Solving James Brown's Rhythmic Puzzle

[@tayzonday]

Music Theory: What do you emphasize? James Brown: Yes

[@GoviaM]

yes

[@huntermather3790]

Yes

[@t3hgir]

No one: James Brown (to band): "HIT ME!"

[@MyNameIsNeutron]

"Huh!"

[@ChelseaColeslaw]

Legend

[@edonslow1456]

After spending a few hours studying this song, I can tell you with some degree of certainty that the emphasis is on WAAAOOW.

[@arthurverlaine6434]

you get the golden button sir

[@samurai9319]

On the ONE!

[@trickfall8752]

Agreed

[@musamusashi]

@@samurai9319 everything is on the one.

[@samurai9319]

@@musamusashi funk terminology.

[@AdamEmond]

This is the highest effort way to remind the world what the actual name of this song is, haha.

[@ntodd4110]

The actual name of the song is only a clue to its full meaning. The full meaning of the song is in the whole song. Haha.

[@DementedMK]

Hi Adam! I wanted you to know that your community post 3 years ago about This AM Static is the reason I heard of the band and that music (the stuff that I could find online at least) is some of my very favorite music still. Thank you!!

[@AdamEmond]

@@DementedMK this is quite a random encounter! Haha. I'll be sure to let the rest of that crew know!

[@sound5cap3gaming39]

Lmao yeah

[@paulvillarreal1588]

Haha!!! 100%

[@benwright2855]

The 'all 3 stressed' interpretation also seems best when you consider that the vocal line is fulfilling the purpose of a drum fill, with a rhythmic pattern to match.

[@GiggleBlizzard]

Didn't think of it this way but that makes so much sense.

[@MakesBadNoise]

I like this take

[@lynnpehrson8826]

Emphasis in a drum fill tends to land on the last beat, especially in jazz

[@LUXSTERIA]

I was gonna say this lol what if it's just all three

[@terrenceflynn]

One could argue the opposite in that the drum fill, and guitar riffs/licks are typically ment to mimic our emotions relayed through speech. Seeing as everything we create is based on our own experiences.

[@RaymondPeckIII]

To me, the key is at around 10:30 in this video. He splits "feel" into two rising pitches, which build tension. The second syllable is emphasized, because it is what drives the building of tension. "Good" is similarly split, but is descending, releasing tension, which puts the emphasis on the second syllable, on the 1.

[@xebio6]

It's obvious to me that 1- there's more than three "sections", and 2- the second half of go-ood is the accented bit because it coincides with the kick drum hitting the one.

[@user-et3xn2jm1u]

To me, the key was when I remembered three seconds later when James Brown says "I knew that I would". The accent in that phrase is clearly on "would", leaing to: I feel GOOD. I knew that I WOULD. It also makes sense syncopation-wise, emphasizing right before the 1 is basically emphasizing on the 1 but with some extra groove.

[@xebio6]

@@user-et3xn2jm1u Totally agree

[@rawkhawk414]

All of this is the answer! James Brown is the king of the one. Somebody literally made a whole documentary about it lol. I'll come back and share it here if I remember the name. It's called The Story of Funk One Nation Under a Groove. You can find it on KZbin!

[@nbctheoffice]

This.

[@LeandroTabaj]

A great teacher of mine once told me: "syncopations are (usually) weak beats that are so energetic that they eat the following strong beat". Therefore, all syncopations are strong, otherwise they would "resolve" on the strong beat..... I like this idea when I play my piano

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

I really like that

[@cosimobaldi03]

The following... So in this sense syncopation is more of an anticipation than a delay..

[@menriquez89]

I’ve always taken issue with the idea of upbeats being “weak”. They aren’t weak at all.

[@LeandroTabaj]

@@menriquez89 well, actually weak is a simplification. Let's just say that (generally) the natural accent goes on towards the "strong beat". But of course, it always depends on what kind of music you play.

[@menriquez89]

@@LeandroTabaj I’ve omitted any mention of strong and weak from my teaching. It’s not a helpful framework. I talk about upbeats and downbeats.

[@stevesutcliffe3490]

What's always puzzled me is how do speakers of tonal languages, (Chinese, Thai) where the pitch determines the meaning of the word, sing melodies without changing the meaning of the lyrics? Please look into it Mr Neely!

[@tomvesely4008]

Yes

[@stevesutcliffe3490]

Are you Hungarian, by any chance?

[@annenarg]

oh yes, please!

[@jeroenl8352]

Native speaker of Limburgish here, one of the few tonal languages in Europe. Most of the time you can derive the meaning of words in a song from the context it is used in, even if the pronounciation might suggest a different meaning... hope this helps to clarify

[@tenJajcus]

I guess this works exactly as when speaker of languages with different word lengths sing melodies without cutting the words. The trick is to use right words to the melody. That is why obvious literal translations to other languages usually won't work. In western languages they would not work because words with different lengths (or stress patterns) wouldn't match the notes. I can imagine the same for the tonal languages - words with wrong tone won't work in the melody, so right words must be used.

[@ratamacue0320]

I'm pretty sure that what Mr. Brown intended to communicate is that he feels good.

[@svenleeuwen]

It's almost as if he knew that he would.

[@peterpansplayground]

I betcha he feels nice.

[@bensalemi7783]

The problem is that Adam is trying to analyze it. You need to just feel it. Then it’s good.

[@Jason75913]

Feel good ALONG WITH James.

[@binkwillans5138]

I think he meant that he feels GOOD.

