Century old composers be like: "Fellas, is it gay to resolve a chord progression on a weak beat?🤔🤔🤔"

Someone with perfect pitch: "Please comfort me about losing perfect pitch." Adam Neely: "Don't worry, you're going to die anyway."

Band instructor: "Everyone play a C" Me: Frantically increasing tempo in Ableton on my laptop

The “STELLA” scream on the b13 is absolute perfection.

The song Yellow, by Coldplay had the following chord progression: C,C,C,C,C,C,C,C,C,C,C,C,C,C,C it's all yellow

Adam, I appreciate you. Thanks. 😁

8:21 - _"There's nothing quite like a deadline to get the creative juices flowing"_ - Jim McNeely _"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."_ - Douglas Adams

Imagine a whole song being played fast enough to be an instrument, and that song is also made up of instruments made by speeding up entire songs into pitches. Fractal music

“Fingeritis” was my biggest problem for literal years as a hobbyist musician and actually made me avoid playing for awhile. “The Advancing Guitarist”, “20th century harmony”, (books from a video on your channel), and learning drums really helped that and brought music back to a less frustrating love again. For awhile I felt super boxed in and habitually uncreative. Those books and this channel gave me so much insight and reminded me to think like a beginner as much as possible. Weird tangent from one word, but thanks for making such wonderful and insightful content.

The E turning into A experiment is even more insidious. Because you're switching the E on and off at 440 times per second, you're effectively doing amplitude modulation on your basic frequency of the E (329.628 Hz or thereabouts) with 440 Hz being the carrier. This leads to two effects. First off, the E has its own envelope and probably doesn't go to 0 dB peaks - but your 440 Hz switching frequency does because you're doing on-off switching, so the most audible tone becomes 440 Hz and you hear the A. The second effect is, ring modulation also produces tones at (carrier + signal), so about 769 Hz and at (carrier-signal), so about 111 Hz. If you were to take a look at the spectrum, there should be two smaller spikes at 111 Hz and 769 Hz along with a massive one at 440 Hz. There will probably also be repetitions of that "trident" higher up because of the fact you're modulating it by turning the signal sharply on and off (so you're modulating with a square wave, which has an ugly spectrum). I'd love to actually see a view from your DAW.

I love how at 5:45, when he plays the E at 64hz, you can hear the major third with the low C

Omg I just realized that "Stella by starlight" has the same chord progression Freddie Mercury used in the bridge of "Take my breath away" by Queen. About 3 minutes into the song if anyone is interested, it's the same key as well. I wonder if that was where he got the inspiration from!

Isn't the term _feminine cadence_ borrowed from Old French / Middle French poetry, where feminine nouns often ended in an unstressed syllable, while masculine nouns often ended in a stressed one?

Why is Adam so beautiful? Repetition legitimizes

Your example of how an E becomes an A if you play it enough times a second was very cool

And in a stroke of musical genius, the explanation of how you change an E note to an A note begins at…4:40. Bravo…

Why does finding out Adam is a coaster nerd make me smile so much? Just hearing coaster manufacturers named on this channel made me giggle immediately!

Adam : "Why are these chords SO beautiful?" Me : "I don't know man, you're the music theory guy here you tell me"

that chord progression is so beautiful man im literally tearing up

That experiment on frequency was fascinating! I guess I knew that the E would turn into an A but I've never seen that demonstrated.

I miss the old theme "Question and answer time with Adam Neeeelyyyyy"

4:36 Quick note; their question says "fade in and out", not "play". To me, this seems more like ring modulation, which is where you take the amplitude of some note, e.g. the note E, and then have some waveform applied to the amplitude of that note, with the wave at some frequency. At low, sub-audible Hz values, we hear a "tremolo" effect. At higher Hz values, we hear ring modulation. The effect sounds like two tones going out from the original, center tone. So, if you have, say, E5 (659.25 Hz), and apply a sine wave to its amplitude with a frequency of 150hz, you hear a sum and difference tone, meaning you hear 509.25 Hz and 809.25 Hz together as the resultant tones.

Adam: "I'm not a KZfaqr, music is a lot more fun" Also Adam: Has some of the most impressive video editing skills of all content creators on KZfaq.

