Pop, As Digested by a Classical Musician

Sorry it's been a while! Feels great to get back into the "As Digested by…" videos. All year I've been working on my (debut) album of original works for keyboard titled "Alice in Wonderland." It's out on Bandcamp: https://nahresol.bandcamp.com/releases

Pop music is generally simplistic so people can quickly cover it. There is also two directions you want to go with modern pop. Take the chords and strike them in the pattern light light light heavy (then repeat). That's the modern hip hop beat. The other pattern is light heavy light heavy (repeat) and that's the dance beat. The chords, notes and vocals follow the beat and don't flow around the beat.

I think your piece feels more like a score…a "pop-score". Your piece pearls instead of "glitters". Rich tones of beauty instead of the beauty of convenience. Lots of depth and dynamics even when simple, instead of exploring a 2d scape. Still a good piece on its on.

This is not a pop song or pop-ish song. I love the song, though. What she is doing on her youtube channel (as a classically trained musician, she applies her expertise on every genre of music) is brilliant. I hope she gathers enough followers to do this as a main job. I love what she puts out.

Intro: 30 seconds of the song without verse?
Hook: something that is addictive and has a distinct sound and loops. e.g. a basso ostinato, an opening distorted guitar, a drum-kit fill.

are these intros or opening hooks?

is there a difference?

too many notes for pop, be more repetitive

Nahre I'd love to see you do "house digested by a classical musician"

I discovered your channel today. Did your childhood piano teacher encourage you to improvise? Mine did not, and now as an older adult I am starting to practice improvisation.

Oh God, you did it again!!
Awesome as usual ?.

The chopin variation was beautiful, especially the very high notes at the end.

Your end piece is very beautiful and really make me think of Thomas Newman ?.

Love it

Pop music reminds me of minimalist art. It is music boiled down to the most fundamental ideas and then polished so much that it can still be enjoyed. Because it is so fundamental, it can be enjoyed by a much wider audience.

The Adele rework sounded like Eienaudi

The piece me of Ludovico Einaudi

Will, it is catchy and beautiful

I'd say adding a vocal, and extending the parts could really makes this into a full pop song, although on the more melodic or emotional side. In my head, pop songs tend to be more "overly optimistic happy".
When you played "the piece", I could imagine someone singing over it. Great work, keep it up!

I found that very interesting, has a classical musician I feel like finally someone understand me

This style sounds VERY Tori Amos to me, i.e. it would chart but definitely be in the realm of 'smart pop'.

the first knocko- I mean "intuitive interpretation" had some major anime romcom soundtrack vibes to it

The bridge/end gave me some Digimon 02 Ending vibes. I tried to learn this on piano years ago but have forgotten about it until I heard your song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8_BNg8ZNU

Your final creation sounds a little like Ryuichi Sakamoto, a composer for the piano and quite a number of film scores (Babel; Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence; the revenant?)

This was so interesting to watch!

I noticed that your sense of simplicity is still complex to mine. I’d say your rhythmic pattern and harmonies still include elements that’d be irritating / hard to follow / hard to set in musical context for a less musical trained ear.
This might make it less accessible for “the average ear” and therefore less of a pop song – since it’s intentionally made for a bride spectrum of people.
I’d place the song more in the yellowish-greenish section of the Pop Meter. Which just shows how we as listeners can understand music on different levels, which is fascinating!

I really loved watching you experiment with these different parameters and approaches of understanding music.
And also you just proofed how complex and impressive your understanding of music is in the sweetest way possible!

The end result here is criminally underrated. I immediately felt that the intersection between sophistication and accessibility had been achieved when I heard the small pivots in your melody and harmony. I was bobbing my head and anticipating the flourishes.

Repetition legitimizes as they say, but it seems to be the pieces that repeat sophistication to legitimize it that have that “it” thing we’re all looking for. Bonus points if you then breakout the constituent parts into unexpected orchestration, like synth pads, lower register strings, etc?

I was trying to figure out why your piece doesn't sound so much like pop to me, and I realized that another thing that could define pop is largely the lack of dynamics. Pop music is so compressed that it doesn't really play with expression through changing dynamics. Your piece, and classical music, packs a lot more expression into the piece using dynamics.

Your original composition sounded like Gary Jules' version of Mad World to me. "All around me are familiar faces". Probably because they both have that Dorian sound, with the major 6th.