Making Advanced™️ Kids Music (odd meters, metric Modulation, etc)

this video is brought to you by curiositystream sign up today with the link in the description and get access to my streaming service nebula for free so a bunch of youtubers just released a children's album that uses strange rhythmic concepts like odd time signatures and tuplets and metric modulation metric modulation seven four poly rhythm seven four poly rhythm quintupletally really you know all the things that kids like the idea here was that every youtuber would select a popular children's song and then use it kind of as a vehicle for introducing children or adults to unfamiliar musical concepts using familiar melodies kind of as a guide the whole project was organized by alan stewart who does some of the music over at the number five channel and you can check them out talking about some of the mathematics of these rhythms over on the numberphile podcast right now the album entitled tuplets for toddlers has been released as a charity fundraiser so you can go check that out wherever you stream your music right now but i thought it would be fun to get all the youtubers together and listen to each other's contributions to the album on camera for the first time in other words do a react video alrighty it's 11 28 am and it's time for my daily dose of youtube reacting let's react to some music itsy bitsy spider by sean crowder sean crowder sean crowder itsy bitsy spider uh itsy bitsy spider check one two check one two hey hey everyone i'm sean crowder and i did an arrangement of itsy bitsy spider in quintuplets so five notes per beat these five notes are divided into groupings of three plus two which gives it a kind of lopsided uneven swing feel which you can hear in the melody i also quite like how the bass line turned out on this one which has this kind of triplet feel going over the quintuplets and i wanted something that was kind of like a 12 8 afro cuban bass line a kind of triplety feel but i also wanted it to gel with the quintuplets and there's also a five against three polyrhythm later in the song if you want to listen for it in the xylophone it's playing this rhythm up over the quintuplets and it's not the main focus of this part it's kind of a background part but i do kind of like the playful energy it brings into this that's it for this tune i hope you enjoy [Music] simple percussive start oh my gosh [Music] really nice textures [Music] and that's a quintuplet swing rhythm that that that [Music] [Music] caribbean flavor was a that's a good idea for this [Music] nice that one was really disorienting it's playful because of the melody but it gets down to business because of the dang groove that was amazing one nice thing about having quintuplets in there is the melody can just be what it normally is and it's just the groove and the ghost notes that teach you what the quintuplets are so it's easy to latch onto if you're familiar with this fabled tale of the itsy bitsy spider that did indeed climb up the water spout okay next up okay ben 11 what will ben unleash on us always excited whenever ben makes anything knowing ben he'll put something in here that's a bit nuts a bit crazy um and will probably make me laugh because that's the kind of guy he is let's see what he did i did the classic song about the farmer who had a dog named bingo but i did it in five and i thought this would be a perfect song to do in five because we've got b i n g o and instead of going b i n g o b i n g o let's just go b i n g o one two three four five one two three four five and we got doggy barks to help us count dogs i love the dogs of course yes so we're in five now [Music] it's a hip-hop dump this is brilliant and that lead melody almost sounds like a cat from the owing as well [Music] man the dog sounds [Music] slowly stretching [Music] i know the more that kids listen to this they would get it [Music] here we go nice riser okay the meows have intensified [Music] these dogs are getting super irate [Music] i like that i like that a lot more than the original it was awesome i love that adorable i love the counting at the end as well just to hit it home i love the animal sounds like setting aside the time signature stuff i thought that was really cool as a way to make it feel fun for kids ben 11 kids album when [Laughter] that's awesome okay we've got amy nolte amy nalty uh london bridge by amy nolte the track that i arranged was london bridge or i think when i was little i call it london bridges it's but it's it's just one bridge and it's falling down it's a problem when i started singing this to myself it became kind of clear to me what i wanted to do which was to make this arrangement be in alternating meters actually starting in one meter changing to another keeping it for a bar and then coming back so that's six beats and then duh duh duh and that's five beats and then and then five again and then six da so we go 6 5 5 6 6 5 5 6. and you could maybe think of it in 11 but i don't really i just look at it as changing from back and forth from six to five to five to six and i added some kind of clave with a gem bae drum and turned it into some kind of latin based alternating meter thing that i think is really fun you couldn't play it with two hands on the piano you'd need four i did it in two takes but i hope you like it we'll change in time signature there [Music] so i hear some fives and some sixes [Music] oh it's got a little extra shift in it i love it i love that little percussion too it's great i feel like this is something that you could find on a broodback record sunday morning kids music this is in the background in the kitchen while you're making pancakes [Music] i love the vamp like all the clusters [Music] underneath the melody sort of hosts across the top of the accompaniment [Music] what a great twist on the whole kids ideas why not do it like this it's beautiful yeah everyone's killing it so far