adamneely

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adamneely posts

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Wait, it's just in 4/4?

Here's a 25-minute video essay on 4/4 and hypertuplets! I know I have taken a step back from YouTube in general, but I still have things to say, and this one especially as they relate to Sungazer and the music psychology stuff we use in our music. Basically, I've gone down so many rabbit holes in the past several years just to come back to playing 4/4 groove music. Complicated 4/4 groove music, but you know, just 4/4 groove music.Hope you enjoy!Adam

What makes Meet the Grahams sound scary? | Q+A

New Q+A video! It's been a long time since I did a Q+A, and they're really fun to make, so I'll probably squeeze in a few this summer. Hope you guys enjoy!Adam

AI is Doomed to Fail the Musical Turing Test

I have thoughtson AI music, and why I don't really think it's music.Spicy take, but one I stand by! I spend most of this video essay talking about human music making and everything an AI would need to do to pass a Turing Test with that in mind. It's actually pretty shocking just HOW all-encompassing human musical activity is, and for AI to be incorporated into it would require a much broader definition of what music is. Click if you like, 4E Cognition, musicking, and video essays!Adam

Chechnya's Bizzare Ban on Musical Tempo

Back at some YouTube! I saw this story a couple days ago, and I knew that I needed to weigh in on it, it was too good. Chechnya apparently just banned all tempo outside of 80-116bpm.This is probably just a clever way to make sure that Lezginka is legal (which is crazy fast, but whose half time tempo fits within this window) but foreign music like House and Techno does not. That said, it was still fun to talk to Dr. Leigh VanHandel about all things music cognition.Thanks guys!Adam

Touring in Europe is...chaotic

A gig vlog!See, I'm still posting, haha, it's just probably going to be at a month/two month schedule, whatever I can do to keep it fun. This vlog was a LOT of fun to edit, and I hope to be bringing more of this kind of thing as Sungazer tours this year.Telling a story out of any of this was hard, to be honest, but I thought it was a fun little look into what we do. There were like...20 other stressful events on this tour, like dealing with the train system in Germany during a rail strike (!!!), but I didn't film during all of it. V...

1.8 Million Subscribers (and no one cares)

I watched a video from the Corridor Cast podcast interviewing Freddie Wong 4 years ago, and it pretty radically changed my perspective on what I should be focusing on and why with regards to social media, and my goals as a musician/video essayist. I know he was at a transitional part in his career, and so his take is a bit cynical, but it did help me contextualize what the hell I should be aiming for with these videos and my musical goals.Basically, there are two industries - the “Creator Economy,” and the “Music Industry,” and they do ...

Should sheet music be required for music school?

Hey all!NEW VIDEO ESSAY!Should it be required for you to know how to read sheet music to get into music school?This is basically rehashing some d i s c o u r s e that happened on the website formerly known as twitter. My conclusion is...yeah, probably, reading requirements on college auditions are probably a good.It's a hard question, though, because any broader discussion about reading inevitably leads to uncomfortable questions about what the purpose of music school actually is. Also...I'M BACK FROM TOUR!Of course there is a lot of st...

Is Laufey jazz?

This is a video essay that has been bubbling up in the back of my mind for a long time. In case you haven't heard of hear, Laufey is a singer that is absolutely DOMINATING the jazz charts right now, very much like Norah Jones 20 years ago with Come Away With Me.I think she's very new and very exciting with her approach, which is radically different from basically everybody in the jazz world - she's authentically blending mid century pop music with 21st century pop in a way that feels very fresh and very "now." It's genui...

Are Binaural Beats Real? | Q+A

Q+A coming atcha!You might notice my set has changed, or is changing...I moved! More on that later, but I'm not longer at my place that I was for the past 5 years. The set will be built out over the course of the next couple months, but that's the reason for the new-ish look.Adam

Does Music Have a Speed Limit? And Why?

Hey all!35 video essay coming atcha. This is a beefy boi, I haven't been able to get something like this done in a while because of touring, but I think the touring really has helped me solidify thinking and concepts that will be coming out in the next couple months for essays.As our final song on the Plini tour, Sungazer played Vital Transformation by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. When we were prepping, we learned the music from the record, but also from this absolutely BONKERS live recording from 1973.https://open.spotify.com/track/0BN8BUs02T...

The CHAOS of flying with musical instruments

Hey guys!I've been working on a video like this for, well, almost 4 years now.As you know, I've slowed down on YouTube to focus on touring, and with that comes a very different focus and headspace. Most of my headspace is now taken up with logistics - how to get musicians from point A to point B, and how much it's going to cost to do that safely and effectively.A HUGE factor in traveling is how you move instruments around, and I've been filming a good deal of my interactions at airports to try and paint as honest a picture as I ...

