Musical properties of Shiina Ringo's music -music theory experts please help

[ParisJihen]

Originally Posted by lazer85

You sarcastic boner
I really appreciate Entry's contribution to this post. I wish you would take your intelligista fueds over what art is elsewhere.

Cool down, boy, I was sincere...
I really appreciate Entry's contribution too and to compare Ringo to Debussy and Bartok... wow ! It's huge and... I really hope she would read that !

Originally Posted by Glathannus

I suspect if I formally understood the mathematics of jazz, it would rob me of my role as an intuitive listener.
I may lose more as a listener than what I will gain as a songwriter.

Totally agree. and to finish about that subject of songwriting, if you wanna write a song, take your guitar or a keyboard and sing along with what you play. Without analysis...
Now, if you wanna write a jazz theme or compose an orchestral piece, prepare yourself to many years of study before creating anything interesting...

[Entry№1]

Originally Posted by Glathannus

The problem I have with music theory, is how understanding it might change the way I listen to other peoples' music. I have a very innate and mostly untapped affinity for mathematics. I can intuitively appreciate when 'random' music actually has a method to the madness. That's what really draws me into jazz, and I suspect if I formally understood the mathematics of jazz, it would rob me of my role as an intuitive listener.

If I ever want to get serious about making music someday, I know I'm going to have to learn music theory eventually, and that is a day I am dreading, because I may lose more as a listener than what I will gain as a songwriter.

Why do you think learning about music will make you appreciate it less? I mean, how can you really believe in something or respect someone's work whilst purposely being ignorant about it? If an artist is truly great, you should be able to explore their music fully and still appreciate it. If you found out jazz was a lot more simple than you previously imagined it to be, maybe it would compel you to make better jazz music yourself or go off in search of different composers' works.
This is the same dilemma I had when I started really getting into foreign music. I didn't want to read Jpop translations because I was afraid it would ruin my vision of their works. I did it anyway though, because I had to find out for myself whether or not the artists I was listening to deserved the respect and money I gave them. When I did start reading translations it made me appreciate some artists more and other artists less.
I originally composed as a hobby but as I learned more about art, culture, and theory, I was became so frustrated at the shear amount of ignorant, pointless, and heartless 'art' out there that I became a more determined composer. I changed from someone who casually composed music into someone who had to write music, and it's been a wonderful adventure so far (even with all the disappointment).
Rest assured, music theory poses more questions than it does answers - it's a mystery even to the most esteemed musicologists. And even with all the music theory I know, I still love music enough to listen to it for hours every day and explore new musical territory. In the end, my love and respect for music and true musicians increased through learning theory.

[Glathannus]

I've never cared about lyrics, and I am hardly about to begin caring even if Shiina Ringo has the best lyrics ever. Rap could have the best lyrics ever, but that wouldn't make me care about rap. It's not to say that I don't care about vocals, but the texture and the tone and the flow are together infinitely more important to me than lyrics. Before I listened to Shiina Ringo for the first time, I didn't care very much about any vocalists. But now I regard them more like electric guitars. Not only are vocalists "another instrument", but so many different performers can develop their own signature sound - there's so many different kinds of sound you can get out of an electric guitar or a vocalist, independently of the composition style. I think the people who get really caught up in lyrics, tend to lose perspective on the nuances I just mentioned.

What if an artist has really terrible lyrics? Should I hold that against them? Should I devote more of my listening time to an artist who has better lyrics? See, with artists like Rammstein, you're better off not knowing what they are saying, but that doesn't mean their music can't be powerful or worth listening to.

I like scat singing, not because the syllables of it are inherently better than actual lyrics, but because the music underneath the syllables is no longer restricted by language - the music is more expressive. Once you give too much emphasis to lyrics, you begin treating vocalists like their performance is more important than the rest of a band, and you begin treating other instruments as if their own solos wouldn't be worthwhile. I respect the fact that bands with scat singing treat the vocalist like "just another instrument", and that other instruments are more likely to have their own solos.

To me composing is the cake, and lyrics are the icing. Now, if I'm willing to accept any icing, it's going to be in moderation. I treat lyrics the same way. If there is a time and place for the world's best poetry or literature, it's never in sync with the world's best composition. Shakespeare needed no musical compositions with his words, synchronized in a grid from measure-to-measure. Compositions become a grid for language to abide by, and language becomes a grid for compositions to abide by. That calls for too much compromise, so the more you insist on having both in the same package, the more sacrilege you will be supporting.

