What makes Meet the Grahams sound scary? | Q+A

Answering Music Theory questions from instagram
Come see sungazer play live!
sungazermusic....
0:00 Intro
0:01 Why does Meet the Grahams sound scary?
2:48 Is A# and Bb the same?
3:34 How do you jam over the internet with latency?
7:26 Have you ever played in a professional big band?
7:57 Cool guitar chord?
8:12 Does E7 resolve to Cmaj7?
10:00 How do you handle negative criticism of your music?
10:44 I’m a beginner, how do I improvise?
12:00 What is your view on piano-centric music education?
12:55 How do you feel about opening for Snarky Puppy?
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[@darkgaara787]

I think what makes Meet the Grahams sound scary is the man calmly telling someone's mother how much he wants her son to die

[@shaunkhan9049]

That song had me afraid that Kendrick was gonna jump out of a dark hallway and hit me with some hard truths before disappearing in a smokeless flame.

[@AndyChamberlainMusic]

yea, if only adam would emphasize that the lyrical content is indeed the biggest reason it sounds scary if only that was point 4 out of 4 that was framed differently from the first three points, verbally and even with a new camera angle would have been great if that happened at 2:08 during the video alas 😔

[@Lolzosaurus]

@@AndyChamberlainMusic Honestly though, there is a nuanced difference between what Adam said in the video and what Darkgaara787 said in their comment. In the comment they did not only mention the lyrical content, but also the "calm delivery" which technically could be considered part of the instrumentation that heightens the lyrical content. So technically speaking Adam did cover it 🤔But on a technicality so the comment's clarification may not have been redundant 😂

[@mutantfreak48]

​@@Lolzosaurus well technically speaking kendrick actually drops the calm demeanor a bit when he gets to that specific part of the track so what darkgaara787 said is a bit inaccurate

[@Lolzosaurus]

@@mutantfreak48 It honestly still sounds/feels like some subdued and clearly directed anger to me. Which in the spectrum of rage/anger is still kinda calm. Which does make it sound more scary than if he started screaming like a madman. But that's entirely subjective I suppose,...

[@Number9Robotic]

Shoutout to the sudden punches of vocal layering on the "you LIED" parts of Meet the Grahams; it seriously sounds Kendrick is an angry, vengeful ghost who's ready to to drag Drake down to hell.

[@hajohoekstra3896]

damn brother I'm on kendrick's side but that was corny as shit

[@frvvk]

@@hajohoekstra3896 yeah bro have you ever tried having a genuine thought? pretty corny isnt it

[@illford]

​@@hajohoekstra3896who cares if its corny. Id rather have it be genuine and corny than whatever drake does

[@hajohoekstra3896]

@@frvvk are you implying that genuine thoughts are inherently corny? seems like a strange take but maybe I misunderstand

[@frvvk]

@@hajohoekstra3896 no, it must be a twitter brain or something, but literally every comment section under some kendrick vs drake video always has some pretentious douchebag talking about how something is "corny" when its just a thought someone had in their head about the actual music itself.

[@marmiteghost]

we need to talk abt the fifth reason, kendrick's vocal performance. his shaky, almost pained articulation is so unnerving in combination with the beat, and it's so wary that when he switches to his more focused voice suddenly it almost feels like he's shouting

[@ElRioYunque]

^honestly, the versatility of Kendrick’s delivery and the sheer number of “voices” that he has for songs and lines and moments is an underplayed part of his mastery as a rap artist.

[@Zawmbbeh]

there’s so much heartache in his vocal delivery especially when addressing towards his children, such a knife twist

[@NnamdiNw]

YOU LIEDDDD

[@86Sentra]

Bro was nice to the kids on the verse lol

[@leftistsoup]

also the literal screaming in the background

[@Queso2469]

I'm a network video game engineer. The reason video games over internet connections work at all is because we are CONSTANTLY lying about when things happen and how we resolve them. When you shoot someone, it's not just saying "hey I shot here did I hit something?" to the server. The server has to go back in time in it's recording of the game, check where the player should have been FOR YOU at that point, and see if it should have looked like you hit them on your screen. This is why you can die even though, on your screen, you got behind cover in a game. Because you weren't behind cover on the enemy screen yet. It's all a super complicated hack to make it look like you can shoot people in real time. In reality, every player is playing a slightly desyced game. If you actually try and coordinate any timed event with other players though it won't work. You'll ALL see a slightly different version of events. In music terms, you'd hear all the other players dragging, while all the other players would hear you and everyone else dragging.

