Why Is It So Hard To Talk About Sound?

[@12tone]

Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) Songs featured in this video: ---Intro Best Of You - Foo Fighters Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple ---Explicit Beat Back In Black - AC/DC Black Friday - Steely Dan Titi Me Pregunto - Bad Bunny Livin' On A Prayer - Bon Jovi Bolero - Maurice Ravel Also Sprach Zarathustra - Richard Strauss ---Functional Bass Good Times - Chic Basket Case - Green Day Mighty Mighty - Earth, Wind & Fire ---Melodic Layer Harder To Breathe - Maroon 5 Landslide - Fleetwood Mac Landslide - Smashing Pumpkins ---Harmonic Filler Guitar Heroes - Richard Thompson Piano Man - Billy Joel Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles Ten Speed Of God's Blood And Burial - Coheed and Cambria ---Novelty Layer Salad Days - Minor Threat You Make Me (Cry) - Noah Cyrus The Werewolf - Paul Simon 2) Sorry about the editing splice-in, I just thought it was an important enough point to make sure I included even if it disrupted the flow of the video. Honestly I wish I'd had it the whole time 'cause I could've expanded on it more if I wasn't trying to quickly get back to the animations, but hopefully it was clear enough. 3) I have no idea why I didn't highlight the words "functional bass". I was supposed to. Whoops I guess. 4) Also, sorry for messing up the bass part on Mighty Mighty. I have no idea how that went wrong, the rhythm is extremely obvious but I just, like, wrote it down incorrectly in my transcription? Maybe I was super tired when I did it. Yeah, I'm blaming a lack of sleep. My bad, y'all. Really silly mistake, but those happen when you're a one-person operation! 5) On the list of normative sounds for the functional bass, I probably should've included the left hand on a piano as well. Although honestly a lot of pop/rock songs with a piano will also have a bass guitar as well to fill it out. 6) I'm sad that I couldn't think of a song with violins as harmonic filler that contains the word "violin" in its name to complete the gag. 7) Another point that didn't make it into the final video is that the harmonic filler can also serve to emphasize what aspects of the music are most stylistically important. The most obvious example of this are rhythmic comp patterns like the skank guitar that take on a similar role to the functional bass, extending the levels of rhythmic complexity into another textural layer. 8) I should note that Moore seems somewhat inconsistent about what to do in regards to riffs as harmonic filler. He has a whole section where he talks about them and seems to imply that they're one manifestation of the harmonic filler layer, but in that section he talks a lot about how riffs in certain styles do specifically outline harmonic progressions, and elsewhere in the book he claims that much of metal dispenses with the harmonic filler layer entirely, which implies that he mostly doesn't consider metal riffs to occupy this function. So I'm not sure, but the interpretation described in the video is the one that makes the most sense to me, so it's the one I'm gonna go with, regardless of Moore's intent. 9) Lavengood notes in her writing that the novelty layer's tendency toward so-called "world instruments" can often facilitate problematic issues of appropriation. I chose to avoid that discussion in the video because it's more relevant in her specific area of research, 80s synthpop, than in the broader world of potential novelty sounds (the bell in Salad Days is not something I would describe as appropriative, for example.) but it is still a thing to keep in mind, as we can see in The Werewolf, where Paul Simon extracts the gopichand from its cultural context in order to cast it as simply a "weird" sound in a different style. 10) It didn't make it into the final script, but the chainsaw in the thumbnail is a reference to the song The Lumberjack, by Jackyl, which I originally planned to talk about because it contains a chainsaw solo. Was gonna discuss it in the novelty layer section, but honestly it's a pretty core component throughout the song so it's not a great example of that. Still, though, cool song.

[@oldm9228]

"Myr" by Taake is a black metal song with a kick ass banjo solo. Novelty! Keep up the good work

[@jansestak954]

I'd say, that the layers don't have exact borders. For example slap bass would ve on borders of functional bass and the rythm. And so backing vocals or riffs are on borders of melodic and harmonic layer.

[@nolaffinmatter]

I initially interpreted the chainsaw as a timbre / timber pun, but the video wasn't actually as focused on timbre as I expected

[@MrBluesboy15]

If you are looking for ways to describe and relate sound you should really check it out Lachenmann's "sound types" and Pierre Schaeffer's "Traité des objets musicaux".

[@GizzyDillespee]

Can we culturally appropriate from rich idiots, and use wine tasting terms in order to describe sound, instead. We already use "bloom" and "musty", but we can use "nose" and "legs" and "hints of toasted marshmallow" or whatever... they actually have a traditional vocabulary, but as usual we can go ahead and ignore that for the cultural appropriation.

[@coldloyalty]

For those who don't know 12 tone, it's still easy to tell they are a metal head because they always plays rock songs longer than other examples

[@SunroseStudios]

*they

[@coldloyalty]

@@SunroseStudios thank you 😊

[@TheBawss90]

@@SunroseStudios *whomst

[@Moelester42000]

@@SunroseStudios he*

[@FantasticExplorers]

🤣

[@DeaconessiaGaming]

First time I've seen someone use the word "quantize" to describe why harmony, melody and rhythm are much easier to talk about than timbre. It's such a powerful insight to realize that our ability to communicate is subject to our ability to group things up into large discrete chunks.

[@ledumpsterfire6474]

Categorizing is basically the foundation for complex communication.

[@yvancluet8146]

Electronic music, which is mainly timbre based, has had to figure out names for types of sounds as well which allows some theorizing about their roles, interaction, etc. When an electronic music producer speaks about a riser, a trance kick-bass or a dubstep growl, another producer will immediately know what they talk about

[@DafterHindi]

Absolutely true. Edm Producers can to a extent describe to each sounds

[@darkskinwhite]

those are still just names not an avtual system for describing

[@tsunamimae1965]

@@darkskinwhite well, orange and red is not an actual system for describing but just names (I mean dude, system for describing is literally just names)...

