This is the second installment of my Sadboy Series.

0:00- Intro
3:09- Part One: Pedal Points in the Bass
9:12- Part Two: "Open String" Pedal Points
14:00- Part Three: Carrie & Lowell
21:05- Part Four: They're Everywhere!

Thanks for my The Band's Visit bandmates for play on this video:
Yoni Battat- violin
Wick Simmons- cello
Alejandro Farja- guitar
Mark Ziegler- bass
Roger Kashou- darbuka
Shai Wetzer- frame drum, shaker, ankle bells
Me- alto flute, Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, keyboards, vocals

If you want to listen to the musical excerpts that we recorded, you will have no choice but to go to my Instagram page to hear them:   / brian.krock  

Please support me if you can! You don't even wanna know how much time and effort went into this...   / briankrock  

Listen to my music (and buy it if you can):
https://bigheartmachine.bandcamp.com
https://www.bigheartmachine.com
https://www.briankrock.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2IR0n...
  / big-heart-machine  

#MusicTheory #SufjanStevens

Preemptively Addressing Your Quibbles [please read this before nit-picking my work]:
Brittanica's definition says a pedal point is "a tone sustaining through several changes in harmony." I would like to amend that definition to be more inclusive: "A tone sustaining or reiterated through several changes of harmony." I think the former definition is too inflexible, and would necessarily exclude classic examples of pedal points, such as the excerpt I mentioned from Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. Some of you may cry: "BUT BRIAN! Wayne Shorter's 'Footprints' and Sufjan's 'Chicago' aren't really pedal points because the repeated pitches aren't sustained." Well, first of all, please note that in my video I said the former example was "pedal point-esque" (6:46) and that the latter, "were it sustained, would create a pedal point" (8:06).

But, really, these technical details are beside the point! You could, for example, accurately describe the repeated pitches in Sufjan's "I Should Have Known Better" as an ostinato, rather than a pedal point. But, again, it's a simple issue of whether or not you believe a note must be sustained- rather than simply reiterated- to count as a true pedal point.

I, myself, couldn't care less. Music isn't about rules. We come up with these names to describe phenomena to each other in order to have a dialogue about musical moments that inspire us. That's all.

Post-script: One of my main takeaways from this project is what a freaking phenomenal singer Sufjan is. Since his style is understated, it can be easy to overlook. But, as you follow along with my transcriptions, notice how rhythmically complex these melodies are. Then, remember that he double-tracks almost everything. So, as I was trying to record the vocals, I got frustrated as hell! Sufjan is so accurate with his consonants and cutoffs, his pitch is remarkably centered, and the lyrics somehow fit snugly within pretty forbidding syncopation.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about setting lyrics as a composer. Sufjan manages to make his poetry the central focus of these songs while simultaneously respecting the complexity of the emotions he's expressing by reflecting those complexities in the music itself. There are odd phrase-lengths, changing time signatures, beautiful borrowed chords, and nothing formulaic.]