Being Jacob must be like playing Minecraft on Creative Mode.

Jacob Collier And The Half-Sharp Prince

Jacob be like "I know a spot" and then take you to G half sharp major.

Really brilliant explanation and discussion... Jacob Collier really is some sort of musical superhero!

I’m a violist. We do microtones all the time. Oh, wait...

It also helps that June Lee is as brilliant as Jacob Collier. Anyone crazy enough to transcribe Jacob Collier is

Simple, just modulate from c half sharp

What do you call two trombonists playing in unison? A minor second

The thing I like most about Jacob is it feels like amidst all of this theoretical genius and complexity, it all still serves to enhance the emotional effect of his music. Like he said in the masterclass, he wanted a sound brighter than E major, and found it with G 1/2 sharp. Especially with Djesse, even though it's perhaps some of the most complex music ever written, at least to me, it never felt like he was doing anything "just because."

New challenge: try not to envy Jacob Collier.

I’m going to play in half sharp keys just to piss off people who flex their perfect pitch

Most of the time when people talk about the emotional difference between songs in different key that are equal tempered it's nothing more than woo. The constant debate about 440 Vs 432 is a painfully cringeworty example of this. However, Jacob uses these tunings to create different sound worlds that compliment each other. In hideaway the gradual pitch inflation changes almost like the slowly evolving instrumental textures of minimalism but for tuning. Really inspiring stuff.

I love the effect the g 1/2 # gives the piece. It is very bright and alive but there is a slight feeling of uneasiness whilst listening to it as it feels off but just barely. I love the effect and definitely think it is valid and not just about showing off.

i just love the fact that even on stage he still acts like a kid this may sound like an insult, but its just amazing how hes able to do this at SUCH a low age, good job collier how do you function

"In the bleak midwinter" is one of my favorites of Jacob's. Reharmonizing standards is a staple of jazz piano playing and watching and hearing him weave his magic is jaw-dropping. I do find some of his music overly dense harmonically but I chalk that up to the exuberance of youth and his obvious enthusiasm for exploring every nook and cranny of this harmonic landscape. There is no denying his enormous talent.

Why I personally love Jacob so much is because he isent just technically smart, but uses his technicallity and insane knowledge of music as tools to bring out more emotions. As he said he wanted the song to be even more bright and for him the only thing more bright than E is G 1/2 sharp. This shows that he is not just showing off. He is during it to bring more emotions in the music. You can also hear this in the June Lee interviews. Before during anything with the technicallities he thinks about what emotional impact the certain idea has.

I’m about to graduate from music school and that’s the first time I’ve had cents explained to me

This is fantastic. And particularly interesting to see the harmonics in the frequency analyser. Such a good idea to include this!

The first time I heard Jacob, it just destroyed my mind. I remember feeling like all sense of a reference frame that I had created for myself just got crooked in the first few minutes, and then it just went down by the end of the song. He is truly a musical genious, and I for one have learned a lot by just listening to him and trying to comprehend his music.

Something I find really useful that I learned from Collier is the way he describes all music being just about movement. We tend to think of it as this note resolves to this and such, but he instead says that you can move to any tone, whether it be a weird quarter step modulation, as long as the movement makes sense, and all his little tricks with shifting imperceptibly from equal to just tuning is a means to that end. It's all just darker and lighter movement based on where you land on the circle of fifths, in tune or not.

I recently saw him live in Victoria, BC - hands down one of the most amazing and mind-blowing live performances I've ever seen. What's interesting is that before seeing him live, I had been in a bit of a compositional rut and was somewhat expecting to feel *worse* after seeing someone who was so innately talented with composition and improvisation, thinking I would feel uninspired to create while comparing myself to his abilities. In fact, I felt extremely inspired after seeing how down-to-earth and genuinely ecstatic about music Jacob was not only in concert, but in his masterclasses and livestreams as well. His way of viewing tension and resolution as a fluid concept that can be applied to almost everything in music rather than a rigid set of rules as to what sounds you can and can't use in tonal music is extremely freeing to introduce into composition. I'm so excited to get back into composing now that I can experiment with the myriad of new techniques and devices he uses in his works. He really is an amazing example of the musician we all strive to be.

