Interesting discussion. I think the main aspect of my argument that you’ve misunderstood is that I’m not saying that simpler harmony breeds more complex melodies or more complex rhythms. I never actually say in my video that one chord songs tend towards greater complexity in rhythm, melody etc. and yet your entire video seems to be countering that idea. Rather my argument is that simpler harmony allows there to be more FOCUS on the melody or rhythm. For example, I never said that funk has more complex rhythm than other styles, rather that the FOCUS of the music is more on the rhythm. It might be a relatively simply groove yes, but because there isn’t loads of action happening in the chord progression it allows the listener to focus on that groove more than usual. My point ultimately is that in one chord songs, the harmony is not grabbing as much attention from the listener meaning there is more audience engagement available for the other elements of the music, like rhythm and melody.
I'll write a proper reply next week, but I do want to for now push back against the idea that my entire video is simply countering yours (or even just countering one bit of yours). That feels more than a little ungenerous, given that the bulk of it is actually more about my thoughts on what one chords songs do/how they work, and could stand alone either way. I understand your defensiveness, given that my video *is*, after all, a critique of yours, though. I'll write up a more in depth reply in a few days, but hopefully I've expressed my first thoughts decently enough for now Thanks for watching! 👍
@@bigyellowpraxis You're right. When I said "your entire video" I was actually referring to the part of your video focused on countering my video. That's me misspeaking, sorry about that. But I maintain what I said above... I feel like, most likely through misunderstanding, you've presented my video in a "strawman" fashion. i.e. you've presented my argument as "simple harmony encourages complexity in other aspects of the music", whereas my actual argument was "simple harmony allows more focus to be put on other aspects of the music." These two arguments are similar of course, but certainly not the same. 😊😊
Right, so I've just rewatched your video, and mine, and have to disagree with you still, unfortunately. I will grant that my video may not be an accurate representation of your views, but I think that it is definitely a fair representation of what you said. I think part of the problem is something that I mention within the first minute of the video: you don't actually make your point entirely clear. This means that I was - admittedly - to some degree left guessing precisely what you meant when you said things like: The fact there’s only one chord in Get The Party Started ‘means that all the variation and movement in the song has to come from changes in the dynamics and melody instead’ (And, as I say in my video: what dynamic changes? What melodic changes?) And ‘if you sideline harmony now and then, it can create so much more space for the other elements of music like melody, rhythm, texture and tone’ (What does ‘more space’ mean? Why is it so rarely used, if that’s what is happening?) I think my interpretation of what you said, and my responses throughout my video are actually fair rebuttals to what you say here in each quote. I think you have actually slightly misunderstood my rebuttal to you, which is (taken directly from my script): “So, in a video from last year, David talks about one chord songs, and he makes it sound as though songs with only one chord throughout their entire duration are able to - or have to - or USUALLY, I guess (he doesn’t make it entirely clear)… they end up doing something more interesting with their melody, or rhythm or dynamics, to make up for their lack of harmonic sophistication.” I didn’t actually say that you thought that ‘simpler harmony breeds more complex melodies or more complex rhythms’, though I do admittedly say: ‘the harmony DOES take something of a ‘backseat’ in A LOT of funk, fair enough - but just because the rhythm is usually more important, doesn’t mean that it is actually doing anything particularly sophisticated either’. (So I will happily accept that was a very slight misunderstanding of you). The issue I still have though, is that even with what you’re saying here, in these comments, I still disagree with you. And for much the same reasons. I’m not sure what ‘simpler harmony allows there to be more FOCUS on the melody or rhythm’ means, in all honesty. What does ‘allow’ mean here? It simply seems contrary to how most people listen to or experience music: Jamiroquai’s ‘Virtual Insanity’ (as one example) is much more harmonically complex than a great many funk songs, but I don’t feel like that impacts the level of ‘focus’ on the rhythm or melody at all. The same could be said of Wonder’s Sir Duke (and there are loads more examples). I may be misunderstanding you even here, but I do think you’re speaking very vaguely at best (are you talking about the focus of the composer or the listener? Your video seems primarily directed at the composer, but again, I do feel like I am somewhat left guessing). Either way, I do think that my (non-comprehensive) exploration of ‘one chord songs’ offers better explanations of how and why they work. I haven’t quite said all that I wanted to, but this comment is getting a slightly ridiculous in length now. I will however wrap up by saying that when I do my videos, I usually check in with someone to proof read what I’m saying, to make sure it makes sense. Because I was directly disagreeing with someone with this video, I was doubly sure to do that, as I am careful not to misrepresent: no one who checked my drafts and final video before publishing thought I in any way misrepresented you. I posted this video on reddit, and none of the comments there thought I was misrepresenting your thoughts either. Thanks again for taking the time to watch my video, and I appreciate the comments!
