Music

Notetaking on everything music and music theory.

Pitch Recognition

From You don’t want perfect pitch. There are 3 types of pitch recognition:

• Perfect pitch is when its second nature, like identifying colors. Rare.
• Quasi-perfect pitch is when you can name notes played on your primary instrument from experience and exposure. More common.
• Relative pitch is when, given a set of chord progressions, you can name their relationships but not necessarily the notes themselves

Genres

SZA has been a standout artist to emerge in the last 5 years because of how recognizable she is. Not just her voice, but her melodies – they’re extremely distinctive and unique, whether it’s a solo project or a 15-second feature in someone else’s song. I almost always identify SZA by her melody first, and voice second.

Well, I finally found out why. Ben Morss does a fantastic breakdown on the wave of new-age “jazz”, which is in quotes because it uses general jazz principles without actually being jazz. Aptly, he calls this new genre unjazz. He digs into the music theory behind SZA’s tunes, and how artists like Rihanna and Drake prepped mainstream crowds to accept SZA’s genius.