Building Your Band

A better conversation about music, with David Loftis and Peter Bulanow

Post-MIDI Subdividing

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One of my favorite influences is an electronic recording artist Brian Transeau or BT. He is known as the “Godfather of Trance” in the EDM (Electric Dance Music) genre. One of the main reasons I like BT is because he assumes his audience is intelligent and have long attention spans. BT’s songs have recently been 8 – 12 minutes long but can be 46 minutes long, and it is only after he has produced these original versions, that he creates a 3-4 minute radio edit.

BT made his first significant contribution to the world of music production in 2003 with his song “Simply Being Loved” which had 6,178 edits to the lead vocal track all done by hand in Peak Bias – placing the song in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Here he is in the original music video:

And this is just the vocal track which BT was gracious enough to release about a year ago…

This song has 1,024th notes in it, but ultimately is still rooted in duples and triplets. My wife and I actually met BT at a theater in MD for the release of his next album, This Binary Universe, which was shown with video and in 5.1 surround sound. One thing the wiki page doesn’t explain, but BT explained to us, is that this album breaks the mold of subdividing by 2s or 3s in that it uses logarithmic curve to move from say a 512th note duple, slowing down to a triplet 8th note figure. So not only are we shifting from two different note values, but the interpolation between them is not linear, it’s a nice smooth logarithmic (or exponential) curve. Musically you might think about how a washboard is played or hear how a turbine spins up. Listen to Every Other Way.

I’m actually producing a song with this kind of technique right now, using logarithmic and exponential curves to move between different kind of subdivisions, and I hope to release it in the near future. I’m doing this not as an end in itself or just because I think it’s an interesting production technique, but because I really think it serves the song. Can’t wait to share that!

Post-MIDI

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Technology has had a huge impact on music. It’s made us play steadier (I would argue even when not playing to a click). It’s allowed us to use samples. It’s let us loop in real time. It’s let us use loops, or play sync’d to other tracks. It’s let us auto-tune in real time. And it’s allowed us to program sequences that were otherwise unplayable. All of this has changed our ear – the way we hear music.

One group (Dawn of MIDI) has responded to this by playing acoustic music live that otherwise would seem like it was programmed. They do this by playing crazy meters, time-with-in-a-time where different people play different meters at the same time and it somehow works, that you wouldn’t think people could play. And they do this by playing intricate and repetitive patterns that, ok is indeed minimalist like Steve Reich, but is normally the domain of machines. Humans are unpredictable and random, machines are anything but.

Technology can inform our music. Integrating cultural influences such as these allows us to speak into that culture, they give us that platform for doing so. But practically how could that translate?

In a live situation, most typically this can mean integrating programmed loops or tracks. In a studio situation this can be a lot more intricate, and can mean being aware of technology and what is happening.

More Subdividing

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We’ve already laid out how music generally subdivides each count into 2s or 3s. This means that in 4/4 (or 3/4 or 5/4 or 6/4 or 213/4) time the first duple subdivision results in a 1/8th note, and the next a 1/6th note. We can keep subdividing by 2s and reach 1/32nd notes and I’ve even see 1/64th notes in print. This can keep going to 1/124th notes, 256th note, 512th note and even 1024th notes, and in theory could continue.

If we were subdividing by 3s, an “eighth note triplet” figure with three notes takes the same amount of time as an “eighth note duple” with two notes. And three sixteenth note triplets takes the same amount of time as two regular duple sixteenth notes

The kind of subdividing going on in a song is something to listen for, no matter who you are in the band. Generally, if the song has an eighth note feel, or a sixteenth note feel, everyone is playing to that level of subdivision, and no one instrument is exceeding that. For instance it would be very unusual for a song with an eighth note feel to have sixteenth note tom fills, or riffs with sixteenth notes in them.

The possible exception to this (and something which I love) is the use of 16th-note triplets in the hi-hats in a song with an eighth note feel. For some reason the triplet used against the duple doesn’t mess with the overall feel of the song, and can really add a wonderful freshness or urgency. Michael W. Smith’s “Goin’ Thru The Motions” is one notable (old school) example of sixteenth note triplets in the hi-hats in a song with an otherwise eighth note feel.

Unity and Diversity in the Band

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unseemly guitar pedals by Pete Bulanow

unseemly guitar pedals by Pete Bulanow

Now if the kickdrum should say, “Because I am not a snare, I do not belong to the drum kit,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the drum kit. And if the BGVs should say, “Because I do not have the same spotlight as the worship leader, I do not belong to the band,” they would not for that reason stop being part of the band. If the whole band were a guitar, where would the sensibilities of the keyboards be? If the whole body were a bassist, where would the counterpoint be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the band, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one instrument, where would the band be? As it is, there are many parts, but one song.

