Try CuriosityStream free and get Nebula included: www.curiositystream.com/12tone and use promo code "12tone" Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) In my defense, there's definitely some parts of that analysis I'm proud of, which is why, despite its flaws, I've chosen to leave the video up. Like, catching the idea of separating the parts out into high and low progressions was good, and a lot of the general structural analysis in the verse was pretty on point. Overall I'm not happy with the video, but it wasn't a complete miss. 2) It might be interesting to read the chorus in the key of D as well, just without the I chord. Given that the drone makes the B chord fairly unstable, I don't think that's an unfair reading. Personally I kinda like the idea that the major axis progression sort of melts into the minor version on the section boundary, but I could see the argument for staying in D. 3) On the ending, I reached out to an audio engineering friend to help break it down. I only wound up using a short summary, but here's his full response if you want more detail: The sound that comes in at 4:45 seems like amp noise on a loop. Not necessarily feedback (which comes in later around 4:50) but just the sound of the amp on with all of the fx going. Theres a bit of a pattern to it so they probably found a measure with a slight rhythm to it and looped it out. At 4:50 feedback comes in at cuts back out at 4:58 Theres a sound that comes out at 5:28 that sounds like it was the decay of another guitar track where it started to feedback on the root note. I thought it was part of the main loop until it was removed independently. Im not entirely sure what the sound is at 5:53 when everything else comes out. Sounds like if I try and record in my control room with the AC going. So, could be some kind of ambient pad with a bit of filtering and distortion. 4) Some transcriptions say the final chord has a D in it, which would make it a full B minor. I'm not super hearing that, but it may be getting lost under that big, distorted F# on top. The analysis doesn't change if it's there, but if I missed it, sorry.
Hi. Please read till the end for the request. I love the way you analyse and provide a way of looking at the music. Sometimes providing more than one way of looking at it(teaching me more theory in the process) And that's why you are my goto guy for song breakdowns. Please breakdown the Pink Panther theme. I could not find any analysis videos or blogs whatsoever. I want to understand why it's so gratifying to play it. I realized that it's much more gratifying to play it than just to listen. I wonder if you could shed any light of that as well
Don't beat yourself up too much about it. This video is way too apologetic for something that, let's be honest, is ultimately totally trivial. But I guess over-analysis is what you do. It's like the song made you go into a downward spiral too!
It makes me a little sad how overshadowed the original is by the Cash cover. Like, I *love* the Cash cover. It changes the song fundamentally to have an old man singing it about a life he is looking back on with bittersweet regrets, but like... that's the point. It changes the song. And the original, a young man singing entirely bitterly about a life he thinks he's already ruined, has important merit too. I don't think either is better than the other, I think they're bookends on a theme and you need both of them.
The older I get, the more I appreciate these two contrasting takes on the song and the value they both have. Honestly, I wasn't listening to this genre when the original came out so didn't really have a reaction to it at the time, but I do appreciate it now when I probably couldn't have back then, even if I had been listening to it. I definitely appreciate it now in a way that I couldn't have back then.
@@sea-ferring Wait, wait... What music did Cash make not derive from other popular artist that around before him? I guess you could argue for his lyrics but let's not pretend Johnny Cash broke any barriers with his instrumentation. Don't confuse original with old.
@@illuminahde Agreed, none of those guys "created" Rock&Roll and mostly stole from black blues artists. Regardless, the best art is stealing and imprinting your own mark on something. The critique of calling artists derivative is... well derivative hahaha
@@sea-ferring I find what you just wrote insipid and ignorant. Cash, like every other musician, stands on the shoulders of everyone who came before him. Cash is a legend, but he didn't invent country, blues or rock. He made music in the context of his era, and so did Reznor. And they're both considered legends in their respective genres, and will continue to be into the future.
In an attempt to become a competent composer I decided to binge watch the entire channel. Glad to say im officilaly finished watching all the 12tone videos. Cant stress how grateful Iam for how you poured your time and energy into this project. Youve officially turned me into a theorist and for that I thank you sir
FYI, there's a cleaner mix on Further Down The Spiral, called "Hurt (Quiet)", with the warble removed. It made it easier for me to pick out the notes when I was learning it on piano.
In the songexploder episode of this song Trent says the "wind noise" was a white noise device that the audio technician uses to check the frequency of a room. He liked it so he made a bunch of samples of it to put in lots of songs.
I remember in the liner notes, this is the one song on that album where Trent Reznor was its sole producer and sole mixer, thus he really had something in mind with that song. And he did say that it was incredibly personal, even back then.
@@miskate5690 Cool name, but less cool gimmick. You might wind up actually believing yourself some day. (At least, I hope you don't believe yourself now.)
