Master Class with Jacob Collier [FULL VIDEO] at Berklee College of Music Learning Center

thank you all for coming hello can you hear me now yeah okay I don't think Jacob needs an introduction I mean this place has been packed for like an hour now so I you know an hour and a half there we go okay so I just want to thank Jacob so much for doing this and thank you all for coming we are the contemporary production Club and enjoy okay this is crazy man kind of this is really surreal yeah it's great to be here seriously I was sort of gonna be in Boston for a bit and then it turned out that we could do a masterclass here and it was originally gonna be like a Skype thing and then we said let's do it in real life which is way better than Skype and so I'm here to do this class which is great and I haven't planned a massive deal of stuff I've got with me a whole lot of projects like my logic projects for three of my videos because I was doing a class in Cleveland just now so it kind of worked out great but I think maybe the best way to approach this is like a constant question-and-answer forum type thing so anybody ever who has a question can just say like I got a question and and then we can that were like repel the thing I think that would be nice that we could but we can I mean we can just start I mean we could talk about like harmony a bit rhythm groove making recording techniques kind of production video things music life juice and butter a bunch of other stuff which is which is cool so I think I'll just get started then this is the file for fascinating with them yeah okay thanks a lot cheers man so uh you know the first thing that you do or i do anyway when I think about arranging a tune is obviously to pick a tune that's without softer like the solitude an arrangement and so so I thought of this tune I kind of love this tune there's not much point in arranging a scene you don't love in my opinion and people might disagree like people who want to be satirical in their which can be great fun it has to be set but for me the all the songs have a range of songs I kind of grew up with and really loved dearly and this one is no exception so you know I kind of I thought about a tune that would have a whole bunch of stuff in it that would be possible to be flexible with this tunes kind of repetitive you know which means that there's there's things you can do over a period of time that will grow and and be a thing I think if you start with a melody which is already blowing your mind and that does mean it's not good it just means it's you know it's like you need to start with the melody that's that has clarity because then then you're going to swing some crazy underneath it and it needs to hold together and you know and I think the best melodies will do this and so this is a this is a good one this is a great melody so I I mean the way I did this okay the firt the first thing I did arranging this I was he I was in miles in my background my house I was eating some like beans on toast is it's got a British thing to do as I understand that but there I was and one thing that tends to happen sometimes I don't know about you guys but you know when you get flooded with creative ideas and energy out of blue I had this situation occur in in the in the beans on toast a room and I already decided to do this song I got my iPhone device out and opened up the voice memo application and and I set about recording a bunch of ideas for this video and what I did is I kind of I went into the garden and I walked around in circles for a bit I find it easy to I probably called her kind of pace around I don't know about about you but I recorded a bunch of stuff like I had grooves I had voice like kind of specific voicings I wanted to get into the backing figures and and and structural ideas even video ideas I just kind of described it in a kind of in an excited tone to my mobile to my mobile phone when this was done I got it all into logic this is logic by the way and and and I caught up the I cut up my voice memo file and I kind of dragged and dropped the the the all the different segments into into different sections I made a track for verse first two verse three melodica solo compliment funky section introduction ending miscellaneous and then I just kind of worked out what I had already and I filled in the gaps you know it's very important to pace an arrangement as I'm sure you might guess because too much at once is too much at once you can't take it all in at one time and that still means it can be crazy but I you know you obviously you need to think about the order in which your ideas come so most of the ideas I had in this excitable moment and went into the verse three because they're all crazy and then it's a matter of filling in the blanks um when I did there you see I tell you what I forgot to install Sibelius on this computer before I left home and so I can't show you the score it's just just sucks you know but uh you know but I can show you all of the I can show you all that all the audio files so the first thing I do as you can see from this preview here is its to arrange the track many of the a cappella voices you can see up here mostly oh it really works that's crazy man okay nice so alright so I'll make myself a canvas and I hey yeah I I said about arranging this thing so first in twos you get your melody out there and bits and pieces yeah okay so yeah so actually as far as the six phases thing is concerned it's not always six phases um files it can be more or less this is this is a luxury that comes with with working at home on your own because I do I do this all by myself you can sort of you know once once you get the track sorted out the video kind of comes comes after that so the first thing to do is to arrange them to record and after this you get the video I actually use my I use my sisters iPad for filming much to her dismay I sort of a gravel out of her room and set up in the loft upstairs but before that even happens I arrange this thing once the arrangement is complete I normally start with the base part just because the base part is kind of like the soil for your Orchard and I can play a bit of that right now is this like plugged into the nice I had I had a section that I am i I thought about looping for loop this section I can find on the unnatural music hey you know it depends on the day I get up I strive to get colds and then wake up earlier as well to get low notes and yeah so I mean no I I can normally go into your D I just like bar NASA D and then lower than that it's just kind of it's like it'll potluck you know I've got to be today you know to thing and yeah so that's that's the thing and I actually made I made a document of her loads of relevant consonants and bowel sounds for this particular song of low notes one day I had a really really bad / good cold and so I did like far dumb do you know like boom and then I actually dragged and dropped and when I'd like one I couldn't get a note when I was really tired from singing I put the things in it's kind of kind of handy um I'm just gonna I'm gonna try and locate this section here it is yeah alright so one thing I like to do when it comes to harmony we can talk a bit about harmony if you like I mean yeah I love harmony harmony sky and when you when it comes to arranging it's cool to play some games with harmony otherwise you know I think you can't take yourself too seriously in any situation but definitely when it comes to arranging the whole thing is kind of really fun I would advocate fun in general fun good and and in arranging it's even it's even better so this baseline here is is chromatic most of its chromatic I think yeah that bit of a schematic if I if I just build up the part by part it's kind of a fun trick so this is the next one melody [Music] now here's a quick here's a crazy truth thanks though how many of you know that the piano is not actually in tune how many of you have heard about this yeah yeah okay this is like it yet so two equal temperament is a it's a scam people think it's the truth and it's not the truth it's a it's a compromise back in you know five hundred years ago or so people tuned chords and people some people still do but but chords come from the harmonic series they don't really come from the piano so for example a major chords on the piano it's wrong because the major third it's not wrong but the major third is a bit out of tune in the harmonic series you get I don't know how many of you guys are familiar with this but it's a natural kind of you know every note there's a natural bunch of harmonics that sort of swinging up above it just hanging out and they kind of support the sound of the other thing and if you go up in a harmonic series this is not a real piano as you can I mean maybe you guessed it but basically it goes and then I know between those two notes and so this is the harmonic series that the third so the ratio of the fourth I went to the fifth harmonic is the root to the major third on the piano this is too large so so this is it's about 16 cents too big it's the sad truth if I if I sing the right third that the right one is like [Music] can hear that spread out of tune so yeah so when it comes to arranging I'm not tied down to the piano since I don't use autotune which uses equal temperament you can tune cause the way you want to which is which is nice so you know so yeah thirds for example need to be lower than they're on the piano if you'd like to do them properly which I do like to do that and fourths incidentally are slightly too large on the piano it's alright yeah they're a bit too large on the piano so if I actually in real life we're to do this right then this this note is going to end up a whole bunch lower in fact that is one two three four five six a lot of times 2 which is 12 cents lower and that's called a comma and this some people called the Pythagorean comma if you get fifths then this then you every fifth gains two cents in proper terms every fifth gains two cents as it goes up and every fourth loses two cents this section ends on two chords and the top note in both causes see but maybe some of you may have heard that the first C is actually different from the second C because the first C is the top of a quartel voicing caught the voicings of voicings made of fourths so I believe the voicing is something like that which is just fourth I missed out that one the second voicing is something I think like this which is C super ultra Lydian nice approach Lydon or it's um or is something of your own choosing that's what I call it it's like C sharp major 7 / ovary which comes from a whole bunch of fits because fits are great so that's the thing and think I'm any sense you've gained by going up that many fifths you know loads I could tell you but I'm not going to and then the fourths are I've lost you know a bunch of force so the first