[@winterfall82]

That is so cool. Do you have video recommendations to see this happening visually? I'm not sure where I'd start

[@pedroscoponi4905]

I got into Fighting Games this year and learning about Rollback has been fascinating. Ya'll work some _magic._

[@jeffripley9062]

All this stuff was pioneered with Quake World back in the 90s/early 00s, and it's SUPER fascinating. We can thank the folks at ID, and in the periphery for a ton of cool innovation in gaming, but this client/server architecture and approach might be the best bit

[@Queso2469]

@@winterfall82 It's pretty hard to actually visualize. Yahn Bernier's "Latency Compensating Methods in Client/Server In-game Protocol Design and Optimization" is a good read if a little technical. Riot wrote up a good explainer for Valorant as well. Best youtube quick explainer I have found is probably "How It Works: Lag compensation and Interp in CS:GO" by DevinDTV

[@xenobioz]

For some situations the game can try to predict what happens next so maybe the software could predict what sound to play before it's played by the human. Maybe with visual aid and AI.

[@erboch7124]

The lyrical content of Meet The Grahams goes beyond Drake, and that's the most scary part. There are genuine predators out there lurking, especially in positions of power. Kendrick generally makes songs about people victimized by a societal ill or addresses it to them. This song is him speaking directly to the ill itself.

[@M33PSTER]

I think this is what makes it so ominous is it’s so specific to that feeling of impending doom.

[@NorthStand405]

So why did he bring Dr Dre out to perform with him recently? A man that dated a 16 year old when he was 22...

[@DurfMcAllister]

For me, one of the most anxiety inducing things is that the high notes on the piano are a little ahead of the beat. Makes the whole thing sound uneasy.

[@ChanceBloodstoner]

I was making your mom sound uneasy last night

[@_WeDontKnow_]

The Alchemist made this beat, I've always loved how he does that. dude's got such an ear

[@DurfMcAllister]

@@_WeDontKnow_ Alchemist is a genius

[@ChanceBloodstoner]

I make your mom sound uneasy

[@Tube-tb4he]

I recently read J Dillas biography and it talks a lot about his (and by extension those that came after him) use of subtly sliding elements around to create microtime feels like that

[@Paul-zh2jp]

speed of light is too slow - musicians

[@crifox16]

and astronauts too

[@brantelope_1531]

Not quite my tempo

[@woodfur00]

World is too big

[@marcusjohansson668]

Thing is, in 100 years or so (if the human race survives that long and civilization stays like what we call civilization today) we might have instant communications on subatomic level. We already know about entangling, how changing one atom at one place IMMEDIATELY also changes the antiparticle. (Higgins atom) Figure out how to control that, and you have instant communication ANYWHERE (not just on earth)... :) Forget ai and all that bs. Fusion power and superposition tech is what we want to experience.. The development of a civilization does not only demand more cowbell, it demands more power...

[@shryggur]

Funny how it's much faster than speed of sound but still too slow for sound

[@user-im9yx1nw1s]

Ah if only there was an announcement for a new Sungazer album at the end of this video that would’ve really been the icing on the cake… oh well

[@AdamNeely]

If only. Damn you, Brian!

[@KitagumaIgen]

...or news about some interesting collaborations...

[@jakerz0]

Yeah… guess I’ll just have to enjoy this un-iced cake like an animal…

[@BrunoNeureiter]

Oh that's the yellow Sponsorblock bar at the end?

[@8lec_R]

Hello fellow sponsorblock user​@@BrunoNeureiter

[@lukasnielsen1263]

I think it sounds scary because the lyrics sounds like they were written using magazine cutouts and delivered in an unposted envelope under each of Drake's family members' home.

[@George_vv]

One of the best things about Meet the Grahams is that it's an Alchemist old school ambient instrumental.

[@CarlWheats1fan]

I love how Adam answers the “is A# Bb” question in almost all of these lol

[@spawn302]

Adam always answers "Sort of, but no." As though he's saying it as a fact. Nothing is stopping someone from using notating an A# as Bb l and vice versa. It will sound the same, although it would be stupid to do so. I think the more accurate answer is "Yes, but it's context can shift dramatically depending on which one you're using."

[@illford]

​@@spawn302in fairness is that not what he said

[@EPmager]

B#, E maaaajor!!!....