[@darkskinwhite]

@@tsunamimae1965 nono you're missing my point, he said it in the video, the difference between what we are saying is they're names yes but defining the functionality of what we're naming. we have a language right not just electronic music in general if you tell me something is bright or dark or even if you said rusty I would have a decent idea what you mean most times but not all of these work. riser works, that could be any sound but describes the function. trance however does not work, that's just a name of something specific, like if I said electric guitar you have a sound in your head but it could be almost anything. the point is theres not an all encompassing system the way there is for rhythm for example. I don't think there will ever be, but that's the subject of the discussion here as far as I was aware.

[@nahometesfay1112]

@@darkskinwhite They said Trance Kick-Bass as in the kind of kick bass traditionally used in trance. I think there could be (or perhaps already is) an encompassing system for timbre. The tricky bit is that a single note often has multiple changing timbres. EDM breaks up a single note into attack decay sustain release I think analysing each section's timbre would be useful for any sound. Another stumbling block is while any sound can be described using overtones that's not always a meaningful way to analyse the sound. Percussion is often better understood as noise and there's actually a pretty robust language for describing noise. The real issue is describing the timbre of a note requires a lot more information than melody, rhythm, and harmony and for the description to be useful we'd need to compare it to the timbre of all the other notes and some way to control all these parameters. It's just a lot more work and basically useless with acoustic instruments where you do have direct control over timbre any ways.

[@modalmixture]

In modern electronic music, I can think of some candidates for additional functional layers. For example, in lofi/chill you often have ambient textural layers of unpitched foley sounds (think crunching leaves, clinking glass, crackling fires) that aren’t providing rhythm, melody, or harmony, but they are more throughrunning and less salient than a novelty layer - background texture, if you will, used to create a certain ambience or mood. And in some genres, you could argue that digital effects are salient enough to be their own layer and not just part of an existing layer - think of the filter cutoff on an acid bassline, which creates its own sense of tension and release.

[@wellurban]

I was thinking about that during the description of the “novelty layer”, but I think that the novelty layer term was more intended for punctuation sounds than a constant bed of sound. Perhaps it could be called “ear candy”, which some people like Andrew Huang use for textural elements that keep the mix sonically interesting, but I think Andrew used that for more rhythmic uses of such sounds. As well as foley or field recordings, you could include “foregrounded medium” sounds such as tape hiss, vinyl crackles, bitcrushing etc. All of these seem to me to help suggest a space in which the music exists or perhaps a medium through which it is transmitted, so I’d be tempted to just call it an “ambience layer”. Certainly a lot of classic Enoesque techniques, such as the use of shimmer reverb as an instrument, would fall into this category.

[@DrummerDaddio]

Interesting and compelling idea. Maybe this could be considered the "ambience" layer.

[@moresnqp]

in hiphop using samples is the exact same thing; you could replay a sample, but getting the exact timbre of the exact instruments used, exact mixing, exact equipment. let alone using vocals, where its 2x more difficult to reproduce.

[@brandenjames2408]

This needs more likes, the model as 12tone describes it doesn't really have a good place to put these "ambiences", probably because a genre that uses this so explicitly like lofi wasn't prominent when the model was first developed.

[@UtterlyMuseless]

Following the same logic as the riff example, I think they could fall under the filler category, since they're there to occupy some of the harmonic space, even if they don't spell out an explicit harmony.

[@jan_kulawa]

13:15 As an aspiring mathematician, seeing the Hilbert Curve being drawn while talking about "filler" really tickles my sense of humour. Nice touch.

[@MrSamwise25]

Not to mention the nod to set theory at 6:29! (Unless that's a music thing I'm unfamiliar with)

[@CiDK]

This is exactly why I love watching skilled producer talking about how they manipulate the *actual* waveform of a sound to make something they like. They would even pay attention to tiny things like making sure one sound is not physically interfering with another sound and creating phasing issues. It really is an art of it's own.

[@leaveitorsinkit242]

And then you have guys like Rick Beato who make fun of these producers for using simple harmonic progressions in their songs. It’s like… WHY don’t you try to recreate that drum sound or synth pad? WHY don’t you try to recreate the entirety of that mix (which consists of a thousand small decisions)? Exactly. You can’t…

[@jackismname]

Crazy! Truly masters of their craft

[@0neirogenic]

@@leaveitorsinkit242 I haven't watched Beato in awhile but doesn't he pretty much always say that the production on those songs is incredible?

[@Copperhell144]

@@leaveitorsinkit242 The efforts put into the sound don't suddenly make the simple harmonic progressions not shit. It's not like getting those two right is mutually exclusive either. It's kind of astounding that you're even asking this question. Yes, we cannot recreate whatever it is that they're doing. Boo fucking hoo. If only that was everything that music was about and nothing else.

[@mrosskne]

its own.

[@corwin32]

I think there’s a more fundamental problem here, too. Senses don’t “translate” well. Red is “hot or “passionate“. Breaking glass sounds “sharp” or “brittle”. How would you describe “soft”? We’re always reduced to metaphors. I don’t have a solution, but it’s something discussed in visual art as well.

[@somebonehead]

This isn't limited to just sound. Everything we can perceive is subjected to this inability to be described. I can't explain to you what blue looks like or how roughness feels, and even once we agree on the language we use to describe these things, we have no way of knowing if we're actually sensing the same thing as each other.

