What if Radiohead used 31 notes per octave instead of 12?
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- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- How would Radiohead's True Love Waits sound if we reinterpreted it with microtonal harmony? In todays microtonal music theory deep dive and video essay, I, along with @stephenweigel and @braelen explore the xenharmonic world of 31 EDO (also called 31 TET) by transforming Radiohead's music microtonally through microtonal chord progressions using subminor 7 chords, sesquiflat chords, half flat chords, half sharp chords, supermajor 7 chords, and neutral chords. By explaining how to build microtonal chords and harmony we can stretch the fabric of western tonal harmony in ways that are exciting and new, while focusing on the fundamentals of good songwriting and musical story telling. This video is great for musicians who have a decent grasp on traditional western music theory, who want a "microtones explained" video. Also for anyone who wants to know how to modulate to a half sharp chord! We want to show you that anyone can incorporate microtones into their songwriting practically and easily. We'll take a look at 31 EDO scales, 31 EDO chords, advanced music theory concepts, microtonal singing, microtonal bass playing, microtonal jazz, microtonal piano and microtonal notation through edostep. Oh yeah, and we have a Lumatone. Gotta love those isomorphic keyboards. In our cover of True Love Waits, we hope to capture the depth and nuance of Thom Yorke's songwriting through this microtonal reinterpretation. Braelen and I sit down near the end of the video to discuss the finer points of the roll of songwriters, instrumentalists, composers and sound designers in "serving the song".
Stephen's links:
/ @stephenweigel
www.stephenweigelcomposerperf...
/ stephenweigelmicrotonal
Braelen's links:
/ @braelen
open.spotify.com/album/6ghrLD...
Levi's Links:
Levi McClain's Music & Free Samples: linktr.ee/levimcclainmusic
Levi McClain's Instagram: / levimcclainmusic
Levi McClain's TikTok: / levimcclainmusic
#musictheory #musictheory101 #musictheorylessons #radiohead #thomyorke #radioheadmusictheory #musiclesson #microtonality #microtonesexplained #harmony #chords #composer #composition #drums #piano #bass #musician #musicinterpretation #rhythm #31edo #microtonalmusictheory #levimcclainmusictheory #levimusictheory #radioheadcover #modulation #fretlessbass #lumatone #septavox #vocals #songbreakdown
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:45 - Microtonal Music Theory
01:42 - What is 31 EDO?
04:05 - EDOSTEP
04:47 - Neutral, Subminor & Supermajor Chords
10:51 - Storytelling with Microtonality with Braelen
22:19 - True Love Waits Cover 
Видеоклипы
Corrections:
01:23 Stephen say “A flat” but graphic incorrectly shows “A half sharp”
05:48 I mention thirdless Cmaj7 (which is correct) but the example incorrectly shows a 5thless Cmaj7 instead. Wires crossed!
I can't believe they didn't call the 31-tone scale Baskin-Robins.
I mean, this stuff isn't written in stone... You could call it whatever you want! I guess we'll see what wordage sticks in 100 years lol
57 EDO shall be known as the Hienz tunning
@@AspartameBoyand Tomato Ketchup Will be known as Heinz
Thank you for having me on the video! Can't wait for whatever makes my ears uncomfortable next
It was great fun, can’t wait for the next one!
Music!
This is really impressive, I'd love to see more songs retuned (if thats correct term) into 31-TET or basically more 31-TET music in general.
Absolutely! You can use that term for it for sure. Always down for more 31
Check out Sevish
@Paeioh check out my a cappella 31-TET arrangement of what a wonderful world then
Would transposed be the right word?
@@Telepathic_Monkey_ExperimentI'd say translated would be a better word.
Those are some of the most beautiful vocals I've ever heard. The slight out-of-tune feeling in comparison in comparison to the other instruments, how strangled and stretched they sound, like an over-stretched memory trying to escape your head, to be poetic.
Sometimes the "out-of-tune" feeling was a bit overwhelming, but this still is one of the most beautiful and haunting things I've heard.