chord the the C's lower right because I've just tuned it as it should be super tuned and then the second one is a little bit higher I was I was I found this so funny when I did when I did it I wondered how many people would kind of notice um I thought I'd take it apart of you because it's really funny to explain but this is the joy this is the joy of not using tuning systems and not not necessarily writing and recording at the piano all the time because you've got the whole world to to draw from in terms of actual harmony which is dope man it's really great so so that's an example of that um yeah fourths and fifths and voicings if you just do a bit of a voicing trip for a second and they're really strong voicings are really strong with fifths and forts in them because fits and force are awesome they're that they're the lowest part the harmonic series you get the harmonic series begins with an octave then you get a fifth and then you go to fourth and then you're going to third and the intervals get smaller and smaller so the fifth is that kind of the other than the octave it's the first interval that we encounter and when when we when we look at how much series and so if I if I do it if I play a voicing like this for example that's nice voicing I'll say this voicing maybe they move that one okay now if I have either fifth in the in the bottom of this like this see all the other add some like nice warmth and it makes it stable and it gives it like nice heavy boots and it kind of makes it an impression on your ears and stuff because fifths have fit so good and put fits in the basin's of your voicings that you want to put our great big anchors in because that's cool and it's it's a nice trick it's even a trick you can do when your ensemble or your own voice in my case cannot reach down to this note I can put a fourth in the bottom of my chord so if I went like this [Music] then it kind of gives the illusion of the of the fifth below it maybe you guys have checked this out some of you but it comes from something which are come over the name of in harmonic series where it kind of it gives a nice echo of the of the fifth below this kind of this thing it sounds like there's a G the bottom is actually just a D so yeah fits and fits and fourths give it give a whole bunch of good stuff forcing it in the middle of voicings such as this one or even they're more commonly heard this one thus these are all fourths and that's a fifth your ears is generally happy with that you know and so yeah okay here's something else you can do with force and fifths which I adore so how many of you guys have heard of Lydian how many of you guys have heard of super Lydian okay yeah how many of you guys have heard of super ultra hyper mega meta Lydian okay so so you know okay so if we put Lydian in thirds like this this is a familiar sound it's nice its strong and I tell you why because they've got fifth ear a fifth here a fifth here and a fifth here it's a really strong sound it's nicely nicely fits together um now in your jazz textbooks you may have read that alidium ends there and it begins again like this and I disagree with this this premise and I've decided that it keeps going right so this is C this is C C major seven this is D major seven right now I do believe there is a c-sharp in this voicing and it's a C major seven chord but I also believe that it sounds better than this this sounds better than that this is killing man this sounds that sounds great you know so thus the super Lydian thing is born so you can keep going man it no one told you to stop really other than all of your teachers so this is a this is a big chord man thank you yeah and and so yes so check that out that's a that's a super Lydian voicing and I tell you what's cool when you play super lien voicing and then you play like a quarter voicing but with the same note on the top like this for example so this is like oh that's a drastic change of color right correct me if I'm wrong but I think that and that is really kind of surprising I enjoy this you know that's cool play with fifths and fourths guys seriously because they they will Harold no end of expand and good good things so that's something let's talk a little bit about as we're on the harmony thing and I'm kind of digging it let's talk about like like to court some tonality key centers key centers a nice handy mechanisms machines salmon sea for example okay so C is our key it's like our gravity point it's a magnet our ears are pool to see if we're in sea and if I even if I go out of sea I'm home when I get to see right now many of you would have been taught or have found yourself or checked out by listening to many records that you enjoy or not enjoy that basically jazz encouraged you to approach a key center from the 5th side of the cycle of fifth cycle if it's is great yeah so it goes from where you're sitting it goes like C G da etc and then you go C F B flat E flat a flat etc so fits 4th if you look at it like that or there because 4th to the 4th to 5th backwards if you hadn't checked that out before so um so okay so in jazz many of us would approach C from from D minor and then we go to C like that it's nice so the bass line goes boom which is coming from the 5th side it's kind of cool when you don't think about Caden Singh as having to be two five one a cadence means a resolution right and the whole of music is to do a tension and release so you make some tension then you resolve it you create a home vibe and then you go back to it you depart and then you return this kind of thing so a cadence means hey I'm going home or at least I'm going to unlike and implied home or something and so when you when you land in a key it doesn't have to be from called five despite classical music there are many other cool cut types of cadence many of you may have heard of the tritone substitution which is when you substitute the bass note of g7 with its tritone that's cool and then there's like everything else that you can possibly do like head there from instead of G major or about G minor it's nice right you go back to see you feel like you've arrived home and that you actually you you get there actually from the fourth side of the cycle of fifths because G minor is the same as B flat B flat is like two fourths west of C and I I really got into Caden Singh from the from the fourth side of the cycle of fifths so if I go I really love that and you know and this is cool but what about like yeah it's nice right James Taylor does this Joni Mitchell does this bunch of people do this [Music] the what sorry the cadence Oh Oh Joe Collier Keynes is um Wow I know I've never thought about that before I have to get back to you about it after think while I'm teaching the class and then then I'll let you know that's a good question um yeah the last you call yeah I can yeah yeah good idea all right just just just to tie this up first so watch what Joni Mitchell does sometimes it's just like a nice little comfortable cuddle like you're in a key and then you just go to court for and come back to chord 1 and you can do it in other keys as well and it's it's just so it makes it makes you feel at home in a key instead of sort of it like you sort of like bounce around then and then if you go to a new key and if you just if I if I'm in C right then I go to a flat and I go yeah it's like hey we ran a flat guys you know and it's alright you know it's like we're home because because we're not like we're not heading around the fifth cycle which is like we're going to resolve somewhere we're in the fourth cycle which is like just kind of nesting down I mean so I fell in love with this amongst other things and you can you can do play go on play eagle this is called a play go cadence for one so if I if I actually go you know I'm in a flat like this and I can go you finally have this before like this kind of thing um because I'm that's a flat major and then B flat major and then F major so I'm approaching it from the from the fourth side this is dope man I enjoy this so yeah so when you think about cadence sing just imagine it as a resolution it's not tied to any kind of chords it's just a resolution so you can resolve anything you like you know so so I've got write C this is cool this is cool but if we if we just think okay gravity is going to see then we are top line is coming down so why don't we do the base line coming up yeah so and why do we have to do it diatonically no one said we had to so let's do it chromatically right so then let's just work out something that's gonna work [Music] yeah it's just cool because what your ear hears is melody line dropping down base line coming up we're all cool at the end of it at the end of the story so I I know I think of Keynes's as gravity as opposed to whatever the opposite of that is like anti-gravity or something but the idea is that your ear is drawn somewhere and then it's cool and it's nice to superimpose key centers as well because you can cadence into kind of subsidiary key key areas in your chords and that happens when you put like the top of one of your chords that maybe doesn't belong to the the key you're in I say I've got C and I play this on the top which is kind of like be this could be C super ultra hyper super ultra hyper Lydian events like this or it could just be B over C right and and so say I'm gonna I'm actually gonna head to f-sharp kind of soon like you know it's on my map and if it's on my to-do list to go to F sharp I'm in C and I might superimpose a B and then I'm in F sharp it's like it's sort of a key you don't have to just go to F sharp it's nice to set up a nice way of resolving this this is kind of the secret of jazz ISM is learning how to create tension and then release it so this is a voicing in which two two keys are kind of present you know because what's the key to know it could be be it could be C both are in the chord and and so it's nice when you reached points where the harmony can change and so check this out for example this this is this is a neat a neat little trick so I'm in see I mean see still see I mean see him it's all good and then I'm going to go to the G flat in order to modulate to the tritone away from see it's a really nice little trick this actually comes from classical music but I'm my C triad goes up to D flat and my C goes down to B all right so I got and then it's cool so you can actually do this again and again and it never fails to excite you so so I mean see am I gonna go yeah and then I can see again because I've gone tritone tritone where I started and devices like this a fun you know so I'm in a flat and then I'm gonna I'm actually going to go like this and then I'm home that's that's fun right I kind of enjoy that you know I'm superimposing a different key over the top it's surprising to the ear but the reason it works is because the line art isn't just being erratic