[@spawn302]

@illford6921 he mentioned the context part. But like if you were to ask him to answer yes or no on the street, he would say no. And then if he elaborated he would say "although they are the same pitch, they are not the same because of the context" But in my opinion the answer is yes, they are the same and in more cases are the same than they are not. The only notable change is the context, but still, the notes in of themselves really are the same. It's just semantics lol. Adam is more like "No. Kind of. But no." When I feel that is more like "Yes. Context can be affected, but yes."

[@qwerty687687]

​@@spawn302 noone's stopping you from writing english words with the greek alphabet, but it will be unnecessarily hard to figure out what you want to say.

[@ryanallen2001]

No new music in the fall, got it.

[@vevorjepo1456]

I was the one who asked the meet the grahams question on insta and I cannot believe how cool it was to see it be answered in this video. Thanks!

[@A.B.H_da-goat]

Shostakovich mentioned ❗

[@kernicterus1233]

Dude … you’re a fan too??? The world needs more Shosty (in my opinion).

[@A.B.H_da-goat]

@@kernicterus1233 thats the realest shit ive heard all year

[@yoavshati]

@@kernicterus1233 A lot more!

[@the_pieces_fit]

@@kernicterus1233 that's gonna be tough the man is dead (i agree though)

[@HeldenFurlong]

And it wasn't @Tantacrul this time!

[@yoavshati]

One extra problem with the latency when jamming online is that if one side adjusts their playing to be together with what they're hearing, the other side now hears them twice as late

[@espenstoro]

Which is cool in another setting, playing on very big stages, depending on your monitoring situation. We're inherently quite good at compensating for it.

[@lysolcoke2HD]

@@espenstoro That is one of the coolest parts about watching DCI shows to me. Less noticeable on the brass (except for the BIG hits) but you can really feel it when the drums are out of sync. That is not a small field and it's amazing how well those snares in the back can match with the pit that's 25-50m away so well to make it sound so clean is amazing.

[@Bi_scotti_5]

I am so excited for new Sungazer music to not be released in the fall

[@klaxoncow]

Well, they say that, in jazz, the notes you don't play are as important as the notes you do play. So, by that logic, the silence between album releases are as important as the albums themselves? Maybe?

[@breitbartsimpson4940]

@@klaxoncow its like wooten says, you're only ever a half month away from being in tune

[@ViktorRadoslavov]

so you're saying drake lost?

[@abijah]

is anyone reasonable saying he didn't?

[@robbirose7032]

Drake only plays with A minor

[@adityanemlekar]

@@robbirose7032 🤣🤣🤣

[@billyalarie929]

Big loss

[@jeffreyhanc1711]

Apparently even Dimitri Shostakovich is riding with team K-Dot. Drake is done.

[@purposefully.verbose]

there's actually a sound weapon that was developed to stop people speaking at demonstrations, and it works by projecting the speaker's own voice back at them about 20ms late.

[@Freakmaster480]

In some of the best applications it's also basically unnoticable to the surrounding people. 2 sets of high frequency speakers are set to destructively interfere right beside the speaker so only they notice the effect.

[@paradise_valley]

Sound weapon sounded like overkill until I read the rest of this….

[@wildfire9280]

@@paradise_valley Although, we do have actual mundane sound weapons in addition to the more ‘weapony’ weapons.

[@paradise_valley]

@@wildfire9280 yep, thanks for opening my eyes to the choice of terminology being valid!

[@seanperkinsmusic]

The melody from "Laura Palmer's Theme" also signals some deep fear

[@Deady24]

Thematically, also very relevant and honestly brutal

[@Constable_Chud]

Until the resolution, that is. The beginning creates an ominous and foreboding presence, but the climactic moment in that track is absolutely agonizing beauty and pure emotion. To me, it's the embodiment of loss as a soundtrack.

[@ishuboshi]

i had no idea it was sampled and had to listen to the song again to find it. wild

[@davidthepangolin]

As far as I can tell Meet the Grahams didn’t actually sample Laura Palmer’s Theme, it’s a similar ostinato though

[@davidthepangolin]

The piano is actually from I Want To Make It by Timothy Carpenter and Trinity

[@thescoobymike]

Alchemist is one of the greatest producers ever

[@henryjones8287]

Love the prod on the Curren$y and Gibbs album

[@collinbeal]

He's definitely in the top 20. It will take longer to see where the dust settles on it, but your statement isn't at all contentious.

[@Chamuko_03]

​@@henryjones8287 Jet Life 🛩️🛩️🛩️

[@DOOM00799]

Top three for me are madlib dilla and metal fingers

[@martinisbutik]

A tiny correction to 5:33. Nearly all long-distance internet traffic travels over fibre-optic cable which has lower speed of light of about 200000 km/s. The physical propagation delay is thus 50% longer than stated in the video. Network routers add additional delay.