What is the TIME SIGNATURE of the Bluey Theme? | Q+A

Answering some of the most important questions of our era, lol.As we all know, ALL music is in 4/4, but sometimes there's a little bit more to it than that.Thanks guys for supporting me here!Adam

The Mesmerizing Harmony of Wayne Shorter

Hey all,I've spent the past two weeks or so going hard at a tribute to Wayne Shorter, it's a small thing, but I had fun talking about the music to Infant Eyes.Hope you guys dig it!Adam

How does VIBRATO relate to rhythm? | Q+A

A quick Q+A in between projects! I have quite a few vlogs and other videos in the pipeline the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!Adam

Is Cb the same note as B?

A little video explainer/essay thing on Cb and B!AHHH! I'm back to making videos! There will be quite a few that get churned out in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to try and make up for lost time. Touring burnt me out on videos, but I have a lot of footage and ideas that I'm going to be working through. I haven't died, I swear. The memes and the music theory will flow!Adam

Copyright video essay

Hey all, This is a draft of an upcoming video essay that I have spent almost a month on - it took a huge amount of research, scripting and rewriting to get it to a place where I want to say what I want to say. Several reshoots too - the first couple times I shot the video I didn’t think I said everything I needed to - and so the whole thing has a real patchwork fee. I’m still not “done” with it, but I think it’s in a place to at least share with you all.It honestly took a lot of back and forth to figure out exactly how I wanted to st...

Music theory of Cbat (reddit guy song)

So sorry about this one.And yet, not sorry, honestly. A dive into entrainment, microtonality, sex, and memes. Thanks guys!Adam

Will AI replace human musicians? | Q+A

A quick Q+A!I'm on the road with Sungazer, but I was able to film this little Q+A before I left. Thanks guys for making these videos possible!Adam

This Janet Jackson BASSLINE breaks laptops

Had some fun looking a bit deeper into a story from last week - Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation apparently can breaks laptops with a certain frequency, but the story of why is a little bit cooler than the initial headlines would suggest.The offending frequency was caused by tuning low E slightly sharp - who'd a thunk!Thanks y'all!Adam

This music should be IMPOSSIBLE...and yet...

Hey y'all,I'm sorry I've been so incommunicado, but in my defense....Sungazer is in the midst of planning for THREE tours right now. US tour in September, another European tour in November, and a super huge tour that I can't say anything about until after our US tour, but it's BIG.https://www.songkick.com/artists/8469503-sungazerSungazer is slowly taking over my life, which is great! But man, running a band a full time job, and YouTube is still there. It's really difficult to do both at a high level.I still am hacking aw...

Jazz Musician Sucks at Metal (w/ Rob Scallon)

I'm on tour in Europe right now, but I had a great time hanging out with Rob Scallon before leaving, where we had a couple hours in a studio to shoot some collaboration videos. He taught me some metal tropes, I taught him some jazz tropes, and we had a general good time!Here is his video on his channel if you also want to check that out.https://youtu.be/Zz2NN48_lV8Adam

5 words of wisdom for BEGINNING musicians

Fun video from this past weekend at NAMM!I'm in Europe for the next couple weeks touring with Sungazer, and already there are many vlog-worthy moments. Can't wait to share them with y'all!Adam

Can I pass an AP Music Theory Exam?

AP Music Theory's final exam is...hard? Kinda weird? Kinda...not music theory really?This video was kinda baffling for me, because the practice exam I took tests SOME important skills musicians used (like melodic and harmonic dictation), but then spends a huge amount of time on 4-part voice leading from figured bass, which exactly NO professionals musicians EVER USE. (this is just me being slightly bitter for getting some points off, lol)Sorry the posts have been far and few between, currently touring the West Coast! Trying to balance video...

How we almost lost $17,000 on tour

Hey y'all!So I've been absent for a little while, and a big part of that was 1) I was on tour! and 2) I was on a tour where we hemorrhaged money and 2 people got COVID, and was away from home for a month and 3) I was editing the vlog about it. I'm now going to sleep for a long...long time.Thank you to everybody who came out to support us on Sungazer's first west coast run! It ended up being a great success, despite the extremely rocky start.On a related note, I'm going to be taking it easy for the next couple weeks, this who...

Drummer brought memes to the NYC jazz fusion gig

A little gig vlog from last month! I'm in the middle of a Sungazer tour right now that's going all haywire (vlog on that soon), but I was able to get this edited.Hope y'all enjoy!Adam

There are no RULES in music, only CONTEXT!

Hey guys!Latest How to Get Good At Music is here, with my good buddy and touring keyboardist for Sungazer, Christian Li. Hope you guys dig it! Lots of great viewer submissions.I'm going to be touring with Sungazer for the next couple weeks, but there will be lots of vlog/Q+A style content coming out of the tour. If you've been following on social media, there already have been some fun gags - Charles Cornell joined the band briefly for our April 1st show in Denver. I'll be updating/posting in the Discord throughout, so say hey over ...