i think a lot of people's first binaural beat was lavender town from pokemon red and green

Hey Adam! What you called Mixolydian Pentatonic with the variable 3rd is a very famous Indian Melodic scale or Raga called Raga Jog. You may wanna check it out for more inspiration. Cheers from India :)

Seeing a whole dance floor dancing to Chameleon is a thing of beauty. The speed change is so gradual that people barely seem to realise how fast they're dancing at the end.

i love the wall of context at 5:35 to explain whether the bass note should be labeled G# or Ab

The thing about this theory of binaural beats and delta brainwaves is it assuems they are equivalent when we have no real reason to assume that. Like, oscillations of brain waves are electrical, auditory stimulation is movement of air, they are totally different phenomena. This kind of abstraction is a human, or at least sentience/sapience-based phenomena, so its unlikely that the electrical patterns in your brain are noticing that air is moving at the same speed that electricity is oscillating in it, unless you yourself are noticing it. The whole theory is kind of rooted IMO in some very old theories of subliminal hypnosis, as well as some other sort of new-agey, post-hippie wishy washy garbage which have never achieved notable efficacy.

You can tell Adam is a bassist and not a guitarist or singer bc he never mentioned crappy drummers during the elastic time conversation lol. And as a drummer, I really appreciate that. We've actually never messed up any tempos before, it's all feel, and if you don't like the tempo, you just don't understand elastic time. It's an excellent point. Thank you Adam.

that was a really high effort first answer. it's well appreciated.

I remember hearing Tartini tones while being a very young little kid screaming with other kids in a kid's falsetto/whistle register scream and as our pitches changed the Tartini tones changed. It felt like they were ripping my ears apart. This required at least two kids; usually I was one of them (not that's what we were trying to do).

However, bilateral stimulation is a thing. I’m a therapist that provides EMDR (eye movement desensitization reprogramming) in my practice. It’s a protocol for processing trauma. Originally it was executed with having the client follow a visual stimulus that moved left and right rapidly, forcing the eyes to do the same, which reduces activity in the amygdala (fight or flight center), so they can process shitty stuff without getting triggered. It’s amazing. Yet in recent years people have also delivered this treatment with alternating vibrations in the hands ( holding little buzzers) or having little notes that go left right in headphones: so as long as the client gets a left right alternating stimulus, the amygdala chills. It’s very effective. And thoroughly researched.

COME TO BRAZIL

Dear Prudence by The Beatles is my absolute favourite example of elastic time. The tempo changes dramatically, but it never sounds like there's a turning point between one tempo and another, it just gradually evolves into that new tempo and feels entirely natural, and adds so much to the song, especially the end, it is just gorgeous. Maybe it's because Paul was playing drums on it and so he can't keep time as well as Ringo can, because Ringo is a far better drummer. But Paul is still pretty great, and the drums kinda push the song over the top into being an all time classic.

My favorite example of elastic time is "Run for your life" from clipping. The instrumental is played from stereo systems of passing cars and the doppler effect changes the not only the pitch but also the bpm of the song. Also the rapper uses this freedom to speed up or slow down the song depending on the mood they're trying to induce.

Our guy comes off a major tour and puts out a Q&A where the first A could have been a video all to itself. Amazing work Adam!

Great example of the tempo thing. Queens of the Stone Age is my favorite band and I remember listening to "A Long Slow Goodbye" off of their album Lullabies to Paralyze and getting completely tripped out because there is a point in the middle of the song where they reveal that they've ever so slightly sped up the tempo by suddenly slowing back down. Must be like 10-15bpm, just enough to add some serious mood to the track. I hear it as a tongue-in-cheek breakup song, like they care soooo much (not) that theyve lost track of the tempo.

Those super fast instagram q&a stoped being super fast long time ago and just turned into question and answer time with Adam Neely

9:57 Speaking as a physically disabled musician, I can confirm that playing live is a significant drain on my energy and touring is impossible. I'm very glad home recording and self-releasing are options these days!

putting an ad at 5:44 is criminal. i was so ready for that resolution

Thanks for bringing up Herbie Hancock. Head Hunters is one of the most important and influential albums of all time. All his albums, especially from that era, are essential.

this is fantastic! one of the best vids I’ve seen breaking down binaural beats…

Wooo! Exactly - that was a fabulous choice with the B flat!

That was absolutely gorgeous thank you mr. Neely.

Super helpful. Best explanation of this stuff I've yet seen.