I have pitch sense that is pretty darned far from perfect, but the stuff Jacob does, both in this piece and in Moon River, is extremely affecting emotionally. Although I couldn't have told you that he was not in equal temperament or on A440, the effect is absolutely there in my opinion.

I am wowed by Jacob Collier - his musical ability and his character - even if much of it is over my head! Thanks for explaining some of what he does in terms I can mostly understand!

Small correction at 10:14 : The just intonated fitfth and the 12TET fitfth differ only 2 cents (1.96 to be precise) from each other, not 5 cents.

Great analysis. Thanks for breaking it down. As a classical musician myself, I find Jacob’s musicianship more inspiring than any other living composer (that I’m aware of). His ability to fuse extended/avant-garde techniques with pleasant, joyful and uplifting work is inspiring and refreshing. So much of the boundary crushing literature can be so exhausting to listen to. I find it interesting, but I rarely find myself just putting it on for a listen. In contrast, I can’t get enough of Jacob’s music.

I love how excited Jacob is. He’s sharing his joy with us!

Gotta love Jacob, pushing the limits like no one has in a long time.

I give thumbs down because he didn't say "hello my name is David Bruce" and that's the main reason I view his stuff

Boi... 50 Cent has a new meaning for me now lol

you should do something like Adam Neely's How to not suck at music series

"50 Cents" would be an awesome name for a half-semitone-composer.

He is annoyingly brilliant. Thanks for explaining what he's doing so clearly. It's like he is developing musical linguistics, widening vocabulary. An evolutionary step.

I hear microtonal playing all the time in Guitar Center.

Thanks for great explanation. The first time I heard" In the Bleak Midwinter ", it BLEW MY MIND! I was walking in th woods and immediately played it again. Now we know how it works instead of just saying" he just did it on complicated chords to hide his tracks..."😅

I've been waiting SO long for this video. Thanks so much!

Mind blowing. Another absolutely fantastic video David!

Oh, wow! I didn‘t know Jacob Collier. This blows my mind! Thank you so much for introducing us to ever new kinds of music 🙏🙂

Thanks, David, I really enjoyed this video. Great explanation about the harmonics. I was about to write that Jacob loves harmony so much - it's almost like he's making love to it. He just doesn't stop at chords and counterpoint, he bends harmony, he stretches it... outstanding.

I adore that arrangement. Like that you made a video about it!

My all-time favorite of your videos, I come back and re-watch frequently.

The natural overtones explain why minor sounds subjectively more “sad” ... it’s the dissonance caused by the clash between the minor third of the chord and the major third that is the fourth overtone of the root’s fundamental.

World's best ears: Jacob Collier VS. Dylan Beato!

I really love your demonstration! very effective way of seeing AND hearing the difference!

Great video and very informative! I so glad I've been discovering Jacob, it's incredible watching him perform and talk about music

I've just started learning theory and I love this type of content. The science of feeling is what music is for me

He’s definitely one of the most incredible musicians/composers of the modern era of music, unfortunately I just hate his voice and most of the music he makes isn’t my cup of tea, except the more classical jazz like the clip you played from a video he made when he was 17. That being said I have an incredible amount of respect for him, and I can take a lot of inspiration from him as a musician. Great video!

Really gotta thank you, for doing these breakdowns of different people's compositions, you're actually helping me get excited again about the ins and outs of musical structure ( I had lost the love a little bit and I think it's on its way back)

thank you for your contribution. very concise yet very detailed. everything properly shown and explained, seemingly no detail missed thanks to the numerous audible examples of each step in the learning process. the world needs more videos like this!

What is weird for me I enjoy hearing Jacob talking about music and playing/singing examples more than hearing his recorded music. To me his recorded music tends to be too Pop-ish, polished and a lot of the amazing bits just get lost in the process.

Thanks to great music theory resources like yourself and Adam Neely, I've grown to a level where I can appreciate the truly astounding talents and awesome music of people like Jacob Collier. I've listened to a lot of his pieces with my jaw on the floor. Jacob is such a phenomenon that it is difficult not to be demoralized by my limited music knowledge and modest playing abilities, though I'm hoping to instead use these gems as inspiration to more fully immerse myself in the sonic oceans surrounding us at this transformative point in human history.