That original Stella bridge is bonkers; I've always learned to play the last two chords as bVII7 to Imaj7 (over its root), but that ivmiMa7 to I/iii is just unreal. So so beautiful. I'm never playing the realbook version of this again lol

Spatial Audio is also an important part of classical music, especially with extended ensembles. One cool example is “The Unanswered Question” by Charles Ives, where the strings are meant to be back stage and the brass and woodwind are meant to be in the rafters of the concert hall. This gives the piece a really ethereal sound. It’s a super cool topic, I bet Adam could do a fab video on it, similar to his “KZfaqrs react to Experimental Music” video.

in synthesis, there is a feature called oscillator sync, in which a tonal oscillator can have its waveform position reset according to a second oscillator. so for example, one oscillator could be playing E but be reset 440 times per second. the result varies depending on the frequencies involved: it could sound like new timbres, and/or a blending of notes.

11:25 as a child I always connected certain chords and songs with certain colors. When I tried to discuss it, people thought I was strange. Its feels good to know I'm not the only one

The way you describe how music works is so incredible. You are in the flow when you share.

Are you really a musician first, or do you just want to avoid boxing matches against the Paul brothers?

I appreciate your enthusiasm, makes everything more fun.

That opening cadence to Prelude no 20 is one of my favourite things. Those old critiques really didnt know anything.

A little on 'Flow State' - I had spent several years working with Kenny Werner's book 'Effortless Mastery' when I was invited to participate in a flow state study at Goldsmith's University in London. They hooked me up to an EEG and asked me to play unaccompanied improvisation on tunes i was familiar with. I used steps developed with effortless mastery and played, and the scans showed little/no activity in my pre-frontal cortex. I discussed it further with a neuropsychologist, and came to the conclusion that flow state is / can be entered by shutting down brain activity in the pre-frontal cortex -- for example, 'complex behaviours including planning', self-judgement and analysis -- and connecting directly with the wider brain architecture. I'm still using these hypotheses to structure my practice and playing routines, though I haven't had the opportunity to explore in more detail, yet....

(256/60) • 103 = 439.46 Yep! checks out :)

You made an A of Es.. that was cool to see. That's neat that you can play any note as another note lol

Playing bass with/for good people (in a room) is one of the best things! All the instruments are beautiful and wonderful but bass stole my heart

Great video as usual 👍

Pretty sure the horn counter melody in Stella by Starlight wasn't meant to be triumphant but to evoke an undercurrent of dread. It's a creepy movie.

My wife is a B3 organ jazzer. She’s had perfect pitch since childhood. At 63 she still has it. Chromesthesia is what she has, seeing sounds as colors in the minds eye.And she can still tell when my guitar’s b string is slipping flat.

I always wondered why Chopin's Prelude no. 20 was my favorite prelude, and now I know!

how on earth is it that I literally had a dream about how beautiful the bridge of Stella is & then this video comes out!? legit

Our ear lobes (the whole outside part of the ear) filter a sound differently depending on its direction. Our brain then uses those timbre differences to help locate sounds. I read something about it a long time ago anyway. something about comb filtering in the brain. so that can be used in reverse to encode location in a track for playback in stereo (two front speakers) system. the limitation is that the listener must sit in a specific spot and keep their head facing forward. one listener. only. no headphones lol

Hello Adam, this video was terrific. Thanks

excellent video and format Adam, well done

E 440 times per second sounds like A. That was insane. Living

I'd love to see your analysis of Carnatic or Hindustani music, or just generally non-western music, Thanks for the consistently awesome content!

Great stuff. Thanks Adam!

On "Flow", the psychological concept Mihály Csíkszentmihályi use to quantify an aspect of joy, you mentioned a deadline, IE, a challenge. Part of it is having a challenge that matches the reward. In your case, the intrinsic accomplishment of producing creative work. Watching TV tends to be inherently boring as the reward lacks challenge. Video games tend to provide more flow as there's involvement and clear challenge. IE, one knows what to do, how to do it, there's challenge/skill involvement, no distractions (focus). A chart on Wikipedia suggests relaxation/control and arousal/being energized lead to it. So plan what/how, execute with skill, focus.

There are some songs that use binaural audio quite brilliantly in their conception, like Chrome Sparks' "Marijuana" by having the intro fade in and swirl around, gradually speeding up. The effect is brilliantly psychedelic.

