Ethan Hein

Oh it's actually Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel singing that harmony my bad

Oh heck yeah

In this instance I don't see much intention

That whole end of the chorus is on a D(add9) chord, so Levon is repeating D while Rick is repeating E, and then Levon is outlining the tonic chord A over it because melodic-harmonic divorce, so they get this amazing cluster.

My next musicological deep dive is going to be into "The Weight" by The Band, another song that is really simple at the macro level but is full of intrigue at the micro level. At 0:51, Leven Helm is singing C-sharp in the lead vocal and D in the harmony vocal, while Rick Danko is singing E!

Mavis Staples Teaches Typing

Her taste in material is sensational

Miles and Trane on Record: A Critic’s Favorites University Musical Society

This Miles and Coltrane top ten list is an excellent entry point into jazz generally ums.org/2026/01/29/m...

Norah Jones is great and everything but I like her best when she's paired with someone craggy and ancient: Mavis, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson

Her guitarist is excellent, the band consists of just him plus bass and drums and he carried the whole set without trouble

It was fun hearing the greatest hits but the new stuff was the most affecting

We took the kids to see Mavis Staples who has very much Still Got It. She did duets with Alison Russell and Norah Jones!

First ten pages went over pretty big in spite of requiring a lot of explanation

Each one of those three missiles costs 33% more than the annual budget of the national park where I work.

That's a very neutral third not very close to either the just major or just minor thirds, but I would believe it as a blue note!

Whole Foods is playing Dorothy Ashby and I do not like it when big corporations clock my preferences that accurately

From the makers of Bjorn Qorn: Bjork Qork

Oh yeah it took me years to realize how anxiety-producing 12-TET thirds are, JI still sounds exotic

My ongoing thesis is that a ton of people have no memory, personal or cultural, of how bad things can be in a country, because we've had such a good run post-WW2 and the Greatest Generation has mostly passed away.

Going to try to Patrick O'Brienpill 13yo. He's super into lore and worldbuilding and so maybe I can channel that into historical fiction rather than the Silmarillion

When a company in an industry built on hype tells you that a use case is a bad idea—and actually dangerous—that means it’s a *catastrophically* bad idea.

I have listened to it approximately eleven thousand times this week and am not tired of it yet

Very true

Now, here I go again, I see the crystal visions Fleetwood Mac's biggest hit is such a weird and cool song

New on the pod: analysis, reharmonization and remixes of "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac ethanhein.substack.com/p/now-here-i...

Good for fretted notes but doesn't solve the problem of the strings not being in tune

Also melodies and harmonies don't have to agree in general

Good point

The idea with this is not for quarter tones per se, it's because there are a lot more distinct notes in just intonation: F-sharp and G-flat are almost a quarter tone apart, for example.

the purpose of a rube goldberg machine is what it does eventually

I will not stand for this Pigpen erasure