[@MaxKoko]

Hello! Love your content! 1. Didn't count for compression in James' vox stem. So loudness stress was probably there, but truncated. 2. I think what James Brown was thinking for the song is, "I feel good can be emphasized in different ways, but I wanna feel good in every way". That's why he sings this phrase in different ways throughout the song. So at the end of the day, you're right there is no week syllable there! (y)

[@Stolkmen]

As a musician with a lot of other musician friends, you talking about the emphasis of the national anthem made me laugh. We talked a lot about anthems and why a large portion of them are terrible song writing. This stressing video was amazing, very educational, and enjoyable, even to a musician who has seen all this already :D

[@doylerudolph7965]

Very similar to a lot of hymns and some contemporary Christian songs. When the message takes precedence over the music, you get bland, uninteresting, and musically bad compositions. Bonus points if it's translated from another language or bastardized from, say, another country's anthem (America the Beautiful actually does a decent job at subverting that, cribbed as it is from God Save the Queen, though it certainly isn't anything to write home about lyrically).

[@wiesorix]

To me, the "feel" always feels like the strongest syllable, and my guess is it has something to do with the 'f' sound. "I" doesn't start with a consonant, and the 'g' in "good" is very short, but the 'f' allows James Brown to lean into and build up and release more energy during the vowel. I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's how I hear it.

[@777malkavian]

But at the same time, the "I" is shorter and punchier, like a snare, which on its own is an accent tool.

[@Whitewallsessions]

To me it’s the bend towards the end of “feel” that gives it the emphasis.

[@ilikemusak]

There is a slight crescendo on feel too, which alters the perception somewhat

[@h00db01i]

uhFF-eeeel-good I like eels

[@richardpictures]

I’m wondering why Adam didn’t bring up the concept of accents. You can add accents to weak beats to make them sound stronger. There’s a symbol for it and everything, and it’s very common. The way rhythms are accented is not wholly dependent on whether it falls on a strong or weak beat

[@classicaltrombone]

"Why are we doing this, what is the point here?" Hey stop that.

[@marcsullivan7987]

Because it’s interesting. That’s the point.

[@snow5772]

@@marcsullivan7987 ...

[@Ronkz]

You don't need a reason

[@enochpeter]

WHY are we doing this? Why ARE we doing this? Why are W....

[@MissAshley42]

The timing on that was impeccable. I was getting annoyed and asked myself that around that point. :/

[@JesterMusician]

"I feel good" here is molossic - a trisyllable with three equal stresses. Also, vocals in published sheet music are notorious for often being simplified, perhaps because a vocalist will change them...

[@DarkSideofSynth]

My thoughts exactly, see my comment above or below, wherever YT put it. I didn't remember the terminology. No stress ;)

[@PutItAway101]

It's usually a piano player writing the sheet music, and what a soul singer actually sings doesn't often resemble a piano note that comes in on the exact pitch and stays there.

[@cd-zw2tt]

Came to comment this. I -- He hits the first beat strongly Fe- -- dips down 1/2 note on the weak beat -el -- back up 1/2 note, on strong beat Go- -- back to a weak beat on the 3rd scale degree -od! -- strong beat emphasis again on the root He starts the last two words on weak beats and passing tones. Each of the beats in the measure is emphasized.

[@wouterstassen4526]

Leave it up to Adam to grab our full attention for almost a full 15mins with something we had no clue we were interested in

[@footnotedrummer]

Amazing content, Adam! Just knowing that you came up with and created this content in roughly 3 weeks, is amazing. Truly. I don't think people understand how much effort goes into good content creating.

[@andrewgillis8572]

yup and Adam satisfies by assuming audience knowledge - meaning only that he drags neophytes into a higher level of understanding - not, that any would be caused to tune out. And James Brown band rhythm charting must be hilarious. How exactly would Bootsy bass scan out? Let alone from the stage, where he's got some big time sustain going on, and the amp and speaker cones are at about 5 per cent THD.

[@timschulz9563]

The emphasis is on the Whoa.

[@BirdmanDeuce26]

I feel this is the answer. The lyric is evenly stressed throughout because the _actual_ stress was on "WHOA!" It's also why you can't really start the song off without the "whoa", because you would then be missing a critical beat. Even in the clip Adam has at 0:38, where James Brown does precisely that, I feel that the breath he takes before he starts singing serves the same function as a "ghost" beat.

[@timschulz9563]

And if it's without the Whoa, it's the feel.

[@AdamNeely]

I FEEL GOOD STRONG STRONG STRONG JAMES BROWN STRONG ... ahem. ... Watch the video (and all my videos) ad-free on Nebula nebula.app/videos/adam-neely-solving-james-browns-rhythmic-puzzle

[@GoviaM]

hi adam

[@karolakkolo123]

Bye adam

[@SkilesHasFun]

It’s James Brown. Every word he ever sang was emphasized.

[@johnymousAnonymous]

He felt good!

[@marcsullivan7987]

Say it loud!

[@eartherinfire]

Yow! Popcorn!

[@snowmanplan]

I👏FEEL👏GOOD👏

[@rickparker6003]

Yes!

[@The251Jazz]

What a damn good video. Music theory was my favorite class in high school, but this is in many ways so beyond that. It's how music should be taught - connecting across so many fields (here was psychology, linguistics, anthropology, but obviously much more). I wish kids were able to take a class in high school, not just "music theory", but a general course on appreciating music. We need content of this quality to get children to live the joy of music and keep it throughout their lives. Adam, maybe you've clearly thought of all this already or I just don't know but have you partnered with schools?