[@flugkiller6162]

He isn't claiming that such a perfect internet connection exists, he's just saying that even if it existed, the delay would be non-negligible, thus jamming with people across the atlantic will never be the same as doing it in the same room, no matter the technological advancements in the distant future.

[@icedragon769]

Also, the 20ms figure New York to Paris is one-way, if you're going to collaborate with someone in real time, simultaneously reacting to a thing that they are doing, it's the round-trip latency which matters: 40ms idealized line-of-sight speed-of-light communication latency. In actual practice, the communication latency, plus network latency, plus processing latency, all together means that the only way to get a tolerable latency for real-time internet music production is like 100 miles

[@tkava7906]

You experience significant delays even when you are in the same room. It takes sound about 3 ms to travel 1 meter through air. The 20 ms delay is equivalent to standing 7 m apart.

[@Constable_Chud]

Scientists are now figuring out the means of utilizing the full bandwidth of the fiber-optic as well. Previously, the way it was coded allowed it to be fast but not utilize the entirety. The improvement makes it _1.2 million times faster._ UK researchers have hit 301 terabit per *_second_* of transfer speed by unlocking the E and S bands with an optical processor. So where a base of 242 _megabit_ per second is considered acceptable in the United States, 301 *_terabit_* per second is monstrously fast.

[@michaelscalisi4316]

@@Constable_Chud You can make the throughput impossibly fast, but that still won't address latency.

[@astian_sebus]

As a church organist, I'm constantly dealing with sound delay. It might be the choir standing away from the organ and you always have to be a bid before the pulse or the console placed away from the organ itself. The most extreme setting I played in was a huge cathedral with the organ in the back and the console in the front. The delay was really large. I only was able to play slow pieces, otherwise you would be almost one beat ahead playing in comparison to the sound you're hearing. Very mind bugling. Interestingly, your brain is somewhat able to make up for the delay, after some time. But of course you're playing on your own. Playing with others is immensely more difficult.

[@evanc.1591]

As a church-goer, let me say a quick thank you. What you do is a lot of work, and we appreciate it!

[@jibicusmaximus4827]

interesting insight! thanks.

[@jell0goeswiggle]

I want a mind bugle. Unrelated: I always forget about organs with detached/non-mechanical consoles. I started reading your comment thinking "The longest pipe is like, what, 20-30 feet? How bad can the latency be?" Imagine playing while encased in gelatin.

[@Crumsie]

Using lo-fi music to practice in that way is absolutely brilliant, thanks man

[@stephenspackman5573]

So, at the turn of the century when most people were still using modems for their net connections but we had access to a 10Gbps optical network in the lab, I was involved in streaming research. One thing we did at some point was some coast-to-coast Internet jazz jams (Montreal/Vancouver and Montreal/Stanford), with (because of the speed of light delays you mention) ping times of about 70-90ms. The results were socially delightful but musically less so, until someone-IIRC the drummer-said, can we _increase_ the latency to a musically useful duration, so we can play the network connection _as a delay._ And of course that was just a matter of setting some buffer sizes to outrageous values. Fun was had late into the night.

[@AltName7]

That's an interesting work around.

[@elucified]

Adam being an absolute chad by including the clickbait question right at the beginning and not making us have to sit through the entire video to get to it. Of course his answers to the other Qs are already interesting as hell to us regulars, but it's still appreciated ❤ Edit: hahahahaha Sungazer manager working overtime to make sure Adam doesn't accidentally leak anything 😂

[@pheonixrises11]

absolutely! usually I click off if I can’t find the answer to the clickbait question right away, so I actually watched this one all the way through

[@jabonthemoon]

Wow that e+b pedal tone progression really was astounding.

[@chloeburbank_]

I've never clicked on a notif so fast

[@zapzapfishes5878]

E7 to C (III7 to I) is really interesting to me, as it seem to fit the pattern of how dominant 7ths usually can resolve like a glove: G7 to C (standard V7 to I) Bb7 to C (backdoor resolution bVII7 to I) Db7 to C (tritonus substitution bII7 to I) The pattern is that going up a minor third (ie. 3 semitones) from the first dominant chord type lands you at the next one. Adding E7 to the collection would complete the cycle, landing us back again at G7. Also, moving from E7 to C rather than the expected A(m) kind of mirrors a pretty common progression: The deceptive cadence, going from G7 to the Am (V7 to vi). In both cases, the dominant 7th lead into either the relative minor or major of the chord it is most expected to resolve to. Maybe toying a bit around with it could lead to some interesting stuff that is almost conventional in how it sounds, but not quite.