Excellent Explanation. Bravo!

This was such a brilliant explanation. Thank you! I have studied a lot of the principle behind overtones etc., but your manner of visualising the overtone row on a piano was brilliant. Thank you! Also how this ties in with Collier's music was very enlightening. I can only repeat myself: thank you!

Music theory based on 12-TET is bunk. Not to detract from JC's work, but these are ideas that have been well-known in Barbershop Quartet singing for a long time. Props to JC for making it work in larger contexts, for sure :)

Utterly spectacular video! I think every topic you talked about was incredible, captivating, and very well taught on your behalf. Thank you for making this very fun and interactive content (by interactive I mean when you take hidden/abstract concepts like the overtone series and show a spectrometer (sorry if I used the wrong term). The only one very minute thing I’ll nitpick (I’m sorry to nitpick but I just have to) is that you said an equally tempered perfect fifth is off from just intonation by about five cents, when it’s actually off by just shy of 2 cents. Overall, I really liked this video and all the others you do on unconventional topics like microtonality and the like! Thank you and please keep up the incredible work making music theory fun and easy to understand!

Excellent video, David. Thank you!

so glad you talked about this! I remembered being in vocal ensemble rehearsals and trying to explain what I meant by the sharper or flatter sides of a note when we were working on tuning. Even if each of the notes in the chord were correct individually, they didn't sound in tune relative to each other, and melodicaly it sounded better to sing some notes sharper or flatter in phrases. It worked and sounded right but I didn't know why

The thing with Jacob is that he treats music as if everything is hunky-dory. If everything is amazing, is anything? That being said, he should write a theory book, it would be an enormous hit.

Brilliant. My understanding and application of music theory is nowhere near the level of even starting to mess with tuning, but I find it absolutely fascinating nonetheless.

I recently started playing the banjo. My intent was just to learn a few things here and there and then just a dash of music theory to help me when I needed to convey a feeling. When I started watching your videos, I found myself loving music theory because it’s more than just a set of rules to follow but also a set of rules to shape and bend and even break sometimes. I never looked at it that way before. I started my journey a bit later in life than I really wanted to but I’m glad I started at all! Thank you so much for the work you do because it looks like from the comments on all your videos, you seem to inspire people just like me wherever they are on their musical journey!🙏🎼

Really enjoyed the way you analysed this, thanks Dave :)

this is great as always. So you know, a 3:2 relation is about two cents wider than a 12EDO P5 (as opposed to five cents).

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Jacob Collier. On the one hand, his joyfully (puppy-like?) enthusiasm is a breath of fresh air - he just intrinsically 'gets' concepts that are at the particle physics end of music theory. On the other hand, his Prom from a couple of years ago was a hot mess of nervous energy. I wonder if anyone has ever said "No" to him? Like a lot of people (I guess) I first heard about him through that Wired viral video on "5 Levels of Difficulty" in harmony and was blown away by the simplicity of his explanations of Dominant (and Sub-Dominant) function and how it's possible to lead the ear around the hierarchy of I and V. His true "superpower" - dividing a given interval into various non-semitone intervals - is extraordinary. It's also led me to reflect on why choirs can "go flat/sharp" in pieces. The stuff he's been saying as really cemented some of my thoughts on different notes' function in harmony vs. voice-leading: we know that a major 7th must be 'bright' but if that very same note is also asked to function as a minor 3rd (a "dark" sound) shortly after, is it any wonder that choirs struggle to keep a constant pitch? I particularly remember this issue with William Harris's "Faire is the Heaven". The harmony is all Mediant-y in the middle section: any given note is simultaneously functioning in several different ways. Maybe the more musical option is to let the choir sink/rise throughout the piece to find their best pitch, rather than slavishly stick to the correct "cents-worth" of A440?

thank you for this video; i've been scratching my head on how he did it ever since i heard that modulation about two years ago

Really nice video - I love how you just honour the ridiculous talent that Jacob Collier has and break it down just sufficiently enough that we recognise how much fun he is having with his unique talent coupled with the boundless energy of his youth - the man is incredible and I respect you for putting this out there as an homage and by way of explanation for us mere mortals bobbing along in the stardust he leaves in his wake!!