[@annamae4042]

Yes to that! Musicology for schools

[@beatisagg]

Holy.... crap....when you displaced that rhythm by a beat and it changed it in my head it literally broke my brain. I have always thought things like 'Bodysnatchers' by Radiohead have a bizarre quality by introducing a melody prior to a rhythm being established. I always thought it didn't make sense to me why, once the beat does get introduced, my perception of the melody changes. It's crazy that I am 1) not alone and 2) correctly noticing that my perception of the melody IS BASED on where it is in the rhythm. This is very neat!

[@paulwiesenborn8153]

Check out the video called ''Vidioteque'' for a mashup of Radiohead's Idioteque and their Videotape that shows how the STRESS is actually not on the downbeat as it seems, but rather it's displaced so the stress is on the eighth note before it.

[@maitele]

Underworld's _Shudder/King of Snake_ is also a really good example of that disconnect, if you're interest in finding more like it

[@kaitlyn__L]

Interestingly I’ve never had that problem with those tunes which start the melody off first. I don’t know if it’s because I learned to play a bunch of instruments solo but never played together, or if it’s because I’m autistic, but the placement of the beat adds interesting texture but doesn’t change my perception of the melody at all.

[@007bistromath]

My initial feeling was that it's obviously "feel." I realized a bit before you mentioned how musical stress is different from linguistic stress that the reason "feel" seems so obvious to me is to do with the meaning more than any kind of groove. The different linguistic stress that can happen with the phrase is all because the phrase is answering different questions. But this is a declarative statement; James Brown isn't answering a question. He's shouting how he feels with certainty, as loud as he can. He's shouting because he's FEELING it. So ultimately, the reason there's any ambiguity about where the strength is is because "I feel good" is all one concept that is all one "beat." Literally, all the beats are strong because James Brown doesn't have time for weakness. I started writing this before you said that part, I swear.

[@sawyersimpkins9428]

I agree that if you're looking for a strong beat, it's on "feel". These nerds forget you can be so down that you don't even feel, you just are. James Brown is feeling, because he got you, and he letting everybody know.

[@sebastiangudino9377]

@@sawyersimpkins9428 I mean, this nerds have arguments for alternative answers based on different interpretations tho. The point of the video is make you realize that there is NOT a clear answer. And honestly that's music

[@LightPhoenix7000]

One interesting wrinkle in this whole analysis is the actual word feel. How many syllables does it have? Some people will say one and some people will say two. Feel, at least in English, is part of a group of words called sesquisyllabic - you can think of it as one and a half syllables. Many words with that ending L sound end up this way. In the music, James Brown (and other singers as well) often sing it as two syllables. So you end up with this complicated sylabbic pattern that is ambiguous in prose as well as in lyric. My inclination is, for the initial lyric at least, is to hear it as strong-strong-weak-strong. This also hints at a further analysis of the phrases where the winter syllables through accoutrement.

[@Gnurklesquimp]

And you can force that onto basically any word by changing the pitch or timbre in an otherwise single syllable, very common and often much more interesting when you do this. It's sorta like holding a single note and gliding it up instead of just always playing everything step-wise, a very strong tool for creating distinct moments in a melody in particular.

[@GwazaJuse]

One syllable, but two morae

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Funny, I heard "i fee-L good"

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

But maybe you're right

[@hanslevin]

Especially diphthongs.

[@richsackett3423]

He varies the emphasis throughout the song. “I FEEL nice, like sugar and spice” It’s what skilled singers do when you have a lyrically-repetitive song.

[@arcanics1971]

I'd argue that he extends "feel" but that "feel nice" is a single language chunk that is more emphasised than the following words.

[@Gnurklesquimp]

Embedding variations like that is also a great way to create rhythmic interest without crowding your mix with tons of different parts, let's the individual part shine and be expressive instead of taking away room for it to do so. You can also blend different sounds into a single part, stuff like this makes all the difference. In rap in particular this is HUGE, it's like a percussive rhythm based lead sound but with all the timbre the voice allows for. Some styles often have the rapper lay on a simple pulse, quarter or triplet etc., but it's where the sentences begin and end, where the words rhyme, where the timbre or pitch changes a particular way, all the speech-like expression etc., how ALL that stuff lines up into patterns embedded into that pulse. There's also a lot of rappers that just give you a bunch of 3/6/9 word lines over triplets etc., emphasizing the pitch and tone basically the same way every time regardless of what the words are (Snoopdog rappers today meme), nothing wrong with that, but serves as a good example of the opposite.

[@evanredmon3877]

For a guy like James Brown, variance might just be a gift he gives to himself to keep from getting bored of his own song.

[@ardvarq9027]

James Brown often reminded new musicians under his wing, that in funk the accent needs to be on the ONE. So, GOOD is the accent, provided by the band. There was a reason he was so strict with his band...

[@gregwoodwardmusic]

N is a softer consonant than G though, so "nice" will feel less stressed than "good" in comparison to "feel".

[@lundsweden]

Damn, James Brown was cool! Whatever he did, he made it sound good, and made US feel good!

[@vipermad358]

He was fucking awesome and I'm proud to have shaken his hand.

[@edwardclark6731]

" WOW, i feel good "

[@1337-Nathaniel]

So, I never thought of this as a problem, and my first reaction was that the emphasis is on "GOOD" . Now, I'm doubting myself and can't let this go. Thanks Adam.

[@arcanics1971]

Linguist (though no longer in the field) here: I think in this case that Brown is using the words FEEL GOOD as one language chunk. So the accented word is both FEEL and GOOD- because in the phrase they are not treated as separate words but as one concept that so happens to be made up of two parts. Though I prefer the answer that all of the words are stressed.