and changing the line is has got a path of its own so if I'm in C and I go there then every note in the top of the voicing rises and every ever even bass note which is one sinks and chromatic lines are just the boss man if you can get a bunch of harmony with which has chromatic lines going through it then you're winning because chromatic lines of the most stepwise moving possible yeah you guys might have figured out that in order for something to sound good each part needs to be a melody of its own and the best melodies maybe don't leap around all the time maybe they do but often I in my experience melodies work well if they just go from part to part in a stepwise motion because then your rate can follow it it's a nice it's a nice exercise to think about working in a limited number of parts and seeing how much you can get out of them by employing different things and trying to get each line to move in it so its own sort of a chord um yeah that's that's that's something about harmony and somebody said let's talk about the last couple of chords I'd love to do that because I really enjoyed these last couple of chords and it yeah they're a bit insane actually they're kind of they're really big let me just see if I can find it okay let's pause there for a moment if I'm not mistaken this is a it is a major ad to shop for so I've established a key as we were just saying I've I've got it's not really the key we're not in a at all but this part actually goes to C so what you've got is a flat over a over C right so it's like a triple a it's like a triple decker bus you know this is cool and it creates a bunch of tension that like unbelievably gratefully the air resolves to this whatever it is right which incidentally is a super Lydian chord for those of you hadn't realized it has a D in it it's a D flat major so this is a cadence you know I'm it's not a flat seven I can tell you that it's a it's a right and then it's d-flat major um each part I believe moves somewhere at least I hope it does now I'm showing it in a master class yeah I guess it kind of does this this shape is is consistent throughout both chords a flat major a flat major yeah it's cool this bit that's not compatible but that's compatible so all of these voices rise chromatic motion I've kind of got it nailed they have nailed the part moving because this goes to this and this kind of stays where it is so the air just kind of follows it through and it's an exciting end to the to the piece because as you see all the phases and that's really fun and engaging and you've got this thing this is a D so it's a great big great big super lydian some structure which is which is fun um so yeah does that answer your question a little bit yeah cool um I just thought of something else to say about harmony I'm really quickly to tie up how it's called approach harmony if we think about every chord being in a mode then each chord has three major triads and three minor tribes that work within it take C major for example if I'm in C Lydian C works this is all from the cycle of fifths by the way so if I'm in Lydian there are three possible major modes for this chord well we don't take m-theory too seriously if it's like if you if your mind song you just went our it's theory kind of thing then I'm I'm with you don't worry this is just this isn't this is a nice neat way of understanding it so um this is C major there are three different modes that might work with this from the major scale one of them is Ionian so fun it's a nice world Ionian swimming pools like my favorite another one is its mixolydian yeah so we've got like a sauce thing going on the other one is of course Lydian that's Lydian so in Lydian living is the brightest of our three modes that we have in our sort of and concoction of our modes here the brightest one takes the the three tries on the harmonic sit on the cycle of fifths which are the three most eat East I suppose so C G and D will work with this yeah there are three trials if I go Ionian then it's C G and F because I've moved my 3/2 there I'm central and this is actually a neutral mode because it has the B which wants to rise and the effort wants to fall so iron in is it is a cool place to be right so C F and G they will work in it mixolydian is the three darkest ones possible that encompass see we've got C F and B flat which is obvious one of my favorites because you can do this which I've already mentioned it's like my favorite way of painting one of them so that's not and so when you think about voicings you can think about like by triadic voicings voicings with two triads or more and so you know so for example this is a nice voicing yeah you've got D and E underneath this chord you might have D major you could have a you could have C you could have F sharp minor 7 you could have G super Lydian you could have a flat 7 ya bunch of stuff and it's nice to do this to switch them around I've got D my left hand in my right hand now I've got in my left hand at D my right hand this is nice and you can do fun things like I mean these so it's moving country motions so every part has a destination this is we've established this is cool you can you can just keep going with this so I've started here and I'm gonna I'm gonna rise like this and I'm gonna fall like this so if I start like this then I end up well I started just kind of kind of nice tries are so strong because they've got a third in the men and they've got a fifth tries are just awesome because they're in the harmonic series and that's what that validates triads so yeah yeah and sometimes yeah I do I've I've I use the piano increasingly less so decreasing Lee when in arrangement just because its first was not in tune and second of all I think it's more fun and challenging not to not to try and use it but it's it's a really good sonic if anyone wants to play with harmony then just go to the piano couse most of harmony is like in the piano so you can you can try stuff out I mean just to hear the sound of that on the piano is well handy you know and obvious when I record it in real life the third is going to be a bit lower and this there's gonna be a bit lower but you kind of follow I mean I I found this just by trying out when you sing it when you sing it you realize it's not in tune you think why isn't in tune and then you realize what's because the third isn't in tune or something like this so when you don't limit your ears to equal temperament then you're winning but yeah the piano is cool and you can think about trying to play things in different umbers of parts on the piano as an exercise that's a great exercise to play things in say four parts for example that's nice um yeah I was like what was I gonna go yet so why triadic yeah by tritak voicings are cool because tricycle certain there are certain sounds that are strong and a triad is one of them cuz it's just a it's a good it's a whole sound and it comes from somewhere natural yes hmmm I think it is actually even though some of these notes aren't on in the harmonic series but you've got this in the bottom which is the harmonic series and then you've kind of got superimposing that harmonic series on top of itself so this is D flat major this is a flat major and both of these have a harmonic series of their own and so D flat a flat and then you've got well I suppose I mean I could probably find a major that somehow B I suppose B flat major so that's B flat a flat D flat and those all have really strong sounds and it's just a matter of going like this and then like this and so yeah the harmonic series is is that it's the secret weapon with this because you get a chord that's voice really openly if I sit like this it sounds stodgy right because the harmonics of the this note are going you know which is not this key because it because it's low and you hear the harmonics better but um you know this is a strong sound this is a strong sound this is a strong sound and the whole thing is made up of right fifths yeah so yeah I think that it does definitely mean that's the case I found it yeah yeah that's true the sharp eleven I think is strong because it comes I mean this is kind of George Russell's theory that the Lydian is the most natural form of I don't think I agree with them I think that Ionian is the most natural mode of eight of seven or eight notes because it's balanced you've got C pentatonic which is like the most neutral of C and then you've got in addition to this you've got B which wants to rise and you got F which was to fall Lydian is it's not balanced I don't think it's balanced because I want to do that that's just me I find the tritones aren't that strong at the top of voicings I think maybe but leave it Lydian certainly a strong sound I mean you've got D major C major you know it's a nice end to a tune is it's better than sort of going like [Music] you know so but then it you know you got this like it's like tinkly kind of thing and it sounds great because it's really it comes from fifths out of the chord and it's kind of like a the icing on the top of a cake in terms of that so you know yes it's nice the top eleven is a delicious thing to put on the top of a chord and then even more delicious obviously is the top 15 that really sings because it's a fifth just to quickly mention in harmony about how each different note in the scale has a different kind of personality I'm sure you guys have come to terms with this a little bit but you know we've mentioned the fifth it's kind of like a stabilizer you got the third which is kind of like the defining feature of record the seventh which kind of shows the chord where it's out in terms of it's like bias does it want to stay and see what does it want to change from say you want let's for now say this wants to say we've got the sixth which is kind of just kind of warms it it's kind of rounded maybe because it's surrounded by G on its left and Beyond it's right it's kind of got some nice pals and so it wants to stay where it is but it kind of thickens the chord out on a nice way it also implies a minor which is kind of sad but it's it's nice it just sort of makes it feel more home then you've got the ninth you know and the coursework just as night that's a really lovely warm sound because it's maybe got a fifth in the middle of it and so you get the ninth and maybe the ninth wants to fall like the beginning of close to you like that 9/9 for that's cool our rhymes something that roses rhymes so you've got nice you've got six you've got major seventh and then so all these different things have different functions the sharp eleven is maybe one of your brighter like options because it's it's the furthest removed from C on the cycle of fifths the whole of this Lydian mode can actually be listed as cg d a e b f-sharp you end up at six o'clock because it's like try turn away from see this note is to further story from C so it