@@bigyellowpraxis To clarify what I’ve said about focus… by having less moving parts in an arrangement it draws more attention/focus to the parts that do move. To give an example, in Song 2 by Blur, because the drums start on their own before the guitar joins it draws attention/focus to the drum part, making it more of a feature. If the guitar and drums joined at the same time, the drum intro wouldn’t be nearly as noteworthy or noticeable to the listener. That’s what’s happening when a song uses only 1 chord; because it has no chord progression, it means that the other elements that are left behind (melody, rhythm, tone etc) gain more attention/focus. Ultimately, I guess we just have to agree to disagree. To be honest, I think what I said in my video was clearly presented, and there was no noteworthy confusion or objection to my video in it’s comment section. I stand by what I said above that I think you’ve ultimately spent your video debunking an argument that I never explicitly made. You’ve said yourself that you weren’t clear about what I was saying in my video to begin with. If that’s the case then I guess it was never actually going to be feasible to rebuttal my position, being that you didn’t actually understand my position. All said, I appreciate a healthy debate. Thanks again for getting me involved. 🙂
Yes, let's agree to disagree. Though again, I do feel the need to point out that I didn't actually spend that much of my video 'debunking' you, beyond saying that your explanation was unsatisfactory - the bulk of my video quite clearly sets out on its own path, and I do think it offers a better explanation of what's going on than yours 🤷♂️ I am a little disappointed in your misrepresentation of me here though. I said - and I said it from the beginning of my video, and maintain it still - that *you did not make your position clear*. I won't take responsibility for that. Going back on forth on this is unlikely to be fruitful, so let's leave it there. Thanks for your engagement with me on this! 👍
2:16 - Did you seriously say those songs are melodically simple and rhythmically unsophisticated? Seriously? ... I mean, *just* Within You Without You *alone* has more sophistication than the entire output of Snarky Puppy.
Nearly - I said: "All of the songs he talks about are as melodically simple as they are harmonically - none of them are particularly dynamic, with the exception of Coconut. And none of them are particularly rhythmically sophisticated either, really" 'Sophisticated' is of course a pretty loaded term, so you may be reading something into my use of it that wasn't intended. I do think I'm right in saying it though: what about Within You Without You is melodically complex? Rhythmically speaking, some of the tabla playing is a *bit* complex, sure, but it's nothing outlandish as far as I can hear. And I don't understand what you mean about '*just* Within You Without You *alone*...'. Should we measure their complexity and sophistication cumulatively, or as an aggregate? Why would we not just look at each song 'alone'? I'm also not sure how that song is more melodically or rhythmically complex/sophisticated than Snarky Puppy's entire output? Again, a lot of these words are fairly loaded, with plenty of baggage, so you may use them in different ways to me - if you'll explain what you mean exactly, I'll happily try to understand your perspective 👍
In my opinion, a lot of the songs David brings up are arguably 0 chord songs and are instead riff-based. Playing a minor pentatonic riff in the bass that resolves the tonic every measure or two doesn't exactly qualify as a chord to me. You make a lot of good points, but I think both of you are sort of right. Simplicity in one area is not intrinsically related to simplicity in other areas, so a song could be harmonically simple and rhythmically complex, could be both harmonically and rhythmically simple, or could be both harmonically and rhythmically complex.
Just to be clear - I definitely don't think (and didn't say) that simplicity in one area is *intrinsically* related to simplicity in other areas. Just that if you actually listen to one chord songs, you'll find that they are almost invariably *also* simple in other ways. Of course, a song could be harmonically simple and rhymically complex, but I think that is rarer than harmonically simple and rhythmically simple. As I say in my video, proving this would require a pretty wide ranging survey, so I admittedly can't say that my hypothesis holds true for invariably And to your first point: it sort of depends what we mean by 'chord'. A one chord song could have no actual chord, but a static harmony - I would still call this a 'one chord song' most of the time. Like wise, a song could technially have multiple chords (say, a few chords making up a riff), and therefore *not* be a 'one chord song'... but if it has a static harmoniy nonetheless, I'd call it a one chord song still myself Thanks for watching!