[@cosimobaldi03]

Cool, I feel good about this interpretation

[@CrashAshes43]

This also makes sense to me when you consider Adam's point about each word containing multiple notes. For me, when broken down that way, the first notes of the words feel strong while the second notes feel weak, giving you this alternating weak - strong - weak - strong - weak pattern. This creates a strong moment within both "feel" and "good". But I'd also agree that each word itself feels accented.

[@paxwort]

Let me know if you reckon I'm talking bullshit, but I want to say the individual words aren't like... divisible from the whole? I'd call it almost a mantra. Think like in a church, "He is risen!" It's not language in the same sense as in a conversation, it's something else.

[@kkkender]

Thanks to the couple of lessons in speech recognition from a linguist, that was what I thought immediately :)

[@dsnodgrass4843]

@@paxwort yeah, that's it. Their musical function is outside of the structure; they're "pickup notes". The musical stress is the "One" that comes after.

[@ldovratrelundar]

the funniest moment in my life was being in a youth choir in england with our conductor trying to get us to sing I Got You all in unison. just several dozen white 12 year olds mildly enthusiastically going "woah. i feeel good" i hated doing it but it was INCREDIBLY funny in hindsight. the actual funk band supporting us was pretty good tho

[@JeremyForTheWin]

Theory: the scream at the beginning is part of the sentence. so it's more like "WOWWW I feel good"

[@hansvandermeulen5515]

With the emphasis on the WOWWW.

[@kevincolyer]

@@hansvandermeulen5515 I think so too!

[@ilikevideos4868]

It's either all strong or all weak depending on wheter or not you include the WOW

[@briansmith9455]

But the question is did he consider all of this or did he just go with the flow like all of those soul folks did back then? Was any thought put into it or was it straight gut?

[@ilikevideos4868]

@@briansmith9455 100% no thought put into it, other than "this sounds good"

[@Dartania]

Overthinking it. Artificial question. In speaking we can stress words differently than in speaking. And the issue of strong vs weak beats is parallel. Put another way, replace the words with saxophone. It’s a musical phrase. Any way, it’s “feel” if you have to ask. But better to feel it than think it in this case.

[@ahobimo732]

I hear it as a "2-1-3" sort of pattern, by which I mean that "good" has the most stress (it's "3"), "I" has an intermediate stress ("2") and "feel" has the least stress ("1"). But this pattern only applies to the first time he sings this line. The stress patterns change later in the song. Also... James Brown was a musical GIANT. Beyond legendary. It's impossible to overstate how much he enriched modern American music.

[@kaaiplayspiano7200]

agreed, though, splitting the syllables into both notes, i hear 3 2 4 1 5

[@alexandersanchez9138]

I hear "feel" as accented. As you said at the end, it has the agogic and tonic accents; since the melody is syncopated, those are the most salient factors to me.

[@uddalaksarkar3280]

thought: the 'I' is actually the listener feeling good about listening to this masterpiece.

[@HungryMusicologist]

With syncopation, I often feel that you anticipate a beat, and therefore it is often the beat you anticipate that determines if it's weak or strong. Also the duration of the note.

[@gooddogtrainingservices5351]

Swing keeps it interesting

[@GameLang]

When you take “music is a conversation” way too seriously

[@SarmonOflynn]

Adam: "The stress pattern in this song is freaking me out!" James Brown: "I woke up this morning, and I heard a disturbin' sound!" *Adam Stares off into the sky* "THE BAND!" *Adam looks into the camera* "We're on a mission from Gahd." The blues brothers truly is the best lens through which the meaning if life can be discovered.

[@J3Puffin]

Beautiful

[@SarmonOflynn]

I try

[@duffman18]

It's always a good day when Mr Neely posts a video

[@kagantuygun532]

This is so unnecessary. I love it!!!!!

[@insidejazzguitar8112]

I think it’s not just a matter of weak and strong; syncopation is about a feeling of excitement, like you’ve just discovered you’re floating in the air next to a ledge. And from that perspective, excitement is inversely proportional to strength, with the the weakest parts of the weakest beat bring the most exciting🙂

[@ElwoodSharit]

Sorry to piggyback off a popular comment but does anyone know what the music is that starts playing @2:44 ? I assume it's something Adam produced but idk if there's a link to it or it's just filler. I'd love the full track.

[@martinwest2538]

I feel... that the emphasis really lies on every note. On "I" because its on a strong beat, "feel" because it's the highest note of the curve, and "good" because it's the anticipated "one" of the following bar. I strongly sense anticipations are in fact reinforcements of the musical stress - just as played in jazz, in fact (doo-DAT DAT or DOO-ba-doo-DAT, for example)! The three words are also equally important in the text (it's an exclamation), making it appropriate to emphasize them all. According to jazz phrasing, the word "I" (being an eight note before a longer note) would not be emphasized, like the first example I gave before. This is not jazz, however, so this remark should not be taken so seriously in this frame of reference. So the three notes are all strong, the first note ("I") being theoretically somewhat less emphasized when performed.

[@Alan_Duval]

I'm with you on all three words feeling strong and equally accented, albeit in different ways. For me, option B was always "feel". The melismatic extension in the second repeat sounds to me like it's there in truncated form in the first phrase and, as you say, it's higher in pitch and longer, so it "feels" like the most stressed word in the phrase (if we ignore that all of the words are stressed, just in different ways).