[@IamSooty]

F E D C# is actually the ostinato in Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole!

[@esouka_the_snowman]

Wow I never noticed that! That was why it sounded familiar to me.

[@RobespierreThePoof]

Good ear

[@user-ww8nz5oo2l]

let me take you out on a limb here. in slang, a "C note" is a 100 dollar bill. he structured the chords to spell out fed money (FED C#) in reference to drake and his crew. he truly does think this deeply in his song creation (ie freedom)

[@trainzack]

Another option for internet jamming is Ninjam, which solves the latency issue by making it really big. It purposely delays the incoming sounds by a whole number of bars, and then everything syncs up to a fixed loop length. It's a vastly different experience than typical live jamming because your sound is delayed by an entire section, but it's still a valuable process.

[@Zawmbbeh]

I think a VRChat karaoke world also does this by running ahead the backing track to sync with the approx. 2 second delay in VRChat’s vocal codec

[@oghene2778]

I always liked how meet the grahams is actually in a minor (plus a few cents)

[@_WeDontKnow_]

if you trynna mine some rock then you're probably a minerrrrrrrrrrrr

[@Fematika]

I never understood why people say this. Most of the song has a C# so cannot be A minor. There’s an A minor over F chord in the song for one repeat, and there’s also an A major chord.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

bad reading comprehension moment: "in a minor *what* ?, plus a few cents? -How does that impact whether it's in a minor... scale?, chord progression?" Took me a whole ass minute. That "actually" really threw me for a loop.

[@cryo311]

@@Fematikaso chromaticism just isn’t a thing then

[@tfwnoyandere]

​@@cryo311 its not just chromaticism if its literally changing the tonic. how can you have a minor key with a major tonic

[@mschmidt62]

Good old fashioned content! I like it! ...and the manager cut-in was fantastic.

[@nu80sdiscofunk]

that chord progression was rad af.. love your videos AND band, whenever the album comes out! i hope i can see you guys again this year 😃

[@toyotagaz]

What album? 👁️👁️

[@kimmorgan379]

I'm so pleased you're using this channel and your reach to promote your live music work. I hope this grows your audience for live music and means both you and the people who come to your show have a fricken' awesome time!

[@noonesfang131]

I really agree with what you said about piano. I am primarily a guitar player, but i enjoy playing bass the most out of the instruments i play even over guitar. It wasn't until i bought a piano that i really started learning more about theory. I have always sucked at sight reading, and in high school I would fake it on the day we got the sheet music, then when I got home I would put it into my computer so I could hear what it was supposed to sound like then practice so i didn't look like i didn't know what i was doing the next day. Regardless of exercises to learn the fretboard, the keys on the piano are just so much easier to identify what notes I'm playing. Learning drums has really helped me with rhythm since i don't need to worry about what note I'm hitting. If i had a drum set and a piano when i was younger i am confident that i would be a much better musician today.

[@bryandickerson5365]

That is some prime music education Adam! As a music teacher for almost 45 years I am envious of the clarity with which you provide ideas and information. Here’s an off-the-wall question: I don’t normally watch the “Got Talent” shows, but I did catch the performances of Sydney Christmas on the BGT show. I loved them, especially her version of ‘Tomorrow’! I was knocked out by her singing, but quickly realized that the arrangement and chord substitution choices had a large part to play in the impact of that performance. I’ve looked on the internet, but can’t find any info on the arrangement and who wrote/performed it. It would be cool if someone did an “exposé” on the talent behind the “Talent”. Also - a breakdown of her ‘Tomorrow’ arrangement would be much fun. Keep up your awesome work!

[@dannyknox4314]

Adding some piano to the mix is spot on. Mom required me to take piano on the way to drum lessons. Getting into the 5th grade band and onward made me the de facto mallet guy as I could read music for bells and tympani. While I wanted to be in the overpopulated ranks of the snare drum line it proved beneficial for everything I've done since. Thanks mom!

[@chrisharrison809]

Scope Barry Harris’s concept on dominants. The G7/Bb7/Db7/E7 are interchangeable. Taking you back to C or, to their own 1!

