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today I have the pleasure of listening
to and breaking down one of my
subscribers tracks he's also a patron
and his artist name is altered
perception so we're going to listen to
his track underscore from his 2003 EP
rusted shut so I want to thank him for
sponsoring this video we're going to
listen to the whole song together and
then I'm going to break it down and I
would say it's got a little bit of
influence from Nish Nails curious to
hear what other influences you hear as
you listen to
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it words are just that in always
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been actions no longer reflect
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within can't ever know what intentions
are like the shadow in a film the world
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I can't feel it through your
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skin and there's no way it is sun from
your face
saying
everything I want to
hear and
more but the look in your eyes and
underscore the love from your mouth is
clear my reflection in your eyes is
fear the sickness in my head is
near the love of my
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too many
signals to
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make
complex mind playing
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Tria when it could all be
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fantasy
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me the love from your mouth is
clear my reflection in your eyes is
fear the sickness in my my head is
near the Love on my cheeks are
tears the love from your mouth is
clear my reflection in your eyes is
fear the sickness in my head is
near the love of my ches te
[Music]
all right so my thoughts on the key that
this is in um I think it most closely
resembles uh a Dorian scale and let's
find this this is the main note which is
m
uh maybe it's B B
flat it's like the lowest note I can eek
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out then then there's a variation when
we go to the a chord I like how this
melody was sort of
interweaving
between the vocal lines and I was really
surprised how well they work together
and instead of like stepping over each
other cuz sometimes there was actual
overlap but I felt like there were these
two great hooks uh but when the vocal
was happening I wasn't distracted by the
this melody but when the vocal wasn't
happening I had something really nice to
sink my teeth
into um it's very pretty and the base is
doing um and this is like the the fifth
of the scale
it has this really strong stable
Foundation that it creates so there's
the B minor chord and then there's the a
major chord and the surprising E major
chord and that brings in the Dorian
sound I was hearing and also his vocal
Melody did too um but this is a really
great Dorian chord progression that you
can take and make something new with and
you can reorder the chords pretty much
any way you like and it should sound
pretty nice um
it's just really that the warmth of that
major chord is a little bit uh again
sort of unexpected but very welcome when
it happens then his
vocal that also has the special note in
it that makes Dorian different than its
most closely resembling scale of minor
it's the sixth note in the scale and
it's a half step higher than it would be
in minor so instead
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of it's gonna
go right
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there yeah makes my eyes go down my
eyebrows go down
so you can hear it there
then I need to listen to it
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again oh yeah we got to talk about this
first chord though because I
think maybe a higher version of this
chord was
happening later on in the song and I
didn't notice it at first and then
suddenly my attention went there and I
was like really into it words are just
that and always been
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actions no longer reflect within actions
no longer reflect within okay so we
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have
sorry it's so pretty I love this and
then
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great Melody writing it has a nice
balance
of um I don't know what to call this but
when you do
it almost feels like you're surrounding
a note has that like feeling of
like like an ornamentation really almost
but I just like that like shape that
contour and
then and you get that Dorian sound and
then
there's something super pretty about
that
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um I think it's that
note
especially because it makes so it's the
ninth that's such a beautiful thing it's
a whole Step Up From the Bottom of a
chord the ninth is a whole step above
the root of a chord so if you're playing
an E
chord whole step up from that is F sharp
so duh
it's really pretty and it works for
minor chords
too so pretty um so I really like that
and
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then what intentions
are like the
Shad uh the drums have some something
cool going on with the snare I feel like
you have the high hot on the keeping the
subdivisions and I think the kick is
maybe
going so there's a nice anticipation on
the second one but then the snare I
think
is also on some kind of offbeat let's
see okay so here's the beat it's going
t t t t so that first one's normal the
second one is like late that's that
feeling but it creates this really cool
um instability that I think keeps you on
your
toes that's a good tip by the way if
you're making a beat and you always put
the snares on
the or if it's like fast you're like
try making one of them early or late
just one just try one you don't want to
you don't want to completely collapse
your structure you're right it's like
playing a Jen Jenga you want to remove
just one thing so that it doesn't all
fall apart but it changes