I hope there'll be a lot more micro-tonal music in the future, because it's a whole new dimension of music, just waiting to be explored.
Thank you! Very well put with the vocals. Totally agree. The possibilities seem endless when we open up to these different ideas in harmony and tuning!
I love this collab omggggggggggg
Thank you for all the amazing work you're doing!
Fascinated to hear Braelen's thoughts on the subject of singing with microtonal elements. He describes the experience quite accurately.
Cheers!
incredible cover, really delicate balance here
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! Lot of attention to detail is required with these projects.
Wow this video is just Incredible. The research, the music, the commentary, the visuals. Super well done. Hope you gain more subs!
This was incredible, very well done!
More covers! This was amazing! The complexity of the harmonies was an auditory orgasm. ❤ The vocals were amazing and very haunting. This cover was perfection.
oh my god, seeing the production quality i would have assumed that you were a music youtuber that had like 100K+ subs that flew under my radar! amazing work! subbed :3
Hahaha appreciate that! We'll get there in a a few years hopefully. Until then, I'll just keep getting better and focus on providing good resources and quality content for ya'll!
@@LeviMcClain I would love to hear some Kid A in this style, it sounded beautiful !
Very interesting. For what it's worth, I found the cover of True Love Waits way too busy - it didn't allow the microtonal aspects to "sing".
On the other hand it by no means sounds "weird" or off putting. If they wanted to make a microtonal pop song they succeeded.
this was done so onestly, passonately and authentically I was in tears during the entire hearing of the arrangement
That is incredibly kind of you to say. Thank you!
This is super cool and educational and now i want to make music with 31 tet
you bunch of nerds that was great!!!! thank you!!! wow what a stunning and orginal cover.
How to Disapear next please! that already plays with dissonance. Much love
Their orchestral masterpiece.
Thank you so much! Glad you liked it. Can't wait to explore more of this stuff.
listening to this with an open mind was incredibly challenging and took me multiple listens, but i eventually heard it different. it started sounding much more right, and it was incredible. very spiritual experince!
❤
Wow! Your version of this heartbreaking song is truly a revelation. I think it captures another element and layer of longing and melancholia that the original simply implies but leaves empty like the negative space in a Japanese Zen painting.
Beautifully done. Cheers.
I love the sound and adventure-esque/curiosity of 31, I think the biggest problem I have with 31 is, and this is really the most important for me.... the melodies are just nowhere near as memorable as 12TET. As a musician, I love the endless possibilities. But it's kind of like vampires that never die. As Guillermo Del Toro once said, immortality is boring. Superman is cool, but he's boring. He can't really die. It's a weird thing. Having said that, I can see exactly why so many artists who delve into 31 rarely comeback. IMHO, I prefer a good mix 12/31. Maybe 12/24. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard do fantastic job at creating memorial melodies. I couldn't name or whistle one single SEVISH song. However, I can recall any Beatles song.
Thanks for your input! The wild sounds you can get from 31 are interesting to say the least! I see what you're saying and I agree to an extent. I wonder how much of it is a depth of familiarity issue. Western music, culture, instruments and hardware is not exactly set up to accommodate 31. We haven't grown up in a world which has thoroughly explored it, found the useful conventions within it, and defined it's use cases in a way that it feels as natural as 12. That being said, simplicity seems to be the key to memorability, so you might be onto something.
If more microtonal music used simple melodies it would be much more memorable. Early video game music is much more memorable than most of today's VGM but both are in 12 TET. It's just a matter of the older stuff bring crafted around melodies due to technical limitations and the design conventions that arose around them.
(not saying The Beatles made unsophisticated music but they aimed to craft memorable and melodic tunes)
really heavy, thank you for keeping it real!
Your videos are fun and informative, thank you!
Thank you for watching! Appreciate the support!!
This is such a cool exploration of sound. Fantastic. Makes me want to explore 31 TET for myself. I love the alien-like tensions and harmonies. Super fresh.