has the most like drastic impact in minor chords you do the same thing you just do it the other way around so you start with a minor third and you go up like this so it's just kind of similar thing in a minor chord maybe the most juicy note you can choose because C Mon is basically e-flat major the most juicier you can choose maybe the minor sixth because you know if I end on a I've iron the C minor and I go it's like a beautiful sings because it's the shop 11 of e-flat and that's where C minor comes from but it kind of it's built off of intervals so in C minor you've got that's an intimate or seven yeah that's kind of sour and then you've got the ninth that's a major seventh that's kind of sour and if you use these to your advantage you get some amazing sounds you know fourths agreat by the way if I hadn't said that already four you can just like get so much cool with fourth and just like make some nice voicing it's only using fourths because you can list a whole voicing in fourths just as you can to fit but fifths aren't very kind of environmentally friendly because they use up with really loads of space but forth so just kind of way more compact so I'd out vacate that and so going back to mark my initial premise when you sing notes in chords say I'm singing the sharp eleven for example I have the luxury of working in an environment where I'm not paying for my studio time and so I've had the opportunity to just experiment with a bunch of stuff so when I'm singing the sharp eleven I might actually make a different sound with my voice I might point the sound a bit more you know like I'm seeing a fifth I might be like like breathy or ever sing this often it might be like instead of like Oh like oh I'm gonna point it is it's like a pointy node right and when you realize that each note has its own different kind of function it's a really dope because then you can and that you can use that in your Tom Brooke because tom was expressive as well as harmony and so is texture and a bunch of other stuff but it may be think about that if you want because different notes have different positions you know if I'm if I'm doing that then I might want to emphasize this interval so I can resist doing that so because this is the spicy interval in the chord I might want to record these notes kind of louder I used to just turn them up or sing them louder in the mix and the notes that are important I've since begun to doubletrack notes that are crucial in chords notes that are called like for example in a whole phrase if there's a note that moves chromatically like say I wish I could do I wish I could play an example that was so good I can't because I don't know the my range was off my heart but there's one bit in pure imagination where there's a cut as a Kumasi Cline that goes to like eight bars and it's so satisfying and I recorded that line twice because then the air is kind of drawn to it I mean you wouldn't know like you wouldn't think like oh he's doing that thing you know he's double track the chromatic line but your ear is still satisfied by the motion of it just going up and up and up and then it resolves on like the ninth I think it sort of goes I don't know it's just sort of it's like or something and this when the molecule goes but then it kind of air ends on the night and it's satisfying because the chromatic line is gone it's kind of borrowed through all these harmonies and then it's come out in the end and it's kind of been victorious just go as opposed to kind of the sad case of all those notes in the past that have not reached the same conclusion I give it it ended on the flat nine for example anyway so yeah chromatic lines are strong good things to check out but if you do that you probably yeah okay let me just if I can we get internet here okay so um there's a bit inform estimation where there's four voices in a row and they all have a semitone at the top of the voicing horrifying I know that actually really hilarious and and kind of nice actually and if you're going to do something that's really kind of oh I used to be at the top of this so that's actually sorry I trust me it's a which is just hilarious so the last chord for example is this which is d super Lydian because it's like go to Psalm 15 there I wish I could what are those chords and we just got [Music] that I guess so it's like yeah you got yeah so the rules I guess is the answer yeah thank you very much thanks thanks so yeah and I think of what I've actually done there is I've supported every single note in the melody with either a fourth or a fifth below so in the first chord you got this and that's a fifth and a fourth and this is a this is of C louder in in the mix than this because they're not equal one is one is better than the other the melody note is better so that and then this one you've got the same thing so it like forts and fits will validate that note like it's called to be D you know you got then you got just there's no minor it's just a sauce so forth and then and you know so I I wouldn't just kind of do a random sporadic thing there and just put that on the table voice and just for a laugh but the fact is that you know the the chords this fits you know like there's there's Fitness and that there's enough fits and fourths to make it cool to do that yeah so I changed my vowel sounds yeah yeah yeah it's not so much vows on it's more just like the kind of testator of your voice if you're gonna like with with breath with singing there's as with many instruments there's a variety of different tones and I like to kind of think of it as the amount of breath you put in a note so I can go like all right you know and then you know it's the other one and so you maybe move it up the scale like you know just to just to give it a bit of just to get your ear to like playing on to it for it for a second you know just cuz you can point you can point the air at that by doing that I mean I wouldn't do a different vowel sound that'll be too drastic but I could you know I could definitely change the thing and in the mix you know I might double track that note if I didn't this fella didn't do any double tracking it's all just as is but in infesting rhythm don't worry I did much more and fascinating rhythm yeah I said that one and don't worry oh yeah I double tracked many more notes because it gives us the kind of thicker sound but this is really pure this one yeah I pound them basses in the center leaders in the center if I double track the bass I think sometimes like hardpan the debate only so it's like this and then the other parts just so our myriad of different places in the middle obviously if something's double track then you might either pan it so it's equal like this or if two types of double tracks equally then you might go like two there and two there cuz if you pan if you pair things close to each other and double tracking then it kind of faces better then if you do this and they don't really face because they're just in different worlds your question they're nice that's cool so um yeah so that's that's a bit of like harmony for you I guess any other questions throughout Hey yeah I was just about to do that good hey are there any other questions about harmony before I kind of go and do that I you're watching all of you Jacobs and to figure out what you were doing actually because it's you and the one on the right things like you can see like harmonic parts it and okay yeah okay let me tell you hilarious story um you could spread this around if you want I thought hey wouldn't it be fun to quote like a bunch of Gershwin tunes at the end of this just and I wonder how many people will notice I quoted like seven right so the first one is the bass who goes slap that bass no that which is it goes from song to slap that bass they got they get them the two guys on the right sing it necessarily so which is a good Gershwin song as well now the guys in the light the guys on the lefthand singh night and day which hilariously is not written by george gershwin as always pointed out to me after I uploaded the video it's like that's not George Gershwin so there it is and then then then the guys on watch thing is very clear which is from it's very clear our love is here to stay yeah and then and then the guys on the left saying sorry this is taking forever [Music] yeah it's very clear and I think work if you can get it which is nice work if you can get it by George Gershwin and then he goes and goes on this thing and the live in here Z which is summertime and then and then all together they sing I God rear them so check it out [Music] yeah so these are the kind of stupid games I play when I'm when I'm arranging you know but so that is night and day like nine nine goes like nine and a you are the one and so goes nine and day that's it and the hot the homies just kind of [Music] yeah it's just like I love that I love moving from thanks man it's like moving from the major to the to the to the core three mine course we pub added minor eleven because mine 11 so you know like if I went for went its retail tender you know yeah by one like you know it's nice [Music] just a nice move you know I think Bon Iver does that in one of his songs I really like it anyway yeah you just fine and incidentally just because I've been talking about it every single one of the bass slap that bass think the whole thing is like fit and that just gives it like yeah anyway chaotic lines and obviously when I recorded this they were all the same volume and it sounded horrible and I had to turn all of the backing levels way down so that you basically only heard the melody it does sound like in a compliment and then when you delve in then you realized that there's loads of Gershwin songs going on as well any other harm any questions before we dive into groove yes sir what what the you mean at the end with the 14 yeah yeah that's 5th as well yeah so he goes yeah it goes fifth C major yeah Fitz and and likewise fifth yeah fifth anyway anything else at all but anyone yeah nice all right hello okay so you said earlier when you're speaking that you try to tune your thirds and stuff to like the overtone series and stuff yeah how often will you do that throughout your entire song like most of it or just like occasionally because sometimes when you do like melodica solos or any other solo on top of it does that ever clash like when you yeah I mean the thing is the the difference between the correctly chin one of the and the equally tempered one is kind of really small yeah and when you want in the melodica solo for example a lot of the backings are like but do you know I will in general tune all my chords correctly um or at least try to and I don't have a reference point for that I just kind of used my ear but you know say for example I did this in in the in the harmonic series the third is a bit higher it's like and so if all of