"Ignorant" is not the nicest connotation to describe my listening preferences. I prefer to be lost in the composition and the textures. To me, being acquainted in music theory would be like knowing the answer to a joke before the question had been asked. Jokes have a certain value from you struggling to make the connection to a possible answer before the answer becomes available to you, and then for you to go through that thought process of understanding how the answer you weren't able to guess, is connected to the question. If the joke does a twist on language, is that joke going to be extra funny to me if I have a.. clinical understanding of language? Does your background have to include someone explaining to you what nouns/pronouns/verbs/adverbs/adjectives/etc. are, in order for you to fully appreciate such a joke? Or can you just have a lot of experience with reading and listening to the language, and simply know if something bends or breaks the rules?

As jazz begins, if it's really good jazz and you've never heard it before, then you have have a mental approximation of what's coming next. But if that jazz can surprise you and yet from your many years of jazz listening you understand that this latest jazz is still following the rules you don't formally know, then how is a formal understanding going to extend your enjoyment as a listener? If you break down "Who's On First" to nouns and pronouns, it's not so funny anymore. You are aiming to turn music into something clinical, where you are no longer experiencing as much escapism as a listener as you could be.

If you are all-too-familiar with every aspect of movie production, then that changes the way you watch movies, in a mostly detrimental manner. The more you know, the less escapism you will achieve.

You're probably not an audiophile. You know what their common goal is? It's not about getting "better sound" - it's about eliminating distractions, or about the absence of negatives. If you're an audiophile, then sonic imperfections are distractions - they're something you wouldn't hear if the performer were physically adjacent to you - the imperfections are a reminder that you're not really adjacent to the performer. More distractions to an audiophile, mean less escapism. On the otherhand, any tiny imperfections I hear from the performer themselves, are normally masked or obscured by cheap recordings, cheap listening equipment, and lossy compression (such as MP3), and hearing subtle imperfections of that nature make me feel more adjacent to the performer. Audiophilism is for people who care about all the little nuances in the music aside from what the lyrics are, so you're not exactly preaching to the choir here. I've also noticed that people with more expensive stereos are increasingly likely to enjoy music of a variety of languages they don't feel the need to understand.

Now it's possible that the ability of a listener to engage with the lyrics or the music theory, is independent of the listener's budget, but I suspect those are easy or fulfilling factors to dwell on when your listening experience does not provide enough layers and nuances of sonic bombardment to keep your conscious attention away from meta-listening.

[justriiingo]

Originally Posted by Entry№1

+ I'm not totally sure about this, but I think she favors certain chromatic notes; particularly G# (in the C major scale).

I'm curious about this.
Does SR write a lot of songs in C major? I don't have her early scorebooks but the Jihen ones I've seen before and I don't recall her writing songs in Cmajor.

anyway off the top of your head which is the song that made you say "she likes to use the G#"?

[Entry№1]

^ What I meant was, if you transposed every one of her songs to Cmaj scale, that would be one of her favored chromatic notes. And speaking of which, SR seems to avoid the Cmaj. scale. Maybe she thinks using that scale is just too easy.

Originally Posted by Glathannus

I've never cared about lyrics, and I am hardly about to begin caring even if Shiina Ringo has the best lyrics ever. Rap could have the best lyrics ever, but that wouldn't make me care about rap. It's not to say that I don't care about vocals, but the texture and the tone and the flow are together infinitely more important to me than lyrics. Before I listened to Shiina Ringo for the first time, I didn't care very much about any vocalists. But now I regard them more like electric guitars. Not only are vocalists "another instrument", but so many different performers can develop their own signature sound - there's so many different kinds of sound you can get out of an electric guitar or a vocalist, independently of the composition style. I think the people who get really caught up in lyrics, tend to lose perspective on the nuances I just mentioned.

First of all, you've made a whole lot of assumptions based on what I said. I am a huge Yoko Kanno fan and used to be a fan of Sigur Ros, so I listen to a lot of vocal music that doesn't even have lyrics. One of my favorite songs of all time is written in 'gibberish' (but is not scat, since it wasn't improvised). I also listen to a lot of songs in other languages other than English and Japanese. I also find lyrics largely distracting, which is why I always compose my songs before setting lyrics to them.

What if an artist has really terrible lyrics? Should I hold that against them? Should I devote more of my listening time to an artist who has better lyrics? See, with artists like Rammstein, you're better off not knowing what they are saying, but that doesn't mean their music can't be powerful or worth listening to.

