On the Run | The Dark Side of the Moon Project

this video is brought to you by curiosity stream if you sign up to curiosity stream with the link in the description you'll also get access to nebula where two more episodes of this series have already been up for months [Music] speak to me and breathe introduce the listener to the world of Dark Side of the Moon they foreshadow the rest of the album and set the sonic tone then coming out of breathe we come face to face with the madness of modern life the Kaos have travelled the pressure of work and the general confusion that is trying to understand what being human means in the modern age the third song on Dark Side of the Moon is an exploration and to all of this and more but before we can understand on the run we need to go back and look at the making of Dark Side of the Moon you see Dark Side of the Moon wasn't written like a typical album it started out with a few weeks in a rehearsal space during which Pink Floyd wrote a rough outline for the piece then the band took that on tour even though it was far from completion they performed 16 dates in the UK playing the album in full each night as they were performing these dates Pink Floyd worked through the album fine-tuning it and developing it in Saucerful of Secrets The Pink Floyd Odyssey Nick Mason talked about the benefits of working on an album like this it was a hell of a good way to develop a record you really get familiar with it you learned the pieces you like and what you don't like and it's quite interesting for the audience to hear a piece developed if people saw it four times it would have been very different each time during this tour the spot occupied by Alderaan featured a completely different song the original version of the song was called the travel sequence and it was more of an open guitar base to jam [Music] in fact the travel sequence remained for most of the recording of Dark Side of the Moon but then late in the process someone brought in an EMS vcs3 synthesiser when Pink Floyd saw how it worked the entire band were instantly entranced they came up with an eight note sequence that became the basis for an entirely new song next they took that sequence and passed it through a number of filters modulating it throughout the song and passing it left and right through the mix the result was something frantic chaotic and completely novel they knew they had a base to build on and so they replaced the travel sequence layering all kinds of sounds and strange effects over the synth bass äj-- this frantic chaos became a perfect musical representation of the uncertainty of travel one of the great stresses of the modern age one of the audio clips used by the band is a voice going through an airport PA system the sample is subtle but noticeable and it places us right in the madness of an airport groups of people running every which way to get to their games I think that the airport is a good setting for the stress too it's a place where there's a lack of control over your direction your schedule and even your life it's a purely modern invention completely removed from our ancestral origins when you're in an airport you are not the master of your own destiny you're putting your time and your life in the hands of strangers on top of the airport sample the music itself imitates vehicles thanks to its use of the Doppler effect the Doppler effect is what happens when a moving object emits waves in this case sound waves as an object moves the waves in front of it will bunch up while the waves behind it spread out to someone listening who's standing still or moving at a slower pace this creates a pitch shift as the object comes towards you the shortening waves create a higher pitch and then as it passes the waves widen and the pitch lowers in the modern world you probably hear the Doppler effect hundreds of times a day the best example is of course the sound of a car driving past you by using the Doppler effect on the run creates a sense of movement a sense of things lying by you but I think on the run is more than just traffic like so much of Dark Side of the Moon it's a meditation on every frantic aspect of modern life it's about how technology and urbanization has created a noisy chaotic world around us this is a message that has only grown in relevance as we pushed into the digital age Pink Floyd represent this modern auditory chaos with samples that mimic the noise pollution of cities a lot of these sounds came thanks to Alan Parsons after Pink Floyd were done recording he would often bring a microphone around the studio and play around with sounds putting them into songs for the band to hear the next day this is where the footsteps and on the run came from a recording of assistant engineer Peter James running around the studio rather than describing anxiety lyrically this allows you to experience the anxiety orally and it rattles you deep to your core it makes your heart beat quicker it makes pressure build in your chest Richard Wright was particularly afraid of travel because of how it induced the fear of death into him and the song induces that same fear as the pressure is building if the band drops a vocal sample from one of their interviews the only real words still on the run and in that moment we shift from one anxiety to an even greater one the fear of mortality it's a simple comment that brings up the impermanence of life if you blink life can pass you by in a daze of missed flights lost time and chaos it's a reminder that in the end no matter how much you can control some things are out of your reach and this reflection on mortality and travel ends on a morose note a plane crash [Music] it's a dark end to an intense song and it brings us towards the middle section of Dark Side of the Moon where will muse further on mortality and try to find some meaning among the chaos of modern life the Dark Side of the Moon project has been really ambitious undertaking for me it's something I've wanted to do pretty much since I started polyphonic but I always worried about breaking from my typical format that's why I'm really grateful for nebula I say this without a shred of exaggeration this series would not exist without nebula nebula is a platform that we created to give creators like myself the freedom to experiment and I'm really grateful that curiosity stream saw what we were doing with nebula and decided to throw their support behind us the support they've given us means that signing up to curiosity stream will also get you a year's access to nebula that means as you're finishing up the rest of this series you'll also be able to go check out man's first friend the story of how the lives of humans and dogs intertwined thousands of years ago and there's lots more documentaries where that came from on a whole host of topics so again if you go to curiosity stream calm slash polyphonic you'll be able to get access to both curiosity stream and nebula that means you'll be able to watch professionally made documentaries and independent content for your favorite creators more than just that your support really helps grow the online educational community and helps me experiment with my videos

Channel: Polyphonic

Views: 146,274

Rating: 4.9833946 out of 5

Keywords: polyphonic, music, video essay

Id: imsTSp6Eug4

Length: 7min 28sec (448 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/pink_beetle]

Love his work! He also does video essays on other artists too

[u/Jack-Charles]

This is great!!!

[u/brkonthru]

I liké

[u/ThunderDeadlyBR]

This channel is really good!

[u/Spiarmpf]

I got the free trial, cancelled the subscription and watched the first half of the series

[u/Lev22_]

Can't wait for "Time", my favourite song in DSOTM. When every members collaborate, then the masterpiece has been made