[@CarrotStopper_382]

And then drake has “you a poopy pants you a poopy pants”

[@-Strike]

"liar liar pants on fire Kendrick lemme do mah dance" 🗣️ 🔥

[@5chr0d1nger5cat]

learned a lot from you past years on youtube, getting me deeper into jazz. Just saw you on Gent Jazz and I must say it was an excellent show I really enjoyed it. Thanks for being an inspiration man, love it.

[@BetterMonsters]

Can't recommend this show highly enough for anyone who has the opportunity; Sungazer brings an energy to the stage that you just can't pull from a recording

[@RobertDPore]

You *can* resolve E7 to Cmaj7 with finality, it just requires different voice leading. Using the voicing you give us, if you voice the Cmaj7 as C-G-B-E-C, it works - the B resolves to C and the D drops down to B in contrary motion, making a satisfying resolution.

[@adammaness]

Spot on

[@TypingHazard]

The better question is why E7 to C6 sounds weird but E7 to Amin7 sounds normal Same set of notes, just a different inversion, but if you resolve it to a C6 people look at you like you're missing a limb

[@galaxylucia1898]

I can’t believe I hadn’t subscribed sooner. It’s this music theory breakdown and the suggested riffs you come up with @09:38 that are so enjoyable for me. Thank you for taking the time to answer so many questions!!

[@Ba4rden]

Thank you for sharing the tour dates! I'll make sure to come vibe out with you in Pori 🎷

[@michaelseitz8938]

This was an interesting watch 💖 Would you consider analysing why the Twin Peaks theme by Angelo Badalamenti sounds like "a cosy home"?

[@JeremyForTheWin]

I would bet the echo effects, the resolution of the loop to major, and the fact that it's a familiar chord sequence

[@eriksteverman]

the thing he says about the metaverse is so comforting omg thank you for that factoid lol

[@Fretlessness]

You are such a fantastic educator. Been a fan for a long time, just consistently blown away by yer style & content

[@igormarques6912]

8:10 Chico Buarque's "Cálice" (in portuguese, chalice has the same pronunciation as "cale-se", meaning "shut up" or "be silent". It was a protest song against the censorship of the military dictatorship. There are even videos of a performance where the microphones were cut off when they started singing this song, which was banned at the time) starts with that exact voicing and i find it beautiful! It goes Eadd2 - G#7 - A7 - A#° (some play F#/A#) - B4(7) - B7 - Eadd2 And it continues with arpeggios of C#m, C#m7M, C#m7, C#m6, C#mb6, C#m6, then B4(7/9) B7 to resolve in Eadd2 to either repeat the introduction or the same cadence described now It's a really beautiful song and i don't have the melody at top of the head but it's kinda odd and heartbraking too. But the lyrics ties it all together... (english is not my first language, i'm sorry if i misspelled something and i don't know why i said all that stuff lol, everytime i see Eadd2 i remember that song) Side note, i also really like E B F# G# Eb E on the guitar

[@GodMcQueen]

*I enjoyed this, top notch stuff.*

[@something_different7632]

0:16 A MINORRRRRRRRRRRR

[@malalark]

Love that Q+A's are back!! Also started to learn the bass (after years being a drummer and keyboardist) and finally completed Sir Duke. I now know what Adam meant that the bass is the superior instrument (kidding!!... or not). It's hella fun!!

[@AshishDha]

very nice! loved the bit about difference in latency perception between visual and aural - never realized that!

[@flacovitantonio]

2:27 Im a simple guy. I read the Yip Harburg quote, I press like

[@Necropheliac]

Just wanted to say that in a world where it’s hard for anyone’s creative work to get noticed, because the internet and social media is completely over saturated with everyone’s creative projects, when someone criticizes your work, even if it’s hard to hear, be grateful that someone actually saw or listened to what you did. Being ignored is infinitely worse than being criticized. Be grateful for the critique, even if it sounds mean.

[@unpredictableaxolotl3762]

Been a while since I checked in on this channel. Dude just keeps getting better.

[@reecec626]

We miss you and your videos!

[@IdoN_Tlikethis]

I feel like your making the delay seem like a bigger problem than it actually is. To put things into perspective, 25ms delay is what you get at a distance of just 8.6 meters For 2ms you need a distance of less than 70cm. So a drummer naturally already hears their kick drum with a delay of more than 2ms

[@dinonugget109]

0:42 reminds me of ravel rapsodie espagnole

[@janpr9712]

Thanks for a great show at North Sea Jazz with Sungazer Plus. You made a lot of new friends 🥳

[@lorincohen3020]

Probably already been noted here, but E7 is related and does resolve to Cmaj7 if we add the b9. Then it shares a Bdim arepeggio with G7b9, Bb7b9 & Db7b9. These are what Barry Harris calls the “Family of Dominants”

[@rome8180]

I think the best way to deal with criticism is to not read reviews. I have many projects out in the world -- music, a novel, a podcast -- and I've found I'm much happier if I ignore reviews completely. That's not to say there's no value in a thoughtful, well meaning critique from someone whose expertise or taste you trust. That's the idea behind writing workshops, after all. But reading reviews from strangers is less constructive, and more destructive.