On the topic of everyone experiencing music differently, I almost immediately thought about the Johnny Cash cover of this song and how the analysis might be different if that was the version used as the basis. I mean, Cash famously had his own history with addiction and so that part of the analysis could certainly carry over but the cover was done near the end of his life when he was also dealing with a neurodegenerative disorder. But then I guess, that's all covered in the podcast, so, one more reason to think about a Nebula subscription I guess. Thanks for this!
For me I feel like the pre-chorus/chorus starts on the first bar, and the vocals just genuinely starts on the 2nd bar of the 4 chord loop. Just feels right considering the drums comes in there and it lines up with how the chorus ends.
I was listening to this song, but I had listened to it again several times. This was the first time with good headphones and the power chords at the end jump scared me
That aural pad thought-out of wind and other ethereal sounds reminds me of the similar treatment of songs of the lady in the radiator in "In heaven everything is fine" in David Lynch's Erasurehead. Thank you
2:05 Wait what? The b7 interval has no character? It's fascinating how much musical perception can differ, because that interval most certainly made me start playing music as a kid. It's a staple in blues based music. I mean, swapping major chords with dominant 7's might be the most instant way to give a song a bluesy flavor, also the blues scale itself contains the b7. Hammering that interval again and again (and again) into our family keyboard to reproduce Jerry Lee Lewis' riffs was probably the first time I played black and white keys together! I was electrified by that mighty sound and for years every chord I played got to have a b7 put on it's head ... of course musical tastes are different and that's a good thing, but really man, hearing that it "sounds like nothing" really hurt a bit. I am baffled.
I'm probably a little late, and I'm not sure if this is where you look for suggestions but: Please do anything by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Hard Mode: Do anything from their album "Flying Microtonal Banana". That would make my day!
I'm not sure if you mentioned this in the original video, but it's not really a B minor. It's subtle, but Reznor's vocal melody slides around the major 3rd. He can do this because the original chord is just the root, 5th, and flat 5th. We hear it as a minor chord because of the context created by the other chords.
I had thought that this was Cash’s song and I already loved it but my brother told me of the original and now NIN is one of my favorite bands. I wasn’t expecting the ending to be so loud the first time I heard it though and it hurt my ears really bad.
When the distorted chords kick in I hear a tritone-ish relation between the two first powerchords - probably because second chord is hit ao hard that the "twang" pitches it up a halftone (or is the bass bending it up?)
You may have already checked out the episode of Song Exploder on this song but Trent said that the wind sound was a sample of the machine that the sound engineer used to tune the studio. Kind of a fun little detail. Thanks for the analysis!
I just rewatched your "Bring Me to Life video" and the piano intro in the song had me thinking, could you analyze "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance? The piano intro to that song is widely recognized by many people. It's so widely recognized that the first note of the song has been referenced in several memes and vines. "G Noting" someone is a thing because of Welcome to The Black Parade.
I never knew that the protagonist shoots himself in The Downward Spiral. Suddenly it reminds me of The The's album "Infected." Which is super interesting to me because I always thought "The Only Time" sounded a lot like the second-to-last song on "Infected," called "Twilight of a Champion." In. the video, the protagonist shoots himself, and then the final song, "Mercy Beat" has a slightly more hopeful tone. Is Trent Reznor a fan? Was there an intentional parallel?
I mean, people’s perception of music changes with repeated hearings, and the initial impressions we have, even if we later update them, have the unique quality of being our initial impressions, which teach us vastly about how art works.
I actually thought my speakers were broken when I first heard this song haha. I paused it and called my father: "uh, dad, we need to fix it", then he told me the song was like this ;•v
This isn't actually related to Hurt, but I've been looking at alternative tunings (other EDOs, mostly) and 'Rank 2 Temperament' has come up. I haven't heard it mentioned before, and google just provides lists rather than an explanation, so I thought I'd leave a reply here in case it randomly happens to be a good video topic, or if someone else here knows what the term means. (the default Rank 2 scale (3/2, 2/1) on Scale Workshop sounds nice at least)
2021 needs to find 12tone’s channel imploding. Rick Beato is order of magnitude smarter, more interesting, more educated, and more well connected than this dickhead. Wake me up when 12tone manages to book interviews with everyone Beato has.
I'm not a musical theorist, so I would hesitate to question you on this, but is that final chord just a B? The way I've always heard it there was some atonal note that made it something similar to how you describe the tri-tone. Something that almost felt like running into a brick wall at the end of the song. I like the way you describe the noise in the song and I'm going to have to go back and listen to it now with that in mind. I'd always imagined it sounding like the scratch you get in REALLY old recordings like the Robert Johnson originals. Not sure how that would fit into the theme, but that's just what I heard.