Hi adam pls explain the beauty of 035

If you modulate the PITCH of a note, such as an E, at the frequency of another note, such as an A, you get Frequency Modulation (FM) synthesis which is exactly what the Yamaha DX7 introduced to the world. One "operator" is simply a sine wave generator that generates sine waves at audio frequencies and another operator is a sine wave generator that is used to modulate the pitch of the first generator at audio frequencies. When you do that, you can get crazy complex harmonic series depending on the harmonic relationships between the operators. Very cool.

Your knowledge is simply so vast and your video production going into the 4th wall and coming out again is simple yet ingenious... Great job Adam!

"an important part of confronting our own mortality" damn adam, wasn't expecting this existentialism this early in the day 😂

Musician + Coaster Enthusiast = God tier person

Great teacher of all things musical. Subscribed! Loved the E 440 times demo to become A440! And great use of music graphics. Thanks for your work!

Excellent video, Adam.

"There is nothing quite like a deadline to get the creative juices flowing" - Me, working on my thesis

Fading E in/out at 440 Hz gives a different result than the experiment you did. If it was E5=659.25Hz, then you should be getting 659.25+440 Hz and 659.25-440 Hz. It should sound like what ring modulator effect does. (except that one is four-quadrant, while fade in/out is 2-quadrant... goes only to 0 volume and never to negative)

I always learn SO much from your videos and really appreciate not just what you tell us but how you educate us! Thank you!!

Adam. Thanks. You're awesome and you share with others. Thoughtful person. Best wishes. Dan.

Damn, I knew you loved music, but a whole video on the physical attraction of this one chord? I am shocked

Alan Parsons did a quadraphonic mix of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in 1973, which could technically be a very early example of 8d music. The sound effects and instruments all have really cool placements.

Your awesome as usual, great work

Love the rhyme at the beginning Adam 👏

Adam Neely was at Cedar Point!? Darn, that's less than an hour from me. Coulda had a celebrity sighting 😆

0:58: But is a jazz-based analysis really appropriate? It's clearly inspired by late Romantic symphonic music. Sounds like a Rachmaninoff.

Fun video today Adam. Thank you very much.

Very nicely done. Informative. Thanks for making and posting

What the muscle memory question reminded me was the "When you learn a riff and put it in everything" Daniel Trasher video. Obviously you should not be guided only by muscle memory, but just as the "Lick" these are common phrases. It's like speaking. You don't always have to invent a new word to discribe something, though repeating other people's ideas can get pretty boring pretty quickly. So I'll be really helpful with this totally exact answer: Just find the balance between old and new.

Relieved that E didnt become "All Star" by smash mouth "somebody once told me" haha when you start playing w Ableton I get fractal flashbacks

Love this Adam. Very clever and well illustrated

great stuff Adam, this is so useful.

Bassist AND roller coaster enthusiast? Am I Adam Neely?

Me watching you warp an E to 440Hz like it's a new thing ".... so the new guys haven't watched the all star video huh"

Love your content. You are a world heritage treasure!!! Please tell us how best to support you!!

You’re just something else! ♥️

I think by “fade in and out” they’re talking about ring modulation Or I guess amplitude modulation but like... same thing

Re binaural audio, here's a bit of a summary about how stuff works: There are four basic ways we work out where sounds come from. The first two are called the interaural time difference (ITD) and the interaural level difference (ILD). If a sound is on your right, it has to travel further to reach your left ear, so it takes longer. Also, your head casts a shadow so it's quieter in your left ear. These two things alone are pretty good for working out where sounds are. The ITDs work better at lower pitches and the ILDs work better at higher pitches, because physics, but there's a bit more nuance to it than that. The problem with these interaural cues is that there's a lot of symmetry. There's no way to tell front vs back vs up vs down. This leads to what we call the Cone of Confusion, an infinite cone of points that all have the same binaural cues. The next thing that helps us resolve this is spectral cues. Those flappy things on the side of your head act as dishes that filter sounds differently depending on the direction they arrive from. For example, a sound in front will reach your eardrum with more high frequencies than a sound from behind. Over time, your brain learns the relationship between different sound spectra and different locations. If you swapped your ears for someone else's, you'd be confused about where stuff was. But after about 2 weeks, you'd be pretty good again. The spectral cues are good, but they tend to work better for things with a spread of frequencies, particularly higher ones. The final way we work out where sounds are in the real world is motion. Say you hear a sound that's either directly in front of or behind you. It reaches both ears at the same time and level. Now say you turn to the right. If the sound was in front of you, it'd now be to your left. If it was behind, it'd be to your right. By seeing how sounds move relative to your head as you move your head, you can pinpoint the correct location. Virtual audio stuff in headphones can replicate the ITDs and ILDs. You can even use some generic ears to replicate the spectral cues to an extent, but it would be so much better with your own ears. However, headphones can't generally replicate motion cues (unless the sounds are being generated in some complicated virtual acoustic environment).

