The Theory Behind It

Livi, Adam, and Seth talk about some of the stuff they've been listening to lately. This episode features a bad Joseph Gordon-Levitt joke, a follow up on Harry Potter from last week, and surely something that was on topic hopefully.

Here's the playlist with the favorites of our recommendations!

After all the higher concept episodes we've done recently, we thought it'd be a nice change of pace to relax and have a more laidback episode this week.

We meander through discussion of musical notation and graphic design, the Harry Potter books and movies, presenting at an online conference, and briefly touch on some of the problems with the recent Journal of Schenkerian Studies issue.

This week we ripped off the podcast Screendrafts and competitively collaborated to find out what the best chord of all time is! The parameters were basic chords most students learn in their 2 years of music theory classes. Sevenths could be considered for each chord, but were not a separate category. The full list is below; we selected the top 11.

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Please go listen to Screendrafts so they won't get mad at us! It's a fantastic movie podcast, and Livi and I have been enjoying it a ton since we recorded this.

We round off the debate with the final 3 questions in this Music Pedagogy edition of Let's Argue. Talking points include borrowed chords, the importance of music history, snails, and incredulously even more Schenker talk. Who wins? How biased was the host?

(I would like to make an addendum that this debate was recorded about 2 months before the Schenker journal controversy, therefore we were not talking about it with knowledge or relation to that.)

In this two part episode, Adam pits Livi and Seth against each other in a new edition of Let's Argue. This time around we're discussing opinions on the teaching of music theory. Topics include cadential V chords, teaching Schenkerian analysis to undergrads, and a heck of a lot about modes.

Hey, everybody! Sorry for the delay, but we've got a very special episode for you today: our interview with percussionist Taylor Burks! In this episode, we talk about band pedagogy, a work Taylor commissioned and performed, Taylor's review of Ye, and the various impressions Adam can do.

Disclaimer: we recorded this before Kanye West's fresh appearance and public comments, otherwise we would not have brought it back up.

Expanse and Retrospect, by Caleb Pickering

In this, the final part of the Three Articles series, Adam presents an article discussing chord progressions and tonality in pop music. Ben Duinker writes about how chordal loops can increase ambiguity when locating tonic and that we should consider bitonality or "hybrid tonics" when thinking about pop music.

https://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.19.25.4/mto.19.25.4.duinker.html

In a thematic sequel to Borrowing in Pop Music, Seth returns with more examples of topics and allusions in pop music. After that...it gets a little weird. Hope you're prepared to hear our takes on things that stopped being relevant over 3 months ago when we recorded.

Talking points include Childish Gambino, the Modern Family Cinematic Universe, Tiger King, and Game of Thrones.

This week we discuss Jennifer Beavers' article "Beyond Mere Novelty: Timbre as Primary Structural Marker in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major". We talk about timbre as formal quality, the place of timbre in analysis, and a bit about the music of Ravel. There is a brief shout-out to theremins. 

https://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.19.25.4/mto.19.25.4.beavers.html

This week we got the opportunity to interview Ryan Connors from Dynamo. After we talked about their album in Three Albums, Part 2, we reached out and got the chance to talk to Ryan. We had lots of great discussion about Dynamo's album Celina, improvisation, and the differences between academically trained and self-taught musicians.

Please check out the episode where we talked about their album, as well as the album Celina itself before listening to get the most out of this episode!

Ryan's Instagram

Dynamo's Facebook