I actually do listen to Rammstein and like their lyrics. I've read translations of their works, and love their song 'Mann gegen Mann'. I believe in Ethical Consumerism and otherwise have a tremendous work ethic so I don't support artists who half-ass. If you're singing lyrics, they'd better be great in some way or another. Otherwise, 'gibberish' will suffice (or in some situations, even improve upon a song). But Ringo didn't write her lyrics not to be understood or speculated about. If she did, she would have written them in gibberish.

I like scat singing, not because the syllables of it are inherently better than actual lyrics, but because the music underneath the syllables is no longer restricted by language - the music is more expressive. Once you give too much emphasis to lyrics, you begin treating vocalists like their performance is more important than the rest of a band, and you begin treating other instruments as if their own solos wouldn't be worthwhile. I respect the fact that bands with scat singing treat the vocalist like "just another instrument", and that other instruments are more likely to have their own solos.

I am still not disagreeing with you. My priorities have always been and will always be music first, lyrics second [if applicable]. I think very few of us would be here had we put more emphasis on immediate lyric comprehension than melodic expression. I personally spend much more time sculpting a piece musically than lyrically. However, vocals have a slight edge over other instruments, at least in a sociological sense, being that they are capable of expressing concrete/tangible information as well as aesthetic/artistic/emotional expressions.

"Ignorant" is not the nicest connotation to describe my listening preferences. I prefer to be lost in the composition and the textures. To me, being acquainted in music theory would be like knowing the answer to a joke before the question had been asked. Jokes have a certain value from you struggling to make the connection to a possible answer before the answer becomes available to you, and then for you to go through that thought process of understanding how the answer you weren't able to guess, is connected to the question. If the joke does a twist on language, is that joke going to be extra funny to me if I have a.. clinical understanding of language? Does your background have to include someone explaining to you what nouns/pronouns/verbs/adverbs/adjectives/etc. are, in order for you to fully appreciate such a joke? Or can you just have a lot of experience with reading and listening to the language, and simply know if something bends or breaks the rules?

If my music listening experience is a punchline before the joke, your listening experience is a joke without a punchline. Besides, you should know by now you can't get wordplay in a language you don't understand...
Developed knowledge is important, but knowing theory helps keep you on similar terms with everyone else. 75% of theory is terrain people already know if they've been listening to music for a long time. It's the other 25% of it that's so magical and mysterious... and you need directions to know how to get there.
As for the word 'ignorant', I am using the Ayn Rand definition, which probably better approximates what the word should mean (Ignorant: Ignoring).

If you are all-too-familiar with every aspect of movie production, then that changes the way you watch movies, in a mostly detrimental manner. The more you know, the less escapism you will achieve.

I don't look to art for escapism. That's the realm of 'entertainment'. Art can take you to places you've never imagined while still being real. If art proves to be a mind-opening, imaginative experience for you, it shouldn't be regarded as merely a denial of reality, so much as a reflection of the viewer/artist's senses of idealism and truth. I pursued being a film director as a child and spent many hours of my youth recording documentaries about film making on VHS tape. My interest in movies waned as I got older because few directors were ambitious enough to create the kind of works it took to satisfy me. However, my own stories/screenplays progressively became more ambitious and creative themselves, even to the point of creating a unique space opera setting that I planned to rival Star Wars in scope. My loss of interest in film had nothing to do with film itself, rather it was the artists who explored the medium that couldn't satisfy me.

You're probably not an audiophile. You know what their common goal is? It's not about getting "better sound" - it's about eliminating distractions, or about the absence of negatives. If you're an audiophile, then sonic imperfections are distractions - they're something you wouldn't hear if the performer were physically adjacent to you - the imperfections are a reminder that you're not really adjacent to the performer. More distractions to an audiophile, mean less escapism. On the otherhand, any tiny imperfections I hear from the performer themselves, are normally masked or obscured by cheap recordings, cheap listening equipment, and lossy compression (such as MP3), and hearing subtle imperfections of that nature make me feel more adjacent to the performer. Audiophilism is for people who care about all the little nuances in the music aside from what the lyrics are, so you're not exactly preaching to the choir here.

For your information, I am an audiophile and have been for years. I used to listen to electronic music frequently, savoring it for nothing more than the creative textures and tones. However, I can't afford much of the equipment you've said you use[d]. If I could have a laser turntable or a great sound system to listen to Ringo's DVD-audio releases properly, I would love to. However, once again, I don't try to 'escape' from something in music. And honestly, I don't think you really intend to either yourself. For me, Audiophilism is embracing purity, clarity, truth, and even cleanliness.

