something to fill it but I often kind of improvised things when what's recording I don't think it's that important to write stuff down so you know there was a gap but I thought well what's gonna be fun too to fill the gap and and I so I came up with this gonna take ages so many 40 files but I came up with a little thing that fit their fill in that gap so you know what you find in the end is that you have a whole bunch of different things that can fit together if you just think about how they can fit together and then you know it's a matter of just sort of thinking well what would be appropriate to fill the gap and then making it to a whole shape and with this one it was cool because I at the very very end of the process I came up with the idea of the 14 phases just because that kind of united to think you know so the introduction is the 14 they kind of come in and out and then the ending is the 14 as well so it has a kind of overarching shape which has really come in Lee and that was that was cool and so you know so the intro for this is actually one of the last things I did in the process it was I thought I I just started with that do better than that and I thought that's cool I've got that down and I've I've recorded it and how am I gonna open this thing up and I had the idea for this great big chord I love great big chords you know and so I wanted to build it up note by note and I had the idea of getting this sort of typewriter thing which I can I can open up the intro that might be fun so yeah I took this I took a Titan like a really old little computer keyboard into my sister's bedroom and there's a cupboard in there which is ultra dry so so dry this apps in no reverb it's like almost it's like anti reverb because it'll go in and there's like sucked out of your ears but I went in I took in my laptop I love dogs outside Surrey snow covered and I had the keyboard there and I I wrote down that the numbers of letters in each word of fascinating rhythm wind by George Gershwin at range and and I figured out where to put it into whatever is the number of like 32 bars or 16 bars or something and I recorded the typewriter in that setting because when I did it in the music room it said what like because my room's not that small I mean the type in their cupboard it's like so that was cool so I did that and you play it as a like a rhythmic phrase I'm yeah so I played it as everything to phrase so this is the that's that's my sister's a little like chicken timer and then then I had this thing going on which is the chicken farmer just being timing then you got the table right here and each one of those phrases is a word yeah so as you can see on the just on the video [Music] so it seems clear in breaking that down that your your thinking visually as you're arranging it yeah I guess that's I guess that's right leo yeah yeah I am I think it's that that particular idea was was a visual idea just because yeah I had the idea for the words and I thought it'd be kind of neat and I'd seen someone do a talk about a thing and I was really inspired by it so that's another thing I was just someone sent me a link and I thought I've got to kind of try and do it and then one of the things I love to do best is this kind of like zooming thing that at the end if I just loop that I can show you how how it's build up cuz I'm you know my reporting techniques are not kind of liturgical you're not very organized um so I obviously had all of this at school and then the rest the rest of that zoomy sound is a bunch of other stuff there so let's see what we got right so that is two thumb pianos sort of go like this is one my favorite sounds and then there's this which is cymbal cymbal [Music] and so you know I would I would loop that and I'd sort of be there and getting really going really crazy and just thinking what's gonna be what's going to be good but this is why I love my room just because I can look around the room and see a bunch of stuff and I think all that we'll do just take that and do something on it and reverse it and and that's exciting because you've got to be engaged in your space and the process of the space so that was an example of something this was one of the last things that in the process I thought how's it going to work how they did for the 14 phases I was really stoked about it and so you know I I am I made made it made it work yeah you know I think we have like around 15 minutes left in in our presentation and occurs to me that maybe we should wrap up our conversation then open it up to some questions if there's anybody in the room that would like to ask a question is issue we sure yeah that's that's totally cool yeah should we finish up anything you guys don't have to ask questions by the way there's no obligation is there anything we should look at in this process that we haven't talked about most of the persons who think you know I just have a point of question like something I noticed in the video you play them a lotta kosoul oh yeah and at the end of the solo the voices will kind of orchestrate the solo yeah yeah that's right so I shall I can maybe just play right now so I wrote the melodic accompaniment which is kind of hard to do because I hadn't done the solo yet so I didn't know where I was going to play [Music] Oh [Music] yeah and so that was something I wrote first of all and then then obviously when that when the melodica solo was played I had to think about what gaps there were to be to be filled and it's kind of like doing the wrong way around in some ways because I should've done the solo first but I had to write there think otherwise that would have sucked and I would have had no no thing so um you know yeah so when you think about making groups kind of like I was saying before I find that the greatest accompanists they but just by instinct they find the gaps in the phrasings and and they will they're just they're just a dit you know