these were too high then I might not fully wouldn't do that I'm not huge fan of the of the justly tune minor third nearly as much as I am if the justices major third incidentally but you know like it's like you don't really hear the tuning that much so there's not interfere too much but yeah I would say I would tune I try and tune most chords correctly and then the melodic I mean the melodic is out of tune anyways like $0.20 sharp I got it for like 20 pounds and so it's just kind of not very melodic oh but yeah I don't need to think too much about it when you have two separate sound walls the melodica as the ice the icing on the cake that is the vocal harmony then the Molalla could if they kind of it's alright it's cool yeah anyone else yes yes I have let me let me just let me just show you in a endowed by the thing there's a microphone in the in the in the park no one's noticed which one is it new a capella I think it's this one as you may see I've made different different logic projects for different sections so I'm not overwhelmed by the number of traps in the mix and then I can bounce them out and fit in together so yeah at the beginning of the bitten doing or a thing which is fun the second chord the first chord is this and the third chord is this this a here is a here and here it's b-flat there's nowhere for that to go in between it can't be a I covered what the chord is in between that but I know it can't be a and it can't be b-flat so what's it gonna do it's gonna go in between right so it goes like no I wish on you the chord oh maybe I can work it out yeah okay so yeah so in this in this court I didn't want to do that and I didn't want to do I mean let me let me solo the microphone it's so funny [Music] [Music] yeah oh you know so it resolves it resolves to a minor ninth away from the melody as well which is like such a reward you know so yeah man my terms are so cool I dig it yeah they're really great and I've done a couple of others actually um I did a couple in fascination with him I forgot where they were I could check the score but and I don't have time but yeah yeah seriously what what Mike Tong wizard dude I do enjoy listen to so cool yeah seriously cool it's the air here's tension release so if you make tension by doing a Mike return then release it it's fine it's even if you resolved on like a kind of chord then then you really like complain but if you just if it's in like the whole point of passing cause is that each chord is just kind of stepping stone and then you reach the resolution of elf some kind so like this is a resolution it's not that resolved but you know so this point does resolve there in the in every course thickness there's like a tiny micro tension release thing going on in every part and so that just happened to be one which is pretty darned tense tensed and then it resolves nicely it's kind of like scrunching your fists and opening up again you know so that's that that's cool any other questions about harmony I kind of understand that we could all my Harley forever so yeah one last one yeah yeah yeah it's always oh yeah yeah oh it does this yeah that story and yeah I can show you that I just closed the project oh yeah so I'm exactly your spot on my friend it's a durian it's a durian cluster yeah so you know III actually I talked about major harmony major chords being able to do three triads all at once I didn't mention that in monetize its exactly money courses it's exactly the same so you have three possible modes one of them is Dorian which is this it's got the brightness of the major sixth in it then you've got mixolydian I'm sorry Aeolian which has the in that mode maybe the brightest one would be the fifth because it's a major seventh against the sixth even the fifth is like it's supposed to be comfortable it's lovely and then the final one is Phrygian which most people think is like but actually Phrygians really kind is just like this right it's kind of like going it's nice mmm that's phrygian you know it's really nice to it to play it be playing a little bit then you're a Phrygian just for a little while and then it's nice if we I do advocate Phrygian Phrygian cigars too many enemies because it's people think it's like really dark and stuff but um even lot Kuna can be can be pretty you know like if I go [Music] it's nice right it's really nice anyway so the one I chose for this was durian and what you hear is a durian oh no wrong one you hear a nice durian for every note in the door in scale and sung all at once maybe it's in in general I think it's in true vocal grooviest crashed yeah and incidentally in that voicing there's that on the top of it which is fine it's kind of sound it sounds kind of fun it's like it's like just so yeah so here's the groove now if I open up this thing you can see that I've done different volume levels for different parts here they increase their volume at different speeds depending on their purpose in the chord so this guy is the mr. G he's the third right and so I think I kind of recorded that she kind of quietly as well for some reason they have waveform it's smaller so the genius to sing then and then the other parts come and join him because one because once your ears latched onto the G then it's safe to put the other other this one's the slowest because it's the most pointy it's the natural safe in it's the most is the furthest removed from our harmonic series of our circle of fist things so you got you don't even hear it and it just creeps in and actually incidentally the second time it it gets loud of quicker see there can hear that louder kiss take the second time you've already kind of got into the groove and you're up for it you know so yeah that's just a tiny micro thing going on there but yeah that's that's every note in the Dorian scale I've got nine parts there so something else must be happening was the ten part [Music] No there you go it's nice and then actually just to take about this groove which would lead us nice went at the groove section of the talk which I planned just like it's quiet - its minus 2.9 poor thing is to say only quiet you know and I got the low ones here which is like an octave pedal on the vocals it's called - the focal vocal transformer and so it if I solo those sounds like digital it's kind of like you know it needs a bit need needs a boot there and then you got bit of light going on as well right if I go over here there are two different there are two teams here the team a is this one yep and then team B is this one the best groups have things opposing each other inside the group like a kind of bad or normal or neutral groove might be if the drums go like - yeah you took them to come - and the bass goes dum dum don't boom boom good it's like okay cool man you know it's that's that's basically playing in unison and so when you take apart of groove it's cool to have things that aren't lined up I'll go into this later actually right now so let's go into the bridge of fastened to rhythm the funky section which I love this groove man really quickly to set up groups oh no no no I don't do that so most people that I've spoken to in in the past are in two grooves oh this is not right five Omni divisions now it's quintal okay so most people in my life in my family my friendship group my neighborhood they all are familiar with grooves they're in four or three divisions I'd imagine you guys might be the same so our grooving for divisions is like detectives like to check yeah four one two three four and then I groove in three might be like don't cut chapter 3 so five is the magic number here as in fifths I was really thrilled I found that out it's like what if five is the magic number like fifths five divisions and you've got five fingers and all sorts of other things but uh I mean yeah so basically this groove is in five divisions quintal that's why I call it a quintal groove because quintal is like portal but I made it I mean it kind of like made sense to say quintal groove the tambourine here is how many of you guys have checked out J Dilla you hear what about what about D'Angelo yeah I thought that'd be slightly bigger so yeah J Dilla was this revolutionary producer from the early 2000s who it was the one of the first guys to turn the quantize button off on his own on his machine so all the grooves he made were not quite like quanto like when I say quantize I mean if I pull something in MIDI and then quantize it then everything moves to its nearest divisions just absolutely spot-on you know so like it's come to come to come to me and then there's no like moving it around I'm not a non-contact but it might be like to complete yeah okay and so what J Dilla did is he used samples but he didn't quantize the sample so the Sambas wouldn't quite fit the length of time that they were filling and then thus you'd get something that would be like like this where kind of stumbles across its kind of bit too long but it's cut short I dig it man I dig it and so D'Angelo then independently from Jay dealer actually so the law sort of has it is in lor e not l aw so D'Angelo discovered that he liked drunken beat speech that kind of weren't quantized like his most hip-hop drummers were just used to going like absolutely quantized smooth that's like they were basically a drum machine and then Questlove and D'Angelo came together and Questlove was into like this weird going on and it's kind of lilt it people call definitely the little groove that jilt groove the drunken groove slug I read on a comment on close to you and bunch of other things so this is interesting I got into J Dilla when I did this and as you can maybe hear the tambourines is not straight miss it's not it's not straight it's not straight at all it's in fact kind of in five divisions you Kanaka groovin five divisions I should not go to show you an example about if I've got my groove bank with me which I do quintal Samba it's not that one it's beating 27 so there's something I just made for fun you can feel it in loads of different ways but this is a groovin five divisions bar actually has a bit of seven in it as well but so it's like just don't do that but then then it's like seven don't do it don't don't go so you get this like five thing going on instead of like them in four you get it so it's like and it's just really cool because you can do five and one of the best thing is actually for you drummers out there how many drummers out there yeah cool so get this this musical group five divisions but you can't tell yet it's just a goof and then the hi-hat is going to be in five divisions but it's going to do threes yeah so the high out soon ago and it's just so cool yeah because it just kind of moves around anyway so five divisions this particular track you can feel in in three different times you can feel it in five divisions four divisions six divisions CLS you could just listen to