i feel like that piece of music would go perfectly with breakfast it sort of kept me on my toes while i was trying to count but then i could just relax and sort of let it wash over me in fact it would make you want to start eating breakfast i love the alternating time signatures i think it really works so that you could turn that music on and have breakfast to that music even if you're not normally a breakfast person when you're writing on time signature stuff people tend to get really locked in because it's you kind of need to if it's tough to play in a time signature but being able to like kind of pull push rhythmically over an odd time vamp sounds so cool it feels so good if breakfast is as good for kids as they say this song is going to save people's lives what have we got now uh justice cow ring a ring o roses justice cow ring a ring of roses by justice cow my good friend jessica free time let's see what happens how to make it truly free is an interesting question i did ring around the rosie or also known as ringaringa roses and i did it in free time which required me to stretch pushing and pulling the time not so much that you can't recognize it anymore but enough so that like you couldn't reliably know when the next note's gonna happen and my main struggle with this was just not making it creepy because it's literally used in horror movies so i used a lot of sufian stevens kind of timbres um and a lot of like plucking string instruments to brighten up the arrangement so it wouldn't be creepy and kids could listen to it while they go to sleep and so be horrified play [Music] oh those are playground sounds it's trippy [Music] it feels like i've washed up on some weird desert island somewhere [Music] it sounds really really good in [Music] headphones [Music] this is really original like this [Music] it's contemplative and ambient [Music] but still hopeful somehow it's not even like a rubato thing it's like there's really just no time very cool i love the wonky the wonky sounds and the sort of slightly out of tune elements [Music] it's a nice change for the collection not just to be a bunch of bollywood's it's like the tempo is pushing and pulling it feels it's like waves coming in and out [Music] this actually would work really well on a cigar ross album as well as a kidzone i can totally i mean i'll show it to my kids later i'm certain they'd love this [Music] it's kind of a relaxing way to days off justice cow wow that sounds awesome that was really nice wow what a very very different take just so nice it might be my favorite so far it's a miracle that that wasn't creepy i mean ring around the rosie in free time should be a nightmare but that was beautiful there was clearly no pulse but i still felt like the notes were happening at the right time it was pulling you through with that familiar melody but i did not have the groove in my heart david david bruce wind the bobbin up by david bruce with when's the bobbin up hello my name's david bruce i'm a composer and one of my first ever jobs actually was playing in a baby music class so i know a lot of these songs inside out and it's a world i understand quite well and wine the bobbin it was always one of my favorite songs there's something about the way that the rhythmic stresses move between the different sections so you start with a sort of straight feel that has a bit of a dotted rhythm and then you have the pull pull clap your hands and then it suddenly switches into swung at least in the version i know [Music] so you've got these kind of three different ways that the rhythm moves and it's i always enjoyed the little jolt as you moved into the next section so when i came to writing in 11 8 i tried to preserve some of these stresses obviously they move around in different parts of the bar but i try to give them still the same kind of emphasis that they have in the original here we go i like the percussion okay percussive star [Music] nice that's cute [Music] i think it's an 11. that's sweet the horns i'm reacting yeah it feels totally natural though i love it it groups really well too take me away david nice base run there that they sound so good [Music] i like the base fill so weaving melodies in the different parts of contributing to the regimen together i think odd time signatures work best when they are very like light this is awesome that was really cool it's a really clever feel david oh that's great it didn't really feel like to 1180 i guess like it's not jerking you around even though it's in a time signature i love the syncopation um that sort of really kind of throws you a little bit but also makes it work and makes it really natural like a like a psychotic carnival dream it's a vacation uh from being an adult okay hickory dickory dock this is tantic rules tanta cruel now hickory dickory dock one is hickory dickory dock and polyrhythm is the theme tantacruel hickory dickory dock with polyrhythm let's go my piece is a polyrhythmic hickory dickory dock um and i wanted to create this because it would be useful i think to help kind of introduce kids to the feel of polyrhythm without you know going into too much unnecessary explanation or detail um starts off in six eight one two three four five six one um continues on just normally for a little bit then i introduce something in four one two three four one two three four uh and then a little bit later i introduce something slightly more complicated in five one two three four five um and the idea would be that kids could be able to pick out these individual patterns and i've tried to differentiate them as much as possible so that they can do that and be able to sort of rhythmically hold their own until the end of the piece so that's the idea really hope you like it here we go play echoey mysterious interesting chords chords okay got a cross rhythm going on i like that like descending line the polyrhythm there's that polyrhythm sort of triplets and we