they instead of you know so say for example you're playing it solo as you might be playing so I don't know and and your companyís it's playing the exact same stuff as you you know like this often happens when you'll play music with someone and they sort of go you know let's say you were playing on a swing a swing tune and and in the Souris sort of went like and then the accompanies guess we just totally girls like you like really excited guy and I find that this is cool but it's again it's you're playing in unison with the soloist so you're not actually adding anything it's better if you find the gaps in the phrasing and do that so when I was thinking about doing that the melodica solo you have to think about when the comping phrase ends and the melodic phrase begins so that one can feed into the other you know I guess that's that's that's a nice thing to bear in mind when you're thinking about building grooves and also just you know a company and soloing as well just how the phrase is kind of interlink and complement each other so you built this accompaniment for a solo that hadn't happened yet yeah you're thinking what would be the kind of propulsive rhythmic thing that you want a solo on topic yeah you know had to be careful because my instinct would just say like fill fill the whole thing up with stuff and then I had to sort of remember that that's not that's not good you have to leave space for things to happen so I left some space in different places for the melodica to do some stuff and you know I think it's it that starts interesting when you get when you when you do it that way around I certainly learned a lot I had to change the compliment a bit because you know the company did some crazy thing about to just take it out in the end because I wanted to allow the melodica soda to just kind of speak for itself you can see gaps here like around here where things yeah this this there's something here that happened I had to take it out leaving space for the solo yeah in the end since you knew what the accompaniment was you played the last lick of your solo was the that's right yeah cool if anyone's got any any questions I would gladly understand yes so are you talking about when I'm making it like a solo a compliment or the whole the whole thing the whole thing um good question that's great so yeah definitely I'm definitely emotional I don't I don't seem to sit down with my my textbook and and dig out some stuff but in my mind I've kind of lodged certain things that work so you know for example certain voicings or certain backing figures and things like this but I think about that really emotionally because you know you want to you want to be able to support something that's going on the other the other week I was just um I was trying to think about how to explain how certain certain things harmonic liek an echo things in real life I made a list of of things in life that might be able to be expressed harmonically well I came up with one which I kind of like so say you you lean your elbow on a girl's shoulder for the first time and then you just feel it softened a little bit like that's that's great that's such a good feeling you know so that you might want to try and capture that feeling of just kind of like whoa or something like that's just like soft or that's liberating or like my eyes have widened or something and and these things where you start think about harmony in these ways then then you can instead of thinking I'm going to create a track now and it's just going to be a whole bunch of stuff that I've learned and I understand you don't think about that you you more think this section it's nice to leave some space or this this actually needs to have some daylight in it and actually you know then I'll end up changing the timbre of my voice you know so if I'm singing you know there's a bit there's the emotional toner this is concerned I I kind of I mean I made the vocal sound it wasn't kind of it wasn't like oh it was more like oh yeah subtle difference but if you shout something then it has a certain kind of effect it's kind of like a gospel choir like whoa and if you just smooth it out and do it kind of softly then that's a different effect so you know as far as that was concerned I had to find something that would support the melody line but I had to come out of the way but as far as an emotional thing just concerned I wanted it to be kind of strong and you want to be I know that once I you know I used the lyrics because it's I know the ones who didn't matter but now you do it wrong when you stop to pattern I'm so unhappy and so this guy's going you know well I know that once it's kind of saying the same thing but you know it really means it it knows it and it's gonna stand by his word so he's gonna be strong and the voicing is just kind of like I mean divorcing is made up of basically fits which is great and so you know it's a strong thing but I was thinking about the tone a voice which is kind of strong and I was thinking about the voicing which is strong and that came from like an you know an emotional decision to end the circle you say so wrong it's the only thing that you're introducing any real vibrato into yes really emotionally so yeah this is something I think that everyone who plays instrument especially singers can really utilize is you know the amount of time where you can get out of your instrument is immense you know the more you think about it so you know I don't tend to use that much to a broto when I'm recording just because the harmony doesn't the hungry doesn't I mean unless it's like an effect I think I think often singers just used for brighto on automatic pilot and they forget that it's like a decision to use vibrato and you know that's something that I might choose to use at one point I might go like whoa my close avoid says maybe like you know but most of the time it whiskey's I keep going to pure but it means