[@koencagurangan3256]

I haven't watched the video, so I'm not sure if 12tone touches on this: But I think this is because things like Color, Sound, Texture and the like, are typically the words used to describe other words. But they aren't just any adjectives, they're adjectives *in their most basic form,* If you know what I mean. They're what you'll see if you go to the very top of the adjective family tree. So as a result, the typical rules of "description" don't apply to these words, because they *are* the rules

[@n.e.v.e.r]

✨Qualia✨

[@reharm_reality]

@@koencagurangan3256 I never thought about that, but you're absolutely right. This is really more a linguistic issue than a sensory one-- we can have adjectives that describe other adjectives, but they're often syesthetic, like "warm" and "cool" colors. And even if we do have descriptors for adjectives, then we can question how to describe those words and so on and so on.

[@GizzyDillespee]

Warm wooly 3D and euphonic. OTOH, we don't want it to sound pants. HTH

[@althealligator1467]

Qualia

[@AubriGryphon]

I love the preview card's implication that music is composed of rhythm, tone, timbre, chord structure, and chainsaws.

[@StormTheSquid]

Mick Gordon would agree.

[@tuppot]

"Theorists shouldn't be afraid of music. Music should be afraid of theorists." -Allan Moore, musicologist

[@Nate-bd8fg]

-Allan moore, writer of Watchmen*

[@tuppot]

@@Nate-bd8fg Oh yes, it was a joke. I mixed 12tone's words with V's.

[@Nate-bd8fg]

@@tuppot thank god cuz that was beyond insane

[@ShoutingStatue]

When you asked "Why should we care", I was surprised you didn't say "so we can make more music!" Andrew Huang's music production class literally teaches you to think in these five layers. He calls them Rhythm/Bass/Lead/Pads/Fills, but they're almost exactly what you laid out here and they have sure helped me actually construct satisfying songs from scratch.

[@JPBrooksLive]

So happy to hear Coheed representing the "riffs" out there, as the most riff -heavy band I've maybe every heard.

[@cheekofnut]

The best riffs. The best

[@reputation8383]

I love Coheed and Cambria and their riffs are epic.

[@Chinchu86]

I've been watching your videos for years. I'm a Songwriting teacher and a Music Appreciation teacher in a high school here in Ecuador. I have a degree in musical composing and a masters in education. I love music theory and just listening to all types of music (from classical to reggaeton and from folk to metal) and to watch so much youtube content on music as a whole. I wanted to start like that to provide a little bit of context, because, in my opinion, this is the BEST video you've uploaded. I had no idea about Alan Moore's work and this layered analysis will surely work in my classes with my students. It was so simple yet so effective and I loved it.

[@wesleytrott6397]

I really liked the whole vertical vs horizontal vs diagonal analysis. For as long as I can remember, that’s how I’ve listened to music. I listen to songs through that lens of vertical and horizontal analysis. I use both, but not at the same time. I think it has helped me in developing my ear for commonly used song structures, tropes, production and mixing, and so on. Great video!

[@FelPeR3D]

I like how your analysis are so human! You help people remember music is an art , not only a science

[@beaudure01]

One note on Deep Purple - they typically double the guitar with an equally distorted organ. I’m not 100% sure the fraction of a second you played has that doubling, but it sounds like it to my ears. Or maybe it’s merely suggested as an aural illusion, which could be really interesting.

[@alvin_row]

A band I really like called Astrobrite has "pop melodies over jet-engine roar" as their Twitter description, and while "pop" is a super broad term, without their abrasiveness and layers of noise they would have a completely different sound. And yeah, it's not exclusive to shoegaze but I think their quote summarizes it in a cool way.

[@JaimeBond0010]

I was wondering how the model shown in this video would look if applied to other shoegaze like my bloody valentine and i dont think it would always work well (what would the functional bass in To Here Knows When be?)

[@bastjansejberg105]

I write songs for my shoegaze band and I happen to be a huge fan of Astrobrite as well! A key element of shoegaze is definitely the larger-than-life feeling. Not necessarily that the music is physically loud, but it always sound grand. In relation to the video, I think with astrobrite there is always a center element that is "marked", such as "amoroticzoom" with its sped-up drumbeat or a novelty layer could be the repetitively echoed voice throughout the song, meanwhile there is still singing. Furthermore, Astrobrite definitely apply this novelty layer element in outros, where there is entirely different melody or sound sometimes, as seen on the album "whitenoise superstar". This video is very interesting of what concerns shoegaze, indeed. Thanks for mentioning this

[@drydenmusic6137]

My friend and I call the novelty layer the "ear candy" Maybe that's just a description of how it's being used, I'm not sure I just like the term

[@smergthedargon8974]

i'd say the term "ear candy" is rather synonymous with the novelty layer, yeah.

[@ElephantDestroyer]

Coming from a metal background, the riff problem I guess stems from the assumption that the vocal part is actually in the melodic layer, as they are not often the main focus of songs, they are there just for filler. And there's often one guitar in the melodic layer (I think you could replace it for any isntrument in any case) and another providing harmonic filler, although not necessarily just chords like you said.

[@Extravagari]

It seems like each of the 4 layers has a potential for a "B" layer that could be considered its novelty layer. Such as a percussion part used to spice up a middle eight. I would associate it with the rhythmic layer (as its B layer), while a guitar lick I would associate with the bass or melodic layers, depending on what's being played.

[@georgehiggins1320]

As a jazz pianist, your explanation of the novelty layer gives me a new view of my understanding of my role in a band.

[@fluffyfluffykatz]

I love this analysis framework so much! And it made me think of an interesting example: mariachi. Mariachi music typically uses guitar, but I've always argued that mariachi guitar is much more of a percussive instrument rather than a melodic one, and this framework finally gave me the words I needed to articulate this point. Basically, the guitar provides harmony, yes, but it plays the chords in a very specific beat according to the specific rhythm of each song (corrido, son jarocho, bolero, etc.) And because mariachi doesn't use drums, I would argue that the guitar functions as both the harmonic filler AND the explicit beat layer. Because the guitar (along with its little sister, the vihuela) locks the song to a very specific rhythm. This is especially evident in some styles, like son jalisciense, for example, where even the guitarrón (the bass layer in mariachi) will play on the offbeats, and it's the guitar strum that defines the downbeat.