have this hemiola [Music] oh i like that it's it's a five pattern triplet feel to [Music] very it very pretty i really like that all of the different elements are locking in i could lock into any of the grooves and just be like okay i can feel this one but then the others sort of feel nice on top of it and make it feel more complex that one really matches my shirt okay twinkle twinkle little star the next one is twinkle twinkle little star twinkle twinkle by 12 times 12 tones 12 tone and this is 12 tone and it's additive meter my song is twinkle twinkle little star and non-repeating additive meter which is basically instead of taking these large rhythmic units like a bar or a phrase and then chopping them up into smaller pieces you start with the small pieces usually like two or three eighth notes and then string them together and the cool thing about that is that because you're not bound to these larger structures you don't have to repeat you can give each phrase its own unique sort of rhythmic character kind of like free time but with a pulse when i was writing this i knew i didn't want to include a chord progression because i felt like the changes would draw too much attention to the uneven rhythm so instead i set the harmonized melody over a clapping chorus to sort of invite you to participate and try to clap along if you wanted to enjoy here we go okay i've got a brew back unsquare dance five going on i love the fourths or the clapping that's cool texture parallel harmony is this like a pagan ritual to the stars where's the pattern the meter it's doing something and [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh that was pretty sick whoa that was so different very cool yes the harmonic consistency there in each chord allowed me to focus or laser focus in on the uh on the additive rhythm reminds me i guess this is the obvious thing to reference here but first circle by pat mathening uh is a good example of this kind of additive meter and clapping vibe thank the lord we know twinkle twinkle really will because that really helps ground us in the concept and i think that's the point of this whole project right we've got these simple melodies that we're all used to hearing that can sort of act as the compass with which we navigate all these crazy rhythmic concepts next tune is uh david bennett freyrujaka in 7-4 and put it into a 7-4 time signature now usually ferro jacket is in 4-4 with phrases of 8 beats so ultimately i had to find a way of trimming off one of those beats so the melody could fit into bars of seven four beyond that all i really did was spin out the melody a bit more and re-harmonize it to keep it interesting here we go [Music] yeah that really works in seven oh it fits so nicely in seven exploring the different kind of syncopations you can use in seven it's like this nice lift oh the harmony the harmony has entered yeah baby filthy and quite a sweet reharmonization here is that nothing too crazy harmony wise but it's really nice to go to the minor six like that to start it off [Music] that's romantic af as they say [Music] nice what's coming nice it's so smooth so fluid i can't like i forgot it wasn't seven [Music] determination [Music] i like david bennett's emotional cords this is really nice okay it's like [Music] feel motivated to start his day kind of sounds like contemporary christian harmony can't escape it no more oversleeping i'm a changed man i'm this is my monastery and i'm gonna ring that bell i'm gonna get the whole stadium singing this in a minute it's going on a journey where are we going after me feel like this foreign of the song is like i think i'm gonna try this one at bedtime like what they play like during a marathon in a movie [Music] ah all the feels [Music] i love that flat six major it's kind of like in three except there's a little bit now where is the resolution going [Music] yeah and i could totally imagine sitting down with one of my kids and just going it's in seven here's how this works just counting through yeah first shocker really works in seven that was great and i feel inspired i'm gonna join a monastery i feel like if parents had this music on for their kids all day they would be less likely to divorce you've got to sort of explore different sides of seven with like different parts of the bar sort of chopped out it'd make the baby fall asleep and maybe be in a peaceful wonderful place and then might even make the parents want to sleep with each other okay we've got 8-bit music theory 8-bit music theory 8-bit music theory this is row row row row-row the boat tempo cannon hey guys it's a bit music theory you can't normally see my face but you'll have to um just take my word for it uh so my tune was row row row your boat which is usually sung as a round where the melody is repeated but starting at different points relative to each other and i thought it would be interesting to have each repetition of the melody uh use a different kind of fundamental beat relative to the main pulse so i have you know you have your normal four four quarter note beat and then relative to that main beat you know you have one where the beat's a dotted eighth note one where it's a dotted quarter note one where it's equal to five sixteenth notes to kinda get the three four five six thing anyways hope you enjoy it it's a little bit of a mess but hope you enjoy it hell yeah hit me with that nankero stuff let's go sounds [Music] i believe the boat i'm in the boat now what [Music] did not expect the banjo i get it it's like a round but [Music] third one [Music] wow this sounds like played on real instruments it's so great so many tempos happening [Music] oh they get it together in the end wow uh next level row your boat that is absolutely fantastic i love that so much it's it's a really bizarre thing to listen to because you're being pulled in many different directions it's a really cool effect makes the boat feel like it's rocking