Cloreen said:

maplesyrupnjam said:

I'm talking about a composition like Sometimes It Snows In April. Not it's sonic base, the actual COMPOSITION, which incidentally contains more than 3 CHORD changes.

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You really think "Snow In April" is built around a complex song structure?

My God, I picked up my guitar and figured that one out in about thirty-five seconds.

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Oh, and by the way, "Sometimes It Snows In April" was written by two females, so just how complex do you think it could really be? Even the greatest female composer of them all - Carole King - rarely wrote a song beyond the simplistic I-IV-V song structure.

Alright, that's enough. This is ridiculous. I will not have this thread derailed. This blatant sexism is not acceptable. If anyone wants to contribute anything else, please keep it relevant to the topic of discussion.

Thank you to everyone who has posted links and/or contributed meaningful anecdotes/observations regarding Prince's music.

bonatoc said:

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You probably get a boner when you listen to "Dark Side Of The Moon".

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Uhh, I hate "Dark Side Of The Moon." "Animals" is their only album worth owning.

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But you wouldn't know about "Animals" because you obtain your music "knowledge" from the whacky, crazy guys on your Morning Zoo radio show. "Whoo Hoo, here's the latest from Prince! It's called "Raspberry Beret." You know, Moondog, I prefer myself a strawberry beret." Yuk yuk yuk...

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Hey, kid, time for you to step away from the simplistic, mainstream music scene you follow (your "Dark Side Of The Moon" reference was the clear giveaway) and maybe give some interesting music a listen. Three chord I-IV-V song structures are not very inventive, kid. I was playing that stuff when I was twelve. Maybe one day you'll move past music made for 12 year olds.

Once again, we don't give a shit about your musical preferences.
Now you wanna play who can piss the farthest.
I was playing Köln Concert pt. I when I was 8. Kiss my butt.

Contribute to the thread or get out.

[Edited 6/1/16 13:22pm]

Guitarhero said:

It looks a sexist comment to me too.

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Not sexist at all.

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Until you provide a list of twenty exceptional female composers, then you can not call what I said sexist.

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I'll even help you out and name a few.

Chrissie Hynde

Carole King

Joni Mitchell

Uhh, and that's all. Good luck coming up with the next 17.

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(And if someone adds Madonna to the list, then I give up.)

Use the damn Google. Or Wikipedia.

Oh, and for Christ's Sake, leave.

We get you. You're the supreme authority when it comes to music.

[Edited 6/1/16 13:26pm]

Cloreen said:

bonatoc said:

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I was playing Köln Concert pt. I when I was 8. Kiss my butt.
.
Contribute to the thread or get out.

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I did contribute to this thread regarding a study of Prince as musician. Only one here who noted his real strength lies in the sonic composition of his tunes.

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And maybe instead of playing Koln Concert part I when you were 8, you should have played a little Chuck Berry or James Brown or Keith Richards. You would then have a better understanding of what great music is. You missed the boat, kid.

peedub said:

Chrissie hynde

Carole King

Joni Mitchell

Madonna.....

...see ya.

.

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Alright. I give up. No way in heck I could ever explain to someone why Madonna is not an all time great musical composer. One top song ("What It Feels Like For A Girl") does not make an artist.

Cloreen said:

Did anyone see my comment above where I asked everyone to take the arguments elsewhere? I'd like this thread to be about Prince's music, not pointless bickering.

maplesyrupnjam said:

Man, you're covering yourself in glory on this thread no doubt. You've outdone yourself with that one.

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Shhh, don't tell anyone but it's all in fun.

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I do wonder how some of you here are Prince fans. His sly, provocative, devilish humor clearly was well above your heads.

smoothcriminal12 said:

Did anyone see my comment above where I asked everyone to take the arguments elsewhere? I'd like this thread to be about Prince's music, not pointless bickering.

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Got it.

The most interesting period is maybe 1984-1985 for total, absolute originality.
The use of silence is incredible.
What counts ain't really when the note starts, it's when it stops.
If you cut it abruptely, or let it hang, and if so, how.
Heck, why not slide it up or down while it fades?

Listen to "She's Always In My Hair" on headphones under this persepctive.

The melody is in the pure lyrical vein of Prince, straight octave jumps, long held notes, a lot of ornaments (if you listen closer, you'll notice you really weren't paying attention, and my oh my what a singer Prince is), inflexions, chest voice parts to the limit of breaking, and when Prince screams, it ain't Lennon self-proclaimed rock martyr shrieks (Oh poor me, I live in a penthouse in NYC trapped with Yoko).