[@clgn]

do more rap breakdowns!

[@graydawg12358]

Hey @AdamNeely, I am a jazz rock fusion type musician and I had just decided to check some of Sungazer’s music and I absolutely loved Perihelion and I played it for my mom in the car. She had never really heard anything like it and she absolutely loved it. She used to be a classical oboeist but unfortunately cannot play it anymore due to the problems that playing the oboe for as much as she had could cause health issues. Thank you for making such moving art and making so unique.

[@gregrice1354]

Thanks Adam. MANY KEY lessons of Music, perception, music, film/music interaction and the Power/Magic of Music in this video. You may need to break it up into about 20 video shorts. Thanks again!

[@EthanJbleethan]

0:32 wtf is that song please somone tell me

[@justinhockemeyer8237]

Mozart- symphony No. 40 👍🏻

[@nurtington]

was not expecting to hear that the speed of light can be too slow for musicians

[@thatotherted3555]

I never expected a lesson in the physics of information tech in an Adam Neely video. Awesome.

[@Fakery]

> Does E7 resolve to C? Yes. There are 4 dominants that resolve to the tonic. In C they are, G7, Db7, Bb7, E7. These are listed in order of familiarity. You'll notice these roots form a diminished chord, and also each chord shares a diminished chord. By that I mean, with each chord most of the notes B, D, F, Ab are included, and this diminished chord is what is resolving to C. If you want other usages and implications of this, look up Barry Harris' music theory, and specifically what he calls the Family of Dominants. As a curiosity, it also works with predominants. F, D, Ab, and B, predominants listed from common to least common in C

[@larrysfinger648]

2:08 not necessarily a threat to Drake's family (unless he's threatening to be a better father figure to Adonis lol) but more so a forcible reveal of the self to his own family

[@josephnation9063]

I mean he says that he thinks people like Drake should die. Seems like it's pretty transparently a threat.

[@Ringowasprettygood]

It’s truly one of the most harrowing and nerve racking rap song ever

[@goldenstarmusic1689]

That sharp and flat thing answered my whole 23 years of life wondering why people switch it up. Thank you for that breakdown in music theory!

[@jordanb.4514]

holy hell. you've really amplified my appreciation for the music _that much_ further. i freakin' love you dude 😭

[@studioqueen4902]

5 views in 5 seconds? Bro fell off fs

[@mikegleim5241]

One of your better Q and A vids! Well thought out answers! AAaaand fatso tour date announcements! SO glad y'all are hitting on the right scenes: Snarky and Domi +JD!

[@mixenne]

02:50 Help that piano now sounds detuned! Always good to see a new vid from you.

[@finelerv]

Your advice on improvisation was legitimately mind blowing. Learning music often feels like its not immediately clear how to go from knowing the notes and scales, to actually playing something musical. Thanks Adam!

[@muchotrouble]

So glad Yeeeeeeee is coming back to the UK. Josh is also a welcome addition. One of the best in guitar world right now, love all his stuff

[@Polfor]

I've been watching for a while, and I have very fond memories of your last show in Bordeaux, I hope you'll come again sometime!

[@elliotmere]

Wow, somehow I didn't understand the fact that the chorus effect which I was hearing when I was recording my voice on a friend's PC was inside my head and because of latency, thanks for mention that

[@AdreamAA]

thank you so much for the tip for improvisation on bass. It's something that I've needed to work on for a bit now but I didn't know what to do.

[@PianoDentist]

During the Pandamit, our band flirted with Jamulus. We all lived within 20 miles of each other. It was trial and error. Locally all band members had to relocate their home studios or run ethernet cables along the floor to the router - because wi-fi also introduces latency - and find a compromise between low buffer size and audio quality. We had a couple of sessions and got around 20ms, which was just about usable, but not great.

[@IMarcoMI]

Awesome that you'll get to play at Pori jazz, sharing the stage of many music legends throughout time in a location most people wouldn't think about!