He played Miles in The Turn of the Screw as a kid, hence the love of that particular opera. The thing I find about him is that despite the dazzle, the actual music that results often has a blandness that lacks emotional resonance or memorability.

I like Jacob Collier, love his voice and find his music interesting, inspiring and fascinating to listen to and analyse. however I can only take it in small amounts I find it mentally draining to listen to. I wouldn’t listen to an entire album in one sitting. I recently showed some of his stuff to my sisters and they couldn’t stand it at all, thought it had no taste and was over the top. I’m interested to see where he goes with more experience if he keeps pushing the limits and makes music even harder to listen to/appreciate or develops some more subtle ways to present his songs, at least some of the time.

This video was super helpful with explaining overtones which I definitely didn’t expect

Scientific, accurate analysis and objective criticism, excellent work. Thank you

Hi mate, not trying to be difficult - just wanted to point out that in Just Intonation major 3rds are lowered 14cents (-14) & perfect 5ths are raised 2cents (+2) compared to Equal Temperament. At 11:55 you mention Just Intonation 5ths should be smaller by 5cents (-5) than in Equal Temperament? I would like to know how you came to this conclusion. I've never heard of this in Just intonation or Pythagorean Mean Temperament. If the B is acting as the 2nd/9th of the Am9, it is fine to treat it as two stacked 5ths in either Just Int. or Pyth. Temp. but in both cases it would result to be sharper by 4cents (+4!), which contradicts what you are saying. Applying this to the Am9, to achieve a Justly Intonated 'Pure' 9th/2nd he would either: 1)lower the A by 4cents (cumulatively). Or 2)raise the B in the by 4cents (cumulatively). In neither case would he make the interval closer, it would sound as if it were 'beating' & 'wrong', like it does in Equal Temperament. I appreciate you and other channels that dive into the different temperaments, thank you for delving into the topic. Just wanted to help clarify. They do say Equal Temperament was the greatest compromise in all of musical history. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mJ1ogdKgx7CydaM.html ) 00:44 - Jacob explains how he views Just Intonation.

That intro got me good.

I love how David's chosen to analyse In The Bleak Midwinter in mid-July! Fascinating video - thank you!

Masterfully explained. Great video. What JC is doing is really fascinating stuff!

Hello, micro tones runs through my genes, it's common and over used in the middle east music. search for Rast, Bayati or sika modes, or look for Hijaz mode how Arabs or Turkish perfome the mode differently. in Kuwait (I speak about what I experienced through my study for music composition, how to use our modal scales into an international style) I was trained transpose those modes into so many different key centers, not always pleasing but weird (good weird)

Awesome video! I believe the fifths are 2 cents sharper than equal temperament fifths, and not 5

thanks for making this complex concept easy to understand!

Thank you for explaining something I quite hear but had no idea he was using since I watch his performances but not his workshops. I will follow both of you now. Cheers!!

"That guy is, like, really obnoxiously good at music." ~ Adam Neely

*Jacob Collier speaks* My brain: "I'm on my gap yah"

What a clever and illuminating explanation! Thank you, sir, for another excellent video.

I was there, in that mastercass in Buenos Aires, when he explained all this. A moment I'll cherish forever. What a genius!

It's all Pythagorian. Using the natural harmonic series, there are two minor thirds (in the key of C it is E - G and G - Bb). The G- Bb being a smaller minor third. The subtones naturally created by playing the tones together would either be a C or Eb three octaves lower. These sympathetic tones are changed by small microtuning of the intervals. When I was 20 I wrote practice etudes that created recognizable melodies in these difference tones. The key was to listen to the difference tone you were creating, not the one you were playing in order to create the correct melody in the subharmonics. You can also shape the timbral aspects of the main tones to change the amplitude of the difference tones in relation to the main tones, resulting in the notes not played being louder than the ones actually played, but that's a bit off topic. The ratio of the minor third E-G played as a 5:6 ratio will create a subtone of C as will the G-Bb minor third played as a 6:7 ratio. However if the G is played slightly flat, it will create a 6:7 ratio in the E-G minor third, creating an Eb subtone instead of a C, and also an Eb subtone in the G-Bb minor third as it becomes a 5:6 ratio. Using this same example, the musical practicality is if I'm playing a C minor chord or C major chord (dominant). Tuning the 3rd and 7th will determine whether an E or Eb will be created subharmonically. This is really only achievable on instruments that can continuously control tuning and sustain. Collier is able to do this transition seamlessly using voice and extended phrygian progressions. If you wanted to demonstrate this from a keyboard, you would need to microtune all the notes in a DAW for each chord. This is why orchestras can sound so good. They aren't bound to equal temperament.