Interesting discussion. I think the main aspect of my argument that you’ve misunderstood is that I’m not saying that simpler harmony breeds more complex melodies or more complex rhythms. I never actually say in my video that one chord songs tend towards greater complexity in rhythm, melody etc. and yet your entire video seems to be countering that idea.
Rather my argument is that simpler harmony allows there to be more FOCUS on the melody or rhythm. For example, I never said that funk has more complex rhythm than other styles, rather that the FOCUS of the music is more on the rhythm. It might be a relatively simply groove yes, but because there isn’t loads of action happening in the chord progression it allows the listener to focus on that groove more than usual.
My point ultimately is that in one chord songs, the harmony is not grabbing as much attention from the listener meaning there is more audience engagement available for the other elements of the music, like rhythm and melody.
I'll write a proper reply next week, but I do want to for now push back against the idea that my entire video is simply countering yours (or even just countering one bit of yours).
That feels more than a little ungenerous, given that the bulk of it is actually more about my thoughts on what one chords songs do/how they work, and could stand alone either way.
I understand your defensiveness, given that my video *is*, after all, a critique of yours, though. I'll write up a more in depth reply in a few days, but hopefully I've expressed my first thoughts decently enough for now
Thanks for watching! 👍
@@bigyellowpraxis You're right. When I said "your entire video" I was actually referring to the part of your video focused on countering my video. That's me misspeaking, sorry about that.
But I maintain what I said above... I feel like, most likely through misunderstanding, you've presented my video in a "strawman" fashion. i.e. you've presented my argument as "simple harmony encourages complexity in other aspects of the music", whereas my actual argument was "simple harmony allows more focus to be put on other aspects of the music." These two arguments are similar of course, but certainly not the same.
😊😊
Right, so I've just rewatched your video, and mine, and have to disagree with you still, unfortunately.
I will grant that my video may not be an accurate representation of your views, but I think that it is definitely a fair representation of what you said. I think part of the problem is something that I mention within the first minute of the video: you don't actually make your point entirely clear.
This means that I was - admittedly - to some degree left guessing precisely what you meant when you said things like:
The fact there’s only one chord in Get The Party Started ‘means that all the variation and movement in the song has to come from changes in the dynamics and melody instead’ (And, as I say in my video: what dynamic changes? What melodic changes?)
And ‘if you sideline harmony now and then, it can create so much more space for the other elements of music like melody, rhythm, texture and tone’ (What does ‘more space’ mean? Why is it so rarely used, if that’s what is happening?)
I think my interpretation of what you said, and my responses throughout my video are actually fair rebuttals to what you say here in each quote.
I think you have actually slightly misunderstood my rebuttal to you, which is (taken directly from my script):
“So, in a video from last year, David talks about one chord songs, and he makes it sound as though songs with only one chord throughout their entire duration are able to - or have to - or USUALLY, I guess (he doesn’t make it entirely clear)… they end up doing something more interesting with their melody, or rhythm or dynamics, to make up for their lack of harmonic sophistication.”
I didn’t actually say that you thought that ‘simpler harmony breeds more complex melodies or more complex rhythms’, though I do admittedly say: ‘the harmony DOES take something of a ‘backseat’ in A LOT of funk, fair enough - but just because the rhythm is usually more important, doesn’t mean that it is actually doing anything particularly sophisticated either’. (So I will happily accept that was a very slight misunderstanding of you).
The issue I still have though, is that even with what you’re saying here, in these comments, I still disagree with you. And for much the same reasons. I’m not sure what ‘simpler harmony allows there to be more FOCUS on the melody or rhythm’ means, in all honesty.
What does ‘allow’ mean here? It simply seems contrary to how most people listen to or experience music: Jamiroquai’s ‘Virtual Insanity’ (as one example) is much more harmonically complex than a great many funk songs, but I don’t feel like that impacts the level of ‘focus’ on the rhythm or melody at all. The same could be said of Wonder’s Sir Duke (and there are loads more examples).
I may be misunderstanding you even here, but I do think you’re speaking very vaguely at best (are you talking about the focus of the composer or the listener? Your video seems primarily directed at the composer, but again, I do feel like I am somewhat left guessing). Either way, I do think that my (non-comprehensive) exploration of ‘one chord songs’ offers better explanations of how and why they work.
I haven’t quite said all that I wanted to, but this comment is getting a slightly ridiculous in length now. I will however wrap up by saying that when I do my videos, I usually check in with someone to proof read what I’m saying, to make sure it makes sense. Because I was directly disagreeing with someone with this video, I was doubly sure to do that, as I am careful not to misrepresent: no one who checked my drafts and final video before publishing thought I in any way misrepresented you. I posted this video on reddit, and none of the comments there thought I was misrepresenting your thoughts either.