things so we have an interlude
okay oh yeah this is cool uh I meant to
mention this synth it sounds like a
synth but there are moments where it
feels like an electricit I really like
it when an instrument sort of cosplays
as another one uh and I can hear that
pitch bend very expressive so this is a
cool way of maybe putting two verses
next to each other without going to the
chorus right after the first verse that
can be a very effective song
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structure another thing to notice he he
gave the uh he gave this s instrument
the vocal Melody at least for that last
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part oh yeah variation so another great
Instinct on his part is that if he
repeated the vocal Melody for the second
verse exactly the same way and the only
thing that changed was the lyrics it
might have started to feel a little bit
stale or like overly repetitive so just
the Nick time you know he probably felt
that urge time for some change doesn't
have to be a big change though but um
instead of
going what is it
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hang it goes up instead and
then your eyes and
underscore I wonder if maybe that's why
we haven't gotten that chorus yet is cuz
he just said the title of the song and
it's right right at the the end of the
second verse right so it sort of feels
like
it's it's now time all right here comes
the chorus and I remember the timing
being very interesting like there's a
lot of uh syncopated
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emphasis is
clear my reflection in your eyes is fear
the sickness in my head is
near the Love on my cheeks are
tear okay there's a lot of layers here
so let's first just listen to the base
which is sort of doing the roots of the
chords I
think also listen to
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this hear that
Buzzy and it suddenly started to swell
out of nothing and it's that's the like
Riser that that connect connects the end
of this verse into the chorus so it
gives you it's a transition it's it's a
nice one I noticed that um okay
so all right we got
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this in your eyes is
fear the sness in my head is
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near okay so it goes
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if we gave all of these chords we'd have
um no sorry it starts with okay
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he didn't play them like that um I think
it sounds more like the base is doing
the roots and then
the synth is now in constant movement
rhythmically and is has some kind of
melodic line that um we need to look at
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R the love from your mouth is clear
my
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your
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um I think it's kind of the same notes
but just instead of having that hook
of it's like you
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know I'm not exactly sure and I'm not
going to take the time to figure it out
because it is it would take a lot of
stopping and starting and I don't think
we need to go into that level of detail
the vocal Melody okay so it kind of
Falls the base at
first then they split
up you get that really nice resolution
onto the major chord um his voice is
telling you that that chord is Major
also it's always been major because of
that Dorian
sound so pretty
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then I like how definitive that sounds
cuz it's very you know we're Meandering
around we've left home base which is B
and we're going all over the place but
not returning home right and
then our old friend comes back it feels
really nice
um last
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verse a production sounds similar to the
second
verse Oh yeah and then is there
guitar I like that variation as as
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well does sound like a tar
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right vocal
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Harmony going do it
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again L the the kick
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drum and
now the the synth Melody gets louder I
really like that I didn't notice that
before gets louder in the second
repetition this is also a good
songwriting structure tip is you know
his chus it wasn't repeated before you
know he sang the chorus one time this is
now the second time he sung it and uh he
I think rightly so repeated it a third
time right after the second rep because
it really feels like if he didn't we
probably wouldn't have gotten enough of
the refrain right the train is arguably
where the focus is really all supposed
to be on or or that the other elements
of the song are sort of supporting the
refrain so it's it's nice to get like a
double length Chorus at the end if uh if
you
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can
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your the sickness in my head is
near the love
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my really nice kind of bringing it back
to the
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beginning that cord again please follow
altered perception on all the streaming
platforms and also he has a YouTube
channel called
perties and if you like modular and are
particularly interested in how um how do
I put this tracks are made on the Fly um
they're more of electronic jams um he
has some really cool like here's how I
made this videos he's an excellent
teacher he's taught a bunch of my
patrons how to use vcv rack and he's
just a very valuable member of my
community so please give him some love
thank you so much for watching this I'm
really excited to be able to showcase
more of y'all's music on my channel it's
a long time coming so I will see you in
the next video see you