The verses bass line is based on a well known structure in rock. It's the silence he leaves that's revolutionary. The third note is dotted. What is exceptional are the 5th and 4th scattered all over, like vocal power chords always in rythmical and harmonical counterpoint to the chord the bass line implies.
With this original approach, Prince manages to bring more chords inversions, and brief modulations in, as the song develops (more than any pop musician known); to the point where suddenly the bass and the harmonies are inverted : the bass becomes the riff (what would the orchestra play), and the harmonies stay on an ostinato, insisting simply on the key in which the song is.
That, my unfriend, is revolutionary. It gives you brief sus4's and min7's flying all over the place.


Listen carefully to the sonic experiments that happen during the ad-lib, delayed shakers, flangered hi-hats, phasers, all the 60's panoply.
Also, listen carefully to the bass in the last 30 seconds or so.
Right before the double-kick drum quadruples.

And he ends on the flanger going up. How great is that?


And that's one fucking song only, a genre of its own, and he never repeated it.
He never photocopied it and repackaged it. He'd rather do "Poom Poom" to shit over people's heads like Cloreen, than repeat himself.

6 weeks and still missing U, Little Big Man.

I'm going to listen to "Hello" on headphones set to 11, now.
I think I'm gonna have the same sonic orgasm I always get
during the choking ad lib over the last choruses preceding
Skipper going nuts on the drums.

Hello y'all. Peace & B Wild.

Don't forget to EQ your system properly. You go deaf with age.



The sexist pedantic troll, I don't salute.



P.S. : Oh, so you're in for funnies only, listen, I got one: an earing aid wouldn't save U.
Funny, no?

[Edited 6/1/16 14:19pm]

[Edited 6/1/16 14:22pm]

[Edited 6/1/16 14:23pm]

[Edited 6/1/16 14:24pm]

[Edited 6/1/16 14:26pm]

[Edited 6/1/16 14:36pm]

Cloreen said:

maplesyrupnjam said:

Man, you're covering yourself in glory on this thread no doubt. You've outdone yourself with that one.

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Shhh, don't tell anyone but it's all in fun.

.

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I do wonder how some of you here are Prince fans. His sly, provocative, devilish humor clearly was well above your heads.

Oh so it's all Satire is it? Oh how silly of us...Just one thing mate, you're no Jonathan Swift.

As far as your contribution to smoothcriminal12's thread I'd say it started terribly, tailed off somewhere in the middle and the less said about the end the better. I haven't been great on it either but I'd like to arrogantly put that down to being transfixed by your utterly glorious Wildean observations.

Sorry smooth. Right then. I off now. If I ever say anything else on this thread again you can happily ban me.

Last digression, smoothcriminal12, I promise.

Hey, bacon skin, explain to us poor mortals
your three chords theory on this one , I beg you.

I'll be waiting. Still.

mtlfan said:

To me the more apt comparison is to Stevie Wonder than the Beatles, and there has been some analysis of Wonder's work too. IMO he was not only a more direct influence on Prince but also comes closest to embodying what made Prince so amazing. Studio wizard, multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter-composer-producer equally adept at funk, pop and soul at any flavor and tempo.

Aside from Stevie, if you analyze Beatles, Rolling Stones, James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Joni Mitchell, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Parliament-Funkadelic, the Ohio Players, Earth, Wind & Fire and the Isley Brothers that would put in Prince's neighborhood. Then you have to figure out how he seamlessly blended all that together into a completely original mix and sprinkled dollops of magic on it all.

HardcoreJollies said:

To me the more apt comparison is to Stevie Wonder than the Beatles, and there has been some analysis of Wonder's work too. IMO he was not only a more direct influence on Prince but also comes closest to embodying what made Prince so amazing. Studio wizard, multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter-composer-producer equally adept at funk, pop and soul at any flavor and tempo.

Aside from Stevie, if you analyze Beatles, Rolling Stones, James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Joni Mitchell, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Parliament-Funkadelic, the Ohio Players, Earth, Wind & Fire and the Isley Brothers that would put in Prince's neighborhood. Then you have to figure out how he seamlessly blended all that together into a completely original mix and sprinkled dollops of magic on it all.

Robert3rd said:

Also: it seems he was a fan of songs in Bb or A: Gold, Purple Rain, Glam Slam and I Wish You Heaven? Key of B flat major. Starfish and Coffee, 7, and Raspberry Beret? A Major When the Lights Go Down? A Mixolydian (another Mode) Beautiful Strange? A Minor

Does anyone know if A is key that works well on the guitar? For example I play the violin/fiddle and keys like D and G are much easier to work with than say C. If A is a key that sits more naturally on the guitar then that might suggest Prince did most of his composing on the guitar rather than the piano.