Your content is extremely niche and also very well made. Keep it up man!
i would be interest to hear this process applied to My Favorite Things in much the same way that Coltraine approached it where the main melody uses 1sts, 2nds, 4ths and 5ths in a way that does not favor neither major nor minor tonality.
That is a really interesting thought! I've gotten a few requests to do Giant Steps but with Neutral Harmony, this seems to be way more interesting of a concept though! I'll look into it, thank you Ian!
@@LeviMcClain no, giant steps would be a mess in another tonal system. its already an exploration of interesting tonal harmonics present in 12tet, i feel like it would completely lose its focus in any other tuning system
@@FilthyAnimal893 Giant Steps has been done to death in the microtonal community! Neil Haverstick probably did it first by playing 19-TET guitar. See:
-Nick Rushton-Givens's channel
-Lumi - Music & Theory "Giant Steps but it's microtonal MIDI in over 100 tunings"
-Giant Steps but it's in Neutral Thirds
-Giant Steps in 19-TET (Leonard Budd)
-#GiantStepsChallenge
-Giant Bells (Jingle Bells with the chords of Giant Steps in 15-TET)
-EVERY MICROTONAL GIANT STEPS AT ONCE
etc.
This is so helpful man. Love your videos!
Woah! That means a lot coming from you man. Mad respect for your music. Thank you!
Amazing job guys 👏👏👏
Thank you Tolgahan, always a pleasure!
Great video and what an amazing arrangement! So cool
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it
awesome work gentles.
Well done, guys - this is great!
Thank you!
This is probably one of the best remixes I have ever heard. Moving a song out of it's original temperament almost never goes well, but this was the opposite story. 31 really increased the emotion in the song. Hearing this beautifully dissonant and "out-of-tune" harmony was one of the best decisions of my life. Thank you for populating a sparse genre. ❤
That was... maddening. I'm afraid to accept its beauty.
What are we to do with our lives, but find beauty in the dissonance?
@@LeviMcClain you know the pieces fit!
As a piano tuner/technician for 48 years and having tuned 25,000 pianos and most to A-440 and some to A-432 I would certainly go crazy tuning to 31 notes in an octave. If I had to do that just once I would definitely look for a different job immediately. haha BTW I set an equal F to F temperament and never use anything but by tuning fork! Many people tune with an app now! Not as good as tuning by ear.
There are early keyboard instruments that accommodate 31, but as far as I know they are monochordic, so you don’t have to worry about unisons (thank god for that). I tuned a couple octaves of 144 TET a while back on an old Baldwin. It was painfully tedious. As I’m sure you know, pianos were definitely not designed for that level of resolution! Interesting timbral warping effect happens the higher you go as you get further and further from the tolerance the strings were designed under. Can’t beat the ear I suppose, particularly in the final estimation of tuning quality, although I’ve found TuneLab to be a lifesaver for quick pitch raises!
Cool that you get out of your comfort zone!
you are so underrated! you deserve more attentions
Thank you! With comments and support like yours, I'm sure we'll get there in no time!
incredible work
dudes, this is absolutely amazing. new sub!
Appreciate the support Saul!
@@LeviMcClain hey y'all guys know it! if you wanna make more good music, and keep the good music that you make...
I’m not a musician, but this was fascinating to watch. As a Radiohead fan, this cover is awesome!
Impressive! Thank you!
Thom needs to hear this it's absolutely insane
Loved learning from how this came together even though the vocals stuck out like a sore thumb in a way that I personally didn’t enjoy! Glad to have been challenged like that though, breath of fresh air.
great video
Underrated channel, glad I bumped into it.
Thank you!
I love this channel so much I don’t know why I have more subscribers, this is much higher quality content than I could ever make
Love it!!
Thank you!
this is so fricking radiohead
This is so cool 🤯
Wow. I loved this analysis because you talked about what the song *means* and how you interpreted it. Alot of music theorists on youtube completely ignore that
Thank you! It's an important perspective, that often gets overlooked.
