Longer Videos (> 10 mins) |
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Intel
Inside Analysis (full) [11:07]
What does the famous 4-note jingle mean and how does it work? What does music communicate in this 1990s ad? What other music and moods does the jingle resemble? Are marimbas "corporate"? Why no guitar? Why no quality symphony orchestra? Video illustration used in teaching Music and the Moving Image and in the semiotic analysis of music.
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42 Gabriel's Oboes (complete) [19:59]
Montage of online performances of 'Gabriel's Oboe', one of the main themes Morricone wrote for 'The Mission' (1986) and one of today's most widely performed pieces of music. Teaching material for film music analysis and popular music aesthetics. |
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The Milksap Montage [12:39]
I vi ii/IV I: what does it mean? Extracts from 52 US pop records 1957-63 illustrated with chords, teen angels, angel babies, girl groups, devotion, heartache and "all those goddam Bobbies". “This
is a truly virtuosic creation: 52 pop singles in the United States
that used the progression, arranged by key... Album covers, animated
charts of the chord changes, and visual snippets demonstrating lyrical
content flash by while you listen.” (www.pmgentry.net/blog/). |
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Dominants and Dominance/Dominantes y dominación [21:35]
English con subtítulos en español. For Musicology & Colonialism conference, Montevideo, Oct. 2009. 'It's pointless trying to force the conceptual grid of conventional harmony lessons on to music that conventional harmony experts have spent countless lifetimes avoiding or trivialising.'
'Es inútil forzar la matríz de las lecciones de armonía convencionales para aplicarla a música que los expertos de armonía convencional se han dedicado a evitar y trivializar.' Incl. extracts by Tom Russell (Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?), Carlos Puebla (Che), Sabicas (Malagueña). |
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Epistemic Diffraction or Integration? / ¿Diffracción epistémica o integración? [29:20]
In English, subtítulos
en español. Video for Universidad de Villa Maria (Córdoba,
Argentina, Oct. 2009). It sets out the basic epistemic problems of teaching and learning music in our tradition of knowledge, including a critique of "absolute music" and suggestions as to how we can make knowledge in and about music more democratic and more accessible to "non-musos". Includes footage from Dixie Chicks' Shut Up and Sing movie (2006). |
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Buzz, Roar, Click, Crash [32:40]
Men, shaving, power chords, guitar distortion and rock tropes sonically commodified in the 1986 TV ad for the Philishave Tracer. Analysis, exemplification and discussion. How and why the sonic anaphone guitar distortion = motorbike is central to the rock daredevil myth and to the sale of a 'rock lifestyle'. Keywords: rock music semiotics analysis guitar distortion motorbike sound biker aesthetics advertising Ducati Harley Davidson heavy metal power chord trope myth musicology history gender daredevil death danger thrills excitement drums timbre sonic kinetic tactile anaphone museme connotation buzz roar rumble grrrr.
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A huge social and cultural history lies in the microcosm of this two-note rhythm. Questions dealt with are things like: [1] What is a "Scotch snap"? [2] How does it relate to language, class and ethnicity? [3] Is it just Scottish, or is it also Irish, Welsh, English, West African, Hungarian, "Celtic", "black", "white" or what? [4] It's used by Henry Purcell, Béla Bartók, Mahalia Jackson, Woody Guthrie, Stevie Wonder, Ry Cooder, James Brown and Buck Owens; and you'll also find it in Strathspeys, traditional English ballads, Appalachian fiddling, string band music, spirituals, white gospel, black gospel, even in West African time lines, but you won't hear it in mariachi, mbaqanga or MPB, nor in music of South or Central Europe: why and why not? [4] It has to do with English language rhythm but then why did the snap disappear from English music during the 18th century to re-emerge globally in popular musics of the late 20th century? [5] Why did Dvorák think that "Negro" and "Scottish" musics were similar? [6] How come some music of English origin is labelled "Celtic" when England is seen by fans of "Celticity" as the devil incarnate? This instructive but entertaining video offers an alternative to ethnic fixations in popular music history and genre labelling. |
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Normal-length videos (<= 10 mins)
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The Emmerdale Commutations [8:41]
Pastoral
idyll or place of great evil? Will any music fit this footage?