[@pentalarclikesit822]

A couple of observations. I'm thinking about this in the context of vocals. My previous main band was a (for lack of a better term) grunge-metal band, and one of the advantages I had a a vocalist (so used constantly) was being able to switch from a "clean" to a "gravelly" tone very quickly, and often did. I could also do a death growl or a black shriek, but I could not switch to them as quickly (as in the middle of a line). BUt all three of those are, even in metal normally referred to as "harsh vocals." So how did I communicate something in a song when I meant to tell the guitarist, "Put on the distortion in mid-line when I switch to a gravelly voice?" I kept trying to figure it out, because to me, doing the growl or shriek was a harsh vocal, but being a little gravelly or growly was not. It wasn't like saying "turn on the distortion when I put the distortion on my voice" because it's not the same thing. I eventually started using another vocallist's term, "putting fire on" my voice. But it bugged me to this day. Secondly, I think that the timbre of instruments and vocals can be one of the most important things in getting emotion across which is especially important in certain styles of modern western music. For some reason, I'm thinking of the Nirvana song "Beeswax." Normally, when Kurt Cobain let his voice crack on purpose, it portrayed either sorrow or just the opposite, showed he was sarcastic rather than actually upset about what he was singing about. (Depending on context.) But when he does it repeatedly, and combines it with his scream (and gets more and more intense with it) in "Beeswax," it perfectly portrays the desperate screaming madness of that song. Same tool, different use, different emotional effect.

[@austinklinger892]

Love the use of Coheed for the riff example. Have you listened to the new record? I really dig the way you frame useful music theory as basically making explicit what we already know intuitively. This is a cool framework!

[@robertsteinbach7325]

This is the most useful video I have seen on the series. Explaining the layers of music that makes sense that is obvious and useful is amazing.

[@th.nd.r]

Ok a couple thoughts: 1) I kinda see this as a spectrum from foundation to front. I think the fact that it’s hard to know how to categorize riffs is a function of it being on that spectrum in the space between melody and harmony. 2) A further thought along those same lines: in the “Good Times” example, I almost feel as if the bass is playing a more harmonic-melodic ie “riffy” role, and the rhythm guitar is actually carrying a lot of the weight in bridging the gap between percussion and harmony. 3) I wonder how rap fits into this. Is rapping considered a melody even when it’s not melodic in the traditional sense of the word? I tend to think so, but I also think because it’s spoken and focused so heavily on rhythm it kinda exists in a very interesting rhythm-melody space. This makes me think that the spectrum isn’t just a 1D spectrum from beat to melody but actually can wrap around all the way back to beat. 4) Also in hip hop: in Kendrick Lamar’s song “Worldwide Steppers,” he makes VERY HEAVY use of a sample of a guy saying “what the fuck?!” In this instance, given how sheerly often it’s used, does it still count as being a novelty layer sound? Or is it so heavily repeated that it moves to another layer?

[@NooceneSounds]

this was very well explained. you gave me some useful terms to describe and conceptualize my own music that i have been implementing for years but never truly been able to explain what was happening or why i was doing it. thanks, 12tone!

[@TomBelknapRoc]

So... what layer does "More cowbell" belong to? Rhythmic or Novelty? Because they both work in this context?

[@glowinggrenade]

I encourage you talk to a producer. Some synth and sound production theory will make your vocabulary expand. You can describe the layers as their jobs or as their highs mids and lows. You can also describe the behaviour very accurately through ADSR. Timbre can be described as resonances or additional waveforms or modulation or common effects to use and you can use this language to rebuild the sound described. For example. A saxophone is monophonic instrument with a quiet sine in the lows, a saw in the mid with a very high amount of resonance in the mid-highs and highs and maybe a touch of modulation to get a metallic feel.

[@LindirTheGreen]

I think it makes the most sense to consider a good guitar riff as an additional melodic layer, like a duet. Maybe an interesting rhythmic moment could also fall into this category (e.g. In The Air Tonight).

[@grayshadowglade]

While watching this video I was distinctly reminded of the 5 main ranges of sound when producing a master recording which I like to call the Bottom, Low, Mid, High and Top ranges. These align fairly nicely with the functional areas you discussed for Rock in that the Bottom is typically the domain of the rhythmic structure, Low is for functional bass, Mid for harmonic function, Highs for melodic function, and the Top for novelty. Then it occurred to me that different styles swap out the roles for the ranges fairly easily depending on the instrumentation, but you can't really mix them without the end result coming out 'muddy' or 'foggy' per se. This led me to consider naming them by function more descriptively. For example harmonic defines the texture of the sound, novelty defines the color, melodic defines the tonality, bass defines mood, and the rhythmic defines the pacing. This approach separates the frequency range from the functional domain such that you can assign a domain to each range as appropriate to the song. In rock this works much like you described, but in funk the functional bass in the lows typically defines the pacing while the drums in the bottom provide color or novelty. Your harmonic texture might end up in the highs as it does with the horns in ska, or in the mid as strings in most pop. It isn't perfect, but it seems to work remarkably well and could be more relatable and accessible than the abstract naming for each domain. This could also serve as a decent guideline for instrumentation and orchestration decisions since I wholeheartedly think you MUST separate them in order for audience to hear each functional domain clearly. You can also use this to study the compositional structure throughout a song as it changes the ranges used for each domain in use. I dunno, totally food for thought that sprang to mind while watching the video. Thanks for the inspiration!

