Recently I found out about Jacob Collier, a truly amazing musician, who re-introduced the concept of negative harmony among other things like starting a song in 432hz then switching to 440. Check out his music! The 10 min live looping songs are so entertaining it is hard to stop watching. HIs instant 'Take 6' effect you hear here is unfortunately not available commercially.

Notice the audience participation part ....the crowd is forced to modulate every 4 bars ......then back....WTF

Anyway, he deserves a thread just about his music.

In doing research to try to understand this 'negative' concept I found this:
Audio level is low

I cued it up to the Negative Happy Birthday but please watch from the beginning.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 30, 2017

Jacob Collier....and Michael Pippoquinha give me hope for the future of music. Young people these days seem to be in an awful lot of hurry. They have been brought up with the lie that they can accomplish anything they'd want to reach. Computers and software developers as well as internet are feeding the lie to gain from it (at least that's the thought, though young people rather download stuff for free). Making music is done without instruments these days, you simply draw some lines and there you are.....NOT! People like Jacob and Michael are gifted and they took the time and put in the effort to develop the gift into a talent, BIG difference.

 

Now THAT is a conversation. @seriousofficial thanks for that.

 

Collier is an amazingly creative artist. Thanks for the post.

 

kinda speechless but oh WOW !!!!
Great thread @dragonhill

I've subscribed.....time to study

 

I try hard to understand this kid and its subject since the day you guys got him on my spotlight (on the other thread, about Jacob software/gears). What is it, what is the phenomenal part about it that I missed? Just interest to know. Thanks.

 

@Futurewine Watch that Happy Birthday video example, it should get you started. I cued it to the middle where Negative Happy Birthday starts. If you watch from the beginning it will make more sense.
It's just a mirror. Once you understand where the mirror goes (between the minor 3rd and major 3rd), it is just counting.

In the key of C a G7 to C chord combo becomes Fm6 to C.
G7 is made up of G B D F
all you have to do is use the mirror between Eflat and E.
To change G7 to Fm6:
G is four semitones away to the E so count 4 semitones from Eflat to get C
B is 5 semitones away from Eflat so from E count 5 semitones to get A flat
D is 2 away from Eflat so go 2 from E to get F
F is one away from E so go one in the opposite direction to get D
The direction doesn't matter as long as you keep that direction with the same amount of semitones.

How cool it that?

Jacob describes it lightning fast here.

Where is that half speed button? The wealth of info in this interview is mind boggling.
The interviewer June Lee knows his shit too. He adds piano voicings appropriately.
Did you catch microtonal voicing of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer? He is splitting a normal 3 semitone m3 to four equidistant notes not notatable. WTF WTF

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 30, 2017

Oh! I think I get it. I was watching from layman's point of view and try to understand from artist/performance side. I missed to see the phenomenal is on the musical theory part. Interesting. Thanks for explanation @dragonhill

 

Urm.. I just found Ernst Levy book, "A Theory of Harmony", the book which Jacob study upon before deliver this magnificient subject to we all. This 1985 book prolly out of print. In case my friends haz interests to read more and learn what Jacob learn, here is the book. Happy study there, guys. =)

 

So interesting... but in terms of perfomance, I can't help remembering Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, Bobby McFerrin, like a talented mix of those monsters. And Pipoquinha is obviously a fan of Egberto Gismonti.
Please, listen to Gismonti.

 

Collier's rhythm concepts and micro tonal stuff i can't even imagine.... might be the next step .....the next big thing in music. People should see the interview part 2 with June Lee. It's just as amazing.

Sorry guys, gonna have to learn the language of music before you have that much fun like Collier and Pipoquinha in the video above.
All Collier needs is a mint container and a melodica.

 

I am following behind Jacob as we climb the golden, shining harmonic ladder. But soon for me the rungs as phantoms disappear making it impossible for me to follow, all the while he rising high and ever higher above me. I left below, purse my eyelids squinting, commanding my furthest focus until he soon disappears into the star washed and infinite universe, absorbed and now as one with the all. Ciao, Bodhisatva!

 

But watch on 3:39 and 3:49 he doesn't sing live and in quite a few other parts.
Not judging, just pointing out.

Sorry, the time was wrong. It's 5:39 and 5:49.

 

Last edited: Dec 31, 2017

The shaker out of nowhere after he starts looping at 2:54 is a dead giveaway he adds elements to keep us entertained. The first tempo change almost seems like it was added to give him enough time to pick up the bass again.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 31, 2017

The higher Jacob climbs, more trickle down for us mere mortals......

 

Pretty soon are we going to see a Negative Harmony Calculator?
Seems easy enough type in your notes or chord progression ..... select key?

The example given in the interview:
A7 --- D7 --- G7 --- C
turns into
E flat m6 --- B flat m6 --- Fm6 --- C
I really enjoy hearing the differences and similarities of these two progressions.

Couple things I noticed before someone programs the calculator for us.

dominant 7 always turns into a m6
if it's the V chord, it's two semitones down

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 2, 2018

It's starting. I've seen growing number of interests on other forums, people looking for negative harmony generator and chord conversion tools.

This one guy in YT made "negative harmony cover" for some known songs. In case you guys interested, his YT channel is here and here's a sample from his cover (sounds weird but very nice):

 

@dragonhill... What a share... I'm not going to go into the technicality of this guys' music, just want to say this is fucking amazing! The energy and passion this guy has for what he does, it's contagious! Thank you for sharing this, buddy!

Edit: Just finished listening to the second track you posted. His vocals... God damn... Yo, tight post!

 

Last edited: Jan 2, 2018

Damn, at first I thought this was going to be just another ass hole singing and playing out of key just to be different but was I wrong ...

This guy is incredibly talented!!!

These guys are the real thing and what a nice change it is, especially for us old guys who have almost lost hope for the future of music.

 

Negative music is great. Is there a Metallica negative ?

I realized the physical movement of the chord progression is simply mirrored.
The Collier chord progression example above makes more sense esp. to a guitar player playing power chords :
from the A it's up - diagonal two steps down - and up to the C
from the Eb it's down - diagonal two steps up - and down to the C


So who wants to continue the conversation about interview question number 1:

The Super - ultra - hyper- mega-meta lydian scale .......'it kinda wraps around it's self'? ...... huh?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2018