[@lewinw.8846]

This video (not talking about it’s content) is SO well-made :D I couldn’t concentrate on the stuff adams says because I was overwhelmed by the smooth editing and the moving focus without losing its educational seriousness. Really great job! Cool to watch someone develop their skill set over the years But also: nice content 😄

[@toomdog]

I almost lost when he turned to face the other camera lol

[@eyvindjr]

What a genius James Brown was making the greatest funk hook of all time! He was probably even very concious about that stress pattern, thanks Adam for making me appreciate it!

[@idoshemtov7865]

I just heard the lick and then Adam post a new video

[@johnshipe7045]

Thank you for this. I teach “singer-songwriting.” This is extremely helpful, light-bulb-over-the-head” analysis of something I’ve been working hard to communicate to my students mostly from a right-brained “feel” approach. (The backdrop of which is a current trend in songwriting that fleshes out vocal melodies with the perfect number of syllables per-line, but with little regard for stress and accent…. greatness of such artists like Taylor Swift notwithstanding.)

[@johnmac8084]

James Brown must have agonised for hours over this conundrum 😉 Great analysis Adam

[@AfferbeckBeats]

My favourite example of accents seemingly shifting is the intro to the Temptations My Girl. Jamerson doesn't change his bass playing at all but it sounds completely different once the guitar and snaps join.

[@TheEmperialist]

Great example! I feel the exact same thing with the beginning of It Can Happen by Yes. You have no idea the intro is upbeats until the snare kicks in.

[@JonConstruct]

Same with "Tell Me Something Good" by Rufus

[@Nickdd98]

Sex on fire by Kings of Leon too! Paul Davids did a good video about how everyone plays it wrong with how the drums come in relative to the main riff

[@GwazaJuse]

(Concept of morae is very important here - syllables have timing units that are called morae, and this is independent of stress/tone/accent...) The thing is, the first word/syllable takes on an accent from the musical position, but the second is bimoraic, since there is a diphthong which flows into the approximant, and then the last word is also bimoraic, because the vowel is lengthened and has a syllable coda. Since all three words are monosyllabic, one would expect the short vowel function word (1ps pronominal) to be unstressed, but the musical position makes it such that it is felt as equally weighted with the other two words/syllables, even though the second is longest. Someone else noted this too, but the verb "feel" takes an adverbial argument, so the verb is a verb phrase and that also determines how the prosody falls. That is, the predicate is a single phonological unit corresponding with the verb phrase. Ordinarily we would expect this to be prosodically dominant in isolation, but because of the musical rhythm, each syllable has more or less equal weighting. Musical rhythm is like an extra phonological tier that completes the prosody... Hello, I'm a linguist who teaches rap technique.

[@ggarzagarcia]

I always believed the “feel” to be the strongest because of what funk music is: emphasis change, syncopations, the surprise. But yes, it is totally subjective to one’s ears. And I hope you do not get demonetized! Education should generally protected, as you are not “performing” or “monetizing”. Sad that KZbin thinks differently.

[@BreakerBeat]

From a lyrical standpoint I've always thought the word "feel" is the important one. He changes it to "I feel nice" later on, suggesting that the important thing is telling us that he is feeling something. Even though this isn't an explanation of the rhythmic aspect, because in my head I've added more "value" to that specific word it becomes the dominant word in other aspects as well to me. I guess it's mostly due to the fact that there are not much else to determine it, so my mind just latch on to whatever reasoning it can find and then expands it to other things, like where the accent is.

[@bidaubadeadieu]

Really loved your aside about how strong and weak beats are culturally relative and the Thai example you showed!

[@analogbunny]

When I was a Linguistics major a common observation was the amazing symmetry between universal patterns of linguistic stress and metricality in music (especially but not uniquely Western music).

[@analogbunny]

Actually... many languages that don't really organize language by stress will organize it by mora - or length. Japanese is stress neutral (or it has stress but it's much freer, and it is possible to have a sentence with equal stress on every syllable), but is pretty rigid about syllable *length*. My favourite difference being "yuki" (a common girl's name) and "yūki" (a common boys' name).

[@joemoretti22]

I can't remember where I heard it, but I remembered someone saying once in an interview or something that James Brown's music isn't thought in 4/4, 3/4, 2/2 etc, but is just thought of as ONE. Which goes along with you determining that every beat is a strong beat, so I definitely agree with that lol

[@bigdippa101]

fuck rules m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/ep2wdIijlpydack

[@RealLifeMassMultiplayerRPG]

i disagree the tempo isnt "i-feel-good" , the feel is in half time "Ife-ell good" i love playingh with note position , the stress, its so fun

[@bobsykes]

Love your channel and yes, I subscribed to the combo pack you offer, because I too worry about my favorite creators potentially losing thier platform. Regarding that James Brown phrase, for me, it's his super perfect and really complex pitch bends throughout each word that defines the experience I feel from listening.

[@Skeleton_Dork]

I always interpreted it as (1)AHH (2)- (3)I feel (4)- Good (1) With the I being on the "I" (the 1) and "Good" (the and of 4)

[@JoaoVictor-ic3ht]

Funny I had the same question on my head some time ago and ended hearing "I feEL GOod" in terms of dynamics, but the pitch and qualify of his voice makes that wave like motion that sounds like a flow o feeling good. Nice analysis, much more in depth than my rearing a part lots of times and calling it, but fun seeing how theory works it ways to explain what we hear

[@canterreynolds2625]

This actually makes me think of how words work in Japanese. Instead of using stress like we do in English, Japanese use pitch contours. One important thing about the pitch contour of a word is a drop or the absence of a drop in its contour. If you take the word 'ikimashita,' each syllable is relatively on the same level until there is a drop between the second to last and last syllable. So 'ikimashita' feels like 'I KI MA SHI ta.' At least for me, the emphasizes is the drop between the last two syllables and not any individual syllable itself. So when I hear 'I feel good' I'm feeling it like 'I FE EL GU ud.' And so for me, the emphases is where the pitch falls within the word good.