that when you hold back from something like that and then you use it that it has an impact instead of using it all the time and it de luces its meaning but you know the more things you have as far as tomber is concerned the more things you can do emotionally with that sing with harmony the more harmonic devices that you have in your your heart the more you can kind of draw from those you know which is which is cool by the way that question was are you thinking emotionally or logistical e when you're doing these accompaniments yeah I mean obviously as far as logistics it concern you have to think about it a bit but I think the logistics feed the emotion as opposed to the other way around if the emotions just kind of leeching off the I don't know yeah it's the you know you definitely think about how the thing is going to work as a whole and that involves knowing about harmony a bit but I think more important than that and the thing that communicates much further than taking plectrum technical brilliance it's like emotional depth and just knowing where it comes from and knowing what you want to communicate with that I think yeah good question yeah the questions is have you played with the band if so then you probably know that it's much harder to coax this out of working with a group of people than working alone and yeah was it hard to learn how to do this with the computer yeah great questions so is it your have played with the band it's really good fun it's great you have to when you play in a band you have to be and you have to learn to be selfless in a bad situation and be a supportive especially as of counterplay you've got to know how to support which comes from this process actually because you learn how to support yourself in this environment this is kind of like a learning environment for me but you know obviously I've got I've got my space I've in this in this space I know what's happening I know how to get a cheap certain results I have no time constraints it's kind of like an unrealistic musician's situation when you play with it with other musicians you have to make things clearer for them to understand you have to often take all the stuff out and and if the whole process is different because you're interacting with with each other instead of building something from scratch to completely on your own but I mean one certainly feeds the other you know I'll go and play with other people and I'll I'll find a groove that you know that I couldn't have thought thought about on my own because obviously when you're on your own you you get into a circular thought motions and then you find that your mind finds the same motions over and over again and that it's better it's importantly crucial to play with other musicians to feed you sometimes the same is listening to music can you give something try listen to some new music often as far as learning the software's concerned it's the same way I've learned harmony I've just said if I got logic when I was 11 I think logic six and and I just I started I really gravitated towards it I just started experimenting I always recorded a cappella stuff even when I was a young lad and so the more the more of I did the more and the more of it you do the more you you just inevitably learn about it because you realize something doesn't work and you think about why and then you you don't know how to do it so you ask someone for help or whatever but you know it's kind it's my it's my world and every single time that I do something like this on it you know I just learn a bunch of stuff about it you know it's cool to get started maybe with someone who knows a bit of the kind of the ropes of the software you know but you know basically I've learnt the software and music just by experimenting thinking emotionally about different things that we all want to achieve and then just trying to achieve them you know so like a sound so I wanted to get like a sound then I look around the room you think oh that will do that will do put them together reverse them put a crazy effect on them and you know you find little sounds that worked and it's also useful to listen to music and try and recreate sounds that you hear on records something I do sometimes especially with D'Angelo I thought so carefully about the sounds that the drunk that the way the job get sounded and I try to get the exact same sound on something I did and and that doesn't necessarily lead you to the same result but it definitely is you to think about things and normally what happens is - we'll start recreating something then you have your own ideas and it becomes your thing but you've learned from the thing to which you were listening which is which is nice so yeah does that answer your question cool we got time for one one yeah I don't have any classical training no I mean I learned classical singing when I was when I was much younger but yeah as far as technique is concerned I haven't learned anything really from classical and I can't play something for you if you'd like but that would be grown yeah okay cool nice all right [Music] so [Music] over the rainbow [Music] there's our that I heard one said [Music] so [Music] skies are blue and the it really will come true someday I wish upon a star wake up with cloud so far [Music] where troubles melt like lemon drops high above the chimney tops there's where Oh way of hi [Music] there's a place that around a lot of wine [Music] sky [Music] it allow that I once heard of these dream really do come [Music] you [Music] well [Music] where's Garza blue [Music] there's a lot of [Music] in a lot of our [Music] in a lot of [Music] my dreams really do [Music] [Music] Jacob Collier what funny

Channel: The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran

Views: 8,358

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Id: ySD3fZASbd0

Length: 82min 19sec (4939 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2020