Exetergirl said:

Cloreen said:

bonatoc said:

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I had to stop at "Let's take a shower, shower together, I'll wash your body, you'll wash mine".
Ridiculous.

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Hmmm. You know you are right about those Teddy lyrics. Too bad he couldn't come up with something like these Prince lyrics. These are absolutely Dylan-esque in their depth and maturity:

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"She took off her dress, and I took a peek
I begged for a kiss, she gave me seven
Our lips touched and it feel like heaven

....

I promised myself not to come until she does
No man in this world could ever hope to last
When my baby downshifts and starts pumpin' fast"

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Wow. It's like reading a Shakespearean sonnet.

Hahaha thank you for that. Because this is why I got jokes about this song. And we're not going to talk about the imagery of surgery and sex. In one song. Together. NOOOPE. lol

Traditional analysis of Prince's music is hard, because he often stacks vocal harmonies in ways that don't QUITE fit the progression that's happening. And the "wrong" notes (they're not really wrong -- just defy traditional analysis) aren't voiced like jazz extensions, either.

There needs to be a way to analyze the harmonic progression, melody, vocal harmonies (often a sort of extension of the melody at fixed intervals in parallel motion), rhythm, and texture -- all somewhat independent of each other. Maybe someone has created such a system, but I haven't come across it.

Prince's unique sound (especially in the vocal harmonies), in my opinion, often springs out of his lack of traditional music training/theory comprehension. I am sorry if this rubs some people the wrong way -- he was a natural genius, yes, but there is a lot that's "wrong" about his music in a traditional sense. I don't object, though, either; it's all part of the sonic tapestry he created.

IRockThere4IAm said:

Traditional analysis of Prince's music is hard, because he often stacks vocal harmonies in ways that don't QUITE fit the progression that's happening. And the "wrong" notes (they're not really wrong -- just defy traditional analysis) aren't voiced like jazz extensions, either.

There needs to be a way to analyze the harmonic progression, melody, vocal harmonies (often a sort of extension of the melody at fixed intervals in parallel motion), rhythm, and texture -- all somewhat independent of each other. Maybe someone has created such a system, but I haven't come across it.

Prince's unique sound (especially in the vocal harmonies), in my opinion, often springs out of his lack of traditional music training/theory comprehension. I am sorry if this rubs some people the wrong way -- he was a natural genius, yes, but there is a lot that's "wrong" about his music in a traditional sense. I don't object, though, either; it's all part of the sonic tapestry he created.

I've noticed that. Prince does some very interesting things with his music that wouldn't traditionally "fit" but work very well in context.

IRockThere4IAm said:

Traditional analysis of Prince's music is hard, because he often stacks vocal harmonies in ways that don't QUITE fit the progression that's happening. And the "wrong" notes (they're not really wrong -- just defy traditional analysis) aren't voiced like jazz extensions, either.

There needs to be a way to analyze the harmonic progression, melody, vocal harmonies (often a sort of extension of the melody at fixed intervals in parallel motion), rhythm, and texture -- all somewhat independent of each other. Maybe someone has created such a system, but I haven't come across it.

Prince's unique sound (especially in the vocal harmonies), in my opinion, often springs out of his lack of traditional music training/theory comprehension. I am sorry if this rubs some people the wrong way -- he was a natural genius, yes, but there is a lot that's "wrong" about his music in a traditional sense. I don't object, though, either; it's all part of the sonic tapestry he created.

May you give some examples? it sounds quite interesting.

214 said:

May you give some examples? it sounds quite interesting.

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A pretty famous example is the chord change from A to Bbsus2 in the second half of the "Sometimes It Snows In April" chorus. Listen to that chorus:

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"Sometimes it snows in April.

Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad.

Sometimes I wish"

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That chord change on the "wish" is really jarring and "not right." It is not a "normal" traditional chord progression for a popular music tune. It's wrong according to all who would write that song, but Prince goes from the A to that unsettling B flat chord...and it works.

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Even if you don't know a thing about musical composition, you can hear the song takes a sudden discordant turn at that point.

Prince was the greatest genius of the last 50 years. his music has elements of all the music that came before him. He had the genius to incorporate all that into his own music and make a new sound that everybody copied.

NikkiH said:

Superconductor said:

Robert3rd said: So what does this mean? I am a bit rusty on music theory. Did he write more music in major or minor chords? Did he use chords or modes? Do you think he knew how to read and write music? There is a video circulating which shows him playing Summertime on the piano at a soundcheck, just beautiful, and he calls out the notes.

