Hello music lovers and welcome to this new video!
Ok. Let me be clear about one thing from the outset...
I am a big fan of Agnes Obel.
There... I said it!
Yes? I am told to move on... ok!
And after attending one of her concerts, I realised to what extent her music...
not only is connected to...
but actually oozes classical music at all levels!
Today we're going to see together why her classical influence serves her pop music universe.
(FIRST PART)
(THE WRITING)
What strikes from the start...
in Agnes Obel's music...
is its minimalist aspect.
Indeed, with very few elements, her music manages to move us...
Well I don't know about you, but with me it really works...
And the other important aspect in Minimalism is...
the fact that there are few musical elements obviously...
admittedly...
but to boot...
you repeat them.
So she is not the first to do that since this musical movement goes back to...
more or less the mid-XXth century with American composers like...
Steve Reich
John Cage
or Philip Glass
So before we dive into Agnes Obel's music,
I believe it is important to listen to a bit of minimalist music...
to get a taste of it!
So to do so, we're going to listen to the piece I've chosen...
"Mad Rush" by Philip Glass.
I raised the pitch of all the extracts.
It's just to avoid being blocked.
Thanks Youtube.
Now we can tackle Agnes Obel...
well not literally...
with, to illustrate the minimalist aspect of her music,
an extract from her latest album "Citizen of Glass"...
and her sublime song "Familiar".
Another distinctive feature in Agnes Obel's music is rhythmic composition.
Indeed, most ot the pop music that is released nowadays...
is based on quadruple metre.
It's a fact!
Agnes Obel, on the other hand, tends to compose in triple metre,
either 3/4 or 6/8.
So is it just to show off like...
"Yes I'm an artist, you know"
Or does it bring something actually original when you hear it?
Well, triple metre is often associated with something "danceable"...
just think about the rythm of Waltzes, of Minuets, etc...
The thing is, in Agnes Obel's music, the tempo is rather slow...
which doesn't really fit in with the intention of making people dance, don't you agree?
In that respect, she took a lot of inspiration from a great French composer...
Erik Satie.
And as we will see in his first "Gymnopedie",
you are closer to a swaying sensation...
than to an urge to go crazy on the dancefloor.
Let's not fool ourselves.
With Agnes Obel, you are completely in this same state of mind,
which is ultimately very close to a certain music genre:
the lullaby.
And there is a song that perfectly illustrates that;
it's one of her first "hits":
"Riverside"
And the last point I wanted to go over in her writing
is her harmonic langage.
So without revolutionizing music, on the contrary,
she made some very clever choices in her music,
for instance regarding the chords she picked to go with her melodies.
Agnes Obel uses the minor mode in a lot of her pieces
and what she loves to do
(she's not the only one)
is to "majorise" the fourth degree.
You'll see, once you know what it is...
your life will change.
For instance, you take a D minor scale.
So: D - E - F - G - B flat - C
From there, you find the 4th note...
So : G. We agree?
Before we go any further, a degree is the chord that corresponds to a note in a key.
So you take all the notes in your scale
and you build a chord each time...
by adding the third and the fifth.
For example, the 4th degree: G.
You add its third to it (B flat)
and its fifth (D).
That way you have your 4th degree chord in D minor.
And to come back to what Agnes Obel particularly likes,
it's to take this same 4th degree...
but instead of leaving it like that, she's going to put it in "major mode".
And so, what does it change?
The third!
Instead of being "minor", it's going to be "major"!
(G minor)
(G MAJOR*)
Let's take a piece by Agnes to see the difference with "Fuel to fire".
I will play you both versions:
the first one is the one Agnes wrote...
and the second one: the minor version.
(Original version)
("minor" version)
The last point I wanted to address regarding the harmony...
is the fact that ultimately, certain notes vary very little.
Agnes often likes to keep only one note...
despite the change in chords that may be behind it.
And this note, in music, is called a "pedal point".
There are several examples of this in her music, but one of my favourites
is at the end of her song: "Dorian".
(SECOND PART)
(THE ARRANGEMENT)
So in the end, the arrangement is not necessarily what is blindingly obvious,
deafeningly obvious...
but it's one of the most important things in music!
Ultimately, it's the combination of all the musical elements together.
In short, it's a tightrope walker's work.
And that's what fascinates me in Agnes Obel's music.
For instance, you're going to find it in the covering of a sound space...
even in something basic...
such as the amplitude between the bass and the high notes.
A good example of that is yet again in her song "Dorian"...
where you have cello for the bass...
Agnes Obel's voice and the accompanying left hand on the piano
for the middle register...
and the right hand subtly arrives...
to cover the high notes.
And all this put together is just...
brilliant!
(THIRD PART)
(SOUNDS)
There are sounds in Agnes Obel's music...
that you find a lot in the classical repertoire.
Even if she never went to the conservatoire, her parents were musicians...
and she often listened to classical composers such as Bartok and Satie.
And inevitably, you can feel it a lot in her music!
A good example of sounds that were inspired by classical music...
is her use of cellos!
She particularly uses the "natural harmonics" technique
to bring out at best the extremely high notes of the instrument.
All this while most of pop music is now flooded with electronic sounds.
But that's another debate!
With a string instrument...
"natural harmonics" consist in not placing your finger on the fingerboard,
but in brushing against the chord in a certain place...
to bring out a much higher note.
A good example in classical music is
the first Cello Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns.
And a good example of that...
is in her piece "Run Cried the Crawling".
Another technique that Agnes Obel uses beautifully...
is asking her musicians to play not with the bow,
but with the wooden part of the bow...
which has a very percussive effect.
In classical music, it's called playing "col legno"...
(that's just so you can show off !)
You can find a great example of this in Holst's "Planets"...
and the famous movement: "Mars"!
In Agnes's music, it's slightly more delicate...
as you will see with "The Curse".
And finally, the last cello technique that...
Agnes Obel uses a lot is the "pizzicato"!
This technique consists in not playing with the bow...
but pinching the strings with your fingers.
It's more traditional but it still has quite the effect!
It's the case in Bartok's 4th string quartet...
where an ENTIRE movement is played "pizzicato"!
Let's see what it's like with her song...
"Aventine"!
So to what extent does this "classical background"...
enable her to offer us such beautiful songs?
Thanks to a very refined writing
and to a very minimalist use of musical elements,
Agnes Obel's songs go beyond mere pop music inspired by classical music...
They become real little chamber music pieces
as the "Berlin Live Sessions" prove it.
Ultimately, you could almost say...
that it's classical music with a "pop" inspiration...
rather than the other way round.
In a word... Agnes Obel!
Thanks very much for watching this video,
which really matters to me.
It goes to show how much I dig this artist...
really...
Go discover her three albums:
"Philharmonics", "Aventine" and "Citizen of Glass"...
and her live recordings
which you can easily find on Youtube.
It's really a goldmine!
For me, it's extremely inspiring music...
which really helps me when I'm down...
So if I have one piece of advice for you,
it's rush to discover Agnes Obel!
I count on your shares and likes...
so that one day...
- why not,
who knows? -
Agnes Obel might come across this video!
Will you help me?
Until next time, music lovers...Take care!
Ciao !
"I am lucky enough to be doing exactly what I've always wanted to do.
In fact, I don't even have the impression that I chose music,
rather it chose me."
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