To me, the song seems very intimate. I interpret it as a song about being trusted by someone who can’t trust himself anymore. The music is a messy, confusing situation and you’re there with him, listening. The music doesn’t make sense, so all we have to really hold onto during the verses is the sound of his voice. The Cash cover seems like sitting upon the “Lier’s chair” and and the NIN version seems like being the “someone else.” I think the ending can’t be analyzed without the lyrics. As he says, “I would find a way.” The power chords come in and drown him out. 12tone is right, they’re a final embarrassment, but to be more specific, they’re an illustration of just how stupid his new hope is. He says, “If I could start again a million miles away, I would keep myself.” And then the guitars come in to remind him that it’s all his fault-that reincarnation can’t save you from yourself, nothing can. Maybe Trent Rezner was trying to teach the audience to take responsibility instead of making wishes… or maybe it’s just the protagonist concluding that some people-including himself, are just doomed souls that will fall into drug addiction and sex obsession no matter where they start or what they try to choose. Speaking of sex obsession, one thing to notice about the lyrics of the last song is how unsexual they are. Sure you can take some lines that way, such as “I will let you down, I will make you hurt.” But there’s nothing blatantly, unnecessarily dirty like “I wanna go everywhere, I wanna f*** everyone, I wanna do something that matters!” That one line, and others like it, illustrate the progression of the obsession, and letting them disappear under layers of nuance shows us that He’s at the bottom of the downward spiral, a point so low and sobering that he can’t even sexualize it.
You want to hear two amazing Queen covers? Bohemian Rhapsody by Puscifer (Maynard's side project) and Bicycle Race by Between the Buried and Me. Bonus: Puscifer also does Elton John's Rocket Man
Covers are not great simply because your favorite artist does them. Truly great covers bring something completely original to the song in question. These are few and far between.
@@sea-ferring Check those out. Those are done by incredible musicians in their own right. Freddy Mercury is a singer who is almost impossible to cover but these songs manage to do it well. Bohemian Rhapsody in particular is done with more traditional operatic vocals in the harmony using a female vocalist. Trust me, check them out. You'll see. The video is goofy btw but don't let that confuse your ear.
@@illuminahde The Bohemian Rhapsody cover is about as straight ahead a cover as you could do which makes it completely unnecessary. The Rocket Man cover is a little more creative but still not particularly interesting. Who cares how great the artists are? I'm not even a Queen fan and even I know it is pointless to cover a song like Bohemian Rhapsody unless you are parodying it - see Bad News version. I realize that Maynard/Tool fans will drool over anything they do, but that fact alone does not make a cover great - or even worth listening to.
@@sea-ferring Your analysis of what makes a great cover is your own. I think you are stuck in a time period and see music through a very narrow lens. Cheers. No music is necessary
@@illuminahde You are talking about "great cover versions" of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocket Man but I'm stuck in a time period? That's hilarious. I enjoy artists doing original music. Artists doing covers during a live show can be entertaining. If you enjoy note by note covers go to your local bar and see a cover band.
Your decision to label the Bm as the start of the chorus loop comes completely out of left field to me. Just because that's where the vocals enter does not necessarily make that the beginning, and it completely ignores the much more obvious que of the enormous drums that come in exactly halfway through the chorus on the A chord. This idea that there's a pickup bar and then a 3 bar phrase at the end is just completely unsupported. But it comes necessarily from a decision you make earlier when you claim that the chorus ISN'T in A. But wait, why not? You say that since these are the axis chords, starting on the A would be uncommon. But this just isn't true - it's extremely common. Punk music in particular comes to mind, but it's all over the place. You then end up with a false decision to make between the major and minor interpretation, and you go with the D major idea simply because of an F#. But couldn't it still be in A? There's nothing wrong with a D major chord in the key of A. Not to mention, it could also still be in Bm. So you've made this decision completely arbitrarily on a single note that could be in any of these keys. And you claim earlier that in your original video, the chorus being in A meant you had to go back and say the verse was in A... but why? You definitely didn't have to do that. Why couldn't the verse be in B, and then the E chord acts as a secondary dominant bringing us into A for the chorus? It even has a flat 7. When we get to the second half of the chorus, and we have A B G A (or B G A A I guess), you've done something pretty weird here. You say the A that follows the G is an A 6/9 chord, but it seems pretty arbitrary to me that you're now including the notes of the vocals and piano melody in this chord symbol, when you haven't been doing that for other chord symbols along the way. Because all things considered, it's just an A with a melody on it (not to mention the vocals go E A E which is a very strong A sound). It feels like you're reaching for tension that doesn't exist to strengthen your claim that that tension is released at the B minor chord. I guess I'm constantly confronted with the reality that everyone experiences music differently, but I just can't see how the chorus isn't a very simple four chord loop. A B G D for the first half, A B G A for the second. Since it would be A mixolydian, I could understand