Incredible ❤
Thank you!
more Radiohead than Radiohead. excellent work, and a great choice of song to showcase your microtonal chops.
It would be interesting to apply some of this science to "blue notes" found in Jazz. Some African and Scottish tonal systems also contain more than 12 notes
Indonesian, Arabic, and Indian too
Great idea! I'd love to explore that
I am speechless.
Zhea Erose (i think) is doing something I've rarely seen before - trying to make microtonal music that's actually pretty. She does an amazing job. Mike Battaglia also really uses it in a creative way but still plays quite pretty (infant eyes). In the off chance you haven't come across them yet, do make a point to!
Thom did have Jonny tune a piano in the studio to quarter steps in the kid a days
insane
🙏🙏🙏
that cover would work perfectly for the ending to a horror movie where the protagonist is so obsessed with someone they end up eating them. Fantastic job guys!!
I could totally see that! Thank you!
Many popular Classical pieces use trills that move the ear from one note to another. Might these be better/differently expressed as microtonal arpeggios or scales?
Great video, fascinating.
Totally depends on the application. How sparce or continuous is the transition? Which notes are used? Does the piece use microtonality anywhere else? All these things matter.
I'm sorry to do this but,
.....will it djent?!
lmao
Тоже думаю надо погрузить Ваганыча в 31
Love it... hugely affecting sounds. Weirdly, sounds a bit like Nine Inch Nails's 'Further Down the Spiral'.
The sounds you can get from stepping outside of 12 are so wonderful and weird and are totally worth exploring. Thank you!
23:58 Excelent Bass arrangement,
, Beautifull fade out
Thank you so much!
im an ignorant twit and i would love a youtuber to create a series that starts with the basics about understanding, notes, scales , majors , minors, sharps, flats and all these other weird terms that non musically trained people like myself become super confused by,, im pretty sure if you could do it in a way that idiots like me could grasp you would probably do quite well in regards to views , likes and subscriptions
I am so glad I chanced across your channel. I finally realize why I have such a hard time getting the music from my mind out into a program. I always have to settle for tones and sounds that never fit one to one with how I am hearing it in my head so I have to adjust and sometimes outright delete whole sections. I never understood why until watching this and realizing that in my head I was utilizing a different tonal progression. I wonder if there is anything I can find online to practice with this.
So glad you did as well! I suggest starting with the recourses at 31et.com/
I also have a series on my Tiktok on 31EDO
Best of luck on your musical journey!
31 edo my beloved
good cover
Thank you!
As an afro arab , my culture uses microtonality, and seeing western people diving into zen music theory is a bit funny xD, you see people talking fancy trying include microtones into a song that has non , but in any case , it sounds good
It makes a man think about how 2 different kind of people utilize a certain idea ,
How do I download this cover??? I love it! And I don’t even know how the hell RUclips recommended it to me but I’m glad it did. I don’t even know music theory haha
Colin Greenwood would love this. Thom Yorke, too.
@3:36 The major chords and minor chords of both systems sounded basically the same to me. Can't tell much difference at all.
Do you have an upload of just the track?
There is a chart comparing equal temperament (12 TET), just intonation, 31 TET and other equal temperaments here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament
C Major and C Minor sound nice together.
When voiced correctly totally!
It's like knocking your guitar off the stand, and playing your recording session anyway.
it's about waves that collide at the right moment, they sound naturally good. if you derative the scale then you better don't mix it with other waves
I oddly prefer the 31 version over the original. I listened to this 31 version, then directly after switched to the original and found it too pristine and lacking in depth. The 31 seemed to spoil me with depth and interest. Needless to say, I was not expecting my reaction. I WANT MORE! XD
I'm not a keyboard player, but the Lumatone is sooo alluring!
Soooo tempting!