The bassist cannot say to the keys, “I don’t need you!” And the keys cannot say to the guitarist, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the band that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor (we call them the rhythm section). And all the MIDI cables and guitar pedals that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our worship leader needs no special treatment. But God has put the band together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it (looking at you house engineer), so that there should be no division in the band and tech, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

~ Not 1 Corinthians 12

BGVs

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If you were to ask me who has the better voice – lead vocalists or the background vocalists – I wouldn’t hesitate to say that background vocalists have the better set of pipes. Making sense of that requires that you understand these are really really different job descriptions. A great set of pipes is not what being a frontman is all about.

The DVD 20 feet from stardom (netflix streaming) does an incredible job of exploring that space, that tension, and is a great follow-on to “All This Time” by Sting.

I’ll be honest and say that my guilty pleasure is putting the background singers in my monitor. The truth is I can’t afford to put them in my monitor, I need to be listening to the  guitars and the kick and hat, but if I possibly can, I do. Shshshsh.

 

 

 

If Blood Will Flow

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Sting - ...All This Time (16 Tracks) - Booklet (3-6)-2On this day (Sep 11th), I could not recommend a more poignant video than “All This Time” by Sting (Netflix). The DVD was meant to chronicle a small invite-only concert at his home in Tuscany, with a dress rehearsal Sep 10th and the main show Sep 11th. In the video, you see real-time reactions to the events as they unfolded, and the decision to go ahead with the show later that night, albeit leaving the setlist open. (Wikipedia)

Leading up to the production of the show, you see the rehearsal space and you get incredible comments from the musicians involved. Sting is the consummate band leader and loves to give his people a chance to shine – there is so much we can learn from him in this regard. But if you recall my post on my ideal band size of 6 or 7, Sting’s band is sixteen, with multiple keyboards, multiple percussionists, brass, strings – it’s insane.

Which leads us to some of my favorite quotes:

He’s got two percussionists, he’s got Jason playing the acoustic piano, Kipper playing the keyboards, and Jeff playing the organ, electric bass and acoustic bass, and guitar. He has all these elements going on at the same time, and it’s working, and it’s very soft, it’s very sensitive. And that was probably the most surprising thing, because on some nights my band is way louder than this and there’s only four guys, and it made me think, hmmm, maybe I better rethink some things when I go home. ~ Christian McBride

and

Songs have to be simple. They can have a subtext that you can find, but you shouldn’t be singing about an issue. You shouldn’t be saying, down with this or down with that, that’s just journalism. Art is something else, something veiled. And I often feel like songwriting is something like putting yourself into a state of receptivity, or to be more cosmic about it, a state of grace where the song can reveal itself to you. And I think you’re lucky if you can be in a beautiful place, because nature is full of stories, full of images. Powerful, healing images. ~ Sting

Ultimately, one of the greatest gifts of this project is the new rendition of the song “Fragile,” developed just days before the concert. Absolutely breath-taking, and hauntingly prescient:

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the color of the evening sun
Tomorrow’s rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay

Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime’s argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are

Voicing the keyboard

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I recently became aware of keyboardist Ed Kerr and really like the way he talks about keyboards and thinks about music. I highly recommend you check his stuff out, or catch a clinic with him.

While looking over his site, I came came across an article I had planned to write about the same topic. However, he has already written it so well, I thought I’d just link over to him. This is also for my keyboardists in our Jamaica conference who are working on all the inversions of the I, IV, V and VI chords in all the keys – right guys? Still working on those? Correct fingering?

Ed talks about droning a note (holding it down) and then voicing the chords underneath that note with all those inversions we’re getting under our fingers. He gives the following example:

Let’s say you’re in the key of G, and the progression you’re playing is G C Em7 D. That’s a 1 4 6 5, by the way.

So if you put your pinky on the G, you can play the progression with the following inversions:

G – 1st inversion
C – root
Em7 – 2nd inversion (or Em – 2nd inversion)
D -2nd inversion, with a G on top, making it a D4 chord

If you put your pinky on the D, you could play the progression with the following inversions:

G – root
C – 1st inversion, with a D on top, making it a C2 chord
Em7 – root
D -root

This is something I do kind of instinctively, and then work my way up or down the keyboard to build or release tension, but it’s pretty cool to see it all written out the way Ed did.

Stop by and leave him some love ( that is, some comments) on his site!

Subdividing

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Up until now, we’ve stuck with the integers of counting. Sure, we’ve counted in 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7… but those are just whole numbers. What about the stuff that goes on between those counts?

Music is divided up either by 2’s or by 3’s, stated as “duples” or “triplets” respectively.

So if we were to count 1 – 2 – 3 – 4, we can count between the numbers using “and” like this –  1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &.  If the numbers were quarter (1/4) notes before, by adding the ands we can count eighth (1/8) notes. And we can subdivide further to sixteenth (1/16) notes by adding something between the “ands”. We count this as 1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a.

