This is the P2PU Archive. If you want the current site, go to www.p2pu.org!
Do You Speak Music?
My recent threads
You haven't posted any discussions yet.
Recently updated threads
- Coolsville - Laurie Anderson Wed, 2011-06-08 14:02
- Farewell - Apocalyptica Wed, 2011-06-08 13:57
- Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt Wed, 2011-06-08 13:51
- Ride of the Valkyries - Richard Wagner Wed, 2011-06-08 13:44
- Bubblehouse - Medeski, Martin and Wood Wed, 2011-06-08 13:42
Truth - Alexander Ebert
This is the forum for submitting your responses to each lesson for the track Truth by Alexander Ebert.
Lesson 1: Sound
Listen to this track and write down every different instrument you can identify. If there's something you can hear but you don't know what it is, try to describe the sound of it. Of all the sounds in this particular track, which one do you find the most interesting?
Lesson 2: Rhythm
Listen to this track and find the pulse. What are you hearing that tells you where the pulse is? What is the tempo of the song? What is the meter of the song? How do you know that? Are there any commonly recurring patterns in this song? Which instrument is playing them? What do you find rhythmically interesting about this track?
Lesson 3: Melody
Which instruments have the melody? What is the shape of the melody in different parts of the song? Do you hear any motifs or melodic patterns? If so, how are they changing or developing?
Lesson 4: Harmony
Listen for the harmonic rhythm? How often does it change? Which instruments tell you the harmony is changing? Are there any significant harmonic changes that stand out to you? Try to describe the emotional color that the harmony provides in different places of the song.
This is what I could make out:
Percussion - snare played with brushes, kick drum, tambourine, clapsticks, marakas, kazoo (?)
Human voices - Whistling, Lead Singing/rapping, male and female harmonizing and chanting.
Bass guitar
Keyboard - this part is later played by nylon-string guitar (or maybe a ukulele)
Clarinet
The most interesting sounds I find are the supporting vocals. Very diverse.
My list on this: drums, bass guitar, cymbals violin, keyboard (horn)...
I'm disappointed I wasn't able to find a better quality recording of this track, there are a lot of places where the sound clips and distorts making it hard to decipher the subtleties of the instrumentation.
Guitar - Sounds like a fender stratocaster, playing simple chords outlining the pulse of the song. I think I might also hear an acoustic guitar in the background.
Drums - Definitely playing the snare drum with brushes (one of my favorite textures) and a nice open, ringing bass drum. There's also a tambourine on the back beat and a hi-hat later. He might have the tambourine attached to the hi hat so that it sounds when he plays it with his foot.
Claves - way off in the distance some one is clacking these little wooden sticks together every once in a while. I think this is actually a large part of what gives it it's cowboy feel... sort of subtle mexican sound in the distance.
Bass - Simple fender bass sound, possibly plucked. Not sure.
Whistle - Love the whistle... total spaghetti western vibe.
Lead Vocals - I really love this guy's voice on this track. It sounds like hippy rap... a gentle, smooth timbre to his voice combined with clear but lazy articulation. his rhythmic feel helps a lot too.
Background Vocals - Sounds all female to me. Adds a great churchy vibe, like this song is about redemption or something. There's a lot of dreaminess to this track, from the excessive reverb on everything and the echo-like rhythms in the drums.
Clarinet? - Again, really hard to tell because of the quality of the track and the excessive reverb. My guess is that it's a bass clarinet being played like a saxophone.
drums, guitar, vocal, back vocals & whistles.
thanks to jessica and gabriel for clapsticks, marakas, kazoo and claves, i'll compare their unique sounds today.
This track gets right into the groove, with that dusty, laid back brush groove on the drums. The guitar is chunking out the pulse pretty clearly at around 80 bpm.
The phrasing in the vocals and the changing in the harmony tell me the meter is in 4. Count along the whole time and notice the things that happen on beat 1 of every measure. And if you can count bars you'll start to notice some interesting patterns.
Like Billy Martin at 3:29 of the Bubblehouse track, I love the laid back feel of the lyrics, how he seems to drag out the tempo a little bit.