I wouldn't really call this "G half-sharp," but point taken, and rotating around in just intonation space is pretty great. Alldahl's "Choral Intonation" is a great guide to do this; helpful for all kinds of chamber groups. Wondering why you're speaking about fifths being 5 cents smaller though -- pretty certain it's near 2 cents of difference.

Thank you for doing this video !!! He is fantastic.

as a keen fan of jacob, there was nothing new here for me, but i want to say you did an excellent job of boiling it down and presenting it. new subscriber!

Check out Sevish, he does makes some incredible microtonal music.

He's so technically proficient and clever... but I don't find his music is something I warm to or really blows my mind.

I love the futuristic progressions and sounds.

Jacob is an amazing musician, and you man have amazing talent to explain! Thank you, especially for the visualisation of notes, this was super helpful for understanding!✨🤝

I really want to like his music because I like him, his talent and his enthusiasm. But if I'm honest, based on what (limited) exposure I've had, I have to admit that his music leaves me impressed, but cold. This was especially the case for the Stevie Wonder cover I heard, which was awesome in its way but lacked the heart of the original. I wish him well, though.

The Dude is an absolute musical genius. But there is something behind the idea that "less can be more".

I'm 61 years old and individuals like Jacob, yourself and Adam Neely among others make me ask not only what have I contributed to music, but what can I even hope to bring to music. In short, I truly understand the feelings of the fictional Salieri in Amadeus. I've been to premiers by Eaton and listened to new music concerts at Indiana University, Blooomington in the 70's, studied works by Elliot Carter, Boulez, and others and feel like a dinosaur struggling in tar. Please, to all of you, keep challenging me. I love music too much to stop writing, even if I end up in the dustbin of music history.

Thank you for exposing Jacob to your audience. I have become a bit obsessed with him lately. He is everything you say he is, but i also feel that he has a true sense of expression beyond the harmonic tricks. As he describes the esthetic of the sounds he hears, he is also very capable to holding an audience in the palm of his hand with his presence and depth of energy. I reference two of many: the concert he did on tour at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angles attended by Herby Hancock, one of his mentors. The audience was simply electrified for the full performance Also his performance at the North Sea Jazz Festival with full orchestra and his tune, "Hideaway," a vocal/keyboard solo that is highly emotionally expressive. As you say, it will be wonderful to see his growth and maturity. The differences between his early KZfaq covers till now is dramatic. Love your channel.

I’ve got to know his music recently and it moved me deeply but I did not know that the dude was kind of a genius…

One reason for this half sharp modulation is because it is more in tune this way. Using only your voice you don't need to stay in an equal tempered scale.

Amazing, thanks for the introduction!!

Fantastic video David. If you can believe it, I had never previously heard of Jacob, so thanks for the introduction. I actually do recall seeing his face in a video once, but I was not really made aware of his level of musical genius.

"Where can I go that's brighter than E? Wellll, I've got an idea..." That bit is too cute. Love this kid 😄

Aaah microtones, every string player's nightmare (specially in double stops, god we deal with them a lot)

Jacob's music and the joy with which he shares it give me hope for the human race. Your videos, Bruce, are also an inspiration. The love you have for your craft and its history really comes through.

Thank you for decoding what Jacob did, David. Talent like his is a rare thing! I was speculating that he was using Just Intonation and that some of the higher overtones ended up being upwards of a quarter tone sharp or flat and he used that to make the key change using a form of common tones. After your analysis, I guess I wasn't that far off.