a lot all these people in a boat rowing and the waterfall's coming up and no they're not in sync like i think this boat's going over the waterfall it's goofy but i think kids would really like it too because because it's so goofy when instrumental music makes you laugh you know you're on to something okay adam neely's composition adam nealy okay ants marching and smarching and it's metric modulation this time so i guess speeding up and slowing down so i did ants marching using metric modulation which is whenever you speed up or slow down to a new tempo using some kind of rhythmic relationship to an old tempo and the classic example of this is double time where the eighth note of an old tempo equals the quarter note of a new tempo making it twice as fast double time swing the first time you hear the ants marching melody it's at 78 beats per minute the second time you hear it it's at 91 beats per minute which is a seven to six relationship so every sixth septuplet becomes the new quarter note the musical effect of this is that it sounds like the melody is getting slightly faster it's getting more exciting every time you hear it it's just the relationships between each temple have been very precisely calculated out if you want to learn a little bit more about what's going on there's an extended version of this video link is in the description over on nebula more on that later but uh yeah this is ants marching with metric modulation [Music] pointillistic i like this arrangement already so minimalistic [Music] okay it's quite melancholic really something weird in the rhythm there can't quite [Music] interesting happiness going on here oh not speeding up a little faster this is great because when kids sing this song i think they do tend to get faster okay now we're into quintuplets very cool timbres great group like the hand claps [Music] okay oh that is so cool quintuplet into straight 16. yeah that's really cool because there's so much interesting stuff happening those percussion sounds are great what are they 808 yeah [Music] even faster [Music] yeah this very much feels like we're sort of at different levels of a video game here like banjo-kazooie or something [Music] yeah okay that was really cool it's very cute actually the the rhythm and the tempo has all sort of come to fruition like every one of the switches caught me by surprise i knew they were coming like i can recognize a pattern but like it's still because because there were other things changing it's just like every one hit another one that i really think kids could latch on to and want to listen to again and again those ants they sure were marching a lot i hope they get some rest all right that's all of them very nicely done everybody i dig the tunes it was a pleasure making music alongside y'all i feel like each one of these you can really you know move your body to you don't have to really count too much it's just always just like yeah yeah we're bouncing along which i think is perfect for you know young young kids that was just a um really interesting and much more varied set of pieces than i expected and that was really really entertaining to listen to well that was really fun if i'm honest i think the two that i really liked were the ones that used mainly acoustic instruments so amy's and 8-bit music theories i think it's good if the music has something that the babies will listen to but also the adults who have to listen along with them so i think the whole premise behind all this is great trying to make baby tunes a little bit more interesting and i think for me amy's was the one that you could definitely imagine being on in an adult environment without sounding out of place so i want to thank alan stewart again for helping to organize this if you want to watch a longer and much more in-depth analysis of my arrangement of ants marching and the metric modulation that goes alongside it you can watch it in the extended version of this video available exclusively on nebula nebula is a streaming service that i joined recently specifically so i wouldn't have to worry about demonetization and false copyright claims on youtube which have been quite the bane of my existence as a music educator you'll find on the platform many of youtube's top educational channels including 12 tone who contributed to tuplets for toddlers thomas frank legal eagle wendover productions upon atom and many many more it's a great place to watch and discover really great quality content ad-free as well as support your favorite creators nebula is supported in part by curiosity stream today's sponsor the go-to source for the very best documentaries on the internet with thousands of titles to choose from if you sign up for curiosity stream using the link in the description or curiositystream.com adamnelly you'll also get access to a nebulous subscription for free what's more is that for a limited time the price of a year's subscription to both curiosity stream and nebula is just 14.79 at 26 discount by signing up to curiositystream with the link in the description we're not only helping out this channel but the entire educational community on youtube as we build a platform for thoughtful content that engages the world in a meaningful way so thanks everybody for watching i'd be very curious to hear your reactions to these tupleted toddler tunes it was very exciting for me to hear everybody else's arrangements based on this prompt of creating odd metered children's music uh leave the comment in the comment section i will go check them out and anyway uh until next time everybody

Channel: Adam Neely

Views: 475,662

Keywords: adam, neely, jazz, fusion, bass, guitar, lesson, theory, music

Id: cC8KT07m5aY

Length: 32min 27sec (1947 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2020

Reddit Comments

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All of them are good but 10:52 Ring-a-Ring o'Roses had my jaw on the ground.