With notation and musical commentary. Musical meaning in a TV theme. Title sequences from Yorkshire TV, original theme tune by Tony Hatch. Commutations and transscansions. Teaching material for film music courses. For more, see the Ten
Little Title Tunes pp. 503-519. |
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Austria and Shampoo [3:32]
Austria = Shampoo? Musically, yes, if you mean The Sound of Music's Austria and the old Timotei shampoo ad. Music and words are thankfully not the same thing! This clip helps illustrate the concept of "gestural conversion" to my film music and music semiotics students (see Ten Little Title Tunes: 253-285 for details). |
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What A Scream! The insanity of a sanitary towel ad [10:00]
"Waaah! Bodyformed for you". This music-semiotic analysis suggests that panty liners are even less likely to trigger orgasms than to be soaked in bluey-green liquid. And yet that is all quite normal in consumerist propaganda: 'advertisers' can tell whatever connotative lies they like. This analysis material also starts to ask questions about links between the me-me-me subjectivity of the 1980s and musical phenomena like the "plastic glitter" keyboard sound or chord vamps ending vi-V. Those questions get no answer here! Teaching material for Music and Moving Image students. |
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Droned Fifths for The Tailor And The Mouse [5:46]
Step by step demo of how to use drones and parallel fifths to create convincing pseudo-medieval harmony for modal tunes. There are no dominants or subdominants: just a droned keynote and the tune's tonal counterpoise. These quintal/quartal chords sound much better than those tired old tertial triads! The Tailor and the Mouse (hexatonic minor) is used as an example. On-screen illustration, notation and animation. Teaching material for classes in Popular Music Analysis. More in Everyday Tonality: 130-134. |
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Mixolydian
Mini-Montage [5:34]
The most common mixolydian chord loop (I-bVII-IV or bVII-IV-I) animated, explained and illustrated using extracts from well-known rock recordings in different keys. Useful and amusing for anyone wanting to get to grips with realities of harmony in popular music. Practical demonstration of writings on one aspect of modal harmony (more details in Everyday Tonality: 51, 53, 124-125, 189-191, 221-226). This video was totally banned from YouTube even though its posting there was 100% legal! |
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Vocal Persona Commutations [7:33]
"Are you talking to me?", asks De Niro, as Travis in Taxi Driver (1976). Dozens of voices expressing different moods and personalities say the same words but all mean something entirely different. Coherence
and incoherence between vocal, gestural, social and emotional aspects of personality Teaching material, popular music analysis. |
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The Banjo in Black and White (English) [2:43]
A very brief illustration of problems involved in labelling musics (or musical instruments) according to skin colour. Should be viewed in conjunction with PowerPoint presentation British Bluenotes and Backbeats and the Open Letter about 'Black Music', 'Afro-American Music' and 'European Music'.
Le banjo en noir et blanc (français) [2:44]
Simple illustration du problème d'appeler une musique « noire » ou « blanche ». Le banjo, aujourd'hui associé à la musique populaire de certains états-uniens blancs, a évidemment des origines ouest-africaines. Ce vidéo ne raconte pas l'histoire au complet; il faut lire la « Lettre ouverte » afin de le contextualiser. |
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Kojak Theme Commutations [7:57; 2011-10-29]
Original version plus five radical rearrangements of Goldenberg's 50-second TV theme from 1972: classical, Renaissance, spy rock, pastoral idyll and bossa nova cocktail lounge. Shows importance of accompanimental parameters of expression (chiefly harmony and groove but also some instrumentation and aural staging). Relates to my PhD thesis Kojak - 50 Seconds of Television Music, also to videos Kojak: 50 Seconds of TV Music to analyse and The Kojak Theme: Score and Museme 2. All materials useful in semiotic music analysis. |
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The Minor Seven Flat Five Montage [8:10; 2011-10-30]
Whether you think of it as ii7, iv6, the 'Tristan chord', or "half diminished", m7-5/m6 has a recognisable aural identity. This montage demonstrates the connotative coherence of the chord, as documented on pp.180-204, 566-573 in Ten Little Title Tunes. |
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Harvest Song from Bulgaria [3:37] (2011-12-22).
You may think simultaneously sounded semitones are discordant. Perhaps you argue that fourths, fifths and octaves are natural consonances because they correspond to simple pitch ratios but omit to mention the acoustic complexity of thirds and sixths in the 'common triads' of our equal-tone temperament, not to mention the tritone inside virtually every single standard jazz chord. Perhaps you even cite the common use of semitones in horror scenes as 'proof' that semitones are 'naturally' discordant. This clip demonstrates that such assumptions are as false as they are ethnocentric because the seven women heard here are definitely having fun singing semitone dyads and clusters for half of this harvest song. Comments in this video are by Prof Claire Levy (Sofia) and myself. |
The film of the book of the music The film of the book of the music  |
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Book chapters 1-2 (a) [1:08:45].
● Timings for contents in video ● The book
● Breakfast at Ibotirama: Introduction and contextualisation of the song. Book pp. 9-14.
● Actual recording with synchronised transcription and presentation of musemes. Book pp. 19-27
● Museme 1 (1): still, quiet, slow, open-landscape IOCM with long held chords and simple melody.
