Grapthar's Video of the Day: "Musical Fractals" from YouTube User Adam Neely

grapthar (74)in #music • 6 years ago

All Credit for the Video goes to YouTube User Adam Neely

I have been a subscriber

of Adam Neely for a long time, but just recently watched this video again and was still blown away by this discovery. Adam Neely is a professional/session bass player who lives in New York City, and over the past 10 years, has really cemented himself as a great YouTuber, sharing lots of great music theory, acoustic science, and other music related videos. He is an incredible composer himself, getting a Masters degree in Jazz Composition, so his analysis of stuff is SUPER detailed, and great for musicians learning theory. However, my favorite videos of his are the ones like this one, where he combines science and music to make some pretty astonishingly cool discoveries.

Watch "Musical Fractals" here.

In this video, he takes certain

polyrhythms, and plays them on a loop, then slowly accelerates the beats per minute until the rhythms meld together and become what sounds like a single 2 note interval being played. It's worth watching the video, he really gets into detail explaining this phenomenon, but essentially it is this: a polyrhythm/note ratio (like 3/2) that is relatively easy to tap/sing/remember turns into a more consonant interval (one that sounds nicer, or more resolved), while the more complicated polyrhythms/ratios (like 15/8) are much more dissonant (unresolved, or not pleasing to listen to). When I watched this, I felt like my brain exploded. Rhythm is essentially harmony slowed down hundreds of times, which is a crazy concept, but becomes obvious after watching his video.