[@isaacweston6066]

On the subject of guitar riffs, I think it would makes sense to call it a rhythmic filler layer, since the rhythm is equally important to the melody, if not more so sometimes. I think that fits with you describing the layer as being more of a filler layer in general, though.

[@DerekPower]

Frank Zappa said it best: writing about music is like dancing about architecture. To be less flippant, music inherently goes against semantics and especially the timbre/texture. Doesn't stop you from doodling about it ;) =]

[@davidscanlan]

This went a very different direction than I was expecting. I'd be interested in another video (or maybe you've already done one?) on the metaphors we use to describe tone and timbre, especially if there's a model to support it. What makes a voice "harsh" or "happy" or what makes a guitar "warm" or "edgy"? Why does a clarinet make a solo sound so much more playful than a flute (or vice-versa)? Even down to little things like tone of the sustain vs tone of the transient, like how a bassist can completely change the feel by changing their pick. If there's a model to describe these tones and transients, I'd love to learn about it, as it would have very practical applications in songwriting and music production/orchestration.

[@SarahMaeBea]

Thanks for breaking this all down! I don't think I've heard the different layers explained like that with their basic purposes. A very helpful framework to keep in mind for when what I'm writing isn't working.

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

The content creating human being has shown me so much about music that i almost feel guilty for not paying it. I don't know how many times i noticed something new in a song i listened to for hundreds of times after watching of of those videos. Like a "that was always there?!"-feeling. We live in an amazing time where you get access to top quality information with literally a few seconds of button mashing.

[@exipolar]

Oh WOW!!! Thank you for this! I’ve been going through my library the past hour just listening for the different roles and layers in my favorite music and have found fingerprints of the artist’s interests and goals. This is FASCINATING!

[@exipolar]

Like Beak> is a great example of an artist who literally takes this kind of frame of understanding and intensionally tests its boundaries and limits. You’ve unlocked So MUCH here!

[@scmontgomery]

Love your content. Thank you for helping me keep learning

[@thoughtsforthebuilders]

Toms are kind of pitched percussion. I like to think of my toms as 808 kick-like frequency boosts; a well-tuned tom will even pitch bend down after being hit, kind of like a short 808 bass drop. So, while rock drums tend to blast away at toms (which is fun), I like using them to punch out funky or meaningful rhythms, too.

[@leaveitorsinkit242]

Tuning drums is tricky… especially if you’re working with samples. At the end of the day… you just to go with what you think sounds right (in the context of the song). It’s very difficult to teach but it starts by finding what sounds you already like in other songs…

[@thoughtsforthebuilders]

@@leaveitorsinkit242 it's all about context :) the best way to learning context or style or genre, is just listening deeply to recordings of it. (; yeah tuning drums is hard. just gotta keep turning tension rods till it sounds good!

[@leaveitorsinkit242]

@@thoughtsforthebuilders Well… I predominantly work with samples so… the only thing I’ll be turning is the sample replacement folder. 😂

[@infn8loopmusic]

Such a great video. This channel really helps me to think more objectively about music and also prompts my mind to think introspectively about my compositions to understand and analyze what things I've done well vs things I might do better (and provides me with direction towards things I may try next. Thanks for taking time to produce these great videos.

[@NickHoad]

OK this is entirely unrelated to the video, but I just noticed something. The hand seen in the intro is (probably) not 12-Tone's, given that it's a right hand and 12-Tone is left-handed. It's a completely inconsequential mystery but I find myself compelled by it. Maybe it's just 12-Tone going right-handed for the sake of the ✨aesthetic✨, who knows

[@TylerRossow]

This one of those things I’ve always consciously used in my writing and analysis but never had uniform terminology for. I love the novelty layer 🤘🏻

[@k012957]

As a thought experiment, I want to apply Moorean analysis to Barbershop-style songs. Many do not have the first layer, the primary beat. But it is implied often. My experience has been that the bass often provides a steady beat, while the other three voices are off doing what they do. The bass fundamental is generally the 1 or the 5 in the chord, providing the strong tonal backbone to each individual chord. The melody is generally in the Lead part (below the Tenor and above the Bass). Occasionally there are counter-melodies or call-and-response between parts. Harmonic fill is provided by the Tenor and Baritone. I would argue that the Novelty is the production of harmonic overtones (called Ring in barbershop circles).

[@tonyselwah6420]

Nice video, I like how you assembled the parts. I just discovered your channel, instant subscribe! Percussion sounds are pitched, you can instantly hear it when a kit is not tuned. You can even see the dissonance in the wave form when it's really bad.

[@averinthine]

i may be unusual in this regard, but in a lot of styles of popular music, the functional bass is the layer i personally tend to frequently hone in on. in the hypothetical situation of hearing a piece of music and being asked to sing it back, i would still probably sing the melodic layer, but that's only because i expect that to be what other people generally mean. when i'm humming along to music by myself i usually hum the bass line, perhaps taking bits from other layers if there's a part where the bass goes quiet for a bit. idk if i'm like this because the bass line tends to sit nicely in my tessitura, or if that's just a convenient coincidence, but there generally needs to be something quite special about a melodic layer for it to feel like the most important part to me.

[@ArcticonComp]

This is a good moment to talk about overdrive/distortion/fuzz "granularity" or the quality of the drive used for guitars and other instruments. This isn't talked about at all, despite it being really essential. Different ways of distorting the waveform give very different kinds of sounds. They also feel different when playing the instrument and lead to different performances. Usually this is talked of as a player's style or sound, but there's more there.