● Museme 1 (2): ‘Ethnic’ IOCM , ‘mañana turns’, tremolando charango, quena, etc.
● Museme 2: Sunrise motif, proclamatory ‘dawning’, Also sprach Zarathustra, etc.
● Museme 3 (1): Light, clean arpeggios I-vi, pizz. effect, clink, glitter, teenage angel harps, etc.
● Museme 3 (2): The Milksap Montage
● Museme 3 (3): Summary of musematic meaning so far plus an important afterthought
● Museme 4: Boléro drum sound: Spanish? Military? Fateful? Olde-worlde? Storytelling?
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Chapter 2
musemes 4-6 |
Museme 5 ...
Museme 6 ... |
Chapter 2
musemes 7-8 |
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Chapter 2
musemes 9-11 |
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Kojak:
50 Seconds of Television Music
‘A film of the book of the music’ |
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Parts 1 & 2 [19:38]
• Original sequences • Time code and sync • Visual analysis ● Score/transcription ● Original audio ● Synthesised rerecording ● Museme 2: offbeat filler, Moog ostinato, woodwind stab.
Book, pp. 245-286; 132-143, 150-184.
‘AWESOME !!! What a fantastic idea! Definitely one of the most
useful postings ever on 'You Tube' !! (monsterjazzlicks ) |
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3: Museme 1
• horn whoops and heroes • martial triplets • propulsive repetition
Book pp. 185-210. |
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4. Harmonic language
• harmonic idiom and historical location • quartal harmony
as ‘modern’ • 5 commutations
Book, pp. 217-221 |
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5. Telegraphic Urgency
Book,
pp. 228-239 |
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Kojak Theme Commutations [7:57; 2011-10-29].
Original version plus five radical rearrangements of Goldenberg's 50-second TV theme from 1972: classical, Renaissance, spy rock, pastoral idyll and bossa nova cocktail lounge. Shows importance of accompanimental parameters of expression (chiefly harmony and groove but also some instrumentation and aural staging). Relates to my PhD thesis Kojak - 50 Seconds of Television Music. |
Course-relevant video from other sources |
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Adbusters: The Product is You [0:15]
"Your living room is the factory. The product being manufactured is you.' |
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Advertising IS Propaganda [1:40]
Edited extract from The Century of the Self (Adam Curtis), episode 1. Includes Edward Bernays, father of PR/marketing/advertising (comsumerist propaganda), saying why he couldn't use the word propaganda to describe his activities. |
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God,
Queen, Jude & Nation [3:34]
Extracts from Party at the Palace (Queen's Jubilee, 2002),
with patent musicological and immanent social commentary. (Ten
Little Title Tunes pp. 59-63). |
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Kevin McIntyre à CapAcadie, Studio 311, 2011-03-18 [27:14] (in Acadian/Québec French)
Auteur-compositeur-interprète acadien d'origine écossais;
très intéressant et bi'n sympathique
(Singer-songwriter from Moncton, New Brunswick, in interview at Montréal: really interesting)
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Kaamelott - The perfect fifth.mov. Perfect intervals only! / Juste les intervalles justes! Excellent pseudo-medieval muso nerd sketch, incl. the diabolus in musica.. |
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Cwm Rhondda in Welsh [2:23]
Re-edit of existing YouTube post (3 verses), this one without voice-over or stills of 78 rpm record player. Instead: Welsh text and sheet music of this well-known hymn (SATB in A flat) sung by the Boro Choir. |
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Why
I do what I do [3:12]
Feature from BBC Northwest Tonight (regional news, 1994) about
teaching popular music
(incl. Kojak & Fernando). |
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I Recall Bacall [1:30]
One of 21 exercises in writing typical
detective themes, I Recall Bacall is set here to classic
film noir footage. Silly credits are added. For info on detective
music traits, check ‘deckare’ in index to Ten Little Title Tunes. |
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YouTube
Take-down Rant [9:00] |
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Atomic Power Montage [0:45]
Early experiment in how to make propaganda by putting sequences of stills to
existing music. |
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Voice
‘Recognition’ and Exasperation [5:50]
Kafkaesque example
of the thick brick wall of robotic customer ‘service’ provided
by corporations.
More voice "recognition" here
(1'33) and more to come... |
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From ‘Roaming’ Rip-offs to SIM cards (4:50)
For technophobic
N. American residents wianting to save money on mobile phone costs
in 90% of the world. |
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Gilles Vigneault, Gaston Rochon: Tout l’monde est malheureux [2:30]
LP Le Nord du Nord (1968), texte intégral, quelques photos personnelles |
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