it everyone we're still in five by the way we're gonna go into six now [Music] we're going to the four it's the same thing on top of it playing a five [Music] I now and I'm module 8 and I'm module 8 up a semitone and a half just just for laughs it's kind of fun and I'm using different divisions in the melody now so this is 6 over 6 then 7 and now we got eights here all right then you go down at Hoffy 7 so don't do it with a swing feel but anyway that's maybe an example of just thanks thank you thank you thank you that's that's example of a bunch of a bunch of things you can do with good this is this groove is the height the tambourine is doing three two it's going it's going tick tick tick tick tick tick tick it seems like a look booth and two it's kind of its kind of fun and so that's that's how this we've worked is it's not a straight groove quantize things like Auto tuning it's like just don't do it it's it pretty much sucks in every way [Music] these are the voices [Music] I heard the voices in the synths now as well that all goes in place three over it because threes fun and so you got like this groove and you go dick dick it just makes her a kind of like do a bit of a jiggle I was given I was given an altitude harmonica and I took a jam session I did it I went to in Montreux Jazz Festival this guy stood firm said I won't use have my harmonica and I just said no I don't I don't want it and he said no you have to have it so I took it and they used it in this and I just go in here [Music] I really like it so anyway [Music] the new Tsar and then obviously you have [Music] [Music] so that so the group there is it's a thanks them yeah quintal quintal groups that Quinta group so great and then and then we've got close to you which I might show you as well dip in the middle of that because this is what I'm a hit this is one of my favorite groups that I've ever made it's a it's basically their sister critical thing that happens in D'Angelo records where quest stops playing right on the back of the beat and the penis playing right in the back of his feet and then D'Angelo is singing on the back of them so so they're just really kind of like get back on the thing and but the the things don't align and with one another they they're not aligned and that's why it swings because some people call this participate Ori discrepancy I don't call it that but what the deal is that different in order to make a groove swing things need to kind of be off a little bit like there are some really cool rhythmic grids like check out check out check out this check out this for a rhythmic grid when you look inside gurus you can't just look inside the bar and say like okay five four seven four four four you you need to what I tend to look inside each beat and you think how many beats are in the beat so for normally three sometimes five occasionally seven occasionally seventh-grade man but then then you can move these divisions around inside the bar Samba for example it's not Tiger Tiger Tiger Tiger Tiger Tiger da it's like a catacomb to catch them you know it's like Papapa Papapa that that's the grid you got like a thinking on and and then it's said when you get to Morocco they they they do this I don't know how many of you guys have checked out this guy Majid Beck us [Music] this is a this is a groove man I cried when I oh this so good check out the check out the inside of this groove because it's like so heavy man [Music] so that's that's heavy right and then we got this one which is in three divisions you could say that's three two two three because if you put it down as I have done then if you and you slow it down and it's like that we detect that detected that come to me and that's cool you couldn't you wouldn't quantize it because quantizing sucks but you could just write it down this one is I say this is maybe four to three Moroccan three division things so good [Music] yeah you know I'm saying yeah yeah let's hear it sorry say it again in this kind of music oh man yeah it's so good top notch I adore Ellis just saying I adore microtones they're they're really heavy but for me the ear just kind of here's something closest on the open so if you can use them in like in western music and get away with it I've kind of done that but microtones are great this is kind of like Mikey the microphone equivalent of rhythm because things move around inside inside the beat so this beat you know you get the beat is here and it like it's not going like buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh it's going that good and doing good and do good and gettin thing to do and there some heavy grits man like this is what from Molly which goes to get don't don't do to get them to get them to go into and it's so heavy but I got really obsessed with with that kind of stuff so when I came to do close to you I thought about I thought about how to divide this up because it's really slow it's 70 beats per minute and I tried a whole bunch of stuff I tried to I can actually show you this I could yeah because when you think about doing a little groove what my first thought was to just go and then I thought okay there's the base as well he's going dum dum dum dum dum and I did that and if I actually show you where's the base this one no different one [Music] so I actually in my mind i divided the base to seven division so at the basic I don't cut don't cut don't cut don't cut don't cut don't cut don't cut don't cut because you're in seven divisions and share if possible and some divisions not impossible for so you got Putin to contact you - Croatoan took on Captain - don't don't Catholic to go to quit on tongues DK take you to contact to be to God it don't cut don't go okay and then the hi-hat was initially going as well but turns out it swings the hardest when the hi-hat is straight okay so check it out the Hyatts is just going [Music] that's a faster seven mr. five we don't talk about that [Music] [Applause] okay thanks thanks so all right so uh you know so the groove here one thing is doing the one thing in one grid and one's doing something in a different grid and the two grids collide and it's gets real because the heights just going chapt don't sure and the bass going don't put on junk good dog to cap things with the dome and the lesson to be learned here about groove is that when things don't quite a line it's way better it's like an orchard or a forest like a forest is um or did you plant the seeds and rose and it's kind of cool for like people to walk around and sort of I don't know it's kind of weird and then for under so that's an orchard right and in a forest this is more wild so you get disparate positions of trees and what you need to try and do is just to find the happy medium between the two so one thing to do is to start with a groove which is kind of quantized maybe not digitally but it's just in a grid and then you move things slightly outside and just find the ones that swing the best and I spent a whole afternoon working on this only only to discover that the hi-hat was actually going to be straight I would never in my wildest dreams ever have assumed such a notion but you know I'm not gonna play the rap which I did instead of it yeah anyway so there you go that's um no man no no I'm not in the dirt you know so so groove groove is like kind of like a conversation if you have you ever seen a group of West Africans on a on a bus this is not a joke it's real so um basically whenever they have a conversation it just like constantly flows between different people so someone will say something and then in in the gap when they finish the thing because in African speech they settle in in European speech and and something like English for example you you make an accent in the language by it's stressing the word or making like an intonation difference in the word that is the accident in African speech so as I understand it the emphasis is made by leaving a greater gap before the the syllable so I went that get it get that that good then that is the one that's accented pretty cool West Africans have got this together subconsciously without without realizing they've really hit this heavy so they have a conversation and one person leaves a tiny gap in the sentence where they finish and everyone else makes like I said of affirming noise to be like war and it's just amazing as in cried I've observed this like once but um in in African music this happens as well so everybody everybody plays different things and the groups fit into it into each other's gaps so it so the cusan in unison so you know so one guy is going to be going you know say I was choking shooting sample of this but I can't think of one so it's like you know so say the Cowboys going you know and then that's another one see so far we got dirt and then gonna might go to captain that that that like fills the gap this argument you saw a groove is made that swings because basically groups that are in unison are just kind of there one thing it's like only playing in one key you're only using notes from one scale African people understand the notion of filling in the gaps and it's not like every division is filled because that's boring as well that's like the other side of the coin what it is is that things fit around each other in a really conversational way cuz for them the rhythm comes from the language which is really kind of nice and European I mean if you listen to somebody somebody like Keith Jarrett playing the piano his lines like saw over the top of his left hand which is often integrate and and often they're out of time this kind of comes from Paul Bley did this a little bit and a bunch of other people but Jaret was really influenced by the European musicians with whom he played and so it's kind of he's he's got that way of playing and then someone like Bill Evans plays absolutely quantized in a grid you know he's gonna swing buh doo buh doo buh doo buh doo buh doo doo and Jarrett's gonna go boo boo bit of it a lit up because that's what European do when they speak they make an accent you know if I said if I sort of if I went like that's Bill Evans and then Jeremiah like [Music] as I saw all over the place so they're kind of different things you can do basically their notion areas that rhythm comes from speech so um so people that so European speech speakers don't speak in rhythmic grits they speak in long phrases and they have different emphasises in the face African people speak kind of without much dynamic change but the timing is different and so a lot that's why a lot of African music is built in this conversational way and a lot of European music is more kind of harmonic and the harmonies are the kind of what breathes life it I think if we embrace both of these so things then then we're winning we are we're winning I think we are winning did I see it yeah hey yeah I mean okay so agent so Indian