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Analysis: Windowlicker

Lesson 24 from: Music Theory for Electronic Musicians 2: Minor Keys and More

J. Anthony Allen

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Lesson Info

24. Analysis: Windowlicker

Next Lesson: Chromaticism

Lesson Info

Analysis: Windowlicker

all right for our last analysis. Done. Todung sound the trumpets. Um, all good things must come to an end eventually. Ah, for last analysis, we're gonna do a Aphex twin window licker. Um, this, unlike a lot of his music, has a pretty easy core progression to latch onto. I think we could look deeper into this song. If you know what the song is about, then. Um, it kind of makes sense. Anyway, Never mind that, um, this one is in the key of C minor. Um, it's got a baseline. That kind of It's a subtle baseline. It's not like a hit you over the head kind of Skrillex baseline. But, um, it's a baseline that kind of sticks out. Ah, little bit. And it fits in with the cords and exactly the way we were just talking about, um has a locked of thing. It has a little passing tone, so Ah, let's hear a little bit of the song. First, I was going to jump in where the kind of groove starts. Okay, so you probably heard that we're hearing the same core progression over and over and over. Ah, and at least in...

this section of the song. He does go away from it a little bit later, but, um, I just want to focus on this this core progression. So, um, what I found in just picking through this was the key of C minor. But it's using primarily major chords, actually. So here's my baseline. So let's hear. Unsold. Oh, this. Let's loop just this first bar there. This first section. Um, let's hear the track. Let's not hear the cords yet and we'll hear the baseline. So here's what I found for a baseline. So ah, one thing that happens, this track is a little bit out of tune. So, um, there's a little bit of a sharpness, especially in these these upper notes. Ah, because the tracks out of tune. And I don't know if that's just from the file conversion or if he attitude it on purpose. It's probably just the file conversion. Um, but regardless, um, the other write notes. So what I have here is a C. Let's zoom in a little bit here. So have a C. And then second note here, another seat just goes up inactive. So this is just to see this whole section here I have an e flat or a d Sharp. And then here, another one. So just up inductive. So just took those two notes. Put him up by the active. So probably two different chords here, between here and here and then the third section, we have a G sharp or in a flat. Ah, and that Just sit still. And then we have this one little quick turnaround. So it hits an a flat again and then goes down to an F Let's hear just the baseline. Cool. Um, So what I think is happening is we have one court here, one chord here and one chord here. So there are really only three chords. We could call this f a different chord if we wanted to, but as I kind of plunks through this before I started recording the video, I don't think it is. Um, I think that f is just kind of a passing bass note, but it's also kind of part of the court. So we'll look at that when we get into the court. Um, which will be right now. So let's look at the cords. So here's what I found for the cords zoom in a little bit here so we can see this little bit better. Good. Ok, so, um a c minor and what I did here. So this is just our one chord, the C minor chord. And what I did here is I played the route and then the third and the fifth offset by just to touch on Lee because that's the way the keyboard part sounds in this. It's really a C minor court. All through this first section, I could have just done this, and it would have been accurate as well, because we hear a C minor chord through this whole section. But I kind of like the way this sounds. It sounds more accurate. Sounds more like the track. So I just drew it in like that. The, uh let's hear that with the track. What's this year? Everything. So the baseline. Ah, the cords that I came up with and the track cool. So I took it with these cords. Are so again on this chord. I just put it in the second half. Um, it could be like this, the whole Courtis sounding the whole time. It's just ah kind of emulating the keyboard. Parton. Why not? I did the same thing down here, so the whole cord is happening here on the first beat. But I moved it over so that the piano would play Kind of like the roads kind of sound there. So the cords we have here are we have a C minor chord and it's the one chord in the key of C minor. So the first chord, then we have a d sharp or let's call it an e flat chord. And that's the third chord on our diatonic chord progression. So that's gonna be major right? I don't even think I need to draw this out anymore. You know this, um, you know the pattern. So here we have an a flat chord or G sharp chord, and that is going to be if you count up the scale, that's going to be our six hoops that's going to six. Our sixth chord in the scale. And if we do our diatonic or progressions, you know that the six court in the scale is major. So, um um, no, let's explain this f down here. This f could be two things in my mind could be just a passing based note. Just booms actually could be three things in my mind. It could be a passing bass note. That's one option. It could be It could be, Ah, hold a record So we could build on F chord on that, Um, or it could be a cord tone in this cord. In which case, this court that we see here is not the complete court. It could be 1/7. Now, if we take this cord and we add 1/7 it's not gonna be the right note. But if this was the root of the cord over here, So if we spelled Accord F and we said this was the F, it would be f a r sorry f g sharp or a flat C D shopper e flat. So that would make a full F seven chord. And that would be accord that's in the key. So we could call this whole chunk in f chord. That would be, ah, legit thing to consider. I don't think that's our answer, though, because we very clearly here this g sharp in the base and we don't get the f till they're so I don't think that's the correct answer. Um, let's try building accord on the F. So let's assume that this is an F. So if we go up our scale, there's our third and there's our fifth. We actually have two notes in common, right, because this is the same court. If we added 1/ let's hear if that sounds good to us. Possibly I'm going to say no Onley because we don't hear this. Corddry attacked here, so these notes don't get attacked. And they're two of the same notes that are already ringing anyway from the previous cord. So more likely that it's just a passing note in the baseline that happens to complement the cord quite well, which is why he chose it because it sounded good. Um, so ah, that gives us our three chords That gives us a C minor for the first half of the first bar, an E flat major for the second half of the first bar and an a flat major for the whole second bar. With this added note F in the base, which reminds me we could call it something else. We could call it a flat over f, right. That's probably the best name for it. So we would say here a flat over f would be a really good name for it, Right? Because we have this a flat chord major chord with an F in the base for the second part. So over here, this would be just in a flat chord. This would be an e flat chord, and this would be a C minor chord. So it's actually a pretty simple core progression, not something we associate with Aphex Twin. And the words simple usually, Um Okay, so now that we have this, we can use this for a good chunk of this opening stuff. It keeps going for quite a waste. So let's hear just a little bit of it. I'm not gonna go through the whole song. Okay, so it didn't happen here. This was kind of Ah, a no chord section on. Then It's so now. Ah, lot like another track we did earlier. Now he's taking that core progression. Sort of like chopping it up and using little parts of it here and there. And I think he's going to do that for quite a ways into the song. So ah, surprisingly easy. One window licker by FX when

Ratings and Reviews

MikeD
 

Well, I slobbered all over you after your first class and this one is as good or better. I realize people don't go to college for 12 years and learn what you shared in a few hours and you didn't earn your doctorate with just this stuff. I mean Julliard must offer a lot more, but you have advanced my knowledge by miles and I've got to say thank you. Make some more of these simple, common talk courses - I'll buy them all.

Ben Küstner
 

Real Great Course. I learned a lot about Music Theory and now am jamming better than ever on my keyboard. Thanks Allen

Nick van Lochem
 

This course its so good he makes it al sound so easy. that ists easy to remember and use in your creations.

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