Week 5: Grateful Dead

This week I have listened to the 1960's psychedelic rock band Grateful Dead. Psychedelic rock music intrigues me as I really enjoy listen to music that creates an atmospheric feel and "overloads the senses". Grateful Dead's songs mostly consist of acoustic guitars, drums, bass, organs, and a heavy amount of electric guitar overdubs. The lyrics of the songs are mostly about psychedelic subjects such as drugs and imaginative imagery, such as in "Casey Jones", "If I Had The World To Give" and "Box of Rain". I enjoyed the song "Touch of Grey" which contains a very simple melody with acoustic guitar rhythms in the forefront and the catchy sing-a-long of "We will get by" at the end. The song "Friend Of The Devil" is also very similar song that uses the acoustic guitar to create the main melody with vocals. I like how the song stops without an ending to provide an artistic insight to the lyrics. Some songs, such as "Truckin" and "Caution" sounded influenced from blues music through the playing style of singing and guitar and walking bass guitar. I found the song "Caution" to be interesting as it portrayed the sensory overload of instrumentation that psychedelic music conveys. Throughout the ending, Grateful Dead manipulates the distortion of the guitar to overdub a variety of different sounds. In "That's It For The Other One" the band does the same thing at the end of the song, but also uses random piano, keyboard, and percussion sounds to create the psychedelic effect. "Serengetti" was a favorite of mine and it only contained a stylistic overdubbing of different drum sounds and xylophones. Grateful Dead was a very creative band and set the foundation as one of the greatest psychedelic rock bands.

Song List

Casey Jones
Touch Of Grey
Friend Of A Devil
Truckin'
Uncle John's Band
Box Of Rain
Ripple
Sugar Magnolia
Caution
That's It For The Other One
Serengetti
If I Had The World To Give

Week 4: The Beach Boys

For my third week, I have listened to music by the Beach Boys. I never listened to many Beach Boys songs before this week. They are actually a very unique band as they possess a sound that no other band has. Many of the songs have various instrumentations and vocal harmonies. The songs “God Only Knows”, “Surfer Girl” and “Wonderful” are examples on how the Beach Boys use vocal harmonies with multiple singers. “Our Prayer” was one song that was basically all vocal harmonies. The harmonies switch between consonant and dissonant throughout each song, such as “You Still Believe In Me” and “Barbie”. Many of the songs with vocal harmonies also contain many leaps between notes. However, there are songs where the Beach Boys define their surfer sound, such as in the pop melodies “Fun, Fun, Fun”, “Drive- In”, “Karate”, “Sail On, Sailor” and “Catch A Wave”. I found that The Beach Boys use many bluesy bass lines, electric guitar solos, and repeating melodies. In addition, the song “Barbara Ann” has one of the most catchiest hooks I’ve heard in a long time. I enjoyed listening to the Beach Boys and becoming familiar with their songs.

Week 3: Blues

This week I have been listening to Muddy Waters. I never heard much of Muddy Water’s music before this week, but I have known that he is a well-respected blues musician from the 1940s to 1950s. 

The instrumentation in his songs mostly consists of guitar, bass, drums, piano, and harmonica. In the songs “Mannish Boy” and “Hoochie Coochie Man”, I’ve noticed that Waters’ incorporates stop time and repeated chords throughout. Songs, such as “I’m Ready”, contained a sixteen bar structure as the melody. Furthermore, Muddy uses the harmonica, piano, and acoustic guitar to harmonize in most songs, such as “They Call Me Muddy Waters”, “Don’t Get No Further, and “Stuff You Gotta Watch”. I’ve heard that the guitar and harmonica harmonies also create dissonance in which makes the melody more interesting to listen to like in "Rollin' And Tumblin'" and "Got My Mojo Working". The songs “Louisiana Blues” and “Rollin’ Stone” only contain Muddy Waters’ vocals and a strummed, slightly distorted electric guitar, which gives a more emotional effect. Muddy always sings of provocative subjects involving love in each song, which was very different in the 1950s. Part of his vocal technique is to emphasize certain words by singing them louder like in "I Can't Be Satisfied". It gives nice crescendos throughout the songs. I’ve also noticed that he uses slang such as in "Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had", which might have not been popular among people during his time. 

I believe Muddy Waters was a very original and aspiring blues artist of his time and I have enjoyed listening to his music.

Song list:

Mannish Boy

Mean Disposition

Rollin' Stone

I'm Ready

Jitterbug Blues

I Can't Be Satisfied

Louisiana Blues

Hoochie Coochie Man

Mean Mistreater

Don't Get No Further

They Call Me Muddy Waters

Rollin' And Tumblin'

Mean Red Spider

You're Gonna Need My Help

Canary Bird

Stuff You Gotta Watch

You Gonna Miss Me

Got My Mojo Working

Evan's Shuffle

Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had

Specific Instrument Listening: Violin

For this week I chose to listen to an hour’s worth of songs by musician Andrew Bird. Andrew Bird’s music emphasizes a great deal on various violin techniques. One thing I noticed is that Andrew Bird will use the violin much like a musician would use a guitar in recordings. Many songs, such as “The Happy Birthday Song” and “Skin Is, My” consist of the melody being created by a pizzicato violin early into the song. Usually, Bird will then loop the main melody, and over-dub it with more pizzicato playing or classic violin playing with a bow. The best examples would be in the songs “Anonanimal” and “Desperation Breeds”. The end result is a very complex, but soothing harmonization of multiple violin tracks.

In some songs however, violin will only be present in the back of the recording creating harmony until either a chorus or an instrumental break down occurs, such as in the song “Souverian”. Bird’s pizzicato playing is present throughout every song, almost as a percussive instrument plucking the rhythm. In addition, Bird will strum the violin throughout the song, as one would do with a guitar, such as in the song “Orpheo Looks Back”. Andrew Bird is also known for whistling in his songs along with the same notes as the violin, which can be heard throughout the song “A Nervous Tick Of Motion of The Head To The Left”. No matter which technique he uses, violin is the main focus in every song I have listened to by him. Andrew Bird is a very clever and creative musician of our time and I respect the ways in which he uses the violin throughout his songs.

-Lou Fatato

Listening: Week 1

I have been listening to an hour’s worth of music by the bands Blur and Radiohead. Both bands originated during the late 80s and early 90s. Blur’s early songs that I have listened to, such as “Stereotypes” and “Girls and Boys”, are light, pop heavy songs as Blur developed the era of Brit-pop. Blur’s songs usually consist of pop horns and electric guitar to drive the song. In the late 90s, Blur developed a darker sound in which songs consisted more of various overlapping tones and heavy guitar playing. This sound lead me to listen to the band Radiohead as they have a sound that resembled Blur’s later work. I listened to most of Radiohead’s album “Kid A”. The song “Everything In Its Right Place” utilized electronic tones and clippings of vocal phases to piece together the melody, which I found to be very interesting. Another part I liked was during the song “How To Disappear Completely” was how the string arrangements dropped pitch in the middle of the song. It gave the song a feeling of confusion and madness in which lead singer Thom Yorke was trying convey. From what I’ve listened to, both Blur and Radiohead have originated some of the most creative alternative rock songs I have ever heard.