music for example there's much to be learned from Indian music one of the main things is they might take 25 minutes to change from the first core to a different chord the sections are really stretched out this is really heavy because in European music like in my music for example I have a tendency to change chords sometimes and often quite often quite often so in when you would listen to indie music we understand a different kind of shape - afraid we're actually things happen you've got a sound world and actually they're often microtonal which is heavy and the mode that they're in it builds and it builds and he introduces each note in the mode separately over a period of maybe half an hour and when the next session arrives in the next section arrives it's like a massive deal because you've been in this environment and then you change a vironment and it's it's crazy and that is one of the things that I've been checking out a lot with regard to music from other places Indian music is just incredible there's an incredible patience involved and you really understand what it means to to be to be gratified when the section changes we live in this like world where everyone needs to be gratified straight away there's like the threshold is so low or higher denote high yeah in order for something to take to stimulate us it has to be really strange or weird like you know all the internet videos that are gone viral or like 7 second videos of like stupid cats or something and that's that's like the top because it's short so you'd have to be engaged for a long period of time and it's funny you know that there's no hidden meaning it's just like what you get it straight away I think this is very much damaging the minds of our generation maybe so Indian music advocates patience and and so the thing evolves and then it changes and it's just like astronomical when it does so because you've reached a point you know you've really and I think this is something that's missing from a lot of music from our society nowadays you know the idea of the drop for example like maybe like 45 seconds in you're already dropped and it just kind of sucks a little bit even though it's great and I love it but um yeah I probably cite that as one of my main main things to think about just patience in music yeah yeah there's a video on on the internet YouTube calm you basically I'm building this solo live show and and it's crazy and it's exciting and I'm I'm going to meet with describe from MIT tomorrow to build this stop burning a machine it's like building a rocket or something to kind of get all these instruments in a big circle to unite and make a sound together and it's really exciting and crazy one of the other things I wanted in my life show is to get a band and so I'll get it these two different mediums going on all at once and as you asked here is um here's something this is super rough this like the first time we ran it through with my two buds it's just a tune I wrote for my college recital [Music] just incidentally that the meteor is changing from four divisions to six divisions you're sort of going like I always had allowed a foot stamp and this works in five divisions as well check it out and it works and six divisions but it starts in like four so he goes which is a pretty fun it's just a funny thing but um you know so these guys are my pals we wrote this tune that's a lot of weight does that's great yeah I mean like I think what I can say is is more to come as far as that's concerned because I'm writing I'm making an album which is cool yeah yeah thanks a lot and so hopefully yeah this year is crazy for me because I'm still at college even I'm not there that much at the moment just because I'm doing other things and then I'm making an album I'm making inventing a live show which can do crazy that's not currently possible like quantize grooves in five divisions with weird grits and tune cords properly and so yeah I'm building this whole big thing which is exciting and then I'm graduating from college early maybe and in addition to that I am trying to just be 20 years old because that's fun and I'm trying to get some sleep and practice as well it's kind of a crazy year but and one of the other things I've been doing is McKay's dystonia band and I've got some guys and we're gonna do it and another thing I want to do is to get some bunch of bunch of singers together and sing sing with them and we can sing things that I arranged and we can sing some like William Byrd who's checked out William Byrd yeah boy the stuffs hair is heavy stuff man William Byrd is a lives from many hundreds of years ago he's a choral composer very inspiring and so yeah that's one thing I want to try and do my in my ideal world will be a band that can also sing it's kind of it seems unlikely at the moment but I got to see who comes my way but um yeah so that is music with other people and there's more to come yes so Jan's went to rock movements with hip-hop going into technology like [Music] uestion okay so I think right now you can disagree them if you like but music is colliding everywhere in the world things from different laces are joining together so we have collaborations with musicians from every continent every different style every different time period people are sampling older and using it in their current music they are quoting things they're learning from stuff this is not really a pop music like general music outside of that but if we embrace this thing it's a lot there's a lot that's possible it's like a big great big basket of music in the world and you just need to like delve in and take some stuff out and technology means we can discover music like this way more easily because it's all our fingertips YouTube is so cool I mean it's such an amazing resource you should all use it more I guess you probably do already but otherwise you can be here but yeah you should use you should check it out because there's some amazing stuff if you do some research loads of notes of joy to be to be found in on YouTube in other places too then so there's this the whole discovery thing and there's the collaboration thing we can collaborate with people I'm making an album at the moment with a trumpet player called Dominic Ferran Archie the band is crazy it's a Christian McBride Steve Gadd and Larry Goulding's yeah so I've just spent like a couple days with me Cleveland and I'm gonna be making a couple of tracks for the album at home and then I can set it over to them that's crazy that could not have been done even ten years ago in the same kind of way where it's literally like an hour and it's uploaded hidden and it's amazing so that's really amazing with technology to be able to do that as far as making music with technology is concerned I'm having a bit of a kind of interesting time at the moment because in order to combine all the instruments in my music room or some of them for a live show I kind of need technology I need looping machines I need some manipulation devices and cameras maybe a whole bunch of stuff which actually can be very easily removed from actual music like real life music making it's crucial to play with other musician it's crucial to play on your own technology just enables a whole bunch of stuff to happen in a really amazing way when we when we get engaged in this like people like for example Evan who is in a book called accent these guys are from five continents and they collaborate so easily nowadays because you can just send the files to one place and it's just amazing that's that's crazy cool and we should embrace technology absolutely we should also aim to be aware of it every single night at my house everyone in my family turns off every mobile phone and the Internet gets on blogs and we go to sleep properly I'd really advocate that as well people have their phones on next to their beds I find that insane outlandish crazy unreliable it's not not good in general when you stop when you if you have time to come off your life then it's it does you good it's like being recharged so technology it also is addictive and it grabs you and I'm as much of a victim as anyone else to the laws of procrastination and first other things that you know the technology has to offer that it's interesting but you know we need to think of it as something that's incredibly powerful really beautiful dangerous engaging we should I think we should go for it just be aware that it's kind of not real you know when I press go on the video and then something there's you guys in a room listen to me it's very very surreal for me because I just I get out of my bedroom what downstairs we're going in the kitchen get like a glass of you know something nice and go back into the music room which is in here and I go and sit and I just make the stuff in there and I come up two weeks later and then suddenly it goes all right this insane very very gratifying amazing you can't take yourself too seriously with it though because otherwise you go crazy but technology I think to sum up is a powerful and dangerous and beautiful I think that's kind of cool yeah good question alright so fascinating rhythm I was on holiday in Cornwall which is in England and I got back on August the 2nd which is my birthday and I I spent the next 10 days arranging recording videoing editing syncing publishing that video so that that took me ten days in total I had preconceptions in mind it does take a while I worked in quite a concentrated manner where I sort of sit in one world and just I'm immersed in it for a long long time I don't I'm not very good at touching on it and coming out and do something else going back in I just said when I'm in I'm in and yeah um kind of I mean recently I've really gotten into improvising harmony let let me let me play something I made this is like what you do is hey cool a swine alright this is the last I'm gonna play I improvised a melody I wrote a couple of lyrics and then I just improvised some homie underneath it this is an interesting exercise because you're not writing things down you're just hearing stuff and following it through and recording it so this is something I did in that format [Music] [Music] [Music] there yeah sooner that's dusk like that's that's an interesting way of doing it because obviously for most of my arrangements I've written things Alan's about its most of the time in in nearly full full format I mean when you when you come to record things you'll find things that work better inevitably you can't hold on to your ideas with too much pride because you have to other things to change there's a bit in fascinating rhythm where it goes and I know there was he did murder in the backings and I didn't write that down that just sort of occurred to me that that's an example where things just pop into your mind and you should take them when they do but most of the time yeah I'll I'll