I've also noticed that people with more expensive stereos are increasingly likely to enjoy music of a variety of languages they don't feel the need to understand.

I've noticed this myself. Opera particularly is a popular subject for high-def recording.

And may the flying spaghetti monster bless you for making such long posts, but don't expect me to respond to every point you make about me anymore. lol.

[lazer85]

Originally Posted by Glathannus

What if an artist has really terrible lyrics? Should I hold that against them?

Actually.... I agree that for most music lyrics are the icing on the cake but who wants tomato flavored icing on a chocolate cake....who wants shit flavored icing on any cake. As much as I love Patrick Wolfs music and especially his voice, I have a hard time listening to some of the incredibly lame and cheesy lines in his songs. I can tolerate bad but sometimes it just goes to far.

Also there are different reasons to listen to different music. Many reasons just sonically ('this song puts me in a good mood even if I dont think its amazing', 'this song hits me hard' and 'I dont know what to expect next, this music is exciting' are all different ways we can appreciate it and I bet most of us hear have quite a few ways we listen to music. In many cases for me lyrics are not important but in some I listen mainly for the lyrics (hip hop, poets like Ani Difranco) and in some cases, the song would do fine with bad lyrics but the great lyrics make it even great (Ringo would be an example of this, I appreciate her music even more now that I understand it).

And I totally understand all you guys who dont feel you need to know music theory, or even that musicians dont need to understand it. I'm having a hard time understanding why your attacking people who know it and study it though. I think its something anyone who appreciates music should respect, unless they lose all the soul when they incorperate music theory study.

[Osiris12345]

I am an amateur songwriter and guitarist but I have very little to contribute to the topic as far as knowledge of music theory goes. The expertise of others on this forum dwarf my knowledge of theory so much, in fact, that it makes me much less confident in my own compositions. I can't even read sheet music competently! But I digress. I think Glath has an excellent point about music theory. The more you know the less exciting it is. That's why I've always been reluctant to pursue music theory. I worry that it will start to become more mathematical and less emotional. I understand that to be a competent composer I would have to but as a listener I still want to be in the dark a little, crazy as it sounds. I respect people who understand music theory tremendously but I also feel torn about whether I want to pursue that path on a personal level.

One thing I definitely disagree with Glath, however, is the importance of lyrics. Terrible lyrics can ruin a song for me and great lyrics can make me like a song with a lacking melody more. I think if the band has a singer, they should be singing something worth hearing. The song has to be pretty damn good for me to forgive terrible lyrics. If Ringo's lyrics were bad, I honestly think that it would affect my opinion of her music. When I first visited Nostalgic Lavender, I was a little worried that I'd find lyrics that really disappointed me. Luckily, it was the complete opposite and I found myself even more drawn to her. Lyrics can enhance music just as lazer85 said. They certainly enhanced the Ringo experience for me.

But other artists aren't so lucky. One of my favorite bands is Electric Light Orchestra but sometimes, man, Jeff Lynne pins some of the cheesiest lyrics in rock. I seriously cringe at some of the lines he puts into his songs but the man is an awesome musician. Just listen to "Yours Truly, 2095" from the album Time. I personally love the song. It's also one of my favorite albums of all time but a song about a futuristic robot girlfriend that has the lines "She has an IQ of 1001/She has a jumpsuit on/And she's also a telephone" can't help but make me hope that he's trying to be humorous. That's what I tell myself anyway. Doesn't wreck the song completely but it does take it down a notch.

Personally, I compose all of my music firsthand and think of lyrics later but I really want to tell something with the lyrics that I write. Sometimes lyrics can express something that the music doesn't - especially in rap. The beats in rap music don't tell you anything on an emotional level. That's the performer's job. I can understand Glath not finding rap interesting if he doesn't place much value on lyrics since rap is all about the lyrics. If the rapper has terrible flow and uses stale metaphors it really does ruin the entire song.

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox.

[Marty256]

This thread delights me. I'm a long-time student of music and I have to say after growing up having theory belted into my head until it becomes second nature, listening to Shiina's music has always impressed and interested me - particularly the way that it's hard to find any salient characteristics (musically speaking) about her music.