In my adolescence, several decades ago, I discovered without google, that there was something interesting to know between the great space between two semitones. Then I learned to listen by feeling the subtle changes in the dynamics of sounds when there are small changes in the frequencies that we accept as unique in the system of 12 semitones. And how do these changes interact modulating other waves like two oscillators of a Synthesizer?
In Indian, Greek, Turkish, Egyptian, arabic, etc music those spaces are used all the time, even in popular tunes
@foljs Certainly, and since several years ago, it´s something well know by me. But more than 30 years ago in argentina I felt a liittle diferent .... Sorr errors for free
Are there actual scale for 31? like a 31 major or minor scale? how many notes do the scales usually have (Like for 12 it is 7)
The exact same as 12, except whole tones are 5 chromatic pitches instead of 2 and semitones are 3 (in the context of a scale) pitches instead of 1
I heard 12 tone in 31, back in '95, when I dropped 5 hits of acid before band practice. Not joking. Wish I was. We were playing Astronomy Domine.
Radiohead true love waits moon shaped pool version..obviously mocrotonally modified but sounds close... haha I heard the melody while washing dishes didn't realize y'all were already on that lnfao
Why are you describing 31edo as "alien"? It is virtually the same as quarter comma Meantone, which was extensively used in music practice during the European Rennaisance.
You might call 31edo "Extended Meantone" perhaps.
well, maybe because we're not in European Rennaisance, and the largely western group of collaborators here probably has western audience experience in mind with rock, pop, jazz, etc...
@@foljs5858 Thanks for your answer! It seems that what we condider alien, changes from age to age, and not just with from culture to culture.
It's only similar to 1/4 meantone if we pick corresponding 12 pitches out of that 31 which they don't. They deliberately left some intervals in there which sound strange / dissonant. As for Western / non-Western, consider Indian ragas. They too came up with twelve pitches (shruti) because it's the smallest number of steps which approximates naturally consonant intervals that arise from the harmonic series. Harmony is not a "Western" thing. Something either sounds consonant or it doesn't. Some cultures explored it deeply, some didn't care (maybe music wasn't high on their priority list).
@@baze3SC I agree that Harmony is universal and not ONLY a Western thing. Although some cultures (the Balinese/Javanese e.g.) deliberately embrace some disharmony in the form of shimmering/beating of almost but not quite consonant intervals).
Also, in the Indian Raga system, there are two important different variants of each shruti, except for 2/1 (Sa, "octave")) and 3/2 (Pa, "fifth"), so there are 22 shrutis, not just 12.
And, more importantly, in the European Meantone system, people usually used 13 tones of the chain of fifths, not just 12. Sometimes they used as many as 17 tones.
As for which intervals are harmonious:
Firstly they do not respect "octave equivalence" perfectly, so e.g. 8/3 (perfect eleventh) is less consonant than 4/3 (perfect fourth), but 5/2 (major tenth) is more consonant than 5/4 (major third). And 12/5 (minor tenth) is less consonant than 6/5 (minor third) but 7/3 (subminor tenth) is more consonant than 7/6 (subminor third).
Secondly there are even more than 12 consonant intervals narrower than the octave, e.g. we have (not counting the most consonant, perfect unison 1/1), the perfect octave 2/1, the perfect fifth 3/2, the perfect fourth 4/3, the major sixth 5/3, the major third 5/4, the subminor seventh 7/4, the minor third 6/5, the lesser tritone 7/5, the minor sixth 8/5, the subminor third 7/6, the minor seventh 9/5, the supermajor second 8/7, the supermajor third 9/7, the neutral sixth 11/6, the greater tritone 10/7, the major second 9/8, the greater subminor sixth 11/7, the supermajor sixth 12/7, the super fourth 11/8, the lesser major second 10/9, the submajor seventh 13/7, the neutral third 11/9, the neutral sixth 13/8, the greater neutral second 11/10, the subfifth 13/9, the major seventh 15/8, the subminor sixth 14/9, the ultraminor third 13/10 and the neutral second 12/11. The minor second(s) is/are not even on the list, since they are in firmly dissonant territory.