[@eartherinfire]

Yes! This is my experience of the lyric.

[@KarasuInaiga]

But are you capitalizing ‘I’ because it’s always capitalized, or because it’s where you hear stress?

[@picksalot1]

I think the "el" in feel, being the highest pitch in the sentence, has the most stress. That makes the word "feel" have the most emphasis. The melisma in this word and enhanced in the later repetition, shows his intent. James Brown lets us know what it is to really feel the music. 😎

[@wes5150.]

IMPORTANT WARNING - TURN YOUR AUDIO DOWN AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS VIDEO. My neighbors called the cops.

[@pscampoamor]

As a musician this is a no brainer. His phrase "I feel good" starts by preceding the "one" (& the instrumental beginning of the song). The "one" drops in between the 2 "o"s of the word "good". Like this - "I feel go(1)od" 2, 3, 4.. 1,2,3,4, etc..

[@leftyguitarist8989]

I think it's important to note how a lot of the time, artists aren't thinking deeply about things like this and instead are just focused on making good music. Another great example of this would be The Beatles' I'll Be Back, which is mostly in A major but the verse does the Andalusian cadence starting in A minor before doing a picardy third to A major so the verses can either be in A minor with a picardy third or it can be alternating between both A minor and A major. However, when The Beatles were recording the song, it's highly unlikely they were actually thinking about this kind of music theory and instead just did it because they thought it sounded cool.

[@krokovay.marcell]

And we can still analyze, why it sounds good:)

[@VOIP4ME]

While it's unlikely they used those words, I think they discovered and understood the musical relationships there at a deep emotional level, as much as any classical or jazz composer. They understood the concepts themselves, if not necessarily the terminology that's been assigned to them. It's like when you speak a word, you're not thinking "nasal frictive followed by rounded dipthong followed by glottal stop." Yet you are doing those things, and doing them well, you just learned them through direct experience. The theory is just a way of describing exactly what you did.

[@jambajoby32]

Exactly !

[@ntodd4110]

I agree with what you are saying, but I hasten to add that parsing out HOW meaning is achieved in music is worth discussion, even if the musical artist wasn't conscious or aware of the meaning ascribed by others to it. She/he may have had something specific in mind when she/he created, but I think most artists are OK with the notion that other people create their own meaning out of their works (as long as said artist gets CREDIT for CREATING her/his work, that is).

[@gwalla]

Yeah, he probably wasn't thinking deeply about it, but that doesn't mean we can't after the fact. It's about figuring out how a piece of music works, not what was going through the artist's head when they made it.

[@Idefilms]

This was great, Adam! And pretty bold of you to use a national anthem as an example of bad songwriting. 😄 I'd think that most people, through mere exposure, wouldn't hear the problem. (I didn't, anyways.)

[@JeremyForTheWin]

it's a bad song, that's why

[@AcademicType616]

Not the first time he's brought it up

[@Angharan]

You could argue that it's not songwriting of any kind since it takes an existing poem and sets it to an existing tune. There's probably an interesting story behind how that got adopted as a national anthem.

[@AcademicType616]

@@Angharan That's still songwriting since at any point they could have altered either during the process. The ability to do something and the choice to do nothing defines it as lazy songwriting. And indeed the story of how that came about is probably quite interesting

[@AdamFaruqi]

Is it that bold? The national anthem is pretty commonly lambasted for its shittiness.

[@PabloGambaccini]

The problem of this analisis is that its based in form determines content and not content determines form. Measures are not an a priori reality, measures exist as the representation of a regularity of long notes vs short notes (agogic) long notes tend to appear in the first beats of a measure while short ones in the later beats. Long notes tend to have more gravity, and the reiteration of these in a regular pattern make us feel the beat. Syncopation plays as an irregularity (a rythmic dissonance) as it's a long note where we would expect a short note... working as an unexpected "measure change". So... the word feel is the longest, that's the accent.

[@sillysausage4549]

To my ear it is clearly on GOOD. Ps in British English we often put the stress in a different place to Americans. One thing that really grates on me is hearing Americans say ROBIN Hood, rather than Robin HOOD. Whatever.

[@deathofsushi]

During the de-syncopation around 8:08, shouldn't "I" still be an 8th note, starting on 3-and, with "feel" and "good" starting on beat 4 and 1, respectively? Then if the 'ands' are considered weak, the analysis would be weak-strong-strong.

[@sheafitzgerald2253]

That's how I hear it

[@gregwoodwardmusic]

Not if you think I is the stressed syllable rather than feel. Which illustrates why desyncopating doesn't solve the riddle.

[@461weavile]

"de-syncopating" the rhythm doesn't move all parts equally; it moves them so they're equally apart. the rhythm "& 4 , 1" would still be syncopated because there's nothing on 3 but there's something between 3 and 4.

[@deathofsushi]

​@@461weavile Well, that's not possible to infer from the given example at around 7:50, because those notes are already equally spaced. FWIW, I don't think the method is particularly useful either way, but it seems especially unhelpful if the note values are being changed.

[@461weavile]

@@deathofsushi don't need to infer. Just need the definition of "syncopation"

[@charlesmurray4467]

WWWAAAAO I feel good:)

[@LisztyLiszt]

3:55 In the example there is another layer affecting the perception of this music. It's not just the place of the melody within pulse that's changing, it's also the place of the melody relative to the harmonic change.