I've noticed that she's a fan of the descending bassline I, VII, bVII, VI - i.e. Cmaj, Cmaj/B, Cmaj/Bb, Cmaj/A (sometimes instead of the Cmaj/A it goes A7, Dm or something along those lines). etymologically speaking, that's a latin progression, but used heaps in jazz.
Speaking of jazz, whenever Shiina's music breaks into swing or some other 'jazz' style I have to stop listening. she doesn't have much capacity for having great swing or groove when it comes to that. That's probably TJ's fault as much as anyones, and upon listening to bands like PE'Z I'm thinking, without wanting to sound prejudiced in any way, that Japanese people are still yet to find the niche that you need to be in to properly swing. they still seem to approach it metallically, or theoretically even. you have to understand swing as a feeling. having said that, Hata is almost there, he generally has good things going on.

Also, like the above chord progression, I, I#5, I6 is also common, i.e. Cmaj, Cmaj#5, C6. another jazz influence there I think. to a lesser extent, she's milked the sound of going from a wholly major chord to another major chord a semitone away, which is an amazing sound, heard most obviously in 'Genjitsu wo Warau' but also for the start of the chorus in 'Kyogenshou'.
She's a big II-V user, which is a huge staple of jazz music, but then a lot of music uses II-Vs. Im7-IV7 progressions also appear pretty often, those are often heard in funk/R&B tunes. II-Vs and Im7-IV7s are everywhere in TJ's songs, but those songs are generally collaborative efforts from the whole band, so it could be anyone's input. It's interesting to compare the way TJ songs are written to Shiina's solo stuff. her solo stuff is so much more complex, and hard to predict. TJ is still great, but a lot more predictable.

In terms of melody, Shiina's one of the most intriguing melody writers I've ever heard. they can be everything from elongated and rhythmically complex to just one pitch repeated over and over again, but always amazing. I think she likes the sound of the major seventh, flattened third and ninth in a minor scale, melodically speaking, and doing the old chromatic sliding notes from a flattened third to a major third and a flattened fifth to a perfect fifth.

This argument about whether you should study music like this in depth if you're going to write music and so on is interesting as well. I think I agree with both sides. for musicians, hearing what other virtuosic (or not so virtuosic) musicians are doing and trying to figure out what it is they're doing is a perfect learning exercise. I do think you need to know exactly what you're doing on your instrument before you can write good music, but I also, to some degree, agree with the statement that it can get in the way of composing based on pure feeling. I think the best songwriters can find the middle point - use their extensive knowledge of music as tools, but let the spontaneity and 'magic', i guess, preside over the music. People all have their own way of doing things though, and that's where the great diversity of music culture comes from, which is awesome.

[Entry№1]

^ This post intrigues me. I've had very little musical training and can't read sheet music very quickly or really absorb what I'm seeing when I look at it. It's helpful for someone who can pick up on these patterns I'd have otherwise missed to let me know. I have a lot to ponder on here.

Originally Posted by Marty256

In terms of melody, Shiina's one of the most intriguing melody writers I've ever heard. they can be everything from elongated and rhythmically complex to just one pitch repeated over and over again, but always amazing.

This is something that I definitely have picked up on though, I agree. She is a total story teller with her melodies. In one song she might meander, the next she is obstinate in making a musical point. I felt her compositions were getting a little bit predictable though before SG. Ariamaru Tomi was a breath of fresh air. It showed a new level of restraint - Ringo didn't fill up a lot of the space with extra melodic phrases like she usually does (not that that's bad, but man cannot live by bread alone).

And about earlier discussions we had on Ringo's musical properties, I thought of something in the shower recently. I was thinking about that flat 6 (G# in the Cmaj. scale) I'd mentioned earlier, and it struck me that what Ringo was simply using the Harmonic Major Scale. I'll have to go back and check to see if the songs she used that chromatic in (I think we noted Marunouchi Sadistic and Cappucino) to see if I'm right. It's so simple, I'm a little embarrassed I didn't notice it before.

[justriiingo]

Entry#1 I'm pretty sure you're referring to the harmonic minor scale...

TJ 1.0 sounded quite a lot more dissonant than SR's solo tunes (eg. Ekimae), probably HZM's contribution? Genjitsu no Oite was written by him and has a similar dissonant sound.

TJ 2.0 certainly has a more predictable sound. The chorus of Keshou Naoshi, for example, feels like an exercise in writing suspensions... though later it goes to a vi9 chord (i think it comes in in the beginning of the 4th phrase of the chorus, -ima, watashi no something something...) which is probably my favourite moment in the whole tune. It then resolves to an imperfect cadence ii - V. I never really liked the sound of that V at the end, I could never figure out why.