I’m halfway through but I’m typing the comment already, it’s so cozy and nice to spend the evening listening to you being all clever and friendly thanks for the video, Adam

I missed these Q&As, they’re so fun

6:30 my _rude_ introduction to elastic time was trying to play Run To The Hills on rock band's expert drums. The first like, three beats of the blazingly-fast disco beat is slower than the rest of it, lulling you into a false sense of the true tempo. Once you know it's there you can adjust -- and in fact it's so obvious in retrospect -- but MAN it got me every time until I realized.

i love your videos! thanks for making them

Love it when you’re doing something relatively understandable with chords and bass in music theory and then by just continuing to do it in ways that make sense you hit something you need a 3 paragraph explanation for. Chords are fun ALSO YOOO CHAMELEON I LOVE HERBIE HANCOCK

I found your exploration of binaural beats and combination tones compelling, especially set against the backdrop of acoustic and psychoacoustic phenomena. Your chord progression example effectively demonstrates the power of bass movement in re-harmonization, while your comments on consistent BPMs and quantization bring up essential considerations about the limitations and merits of digital tools. The Mixolydian Pentatonic scale's versatility, particularly in blues contexts, was my favorite part. Keep up the great work!

So many cool ideas in one video, you nailed it with this one.

Im so happy these videos are back! Best breakfast entertainment.

I love using rigidly elastic times in DAW productions, I make a lot of EDM and exp. hip hop beats that make use of the fact that DAWs are so rigidly timed, so I can constantly and consistently speed up or slow down the piece’s tempo over the course of phrases to change the energy of sections. It’s also a lot of fun to do this type of automation with swing too. I wrote a pretty amateur essay recently about how we can use digital technologies to influence groove in interesting ways if anyone wants to read it

I've done a lot of recording over the past few years with "virtual" classical ensembles, and an interesting thing with them is that they often use what has come to be termed a "live" click, meaning the individual clicks of a click track are massaged into place to mimic a naturalistic orchestral performance. It requires a bit more attention from the individual musicians so that they play with the timing of the track and not a steady tempo, but the results are excellent when everything's done.

I wanted to know about this topic for so long. I'm glad that u r covering it. Love ur videos

Still so sad i missed the Sungazer/Plini tour. Come back to Illinois soon please!

For binaural beats I have tried a lot of playlists. A lot of them don’t work. A lot of them I like just because of the accompanying music. Some of them help in different ways than what the description would imply it should. But there are a few from Jason Lewis’s KZfaq channel called something like “wake up without caffeine”, in particular the ones that don’t have any music, if I’m listening to those I am unable to fall sleep. I will stop yawning, and my head will not go beyond a certain point of cloudiness from being tired. It will not wake me up in the morning, nor make me feel energetic. But when I need to stay up all night finishing something and, as a programmer, that’s just a thing that happens, it will keep me up and going all the way to the finish line. I only wish I had this while I was in school.

I met you and you wonderful parents at a club near Ohio State University (more than a dozen years ago...maybe more). There's something special about each one of you. Now I send your videos to my grandkids who are band members at Ohio University. Nice work!

Thanks for the solo. I spend so much time on KZfaq, but when I see an update from a Nebula creator, I head there to watch. Instead of a “thanks for watching on Nebula” comment, getting a real bonus like that is fucking magical. MAGICAL.

Please tell me that you plan to release a tour video once the current tour is over! I've been following your progress over the last few months and all the live clips in your various posts sound absolutely amazing. I'm really hoping to get something long-form and more comprehensive when it's all over, and I'm sure all SUNGAZER fans would appreciate it too ❤

Wonderful descending line.

You are a huge inspiration for me dude! I love your videos, and they have provided me with so much knowledge of music theory, as well as encouraging me to try more experimental styles of electronic music. I can confidently say I would not be as talented as I am had it not been for you. Thanks for everything, and hang in there, Neely!

That interval you played at the end of the video sounds like something that belongs in a David Rawlings guitar solo. So *that's* why I feel so good listening to him. ;) I do enjoy listening to that, it's the ultimate tension builder full of melancholy and the hope for resolution.

Cheers Adam, a very important subject along with the 432hz madness

Finally lol love the videos and can’t get enough brewwww

loving the dingwall, idk if this is your first time using it in a video but this is my first time seeing it

I'm almost more interested in your bass than the questions. Sick instrument, dude!