[@aloysiusinc5875]

Great video! I really like the breakdown of the layers as well as the different ways to analyze them. 🤓

[@tsunamimae1965]

I think electronic music producers made great work on this way before other musicians. We got beats, where kick, snare and hhat are not the instruments, but the texture (and wdym about no harmonic texture, man, if you don't tune up your kick snare and hhat, yo won't make it bounce!); there are basses, pads, leads and vocals. With sythesis you get to know your sound better, so you naturally understand that hhat and snare are more harmonically complex (white noise) with short attack and fast decay; sometimes only difference between kick and bass is the lenght of the decay. You know by heart that pads have long attack and sustain+long release - because when you wanna do them, that's what you set your ADSR envelope. When you change the timbre, you get very technical with types of modulation getting different sounds - like LFO changing pitch or filter range, FM modulation of two oscillators, and so on. I think "other" musicians should get to know electronic music better and incorporate this vocabulary into the musical analysis!

[@TheZerocrossings]

I think we have figured out terms for many elements of sound, it's just that the terms we use are rather technical and require study. Let's look at reverb, one of the most essential effects used in production. People have been figuring out the math behind physical space for a long time, and they've gotten very good at breaking down the components. Just look at the parameters on a reverb plugin: Predelay, Early Reflections, Diffusion, Size, Decay Time. All of those are meaningful elements that change the sound, and with a little ear training it's possible to listen to a sound and say "That sounds like a reverb with a short decay, lots of early reflections and a generous predelay" in much the same way that someone versed in music theory can hear a chord progression and describe the notes, their functionality, and even the emotional impact. Yes, they're technical terms, but so is "Dominant Chord" or "Plagal Cadence", they were just discovered and therefore named at different times so our modern understanding of timbre has more technical sounding names. Ultimately it's still just another area of study and mastery. I think it's a shame the two are so rarely integrated, to which I mostly blame educational institutions. An engineer ought to know what a V chord is in much the same way a modern violinist ought to know what EQ bands are.

[@natsune09]

"You know that sound you just heard? Describe it using sounds from your mouth so I can hear the sounds you make with my ears to understand the sound you heard!" But you can describe it using 1's and 0's to a computer so it can then replicate the sound perfectly.

[@1oolabob]

I think the main riff of Smoke on the Water (the sound I recognized in one note) was played on a Hammond C3 organ with distortion rather than a guitar. (I don't often call out picky corrections to video content, but this one seemed like my time.)

[@TreoTra93]

great video! but i thought it was going to be about sound as in, the language for describing the timbre of a sound, and get into the details of preset browsing and how to improve 😄 I am very interested in this and would love for 12tone to talk about it. great video!

[@thetalantonx]

This is one of your more audience empowering videos to date. Thanks for your insight.

[@PierreLewin]

To me, harmonics stack is definitly the first thing you notice. In rock, distortion means square signals/ impar harmonics, and the fifths of the chords are high in the mix. You assume that any guitar playing tonic+fifth sounds rock. That's about timber and relative volume of the note degree for instance. Chords without fifth may sound "Brazilian" because only altered fifth are played loud. Each style includes enphasis on these kinds of degree hierarchy.

[@doctahwhoopass285]

I've noticed some bands tend to really blur the line between the Harmonic Filler and Melody lines. For example, Dance Gavin Dance's song Chucky vs The Giant Tortoise, the melody sung by Tilian Pearson isn't tremendously complex, but the guitars behind it by Will Swan are zooming about all over the place. I feel like the Harmonic Filler definition seems a bit misleading then, as it seems to become a bit of a dumping ground for all the rest of the stuff going on in the song, when I would argue its possible to have more than one valid melody class at a time.

[@drunkenfarmerjohn42]

Cannonade in 1812 Overture: Best. Novelty layer. Ever

[@danieltaber4924]

For the novelty layer, I'm immediately thinking of Paper Planes

[@winstonsmith8236]

Oooo…I’ve been looking for a video like this FOREVER.

[@wintyrqueen]

The novelty layer is perfectly summed up by Soft Cell’s cover of Tainted Love against the original Gloria Jones version

[@MorganEarlJones]

just want to point out that a lot of the "meat" of the sound from smoke on the water comes from an organ played through a Marshall amp matching the guitar to fill out the sound

[@davidjairala69]

This is top tier 12tone right here please never stop 🙌🏻

[@jakethebard]

Hearing a little Coheed and Cambria clip in there made my heart feel very good

[@martifingers]

So good to have this. I recall reading Alan Pollack's analysis of "Your Mother Should Know". He commented "The intro is just a pair of vamping measures, starting off in the relative minor key and establishing the beat and texture of what is to follow, backing voices included"... All true and relevant but somehow it missed the "feel" of the intro - the "jangle" of the piano, the "warmth" of the vocals, the "dreaminess" of the reverb... This is no criticism of Mr Pollack - his analyses of the Beatles are essential reading, immensely informative and really fun too. But 12tone is right to draw attention to the importance of "sound". A couple of other points: firstly I would guess that in modern genres like rock etc. FX are really important and not just the distortion that 12tone mentions. You only have to read forums on music recording to see how obsessive is the search for the right level and type of reverb, compression, distortion, saturation etc . Worth a video on its own I reckon! Second, kudos for a Richard Thompson reference! Similarly can we have a whole video on him too? And finally , showing my advanced age I know, but The Beatles surely rank first in novelty layers - eg anvils, animal noises, birdsong, aeroplanes and coaches and even KIng Lear quotations. Does anyone else come remotely close?

[@thuslyandfurthermore]

in the realm of classic rock maybe (probably) but there are whole genres foundationally based on the novelty layer. im thinking certain strains of dubstep, where every song tries to jam as much random stuff into the drop as possible

[@martifingers]

@@thuslyandfurthermore Thanks for that insight t and f. I'll do a bit of research and listening.

