Native Instruments put this post on
their Instagram where they ask people
what's a beautiful piano Melody and the
first one that came to my mind was this
one
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it's the theme from American Beauty by
Thomas Newman I've only seen American
Beauty one time but this melody haunts
me how can something be this beautiful
and that's what I want to do today I
want to find out why this is so
incredibly beautiful and vulnerable
why it sticks with me I have a feeling
that one of the reasons it's so gorgeous
is because it's in a mode which is a
type of scale called Dorian
and Dorian has this incredible balance
of the more fragile kind of dark
heaviness of the minor scale with this
one note that's a little higher and it's
from the major scale and it brings in so
much Humanity I feel like it it brings
just the right amount of nuance and
balances all of that darkness which
makes it a little warmer
and it makes it more relatable it's like
it's not all bad right it's like it's
it's everything other thing about it I
think though that really gets to me is
the little Grace notes those are the
ones that goes like
the little the little one before the
main one
okay
so it's in the key of C
a
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I think it's C Dorian
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right
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suspension
suspense
oh God never noticed that before the the
melody which is the higher note starts
by itself then the left hand follows it
which is sort of like the chord or the
bass line
they're they're disjointed I don't know
if they're always like that but at first
it goes
duh so it's also so high
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I think it's like this so it goes
and then it goes
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but on the bottom
okay so the bottom goes
tacos
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so these two
there's a little bit of an ambiguity to
it but it does fit into Dorian for sure
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oh
and Dorian
they're also in the minor scale C minor
but that that notion is dashed with this
last one the
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this implies a major chord F major
and that's the chord that I think makes
Dorian sound the way it does it's like
it's Salient chord
so we kind of went like
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a much more cinematic and thoroughly
composed way
which is more simple
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and leaves you on that major chord so
pretty okay
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there it is again okay
it actually does this so it goes
uh
oh no no
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I wonder if he's playing fist the whole
time
um
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foreign
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approximately and then
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this is like a resolution to the the
delicious cord
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and again I think he might be voicing
all of these with fifths in his left
hand
um
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foreign
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yeah that cord at the end really does it
for me but this um
that reaching right above the target
note for this little Grace it's the
ornament
totality that's not a word the way it's
ornamented feels very delicate and it I
think it really adds a tenderness and
vulnerability to this already very
vulnerable sounding theme
and it's almost innocent right there's a
lot of themes about innocence in this uh
in this movie so he had a really really
play it quietly for it to have its full
impact you know you cannot hit people
over the head with this
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oh my God variation
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and all that
this is the first time I think that
we've heard the
the
so now
every time it's different this time he
does the grace note not between these
two notes but between
these two notes
which is really potent because it's just
a half step away
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so you got um
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I love that repeated note don't know why
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keeps like there's a fluidness to all
this right the phrases even themselves
feel very
um like they take as long as they take
and then they just kind of come to a
resting point I just I love that it
feels like it's a living breathing
organism you know you just can't predict
when these phrases are really going to
end they only feel like they're done
when you he either goes finally to like
that or
that one
oh
and now that chord is revealed as major
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it always feels to me like when I hear
an open fifth that there's the ambiguity
of like is it major or is it minor for
some reason that matters to me I I feel
like sometimes open open fifths have
this like there's a heart inside them
that's that I can't hear and so I decide
um to either let it be without a heart
let it be sort of this blank slate and
be what it is and it's all its Glory you
know
fifths just
or
make it feel like it's a chord missing
its heart and then when you get the
heart shown to you it's like you know so
I think that's probably what's going on
for me and also there's there's this
feeling
um
laughs
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just that pattern is so tangible
right
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both times kind of ending on this like
beautiful major chord and then
the strings and other layers are so
beautiful here
ascending
that could be its all on video
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another thing I love about this is that
every note in the melody
essentially has the left hand
accompanying it every time that's not
always the case sometimes you might have
like you know
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you might have a bunch of melodic uh
lines that have chord progression
underneath them but they don't the cores
don't change with every note this one
does he's
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you know
and so it's like every single precious
gem of a note in this Melody has a
partner I also get the feeling that like
any of these
that they could
go under like any notes in in the melody
and it would work in a certain way
so like
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totally works it's different for sure
but it gives it this feeling like
it's all okay like no matter what
happens it's beautiful so the answer
why is this so beautiful lots of things
Dorian is a big part of it Dorian is is
magical I absolutely love this mode and
if you haven't discovered it yet in your
writing if you just play all the white
keys on the keyboard starting on D then
you'll get Dorian
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tongue is out
am I bothering you what was I doing oh
yeah
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whoops well that was pretty though
you love Dorian don't you of course you
do well thank you so much for watching
this spontaneous video about a beautiful
piece of music thank you to my patrons
for supporting me I appreciate you so so
much and I miss you all I hope I can go
live soon and connect with everybody but
please leave a comment so we can chat
and I hope to see you in the next video
see ya
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oh