Jacob Collier & Justin Lee Schultz Go Crazy: EXPLAINED

if you know the song all i need then you know that the verse revolves around a g flat lydian tonal center [Music] and an e flat lydian tonal center and a variation of 2 5 1 that takes us back to g flat so how do jacob collier and justin lee schultz improvise over this section okay so to all of you asking why why why g flat and why not f sharp okay well first of all they both have six accidentals in their key signatures so you're gonna die either way and second keys that are descending minor third apart are closest in the circle of fifths when you jump over three fifths or three jumps in the sharper direction for example for c major a majors a minor third below and is found three fifths away in the adding sharps direction so for g flat major e flat major is located three fifths away in the sharper direction or the direction in which flats are removed i transcribed with no key signature given the constant change in key centers and chromaticism but still jacob and justin follow the original harmonic outline of the verse here take a look at the larger chords to reference the original changes these are the first three-ish bars [Music] i say three-ish bars given that the recording starts in the middle of a bar look at how justin's solo lines reflect the e-flat lydian tonal area [Music] remember that e-flat lydian is a mode of the b-flat major scale so we have a naturals and not a flats it is not until we get to here that he plays notes that could live in either e flat lydian or in g flat lyrian which is a great segue into the line that takes us back to the g flat lydian tonality as for jacob his role in this duet is that of rhythm and harmony compared to justin where his role is more in the melodic realm starting off jacob definitely keeps some of the original rhythmic ideas but as we head to bar 4 he embellishes the 2 5 1 back to g flat here's a 2 5 1 example [Music] and here's jacobs jacob's right hand voicing keeps a constant f on top and transposes a pair of fourths down and up and as you'll see throughout the duet he tends to keep the right hand playing triadic voicings compared to the eight voices per hand you might think he always does for the left hand he plays a chromatic octave bass line and then outlines 2 5 1 in g flat so this is what his transition from e flat lydian to g flat lydian sounds like [Music] and here are the next four bars [Music] justin throws in some jazz vocabulary like the outline chord arpeggios he then switches to sextuplets for the middle chunk of this section but here's the thing these six tuplets are not grouped in six but rather in four so you get this temporary pulse in a different effective tempo he outlines b-flat minor and b-flat major chords in this grouping before continuing to a mixture of enclosures and chromaticism [Music] and like the previous section he ascends to g-flat lydian jacob meanwhile is starting to play with the harmonic and rhythmic outline of the original accompaniment [Music] there is interplay between the left hand and the right hand where the right hand keeps the harmony and some of the rhythmic accents and the left hand jumps in octaves fifths and fourths to anticipate and outline the harmony when he's not playing in unison there's rhythmic trade-off between the hands with various forms of rhythmic displacement [Music] look at this chain of fifths that takes us back to g flat [Music] and on top of that notice the right hand's voice leading okay here are the next four bars [Music] did you notice anything different this time around justin starts off with octave lines and a descending scale in the local g flat lydian tonal area but then he tries something a little different he continues the 16th note rhythmic ideas but steps out with chromaticism doubled in octaves notice how he drops out of the octave line and temporarily comps a harmony to his continuing right hand and keep in mind this is all going by so quickly so it's fascinating to know that there's a lot of textual variety throughout the solo after the chromatic line he takes us back to g flat lydian in a similar way he's done before [Music] jacob also ventures out there's even more rhythmic displacement throughout this section but look at the first part he plays around with some soul harmonies the flat seventh major chord or the chord a whole step below the root of g flat which is an f flat major yeah yeah i know yeah i know f flat is basically e major but let's just be difficult okay and the minor ii chord so you can say that it's similar to a plagal chain of fourths back down to g flat and he plays that flat seventh chord again this time with the right hand ascending up to a c major chord with a d bass in the left hand take a look at how justin phrases his chromatic line in a group of five sixteenth notes and how jacob also emphasizes those groupings of fives was it a coincidence was it building up to that moment as jacob continues some of the harmony outlines the original but some of it shows that he's also pulling outwards from the original changes still he's playing with that same rhythmic interchange between hands and here's the last section [Music] justin reaches a melodic peak intensity with octave doublings and then proceeds to a descending chromatic line [Music] jacob on the other hand is having a field day with his two hands as it carries over from the previous section so he doesn't really start this section with a grounding in g flat major as we previously expected in his right hand you see a mixture of diads and triads both reflecting the original harmony and rhythm but at the same time playing with the looseness of this section's rhythm and harmony and in the last two bars justin pretty much goes all out he souls across the e flat lydian tonality with doubled octaves and some blues chromaticism notice how he drops out of his octave line and it's not the first time we've seen that again this is all going by pretty quickly so there could be any amount of reasons he does it as he continues with his sextuplets he slides into notes indicative of returning to the g flat lydian tonality [Music] and look at jacob he's still continuing with his rhythmic interchange while occasionally doing some unison like here for example where he plays d minor to g minor which can be seen as a version of 5 to 1 in the key of g minor with minimal voice leading in the right hand as we head towards the end of the section jacob syncopates in unison in other words he plays chords in the upbeat sixteenths honestly he's just going crazy here but here are the chords you have a d flat nine sus a b nine sus and a g flat major and first inversion this crunching moment and then back to g flat major and justin then hits us with a key scrape i don't know like why did they stop there how long have they been going i have so many questions and i also wanted to tell you about adam neely as i'm sure you may already know not only is he producing music theory videos but he's also expanded outwards to mathematics so if you want to support him make sure to check out his math channel it's called breathe the math guy though i'm not really sure why he calls it be the math guy it should be adam the math guy no

Channel: Leon Waves

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Id: FeCTCgZ7uZs

Length: 8min 38sec (518 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 27 2021