Even if you don't count anything more complex than the major second 9/8 as consonant, we still have 16 consonant intervals within the octave (not wider than 2/1).
@@henrikljungstrand2036 If you take a deeper look though, those 22 shrutis are microtonal variations of the main 12, something like a historical split key on Ab/G# occasionally used in Europe. Also I wouldn't say that just because something has a nice ratio it sounds consonant. Some intervals like 7/4 are only useful if they reinforce an already stable chord like 4:5:6 vs 4:5:6:7. Tritones, no matter whether expressed as 45/32, 10/7 or 7/5 are just rational approximations of the square root of 2 which splits the octave exactly in half. This is the traditional "diabolus in musica" and it's unlikely to be used harmonically. But yes, in just intonation some intervals have multiple rational approximations. The choice depends on what other intervals the music uses.
Dividing more than 12 per octave musicaly said is a silly idea when we know that there you can do more usual recherche- try stretched 12ET without just interval instead! Relation coeficient K for the half ton between 1.059463... and 1.059643...
I don’t understand why you say it’s silly? If it sounds cool, then why not?
Microtonal music is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Why did I click on this video?? 😂 Half an hour of painted wincing and flinching, here I come… 😅
Edit: 1009% worth it. I don't know if it was the timbre, arrangement, or something else, but that was beautiful!
Hahahaha thanks for sticking it through! I used to have the exact same aversion (still do depending on the circumstance), but once I started messing with just intonation stuff, it was like the clouds parted! Thanks for giving us and my channel a chance.
near 5:45 - you say no third, but you show no fifth (shell voicing)
Thanks! It’s already in the pinned correction comment.
hmmm? I prefer your version to the original. The vox pulls on the tonal underpinning a bit like Chino Moreno's style within Deftones. Next up 15 Step in 31 TET by way of Four Tet.
*15-TET
@@stephenweigel shall I fax Radiohead and request them to retitle it?
@@brynhogan7028 of course
I always play fretless bass microtonally;)
When it comes to "31EDO sounding wrong to people who haven't heard it", I'm not surprised at all.
31EDO is actually one of the most similar temperaments to 12EDO that isn't just a multiple of 12. Most are much more xenharmonic, anyway.
There are 31 pairs of spinal nerves :o
Nice! That bass line is stanky in a really good way.
Premium content. Subbed for more.
Thank you!
It sounds like this is just played off-key, lol. But then again I don't know the original song, so I can't compare. It would be cool to here more pop songs covered in 31-tone temperament.
Вова, мы обязательно заценим
Yeah: This works. Interesting.....
Great singing. Sounds a bit like Indian music to me. I like it!
Now do "Barbie Girl."
Ladies and gentlemen…
…Welcome to lo fi theory 101🫠
I think the 12 note scale set is played out.. The 31 note gives new unlimited possibilities.
31 is certainly a worth while pursuit! I’m working on a ton of new 31 videos right now!
So it happens that radiohead can be even more depressing
It sounds somewhat like tool
Gonna be real, it all sounds the same, supermajor sounds like major, subminor sounds like minor, i didnt notice you played a neutral chord, and i couldnt tell any differences when you compared the tuning systems
that's a common feeling to have when subminor and supermajor are used as variants of minor and major respectively (I first experienced it when singing Daniel Newman-Lessler's "Nature's First Green is Gold" all the way back in 2019). The difference is clearer when you compare subminor and minor right next to each other for example. For a deeper dive into comparisons (different tuning systems also) I'd recommend the one on my channel.
so the notes in my head are real and its been micro tones this whole time. well shit how am i going to get microtonal instruments...
Try googling “scale workshop Sevish” to audition sounds
Play it again, but this time with more bottle caps.
0:48 yo wtf is that voice!?
Well, listening punk of various kinds, you'll often get those distorted (microtonal?) pitches, so it don't sound much unusual for me.
There are plenty of musical forms that use microtonality, they just don't come at it from the academic point of view