Song Analysis | 08
Hot Bodies in Motion's "All Night" | Pt. 3 - Bridge
This is the final installment of my little series about the song "All Night" written by me and my friend Ben Carson. Our band Hot Bodies in Motion is releasing the song this Friday the 13th on Spotify and everywhere else.
Here is a cool presave link to remind you when the song is available on Spotify. Feel free to share that link (if you feel like it.) The music video will be public on Friday as well.
In this video I'm talking about the bridge of this specific song as well as my general philosophy about bridges. We'll cover the parts (bass, guitar, vocal) and discuss the tonality of the bridge and why I chose a "dig into the groove" bridge over a "if, but, however" bridge.
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Song Analysis | 07
Hot Bodies in Motion's "All Night" pt 2
Hi Everyone,
Sorry it took me so long to post this second installment! I just got internet set up in my new studio here in the Pacific Northwest. I'll get more lessons posted soon and another community challenge this week. I still have a lot of work to do getting this new studio set up, but I'm very excited about the potential for a wider variety of lessons, interviews, etc. It's very exciting.
Anyhow, this song analysis video breaks down the chorus section of my band's song "All Night." I broke down the bass line, guitar parts, and vocal melody, talking about my approach to writing these kinds of parts and how the tonality makes sense to be. Considering you now have access to almost 200 videos and 100 livestreams where I explain how I think about guitar, songwriting, and music theory, I hope you find this breakdown interesting! Let me know in the comments and in the community forum if you learn anything interesting from these breakdowns.
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Song Analysis | 06
Hot Bodies In Motion, “All Night” | Pt. 1 - Verse
I thought it might be fun to do a little songwriting analysis on something I've written with my band, Hot Bodies in Motion.
We'll discuss the general arrangement and tonality of the song, and then dig into the melody, bass line, and guitar parts. Specifically, we'll focus on how they interact with the chord progression and each other. These lessons are designed to give you some insight into my approach to songwriting, and hopefully inspire you to take part in more community challengesand writing exercises.
You can listen to the song by watching the music video here but don't share it with anyone yet! The song (and video) will officially release on January 13th.
If you want to practice ear training, see if you can figure out all the parts yourself before watching the videos!
This song started out as a loose groove/idea I came up with sometime toward the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018. I gave it to my friend and bandmate, Ben. He started writing lyrics and we finished writing the song sometime in 2019. We filmed the music video around Christmas 2021.
Let me know if you enjoy this format! I've been thinking it's time to do some more song analysis
Song Analysis - Hot Bodies in Motion's "All Night":
• Part 1: Intro/Verse
• Part 2: Chorus (coming soon)
• Part 3: Bridge/final thoughts (coming soon)
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Song Analysis | 05
Yesterday | Chord and Melody Analysis pt. 2
In this lesson, I'm analyzing the bridge, middle part, or B part (whatever you'd like to call it is acceptable) of the Beatles' "Yesterday."
We did most of the groundwork in the first lesson and since the bridge shares a lot of the same chords as the verse, I brush over those shared parts a little quicker in this lesson to focus on the parts that are unique to the bridge.
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Song Analysis | 04
Yesterday | Chord and Melody Analysis pt. 1
In this lesson, I examine the chord progression and melody of the Beatles song "Yesterday" and talk about what key its in, how the chord progression uses secondary dominant chords borrowed from the relative minor, and how the melody interacts with the chords using the major scale and the melodic minor scale. We discuss how each note of the melody interacts with each chord to create interesting tension and release as well as how the melody notes affect the chords.
If you want to play along to the track yourself, check out the tablature below and the jam track to play along to the verse and chorus. If you're feeling adventurous, trying making your own voicings of the chord progression by studying the fingerboard dots on the jam track or try mapping out a solo or even a few different places to play the melody.
In part 1, I get into the verse or A section of the song. The next lesson (coming soon) goes over the next part of the song.
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Song Analysis | 03
Hotel California
In this video I'm breaking down Hotel California. First, we'll talk about how the chord progression is an excellent example of Melodic Minor. Then, we'll talk about how the melody fits over the top of the progression.
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Song Analysis | 02
“Can’t Help Falling In Love” Pt. II (Melody Analysis)
We already broke down the chord progression in the previous lesson. Now it's time to analyze how the melody harmonizes with the chords. This type of breakdown is helpful for both songwriters and lead guitar players who want to understand how soloing and other lead lines work over chords. At the end I discuss briefly how to practice writing your own melodies using the simple rules:
1. Start your melody on a note in the current chord
2. If moving through the scale, continue through the scale until you reach a chord tone
3. If skipping notes, only skip to another chord tone
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Song Analysis | 01
“Can’t Help Falling In Love”
In this lesson, I'm breaking down the chord progression of this song into their appropriate roman numerals - talking about what key(s) the song is in and how everything is organized. If you've watched all of the Music Theory Monday series, you should understand whats going on. If not, I'll have livestreams to help clarify your questions and my formal music theory course will make a lot more sense of it.
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