I honestly miss songs that speed up and slow down. It builds excitement, and helps to draw you in. It used to be so commonplace, and is now all but gone, and in the right hands it serves a very real purpose.

You put the ad right between when you said you were going to resolve the chord and when you did resolve the chord. That got a giggle from me

great explanation!

In an interview I did with one of the guitarists of We Lost The Sea - a Sydney post-rock band - he described touring as "rushing to wait" which maps on perfectly to how you painted it.

Raga Jog in Indian music uses those pentatonic notes with both thirds

Come touring eastern Europe! Come in Bulgaria. Particularly. Burgas if possible... During summertime preferably. Bar-a-bar is an idea for a venue. PLS! Love your work and your channel!

been around for like 20 years. Why you doin this now? Actually a really good explanation of it. Nice. And really informative omg.

"Always with Me" on the Spirited Away soundtrack has some subtle pause/ritardando between phrases that sound really nice.

I definitely enjoyed the theory dump.

Nice discussion of brainwaves. I first encountered binaural beats in the 90's when I bought CoolEdit 96, which was my first real foray into the world of digital recording. While going through the helpfile for it, I saw this whole section on "Brainwave Entrainment" ... and disappeared down that rabbit hole. You don't know really what you're getting with commercial brainwaves on the market, but this was something I could make myself to experiment with. It was kinda hidden in that helpfile, one of those "Psst - hey kid, want to try something that will blow you mind?" moments. I would cook up CD's for myself for different occasions. One was a program for a 30 minute rampdown and zonk, then a 5 minute wakeup refresh at lunchtime. I would go to my van, crank the AC, lock the doors and eat my sandwich. Then lie down on the floor with the CD player and hit play. I'd wink out listening to the helicopter swish going slower and slower as the brainwaves ramped down to sleep level. I'd have some positive affirmations in there at the subliminal level. It would hit the bottom and stay I think for about 15 minutes, then a 5 minute ramp up to wake with birds and "Rite of Spring." It worked flawlessly. Zonk, then the next thing I knew I'd and wake up 30 minutes later to birds singing. I was never late back from lunch. I had others for studying. One for focus and creativity while writing computer code in a stressful office. etc., I do believe they work to a large degree, and I still use brainwaves from time to time.

Another Mahavishnu Orchestra snippett, their tune 'Birds of Fire' starts at 380BPM for the quaver beat (18/8 - according to the official sheet music) but finishes 6 minutes later at 460BPM. There was no holding them back!!

1:25 Giueseppe Tartini? Ha, more like-Giueseppe Tortellini 👌😌 nailed it

That floaty time topic was really interesting

I'm watching on Nebula. Just popped over here to say: Yes, I DID enjoy that theory dump - thanks!

5:53 question about constant BPM The BEST example I know of variable BPM is in Tom & Jerry's EP26 "Solid Serenade" (made in 1946) where Tom sings "Is you is, or is you ain't, my baby" as it evokes a build up a feeling. The song starts out at casual 160bpm, and goes to 180bpm as the female cat comes out. I assume we're feeling Tom's heart rate increase. Then as the double bass solo happens and we see Jerry being annoyed by the heavy bass, it goes to 200bpm. We're feeling Jerry's anger. Then as Jerry goes to enact revenge (iron hidden in a custard pie), the music then halves the rate, to 120bpm (I guess we couldn't go to 240bpm) Finally at the very end of the episode, once Tom has been turned into the double bass and being played by Spike (aka "Killer") for the reprise of this song is played at a casual 160bpm again.

I just found you. You're so amazing. I'm not a musician by any stretch of the imagination, but I love music.

Yoooo love the new Dingwall

Nice to see you rocking the Dingwall! Love mine.

Yayyyyy. A new Q+A!

Ooo, Adam's got himself a Dingwall. Nice! Also, brilliant content as always.

Would you ever consider talking about Mitski's song Liquid Smooth? I am curious about the chords she chooses, this song is so unique and beautiful

Nice explanation!

The first time I really noticed elastic time was the song Belfast by Orbital, with the song slowing down to half speed near the end and then adding additional notes to give the illusion that it was the same speed all along (or at least that’s how i thought of it).

Paused to read to read the "Theory Dump" and was not disappointed. More "Theory Dumps" needded.

A great example of interference patterns in music is the accordion. Some accordions have the reeds purposely tuned a few cents sharp/flat to create those interference beats.