Triplets subdivide the 1-2-3-4 into a “triplet 8th note” by counting 1-&-a-2-&-a-3-&-a-4-&-a.

Laid out graphically this looks like:

Subdividing

All of this follows logically.

Where it gets interesting is with an eighth note swing feel. Technically it’s still a duple, and this is how you would count it, but if you swing the count, it can begin to take on the feel of a triplet.

This is where you get into the “groove”, the space between the notes. Defining how much swing, or how things feel – the human element rarely follows a perfect duple.

The “groove” is one of those things you pretty much need to stick with for an entire song, and everyone needs to agree on – because if you look at the jumble of the grid below, you can see a pretty bad train wreck if you tried to mix the triplet or swing feel with the straight duple feel. The same things happens if you mix other grooves.

TrainWreck

One groove per song keeps everything locked into place and feeling tight.

Odd Time Signatures

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Once you get past the basic 4/4 and 6/8 time signatures, everything that happens next gets esoteric pretty quickly. But learning how to count and play in these odd time signatures will make working in the previous time signatures seem trivial. And it will prepare you for the occasional change-up in the basic time signatures.

Here are some tunes you can practice counting with:

Dave Brubeck, Take 5 – 5/4
Radiohead, 15 step – 5/4
Seven Days, Sting – 5/4
Brought to my Senses, Sting – 7/4 (after the a tempo)
Dreaming in Metaphors, Seal – 7/4
Pat Metheny, The First Circle, 11/4

The above songs were selected because they keep the meter consistent for the entire song. Whereas there are a lot more songs with change-ups that alter the time signature (or meter) throughout the song.

I want to talk about one of those with a (now) simple change-up in an otherwise straight forward song.

My whole reason for doing this blog post is, selfishly, because I really like the 5/8 bar in the otherwise 6/8 song halfway through the chorus of Famous One! I’ve played with more bands than not that skip that little detail, and it’s because getting the feel of that measure is pretty hard without having the shorthand of knowing how to count.

Also, the band really needs to nail the 5/8 feel in the first measure break (right when they sing “Aaaalll the Earth”), so that the 6/8 measure in the break can reset everyone to find the entrance of the second half of the chorus. Bands that get sloppy, that can’t nail that down, end up transmitting a hesitancy to the congregation. At that point the producer is right to kill the 5/8 measure and play it all in 6/8.

But with it in there, man it adds that extra little freshness and urgency. To me, it just elevates that song to one of my all-time favorites.

Here are some other songs with meter changes:

Creation Sings by Keith Getty – Verses in 5/4, Choruses in 3/4
Little Town by Amy Grant – Mostly 4/4, with some 2/4, 3/4 and 5/4 bars

Can anyone suggest any other favorites in odd or changing meters?

 

Basic Time Signatures

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I happened to be in the studio when one of my favorite drummers was tracking some parts, and I don’t recall if I was supposed to be helping produce or why I was there, but for some reason I butted in and said, “You just need to stick in an extra 2/4 measure.” Remarkably, he didn’t know what that meant. He told me to just play it for him once, so I did, and he immediately got it. It wasn’t a matter of capacity or ability, he was a drummer with incredible feel and never missed a beat. He just didn’t know how to count.

That’s happened to me often enough that I now recognize training and musicianship do not correlate. Still, learning the language of counting helps us communicate, so let’s talk about it. After all, it would have saved us maybe a minute of time and at $100 an hour that’s as much as it costs for a tall coffee!

When I started piano lessons at age five, I recall the only requirement was that I be able to count to 4. To play most music these days, you can get away with being able to count 4/4 time, and 6/8 time.

The basics are: the top number in a time signature means how many counts in a measure. The bottom number in a time signature means what kind of note (think a fraction of 1 over that number) gets one count.

The most common time signature of 4/4 time says that there are four counts to a measure, and a quarter (1/4) note gets one count. When counting 1-2-3-4, the accents are on 1 and 3, and the time signature has a duple feel to it.

  • So a 2/4 measure means two counts to a measure, and a quarter note gets one count. Counting 1-2, the accent is on count one. This is essentially a half of a 4/4 bar.

In 6/8 time, there are six counts to a measure and an 8th note (1/8th) gets one count. Counting 1-2-3-4-5-6, you see the accent is on 1 and 4 and there is a triplet feel to this time signature. Think Indescribable.

  • Similarly 9/8 time has nine counts to a measure and an 8th note gets one count. Counting 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9, we still have a triplet feel, but it’s three groups of three, which is slightly different than a waltz. Count 1 is accented more than count 4 and 7. Think Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring.
  • A waltz in 3/4 time has three counts to a measure and a quarter (1/4) note gets one count. Counting 1-2-3, the accent is on count 1 and there is a slow triplet feel to this time signature, with each measure feeling consistent. Think Stronger.

Those are really all of the basic time signatures, but it’s worth it to dig deeper.