//This site is a WIP made by a novice, responsive design hasn't been implemented yet and mobile compatibility is not guaranteed.
I enjoy thinking about art quite often, specially music,
be it about the meta/philosophical aspects or about specific techniques used in a medium.
Here's a collection of thoughs I had in my head at some point,
now in written form, not to be taken too seriously.
//In response to Nosestorm's "Breakdown VIP" being posted on a music recommendation channel on a Discord server:
(...) It's been so long since I last heard it that the harmony sounds completely new to me, product of knowing fuck all about theory and being damn near tone-deaf at the time. There's definitely the whole deadmau5/PIXL/The Queenstons non diatonic major chord thing going on for what I gather (give Ghosts 'n' Stuff another listen if you want an example), need to do a quick analysis.
Here's said quick analysis, chords are F#¹, D, A, B, A (judging by their roots), all major as I suspected. It's a really cool sound that luckily isn't as uncommon in EDM as you may think.
¹: (Gb really, kind of. It's complicated since it seems to be in "F# minor", but all chords, even the tonic, are major. So F# major is a valid name in this situation, though an impractical one otherwise, where Gb is the standard)
The inner voice is there just to fill the gaps and hint at the harmony of the track since the bass and melody don't give it away and I don't feel like transcribing the pads right now. Without it there is virtually no way you can tell the F#/Gb and B chords are supposed to be major, instead of minor as the melody seems to hint on its own, since you never hear the melody play the third of either chord (A#/Bb and D# respectively) over their roots, but plays them over other bass notes. Which I think it's a pretty genius move on Noisestorm's part, keep the bass and melody completely diatonic by themselves and add spice with other elements.
Chef's kiss, bravo, I love it, gotta do something like that in my own music some day.
Out of curiosity here's what Breakdown VIP might sound like if Noisestorm was a slightly worse musician went for something more vanilla, completely diatonic in the key of F# minor. Melody and bassline stay the same of course, only the middle voice changes.
//The following text is an edit of a few Discord messages, saved here for posterity cuz' it's real neat ok?!?!
Here are some moments that made me go "wow, nice": Atlantis by Au5 has a drop (around the 4:20 mark (nice)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM_xL9qJUOQ&t=260s)
where the kick, instead of hitting on 1, hits on the "and" of 4 of the previous bar and it ABSOLUTELY fooled 17 year old me into thinking it was some kind of odd time signature.
Also Glass River by Sylvir (FKA Sakuraburst) has a rest on the downbeat of the section after the intro (time-stamp: https://youtu.be/3oYci_VqAZs?t=840s) and it puts the kick on the "and" of 1 instead. It blew my mind the first time I heard it, and the next twenty times as well, it completely shifts your perception of the groove and it kinda sounds like a fake metric modulation until the beat comes back around and repeats.
Oh, speaking of which, I just remembered that long ago Tristam made a song that has a metric modulation and it's a REAL smooth one, I don't think I even noticed for a long time, that's how smooth it (my brain) is. On the second half of the second drop of his and Rogue's remix of Zomboy's Here to Stay (feat. Lady Chann) (2:17 mark for context: https://youtu.be/p7j5mxA2eb0?t=136) the quarternote "changes" to a quarternote PLUS a single eightnote triplet (am I saying that right? I'm kinda rusty on tuplets to be honest) and the drum pattern changes from half time to full time. So it feels like it goes from a half-time dubsteppy 150BPM rhythm to full on triplet swing glitch hop at 112BPM (aprox) in the span of a second, fucking BALLER move on part of the lads, incredible musicianship on display here, the track also has some cool non diatonic chords and even ends on a major tonic.
Uhhh anyways thanks for coming to my TED Talk on cool rhythms that screw with my head.