MAD props for name-dropping Maryanne Amacher and Phill Niblock, although you spelled the latter’s name wrong! You don’t need headphones, however, to appreciate Niblock’s music, as it just requires an excellent sound system with more than two channels and superior acoustics. Peace.

Bro we need to see you compose a lot of original songs or musical pieces. Looking forward to it.

The binaural beats were great but your other half of that tasty chord progression was awesome.

Yo Adam, I found something interesting. In the wgi indoor percussion group, redline, one of their show songs is the 30 bpm Sungazer song!

I remember discovering tartini tones in the various times I've played Minor Seconds on guitar. As well as tuning my guitar.

Nice Dingwall! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Just discovered that you're coming to Estonia with Sungazer in November! Like..how? WHOA!

On the subject of elastic time I think of Child in Time by Deep Purple, the live recording from Made in Japan. Great song, great band, great performance. I'm thinking a song like that absolutely wouldn't work in a constant tempo production, as the tempo shifts are such integral parts of the songs emotional expression.

Good to see pride of place given to Persichetti , seminal book .

Beautifully well thought video, very articulate thank you for the content

very cool, thanks!

PS I love your approach. I'm not even close to your level of theory knowledge or ability to play but I write my own songs, pretty much for open mics and anyone else who wants to listen. I take whatever I can from your videos and Thank You very much for that. At the moment, I can only appreciate your work by liking the videos so I do that consistently. When you went to the Bflat "Whoo" ,I'm going to assume that was a Flat Third (I'm lazy and didn't want to break a sweat to figure it out right now)🤠 But I love the feeling in a 1 to the Flat 3 vamp myself. I'm not really asking though as I should definitely do the work so it imprints on my brain ears. Thanks again, for the cool videos.

Love the multi scale Dingwall! Sheldon makes some pretty cool shit!

good Q+A...btw I have an old 80s Yamaha keytar that has Chameleon as one of the autochord backing songs

Hey Adam. Nice Q&A. I suggest you look into isochronic tones as they work by producing the physical beating in the rythms themselves, instead of having it be illusory. I wrote my Bachelors degree in sounddesign on brainwave entrainment. I found that, isochronic tones by far were the superior auditory method, but that tactile and visual entrainment is a lot more effective in producing correlating brainwave frequencies. However.. Being able to entrain specific frequncies in the brain, does not mean being able to cure any health issues (yet). I tried combining isochronic tones with principles from music therapy in some compositions. Only the one to calm anxiety had some noticeable effect. On one subject it made them nauseus. The other one had the desired effect and still use the music today 2 years later. Look into it if you like, there's not enough science to create any new content on the matter though. So don't expect a video to come from it...

1:39 didn't know Gus Fring was a musician back then already.

5:34 I can't get enough of this IV/V chord. Jason Robert Brown uses it a lot and I can't describe the emotion it evokes but I just love it.

Adam's rocking a Dingwall! Heck yeah!

a lot of j dilla's music is heavily quantized (the book dilla time explains it really well), but it's quantized to weird places that you wouldn't expect, which gives it this awesome feel that is difficult for humans to play because it so precise yet seemingly haphazard. so i think quantizing can make something groovier, provided that you use it creatively instead of as a crutch for a sloppy performance

6:13 another great example is Money by Pink Floyd, speeds up a lot throughout the track and really adds to the groove

Composers have used change in tempo for hundreds of years. It's right up there with change in dynamic or change in pitch. We should use all the controls at our disposal when making music.

@7:53 You can hear some of that on the film Coraline at the beginning of the Beldam's garden reveal.

Having a binaural beat type thing in my ears my brain would after five seconds run through all the harmonies and beats that could work with that drone tone and therefor not be able to relax at all

I have started writing my parts and sections in the tempos they ought to be, and then I program the click track to smoothly go between the different tempos. It works very well.

My binaural beats are Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. (great vid as always, thanks Adam)

5:55 Don Ellis' album How Time Passes is another great example of jazz with elastic time

05:36 - yes, I thoroughly did enjoy that theory dump, thank you! :-)

5:36 getting blasted with that wall of text was an insane experience

Fan fret dawg. Neat.

I've recently discovered the value of ending a piece on an unresolved interval which had been used as a leading tone several times earlier. That allows the listener to resolve it internally since the sound is still fresh. This type of approach takes advantage of the necessary association of the timeliness of pattern memory which information is part of the influence the piece is designed to impart to a listener. Yes, a good composer is, at lest, unintentionally manipulation any voluntary listener. Targeting a captive listener opens up a whole other "can of verms".