[@i_am_a_music_maker5212]

this is why i have so much respect for ambient musicians

[@AnimusInvidious]

Subgrouping ("bussing") tracks into categories such as these can be very helpful during audio mixing.

[@goldend791]

I appreciate you drawing a golden berry when saying "on the surface this might seem even harder"

[@OddBunsen]

4:20 I am so glad you clarified, I was about to google it

[@phillipallen1264]

Absolutely BRILLIANT explanation and analysis!

[@timseguine2]

Pleasantly surprised by the Coheed and Cambria example. It is a band I wish more people talked about.

[@OddwicMusic]

I think the future of music (i.e new genres) are going to be explicitly tied to tamber and sound design. With all the new technology that exists today, interesting/unique sounds are going to be what drives people's interest. Edit: Another element will be unique compositional landscapes (i.e progressive changes that subvert the listeners expectations on where the song is going). Artists like Jacob Collier, the members of Snarky Puppy; EDM artists like Shpongle and Dave Tipper, will be the bedrock of future genres because of the compositional road map they construct.

[@paulkiernan6395]

I see a lot of people who talk about how producers manipulate songs when really if you really want someone who specializes in talking about how a song sounds you should talk to an audio engineer. Mainly recording engineers and mixing engineers. I studied audio engineering for 4 years and the coolest thing I learned was from my mixing engineer teacher. He told us a story about how he had an artist come in, listen to his mix and after a few minutes told him "it needs more... Purple." And my mixing engineer teacher knew exactly what he was talking about. It was the coolest thing I have ever heard and was one of the main reasons I stayed studying audio engineering.

[@hughobyrne2588]

The game, 'Rock Band' - yeah, it still rocks. Drums are my favorite. I love those songs that have a moment of silence, then a big crash - it's so much damn fun to play.

[@mcrekkr]

Rap has a good example of the "novelty layer" with the alibis doted throughout many songs. I only say this because I've done a few covers of rap songs and most have this "novelty layer" placed throughout it. Take the song Forgot About Dre and there's alibis and extra textures throughout it. Give the song a listen and you'll see what I mean.

[@yetanother9127]

I think there is actually a good deal of precedent for a kind of explicit or "quasi-explicit" beat in historical Western music, but you see it a lot more in military marches, folk songs, and working songs (like sea shanties) than in "proper" classical music. Much like danceable African-influenced modern music, these songs all seek to evoke a specific physical reaction (like marching at a certain pace, or pulling a rope in time with your buddies), which may be part of why sea shanties came back in such a big way over the last few years--they're compatible with the modern paradigm of the explicit beat, and they make you _really_ want to move your body, which is a quality we look for in music nowadays.

[@sagittated]

Fantastic. Very thought provoking. Thank you for the accessible lesson.

[@reputation8383]

Great video, but can I just say how intensely excited I am to hear Richatd Thompson on your video? He's my favourite musician ever and I never hear him on any videos!

[@violet_broregarde]

The 4 layers are why I think intro music classes should analyze NES and Gameboy music. It's got 1 channel for each layer: a white noise channel for drums, a sawtooth for bass, and 2 square waves for melody and harmony. And all of it was written in the last 40 years by people who have heard pop music on the radio.

[@lexiferenczy9695]

Thanks, great video! I underestimated sound / timbre a very long time. But over the years I've come to realise that often it is not so much harmony or melody which makes me like a song or a part of it, but sound instead. The same chord, like say a diminished chord, can sound like total shit and gives you some sort of "momentary depression", but given the right sound (and that has of course also to do with the quality of your own speakers like headphones etc) it can become a marvelous experience.

[@michaelfitzurka5659]

Otherwise known as “How to Build a Song”. Typically Brilliant. Thank you.

[@tinnvec]

I tried writing what I understand as the "feeling" of a music piece at least 3 times before deleting it all and realizing that I don't know any of this more thoroughly than you, and that's okay. I did my part in marching and concert band exactly as my conductor asked for every time but I was only ever able to do that because I don't ever play music consciously. I do, in a way, but not the same way you break it down, I'm much more of an "oh yeah, I can get in your feeling" kind of person. I guess it's similar to the way I hold conversation, I'm never trying to be the driver but I can both follow and lead as the need arises. And again, that is perfectly okay, I don't need to know everything there is to know about what I'm doing to enjoy it. Reading that back, I don't know how I sound to someone else, but likely like gibberish. I can't pass forward to others the things I've only ever had to express to myself, but I do know how to give them music. Disregarding any of the rest of my message, I really appreciate the understanding you bring to my years of rocking, from the not only the bottom of my heart, but the pit of my soul, thank you so much for sharing this channel with me and everyone else.

[@lilybeejones]

I loved your ideas in this video, but what you discussed in the edit is what I thought this was about. Tbh could you attempt to define timbres in music? I mean synths and effects pedals do lead to an insane variety of sounds, but we tend to base a lot of those on something. I bet you could make a few general categories of timbre?

[@discocrisco]

Was hoping for a video on the importance of Jackyl's Lumberjack (using a chainsaw) or Swedish death metal's use of the Boss HM-2 (the Swedish chainsaw tone).

[@maxonmendel5757]

bass - foundation of rhythm and harmony Drums/percussion - foundation of rhythm and adds texture or ornamentation via different distinct sounds guitars/rhythm instruments - reinforces harmony and add texture via the same sound being processed or played differently. finally, lead guitar or vocal lines add melody

[@CyberZec]

12Tone videos always get me thinking but this one more so than most. The first track that came to mind was "Stone Cold Classic" by AKA George. One that I struggle to categorise into a specific genre, but is great to listen to in the horizontal and diagonal styles. Lots of Novelty layer sounds kicking around as well. One Novelty layer sound that fascinates me is the sort of wailing siren thing going on in "Special Delivery" by the Offspring. Totally makes the track but I can't see any way that fits into the other 4 layers.