[@amandaroberts6535]

Adam successfully explains why it’s very difficult to sing Happy Birthday together over Zoom or Discord. 👍

[@yitzharos]

I am OBSESSED with your cover of "Run Away With Me" it's musical cream to my ears

[@yutuberocks22]

8:04 sounds a lot like the Genesis song Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats. It's a little different, but it's in the same key and is probably the same strumming pattern. Highly recommend checking that out if anyone else thought that sounded pretty.

[@fearitselfpinball8912]

This is a superb channel.

[@jweihaas]

I was able to jam with students during covid using a service called SoundJack. Required a hard connected cable - no wifi. But was able to play in sync with one another.

[@martinheuschober4341]

those two points about (bass) improvisation & learning the piano and its limitations were eye opening!

[@hamham_6411]

0:43 thank you for noting the sample, i knew it was familiar from _somewhere_ but knowing it's a twin peaks sample makes the song even more glorious if that's even possible

[@andrewsoltisz3383]

Great video as always!

[@QuinSexton]

I love the sound of the pedal points chord progression. It’s the feeling of motion and being frozen all at the same time.

[@WhereIsMyKek]

About piano limitations - there are midi keyboards with added functionality like aftertouch, polyphonic pitch bending with every individual key moving left-right, vibrato or whatever via variable pressure on a key after the initial hit, an so on.

[@siljamickeify]

Yay!! Bought tickets for the Stockholm gig now! See you there!!!

[@parkerpolen]

Adam, thank you for an excellent video. I would like to share my thoughts on the V/vi resolution to the tonic. What I have collected from my experiences is that all of the dominant chords in the diminished 7th chord built off of the diatonic dominant chord are available resolutions to the tonic. With that logic applied, G7 - C is the strongest resolution, Bb7 is the backdoor dominant and is a strong resolution option, Db7 is also a solid resolution, being the tritone substitution, and E7, the final chord in the V7 dim 7 series is also an option, being a resolution option to the upper structure of the relative minor. It would be interesting to assign a definitive name to this chord. Mind that both Bb7 and Db7 are generally played with a #11, so a potentially interesting idea would be to add that A# to E7 - maybe even voicing it without the 5 for more of an E7b5 sound (with the b5 having the potential to resolve to the 7 if Cmaj7) would be an interesting way of solidifying a pedagogical approach to the use of this chord. The #11 also revokes the problem of having 2 common tones, which you had mentioned as being one of the factors that makes it a softer resolution than other options.

[@parkerpolen]

It is also important to mention that the inverse of this dominant chord is equally relevant and acceptable in a chord progression. The chord progression - B7 Cmaj7 - has been talked about by Herbie Hancock, and the reason that it works is because of B7's resolution to the LOWER structure of E-7. With this idea in mind, the direct inverse is E7 - Cmaj7 (again, with Cmaj7 being the upper structure of A-7).

[@tangibleghooosty]

A Kendrick question: Why does the diminished chord in the chorus of ELEMENT work? An unrelated annecdote: my favorite band Johnny Foreigner (indie rock/pop punk) primarily uses a EADABC# tuning, and as a result will often use chord voicings very similar to that E B F# G# B E. Their chords generally have a very airy quality to them, it's really gorgeous

[@willlee465]

I've always thought we were destined to eventually live in a vr matrix reality (used reality twice there), but this video has changed my mind. Thanks Adam. By the way, I can't wait for Sungazer to play in NJ again. We saw you guys at Wonderbar in Asbury Park, and it was off the hook. Keep it up! You guys rock!

[@niccolomarcon]

finally, sungazer in italy, so happy!

[@MakingaStink]

This was great! One thing I’d like to understand better is the relationship between frequency and tone. A guitar with tone rolled down can sound very bassy, but the pitch still won’t be the same as a bass itself.

[@benderbi]

I'm from Venezuela planning to move to Spain and one of the things that get me more exited is that you guys actually tour there lol I hope I can finally experience one of your amazing shows soon 🙏🏼

[@ProffessorMusic]

Man... You properly explained enharmonics and why theory concepts sometimes just barely work, but really don't, and why you need to throw it out the window sometimes in one digestible video. VERY well done! (disclaimer: only throw it out the window if you already know at least a couple widely accepted ways to explain why something does or doesn't work!)

[@ProffessorMusic]

Also: my dad is literally a professional physicist and hobby musician. He tried to get me onto Jamulus and stuff during lockdown; ironically the latency alone literally made me hate everything, but despite perfectly explaining how it works, the latency didn't bother him like that lol