[@phillipsiebold8351]

A problem with this analysis is that the notion of stress comes from pedestrian dances (dances where you lead with your feet) versus other dances that have you leading with your abdomen (which is, uh, difficult to count.) This is why in blues-based dancing, instruction is preferably focused on the abdomen first before going onto the feet. In country-dancing, you don't do that. You start with the feet and go from there. So what I hear is James Brown leading the torso counts(?) before one can move anything else. The three syllables for all strong for that purpose.

[@Whatismusic123]

the emphazis is on "i" and the "L" in feel, the upbeat it honestly closer to 2/4 than 4/4 I feel good - ( - ( -

[@marcinswiostek]

I hear two stressed syllables here: "I" and "good" with primary stress being on the first one. I was surprised to find that compound words in English have only one stressed syllable (according to the rules at least). In Spanish certain compounds have two stressed syllables to preserve both words. I feel like the same is happening here if we look at the sentence as a compound word (a bit of a stretch, I know).

[@OneL3gend]

Lots of really interesting things as usual, thanks Adam! I like to think that it's "good" the first time, "feel" the second and "I" in combination with the "and", but that's just what made most sense to me after you took it apart

[@naught101]

In the second example, the extended "feel" is an extended syllable (like the Southern Drawl) with 3 pulses, and the emphasis is on the second pulse.

[@ralphproscia4934]

Sigmund Freud wrote a paper on humor and went on to describe what made things humorous but after the description and analyzation, nothing was funny anymore. That is what we have here! James Brown did not know what he was doing, he just did what he felt. His timing was based upon his feelings. "He felt Good!" When you try to describe it, it gets lost in the description.

[@rakan1776]

"It varies from person to person, culture to culture, but the American anthem is objectively wrong."

[@cancel432]

Do you think James Brown ever had to sing the words "I feel good" at a time where he did not in fact feel good? Please make a video on this subject.

[@merseyviking]

As an exercise to try to feel different rhythmic patterns, I take a song with a strong pulse and start counting one beat off. So the real two becomes my one. It's really hard (for me, anyway!) to keep it up for long before my brain forces me back to the real rhythm. It relates to Jay Foreman singing one syllable out of sync: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5bRkHSBnZyBn80

[@thegrinch7989]

I try to do this and I always manage to trick myself back as well. Kind of like how Harry Connick Jr. tricked the audience into clapping on 2 and 4.

[@unreliabledoorhinge]

2 minutes in and it seems as if the stress is on both "I" and "Good" is that a thing?

[@ThePictoucounty]

Yeah, the notation at 8:30 "EYE feel GOOD" seems right to me

[@vemundally4953]

James Brown is one of my favorite (almost godlike) live performers (I still watch various live performances from time to time). 1. The "problem" with the words roughly all hitting at the same level, and with an interesting "unnatural" rhythm (the timbres also change slightly), is a common audio artifact that a vocal channel compressor could yield if the settings aren't optimally dialed in for better audio transparency. This type of effect is used a lot in the modern age to help make a boring sentance sound more interesting. Can almost make things sound slightly wrong (slightly "alien" perhaps, like Mr.Smith in Matrix), but usually its within acceptable ranges. This is probably why its so cryptic to analyze correctly in a normal fashion. 2. Luckily, there is a definitive answer to the rhythmic puzzle! If you know what the song is about, you would understand the emphasize should be on the word GOOOD (as you would know what the reference is). But... that part is secret.

[@lucilaos]

South PARK is how I and everyone that I know pronounce it (our native languages are slavic). Was kinda shocked to hear that it's wrong, lol

[@sea-ferring]

Really interesting - the backing music is definitely the typical James Brown emphasis on the first beat thing which is always awesome, but the vocal is truly a unique creation. You have helped me appreciate James Brown on an entirely different level - he was truly one of a kind.

[@markr.denison9768]

A couple definitions I use for my college students: 1) Even or straight rhythms - evenly spaced notes accenting strong beats and down beats. 2) Syncopation - unevenly spaced notes emphasizing weak beats and up beats. Taken with only a musical consideration, this is fairly straight forward to understand. Adding language usage and syntax brings a whole other layer of complexity and nuance to the idea. (Which Adam does mention during the video.) I also would throw out as food for thought the jazz concept of pushes and drags. The way I was taught (and the way I have used it over many years with my students) is that ultimately, syncopated lines are all just variations of evenly spaced notes that either push the rhythmic stress to arrive early or drag it to arrive late. To put it another way, it's the rag in ragtime - play with the rhythm of a straight melodic line so that the stresses happen (as Wynton Marsalis used to say) on unexpected beats. Just some thoughts. Peace!

[@BeeBwakka]

I think each of the five notes in "I feel good" has its own level of emphasis. Like the second note of "good" is definitely weak for example, but the second note of "feel" seems relatively strong to me.

[@difo1]

PRO TIP:make sure the vocals and the rhythm are in the SAME KEY!

[@0takinhoohenrique379]

i'm brazilian and i can't listen "i feel good" i always listen "ABILGO"

[@mviz2299]

3:56 I thought it's the intro from the song "Słodkiego miłego życia" by Kombi. Just first three notes, but the synth and the tempo are almost identical.

[@karolakkolo123]

Me too, I was like "wait what?" lmao

[@mviz2299]

​@@karolakkolo123 its nice to see the other Polish guy, that watch Adam Neely. Miłej środy, życzę.