[@JacobH93]

I like the idea of analyzing music in layers. I think most of these layers make sense to me. Essentially you have the layers/roles of drums, bass, melody, and novelty. These all make sense to me. It’s the other harmony layer that I think should be separated. I would differentiate between counter melody (anything other than the primary melody) and harmony (that would include traditional chord progressions as well as harmony to the primary melody). Riffs would fall into counter melody. Chords would fit into harmony, or could simply be implied by other layers/combination of layers. Of course not ever song will have every layer but most pop songs will definitely have drums, bass, and melody as well as counter melody and/or harmony essentially. There are probably better names for these that’s just my thoughts!

[@nickycharles9699]

This is why I'm subscribed to you. You're the kind of person to ask the fundamental question of this video ❤️

[@nickycharles9699]

... and you drew a shrek symbol when you said layers 😂

[@nickycharles9699]

... and yes I grew up on RockBand

[@TARJohnson1979]

One point worth noting: it's quite common for one instrument to be playing multiple roles at once. Depending on genre, acoustic guitar can be beat, bass, and harmonic filler in one: piano is commonly bass, melody and harmonic filler.

[@DGEddieDGEtm]

To quote from Nigel Stanford’s track, _Cymatics_, “Everything owes its existence solely, or completely, to sound.” Also, I can’t help but wonder if you would be interested in soundtrack analysis - if yes, Hellwalker from DOOM 2016 or The Only Thing They Fear Is You from DOOM: Eternal are the most suitable for your watching eyes ;)

[@arnomora8847]

The model makes sense but I'm not sure about the explicit rhythm being only unpitched sounds. The example in the video works because most instruments in a classical orchestra don't have sharp transients so if there is no drums there is no explicit rhythm for sure, but in other styles of music we rely heavily on sharp transient pitched instruments. I don't think anyone hearing a blues guitar on its own, or even better a flamenca guitar, would describe the rhythm as not being explicit. You could make the case for the skank in reggae music as well. Sure it's pitched but I think most people would hear it as a rhythmic element first. I guess sometimes a single sound can work in more than one of the layers

[@bennorland]

Thank you that was a fascinating and thoughtful presentation. I'd note that (at least for me) the presentation of those layers of musical function tend to be weighted toward (what I would think of) as forms typical of Rock music; where the first four analytic layers tend to strongly associate with a single instrument, embodied in a single player. There are types of music (high production pop, big dance music ensembles, electronica) where it is typical that some of those layers will get smeared across several players/voices/instruments and/or where functional roles will change over time. It might be useful to cast the analysis in a way that more strongly emphasizes functions rather than roles.

[@Acre00]

1. I know he's not the guy that wrote The Watchmen, but what about V For Vendetta? 2. I really like this framework. Getting at the functional elements of what each instrument is actually doing is really useful in talking about modern music. 3. Drums in modern music are really underappreciated. There are so many songs out there that upon close listening it becomes apparent that they're only really good because of the drumming. Screamager by Therapy? comes to mind. 4. It's interesting how extreme metal both kinda works well with this model in some ways and breaks it horribly in others. For instance, the vocals are still the most memorable part of the song. They're at the front of the mix, and if you ask someone to continue metal song, they're going to continue with the vocals. On the flip side, the vocals very, very rarely have a melody. They're super rough and not really tonal, screaming not singing. They become a rhythmic instrument that seems to fill the same role as the melodic layer here. 5. Speaking of extreme metal, would you consider doing a video on it or some aspect of it at some point? I remember you saying on a couple videos that you wanted to be metal vocalist, so you already have an understanding of the genre, and it's an incredibly under studied area.

[@b_z5571]

Love the mathematical reference of the Peano space filling curve.

[@SameAsAnyOtherStranger]

I'm having a hard time getting past my own simplistic notion that describing a sound is like any other sense like a smell or taste- pretty much impossible to do without making comparisons.

[@mateusbez2669]

I am very surprise you didn’t use the “rocket launching” sound on Elton John’s Rocket Man as the example of the Novelty Layer…. Another classic one is the countdown on ‘Space Oddity’

[@MomoDude000]

Loved the Shrek "Layers" reference lol I just imagine a music theory teacher defining the various aspects of what makes a song or melody what it is in a form of "layers" in a Shrek-esque style, That would be absolutely amazing 😂

[@BigblueNF]

I actually jumped my my seat in excitement when I heard Ten Speed. Was not expecting that!

[@Dayglodaydreams]

I'm a music writer. I've found describing my instrumental albums is the thing to do, especially with synths and fretless bass that can sound like it.

[@ganondorfchampin]

I think with this video it finally clicks *why* heavy metal sounds more like classical than it does like classic rock despite it's roots being in the latter and not the former. It's using the same instrumentation as rock, but the way they are used is completely different. Metal drumming doesn't really carry a beat, it's more for setting the mood with it's elaborate fills and syncopation. The bass is then more locked with the guitar than it is with the drums, so it doesn't fill the bridge role either and often acts more of harmonic filler. It's also the genre where riffs are the most important to the point where the melodic layer is often actually the guitar and not the vocals, but I think it's better to think of the relation of the guitar and base in terms of classical texture like homophony and polyphony since both play a melodic role. Now, overall the texture of heavy metal is much closer to rock than classical if you analyze the texture from a classical standpoint, but from this sort of analysis it's more similar to classical, which is what makes metal what it is.

[@bruhgaming15meleeisSOCOOL]

3:15 i appreciate the golden strawberry to punctuate you saying "even harder" lol shoutout celeste