Thanks again for taking the time to watch my video, and I appreciate the comments!
@@bigyellowpraxis
To clarify what I’ve said about focus… by having less moving parts in an arrangement it draws more attention/focus to the parts that do move. To give an example, in Song 2 by Blur, because the drums start on their own before the guitar joins it draws attention/focus to the drum part, making it more of a feature. If the guitar and drums joined at the same time, the drum intro wouldn’t be nearly as noteworthy or noticeable to the listener. That’s what’s happening when a song uses only 1 chord; because it has no chord progression, it means that the other elements that are left behind (melody, rhythm, tone etc) gain more attention/focus.
Ultimately, I guess we just have to agree to disagree. To be honest, I think what I said in my video was clearly presented, and there was no noteworthy confusion or objection to my video in it’s comment section.
I stand by what I said above that I think you’ve ultimately spent your video debunking an argument that I never explicitly made.
You’ve said yourself that you weren’t clear about what I was saying in my video to begin with. If that’s the case then I guess it was never actually going to be feasible to rebuttal my position, being that you didn’t actually understand my position.
All said, I appreciate a healthy debate. Thanks again for getting me involved. 🙂
Yes, let's agree to disagree. Though again, I do feel the need to point out that I didn't actually spend that much of my video 'debunking' you, beyond saying that your explanation was unsatisfactory - the bulk of my video quite clearly sets out on its own path, and I do think it offers a better explanation of what's going on than yours 🤷♂️
I am a little disappointed in your misrepresentation of me here though. I said - and I said it from the beginning of my video, and maintain it still - that *you did not make your position clear*. I won't take responsibility for that.
Going back on forth on this is unlikely to be fruitful, so let's leave it there.
Thanks for your engagement with me on this! 👍
Get up stand up by Bob Marley & The Wailers is a good example. It took me a while to even realize that it was a one chord song.
Yup! Great example. One of my favourites
2:16 - Did you seriously say those songs are melodically simple and rhythmically unsophisticated?
Seriously?
... I mean, *just* Within You Without You *alone* has more sophistication than the entire output of Snarky Puppy.
Nearly - I said:
"All of the songs he talks about are as melodically simple as they are harmonically - none of them are particularly dynamic, with the exception of Coconut. And none of them are particularly rhythmically sophisticated either, really"
'Sophisticated' is of course a pretty loaded term, so you may be reading something into my use of it that wasn't intended. I do think I'm right in saying it though: what about Within You Without You is melodically complex? Rhythmically speaking, some of the tabla playing is a *bit* complex, sure, but it's nothing outlandish as far as I can hear.
And I don't understand what you mean about '*just* Within You Without You *alone*...'. Should we measure their complexity and sophistication cumulatively, or as an aggregate? Why would we not just look at each song 'alone'?
I'm also not sure how that song is more melodically or rhythmically complex/sophisticated than Snarky Puppy's entire output? Again, a lot of these words are fairly loaded, with plenty of baggage, so you may use them in different ways to me - if you'll explain what you mean exactly, I'll happily try to understand your perspective 👍
In my opinion, a lot of the songs David brings up are arguably 0 chord songs and are instead riff-based. Playing a minor pentatonic riff in the bass that resolves the tonic every measure or two doesn't exactly qualify as a chord to me.
You make a lot of good points, but I think both of you are sort of right. Simplicity in one area is not intrinsically related to simplicity in other areas, so a song could be harmonically simple and rhythmically complex, could be both harmonically and rhythmically simple, or could be both harmonically and rhythmically complex.
Just to be clear - I definitely don't think (and didn't say) that simplicity in one area is *intrinsically* related to simplicity in other areas. Just that if you actually listen to one chord songs, you'll find that they are almost invariably *also* simple in other ways. Of course, a song could be harmonically simple and rhymically complex, but I think that is rarer than harmonically simple and rhythmically simple.
As I say in my video, proving this would require a pretty wide ranging survey, so I admittedly can't say that my hypothesis holds true for invariably
And to your first point: it sort of depends what we mean by 'chord'. A one chord song could have no actual chord, but a static harmony - I would still call this a 'one chord song' most of the time. Like wise, a song could technially have multiple chords (say, a few chords making up a riff), and therefore *not* be a 'one chord song'... but if it has a static harmoniy nonetheless, I'd call it a one chord song still myself
Thanks for watching!