[@karolakkolo123]

@@mviz2299 wzajemnie :)

[@Freakybananayo]

I love how you played the audio this video is about at the very start. That's how you grab the audiences attention.

[@jbomber44]

I think the problem is your lens. Notice how at the beginning of this video, you explain how stress can subtly change the meaning of the phrase. You provide examples such as stressing good would be an answer to the question "how do you feel?" All but one of your examples involved somebody asking a question. The odd one out was trying to express another emotion: uncertainty. I think James Brown doesn't really fall into these categories because he isn't answering anybody or trying to provide any further information to the listener. It's a simple proclamation. I feel good! Because I got you.

[@Phi1618033]

This is the kind of hair-splitting one expects from Medieval theologians.

[@cremetangerine82]

Thank you for covering the crappiness of our national anthem! Archaic and superfluous lyrics + too high or too low range for most singers = a national anthem that is so easy to mess up. I certainly don’t wanna stand for this one!

[@LupinoArts]

Hey Adam, linguistic nitpicking here: Please don't mix up accent ("South Park") and prosody ("I feel good"). Accent is a phonetic property of a phonological word; it is used to *differentiate meaning*, as in "access" (/ˈæk.sɛs/) vs. "excess" (/æk.ˈsɛs/). Prosody, on the other hand, is a morpho-semantic property of syntactic phrases that is *bearing meaning*. In this video you talk about prosody, so the "South Park" example is somewhat misleading.

[@Kram1032]

I always felt like the emphasis is on "feel" "I" is too short to be emphasized, "feel" and "good" are roughly the same length but "feel" is higher pitched which adds more emphasis - And all the later instances *still* feel emphasized on "feel" to me

[@apeters8]

That's how I felt. Every time it sounded like feel was emphasized. Also, good trails off, which suggests a lack of emphasis to me.

[@seansachs6105]

To me, the "I feel good" line has 5 sections: I, fee, uhl, goo-od (try splitting the oo of hood in half and I think you'll see what I mean). The second and fourth syllables of that sequence are most emphasized, but what makes it complicated is that the fifth syllable is a descending one that concludes the melodic phrase, which makes our ears think that that syllable is emphasized even though I don't think it is. I had to listen several times before I got a decent idea of what was going on, and even now it's ambiguous.

[@xebio6]

I think it's precisely that 5th section, the second half of "go-ood", that is the most stressed because to my ears it coincides with the kick drum and bass hitting the ONE

[@glyphics1943]

@@xebio6 - Except in jazz and rhythm & blues, the stress is always on two and four; the traps hit, not the bass drum kick. Actually, the second half of “go-ood” is the least stressed.

[@xebio6]

@@glyphics1943 Yes... and no. In funk/disco/house and other dance styles, the ONE is super prominent, regardless of whether there's a clap/snare hit on the 2 and 4. They're all stressed in different ways.

[@glyphics1943]

@@xebio6 - Yeah, that’s probably the way you feel it, I guess. I see many blues, jazz, rock, soul, funk concerts where the majority of the audience is clapping on one & three and I can’t understand how they can feel it that way after 100 years of exposure to the music.

[@xebio6]

@@glyphics1943 I KNOW how important the ONE is in certain genres, it's not just "how I feel it", lol. But that doesn't mean I clap on the 1 and 3!!! I hate that as much as you do or more. As I said, they are all stressed in different ways. From a James Brown forum: "In Funk music the emphasis is on the first beat or the ONE. Nobody hits the one harder than James and George Clinton. HIT ME!" There are even song titles paying tribute to the ONE: Cameo "On the One", Bootsy Collins "The Power of the One"... One of the best James Brown biographies is NOT titled "The 2 and the 4", lol. You guessed it, it's "The One". A quote from this book, JB himself speaking: “The ‘One’ is derived from the Earth itself, the soil, the pine trees of my youth. And most important, it’s on the upbeat-ONE two THREE four-not the downbeat, one TWO three FOUR, that most blues are written. Hey, I know what I’m talking about! I was born to the downbeat, and I can tell you without question there is no pride in it. The upbeat is rich, the downbeat is poor. Stepping up proud only happens on the aggressive ‘One,’ not the passive Two, and never on lowdownbeat. In the end, it’s not about music-it’s about life." And here are two interesting links you may want to check out to further your musical education: austinkleon.com/2019/09/08/keeping-it-on-the-one/ kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYa5pGyAdq5moMk

[@edjwise]

James Brown is the father of modern music. His sound still defies expectations.

[@ytspam1000]

For me it has always been on the "good", or better: on the "go - 'OD", because it lands on the downbeat. ;)

[@misterkeithb]

I feel (ha) that the musical context does more to define the emphasis then the way the vocals are stressed. Since the drums kick in on "good" and the horns kick in right afterwards, I think that musical context defines where that emphasis should lay

[@hmarci]

I agree, I hear the emphasis on the "ood"

[@duffman18]

The emphasis is on the second half of the word "good". The way he sings "good" is like 2 separate 8th notes cos he extends it out. And so the emphasis for me is on the second half of the word "good", the second 8th note. But that's just my opinion anyway

[@knipfer454]

This was so weird to watch because nearly every take Adam had on how the emphasis *feels* for an example was exactly the opposite of how I felt about it.

[@ManiAvila]

I'm latin, and for me, the syncopated melody at 6:42 is much more natural that the same melody non-syncopated. 😆

[@buzzsburner.8286]

I think it's on both "feel" *and* "good", and the "i" is slightly less emphasized with them

[@elliott7268]

Another reason that using waveforms isn't a good idea for this kind of thing: compression.