Musical Key means that the notes in a song are based on a specific scale. So say you have a song based on the C Major scale, it would be said to be in the "key" of C Major.

A scale is a pattern of notes usually spanning an octave( an interval that spans 8 notes). The first note of a scale and the pattern of intervals in that scale determines what type of scale it is. So you could have a C Major scale or a D Major scale that have the same pattern, but start and end on different notes. There are many types of scales and modes( a mode is basically also a scale...but it's a bit different). Most of our(American) concept of scales, keys, and chords comes from a combination of church modes from the middle ages in Western Europe, combined with other influences from other continents. Other countries have their own scales/modes that they use also that are a bit different from "westernized" nations.

A chord is when you play more than one note simultaneously with another note(you can have 2,3,4 note chords...), songs usually contain several chords in a specific pattern that are called "chord progressions". When he was playing "Summertime",he was calling out which chords he was playing so that the band could play along with his improvisation. There are also many types of chords, sounds of chords also change depending on the order of the notes and how they are played.

Most songs you hear have a melody that is played/sung on top of a chord progression (harmony), and most of those melodies and chord progressions fit within a specific scale,which is called a key.

It's been said that he couldn't read notation, but I honestly think he learned to somewhere in there. All the theory in the world can't give you a good ear, and he had one of the best.

I hope that made sense, I tried to make it short.

If you want to read about theory, this is a good site: https://www.musictheory.net/

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Yeah thanks. I was more asking in reference to Robert3rd's comment and specifically what he meant about what Prince was playing, not music theory in general but no sweat!

Cloreen said:

214 said:

May you give some examples? it sounds quite interesting.

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A pretty famous example is the chord change from A to Bbsus2 in the second half of the "Sometimes It Snows In April" chorus. Listen to that chorus:

.

"Sometimes it snows in April.

Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad.

Sometimes I wish"

.

That chord change on the "wish" is really jarring and "not right." It is not a "normal" traditional chord progression for a popular music tune. It's wrong according to all who would write that song, but Prince goes from the A to that unsettling B flat chord...and it works.

.

Even if you don't know a thing about musical composition, you can hear the song takes a sudden discordant turn at that point.

That's my case, give more examples please.

214 said:

IRockThere4IAm said:

Traditional analysis of Prince's music is hard, because he often stacks vocal harmonies in ways that don't QUITE fit the progression that's happening. And the "wrong" notes (they're not really wrong -- just defy traditional analysis) aren't voiced like jazz extensions, either.

There needs to be a way to analyze the harmonic progression, melody, vocal harmonies (often a sort of extension of the melody at fixed intervals in parallel motion), rhythm, and texture -- all somewhat independent of each other. Maybe someone has created such a system, but I haven't come across it.

Prince's unique sound (especially in the vocal harmonies), in my opinion, often springs out of his lack of traditional music training/theory comprehension. I am sorry if this rubs some people the wrong way -- he was a natural genius, yes, but there is a lot that's "wrong" about his music in a traditional sense. I don't object, though, either; it's all part of the sonic tapestry he created.

May you give some examples? it sounds quite interesting.

Well basically what I'm getting at is that if you study harmony and counterpoint in a classical or jazz sense, you learn certain "rules"; for instance, you learn about how harmony is "voiced" -- not necessarily for singing, but "voices," as in, distinct members of the harmony. One way to do it is four-voice "chorale"-type harmony, which is used for theory exercises among students all over the place. Generally the lowest voice would be the bass note (typically the root of the chord, but not always), the highest voice is the melody line, and the two inner voices fill out the other notes in the harmony based on the proper chords. The hard part is making it all move from chord to chord in a cogent way (the "counterpoint" part). If you do it wrong, you risk having some awkward intervals or transitions that just don't sound right (even though the notes might technically fit). You can make sure you're doing it right by scanning your music for certain transgressions -- parallel fifths or octaves between voices, parallel fourths (better, but still jarring), etc. You can use certain tricks to make things sound good -- parallel thirds or sixths between chords where applicable, contrary motion between lines, voice exchanges, etc. These are all guidelines because they WORK -- that is, they help the melody, bassline, and inner voices transition between chords in an elegant way.

Prince broke these rules all the time. He probably didn't even care, but there are examples in nearly every song where he densely stacks his own voice into a chorus. Beyond that, he would add in notes that don't even fit with the underlying chord happening at the time. I would never have "corrected" him, exactly, but I am sure that if he had more formal training, he could have built more rock-solid arrangements for his voice and the whole ensemble of instrument lines. As it was, he was probably more interested in texture than harmony in a traditional sense, and in that regard I think he was quite extraordinary.