finish some kind of arrangements obey this I then you know then you get it ready and you sing it and I do the base first and you wait way up to the top but things things will definitely change you know throughout the whole process okay I can take maybe like three more questions and then we've got a we've got a roll at roll up yes Wow Thanks you know I listen to two albums every day like two whole records every day I travel to college 40 minutes in or 40 minutes out and every journey I do a whole record I'm thirsty so I just seek out some stuff and people recommend stuff so I go down that road I did I do hold discography it's like I did the whole of the Beatles last month and sane I did the whole of Joni Mitchell insane do the whole of Radiohead pretty damn good man I mean this if you follow things through it's exciting I mean in our generation people don't tend to listen to records even whole songs it's a bit too much you know people just so so distracted but it's it really does you good to focus on one thing for a while and I just I just love music so you do check out a bunch of you know the Moroccan stuff which kind of links to the hip hop stuff in some ways with the grids changing and you find these links in the world just by getting a whole bunch of things I mean people you know people I went on The Rolling Stones 500 greatest albums of all time internet page and I sought out a couple of those to kind of cover the thing I'm hoping but by the time I leave college I would have got most of the last 50 years kind of mapped out you know and that's the obviously draws from the whole of eternity before it but you know I just think listen to as much as you can use YouTube buy albums because that's heavy to do that that's really nice and just if you can just get as much because what it does is it plants things in your peripheral vision and when you're creating they just occur to you you think oh there's what's this and then later you find all right that sounds like that weird thing I found from so-and-so and so-and-so land and it's nice because things just come they they flow is it the more music you listen to the more food you've eaten therefore the more nourished you are so listen to music I would say yeah with all the success that you've had people kind of expect something and like I don't know if this is true but maybe you feel kinda like everybody wants something it's kind of like like too much I mean maybe not but I guess at this point it's like well you put out all this stuff so people have seen it so if you're doing like a live performance or even if you're just working on something new it's like maybe it's in the back of mind like good because like it's because people expect this of you if people want stress a great question yeah and also like I mean the worst way to go into a creative moment is to say like I need to make this good so I guess my question is like how do you get to that space where you're where you're kind of connected there nice good man okay so yeah that's a fantastic question there's a particular space of mind in which it's impossible to be creative and that's the one where you're writing for other people's opinions you know oh man I hope you know I want this girl to date this video man I really wanted to see it you know I've got to make it really hip a really good I really want to get you know if you if he if I visualize my audience which is kind of becoming faster it's kind of crazy you're paralyzed you can't do anything you have to let that go one of the main things I'd recommend reading a book called the inner game of tennis has anyone read this book oh it's amazing it's um it's a book about learning and teaching and the idea is that you really can let go of judgment and that is from other people and also of yourself because you judge yourself all the time and it's kind of destructive to the process of creating so that's important to bear in mind that you need to put judgment to one side do the stuff once you put things on paper and you don't like them instead of saying I don't like that and therefore I don't like me you just say I don't I don't like that or and instead of saying that's bad you just say that's what it is and I'm going to change it you know it's that there's a there's a negative and a positive way of looking at things being corrected and things being built it's important to be aware and to try and inhabit the one which is constructive as opposed to destructive where you kind of become emotionally engaged in every decision you make because things will absolutely have to change things will have to be you know shifted around you add some stuff in and then you spend two days getting it together and then two days later whereas you don't use anything and if you say if you attach your emotions to that and then you get rid of it then you've got rid of your emotion that hurts so the idea is to not not not not be too proud I think is about your creations I mean I I put a lot of love into this stuff you know a lot of time and love because it needs that it needs it to be good to be fed properly and then obviously people reach back and I mean most people I've encountered seem to be really positive about it which is lovely and obviously some people say like I don't dig it at all and that's also cool and I think if you invest your emotions in the people that don't speak with you then you're just in danger of being like unanchored if that's so that's the right word and just sort of like zoomed around and and some points put your anchor down in a place which is even our you know it's not to do with me as a musician it's not it's not to do with me in in my life it's just is me being human and alive and that's like enough and that needs to be the anchor as opposed to I have an anchor that people think I'm good or I have an anchor that I have a solid income or I have a family or something like the best anchor is one which goes behind everything that is a part of you and just is you you know so then the things that you do creatively or in the world are in life they don't rock their thing it splits bloom in hard you know but just just try next time you think about this kind of thing just try and put judgment to one side and just do the thing in a kind of selfless way not thinking that you want to gain because if you set up wanting to gain things then you can't you can't necessarily gain them and it goes against the thing but if you just sort of start creating in a way which is just more open-minded and you're kind of listening all the time and you you accept people's criticisms and don't get too proud about it but then invest a lot of emotional love as opposed to just kind of energy it's really difficult but yeah so what do you do like I guess like emotion spiritually like what do you do if you have bad thoughts that come to what do you tell yourself how do you do it great questions um well I think that's a it's important to get that together I think my my well-being my mental well-being doesn't stem from people's compliments it just doesn't it stems from just being alive and so that's it takes a while to come to that conclusion and to try and get and I'm not saying it's that's where I'm at it's like I haven't reached that peak yet but that's kind of what I'm what I'm aiming for because people will always pull you around at different places you know when I read it we're not even really common which is like dude there was one guy commented I I think you'll like this because he said people I'm an arranger myself and I really wouldn't recommend putting two notes next to each other like just do that because it sounds Ben sounds bad like you should always space them out by like an octave or something and I just it's the kind of hilarity that you you you get and if you detach yourself from the comments and just read them it's just wonderful you've got a whole bunch of crazy people not really you know there's no focus everyone's just throwing their out their own bit in and it's a joyous thing you know to read everyone's contributions how it's stupid and kind of whatever but I mean I think the the main message is that people will always hit you in different directions and you didn't you need to try and plant yourself in a place where you're not depending on that you're depending on yourself and your own energy and and I find it if I stay creative if I stay connected I mean I'm living at home so if I if I stay in the family at least connected to the family connected to the people who just make me and my family sees me as Jacob right there little see me as Jacob Collier so that's important just to have people in your life that are going to see you at straight on you just you're another human being they're not like some superstar I dig it I take that a lot and this it's dead important because without that you just lose your use of go in the ether and you get lost so yeah you need to try and plant yourself down on the ground I guess that's really hard but you know yeah go for it all right one last question yes sir oh yeah man I'm glad you asked that yeah I'm trying to think of anybody better and I can't ya take six are a completely epic and awesome I discovered them when I was about 16 years old 15 16 years old and I just couldn't I couldn't believe it it's the Harmony is unreal spirituality is cool the whole vibe is great and there's such positive people in real life as well and you see them live and there's this energy in it's just fab so absolutely yes I did once for fun I did one track for fun I I think the better way to transcribe is to listen and and engage your listening or other than right I'm not very good at reading music I can kind of barely I can barely read something that's that's that's like put in front of me I'd have to sit down and all have written it to know how to sing it so transcribing it would be great and a great exercise for my writing but for your ears when you listen to music you should just be engaged in things that you're hearing and try and think about why they make you feel emotional things because the whole of harmony should and music should be connected to your emotion so that when you navigate through harmony while you're listening you navigate through how it makes you feel rather than what you know it is that's a better way around but take six I've got the whole package they've got the Harmony they've got the vibe they've got this good songs and they go voice is everything yeah I connect so much everyone it's really like the most wonderful situation this everyone's kind of super engaged and listening and questioning and so thanks so much [Applause]

Channel: Junichi Arima

Views: 230,223

Rating: 4.925488 out of 5

Keywords: Jacob Collier, Berklee College of Music, Clinic, Master Class, Producing

Id: RSPXgdeKLTs

Length: 108min 9sec (6489 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2018