I love this mix of lessons/questions you deal with in this video! Somehow some relevant content mix for me. Thanks Adam.

I’m happy he got my request on this series

Absolutely. You get the same horn counter melody in the orchestration of the amazing original Star Trek theme. Perfection!

I can handle dying but the thought of becoming anymore tone-deaf than I already am is terrifying

Your synesthesia crashes so hard with mine: Yellow = E ; Blue = C ; Bb/D is like mint ice cream on a bed of lettuce. We should do something like "5 synesthetes compose over the same painting (or any colorful visual thing)".

Love the camera effects where you are on screen within screen and then back out again!

Informative and well put together. Yet again. Kudos Adam! All the best!

"As we age we lose our faculties and our hearing goes..." WHAT! WHAT WAS THAT, SON? SPEAK UP!

It's hilarious how much all those early film scores sound like Rachmaninoff

Another stellar presentation!

The guy who wrote that arrangement was a genius. Anyone, even those who don’t know the first thing about harmony, can feel something listening to that music.

I think your Ableton demonstration is wrong, because it stacks samples instead of manipulating sine waves. Here's why: If there's one thing I learned from my course in signal processing (honestly I hated that course, so there's not much more), it's this: When you add two sine waves with different frequencies, the result is a sine wave with the average frequency multiplied by the difference in frequencies. To illustrate: if you add a 439Hz signal and a 441Hz signal, the resulting signal is equal to a 440Hz signal that fades in and out at 2 Hz. Turning that around, if you take an E, let's say E5 at 659Hz, and fade that in and out at 440Hz, that should theoretically be the same as the addition of two notes at 659Hz - 440Hz = 219Hz, or a flat B2, and 659Hz + 440Hz = 1099Hz, or a Db6. After much fuss I tested this in Audacity, and indeed, when I multiply a 659Hz signal by a 440Hz signal, I get the same result as when adding the 219Hz and the 1099Hz: a high beep and a soft low hum (though the softness could also be due to my laptop speakers being sh*BASS*)

That moment when a new Adam Neely video comes out :DDD

Happy you’re back!!

Hey Adam, just want to say thank you for the awesome work. Finally subscribed.

Feminine and masculine cadences seems to just follow the terminology in poetry (especially French poetry), where "feminine" endings (ones that ended with a silent off-beat schwa vowel) alternate with "masculine" endings (ones that end without silent syllables). Within that context, there's nothing pejorative about it outside of the low hanging fruit of "feminine = weak". (And if we follow that train of thought, we'd probably need to unpack why being on the beat is "strong" while being off is "weak".) Feminine endings are as important to French poetry as masculine endings are.

You blew my mind with the 440Hz demo

1:04 is the coolest transition i have ever seen in my many years on the internet ever even months later. Transition flawless achieved kudos to you for such an amazing bit of editing and thank you for the hard work it must have taken to procure it for us all to enjoy.

You are one of the only chanels that entretains me and educates me

Notably the waveform of the E at 440 Hz will look like a chopped up wave with a jump every 1/440 seconds. Hence the sawtoothy sound?

You should listen to the new Spellling, I feel there's so much wonder and beauty in the chords to dive into

Agree with the Musician v KZfaq question. As someone who’s been doing KZfaq on a weekly basis for almost 5 months now I’m just putting out videos because something musical excited me and I wanted to share it. Hoping the channel takes off like yours😁🤘

I am a musician and have been doing it for a while but the beauty of it all is the ability to always learn something new!! Thank you Adam!