people saying it's in D, but I just don't feel the D chord as the home chord. Instead, it feels like the furthest chord on our journey, like we're peaking our head out before we sheepishly fall back to the A at the start of the loop. To me this is emphasized by the fact that the D chord is removed in the second half, like we have less motivation to go as far. In my opinion this means it can't be in D. I don't know of many chord progressions that can have their tonics removed while remaining stable. So, if we rule out D, that leaves A and Bm as our options. If we remember the drums, they enter very strongly on the first A of a A B G A pattern (or the last A of a B G A A). If the loop started on B, then the drums would enter on the 4th chord of the progression, and this would be very strange. However, if we let the drum entrance be the start of the loop, it would not be unheard of if the chorus was still in B. The 4 bar loop could start on the bVII and move to the tonic (Bm) on the second chord of the pattern, but I just don't think that's what's happening here. In no way do I hear the A as a bVII chord. And when we think about the case of the second half of the chorus, it's a very common pattern in music to have a 4 bar loop start and end on the same chord. And in these cases that repeated chord is very often the tonic (think I IV V I). Here, we end up with a I ii bVII I, which is a progression I hear pretty frequently. To me, the evidence and my own personal bias points to the chorus being in A. Sorry for the short essay. I don't mean any disrespect, but this is one of my favorite songs of all time, and my interpretation greatly differs from the one you presented here. Cheers PS: there's a small nuance in the verses that you may not have noticed. There are many times where Reznor actually ends on a D#, the Major third of the B chord. For example the line "I focus on the pain" pain lands on a D#, not a D. This makes the chord feel major for a brief moment before we're smacked with the tritone. This just further emphasizes the ambiguity of a tonal center during the verses
Maybe not super significant for the analysis, but both the "wind sound" and the vocal distortion is caused by tape noise and degradation, with an uneven pitch caused by an unstable playback speed. He probably recorded on a low volume to tape and then boosted the volume to bring up the noise floor.
Sorry to say but that last chord is for sure a B flat 5, making it diminished and giving it that unsettling feeling. Regarding some of the effects on this track. The "wind noise" is slightly leaning to the left channel but it seems to me like a simple mix choice as the bulk of the guitar is on the right channel. As the noise is varying throughout the song, it seems like it is not meant to be a background feature but more like a main feature in the song. It basically gives the eerie deserted feeling. So panning it slightly left keeps it featured instead of obscured in the background as some noise (like sometimes the sound of vinyl crackling is used in songs in the background). The chorus is interesting but seems to me like an example where that section is maybe best described in non-harmonic terms. It tries to be the same as the pre-chorus but the bass is not completely following there (as you rightly point out). The caveat though is that a lot of the harmonic content is softer (on purpose I guess) than the other content. The heavy drums are way louder with that kick and floor tom kind of obscuring the bass. The piano melody is just following the scale but not really relating to the chords. And the other prominent sounds have a pretty distinguishable pitch but can be considered "pedal" but are outside the key. So I think Trent is trying to create the illusion that we are still in the key of D major and basically continuing the pre-chorus but in reality not playing any real chords to imply that progression. It's the same as with that E note you automatically filled in (happens to me a lot btw as well when transcribing). You think it's there but it's not. The vocals of Trent are among one of the cleanest on the album but he sounds very upfront and emotional here. Most of the time the mic seems to be almost in his mouth and heavily compressed. But besides a modulation effect on the acoustic, there is also some kind of gritty, slightly distorted, could-be-a-bad-quality-tape-reel-effect where at some points the guitar and wind noise sounds sliced (with the vocals on top of it, but not altered). That could be either real tape or maybe the Zoom 9120 . Regarding The Downward Spiral: I always had the idea that Hurt was a fit for the theme and overall concept but outside of the actual storyline as I believe it was about drug addiction. TDS itself sounded like actual suicide with the voice in his head (the same as in Piggy) being the narrator and looking down on the guy. I kind of think of the story line as two real characters: the bully with a very destructive influence and the weak character affected and experiencing that downward spiral. If the bully is a real person or a voice in his head is left out in the open but it makes sense if TDS actually ends the story. The only reason for me to think that is because the lyrics of Hurt seem to tone down from TDS and don't match the events described. You don't shoot your face in a suicidal order to see if you can still feel. Reptile also feels a bit like an odd one at least in that particular place in the story (before Eraser makes more sense to me).
See, I know how to play the song on guitar, and I knew your original video was kind of off. I trusted you... Lesson is don't trust anyone. No, it was off but I don't know enough about music theory to know what was wrong. I enjoy that video and this one. Not everyone will admit they are wrong
IIRC he used a Zoom 9030 for the guitar on a lot of tracks, but I read somewhere the noise at the end of hurt was some crazy analog pedal that was fairly obscure even back then.
I mean, like all rock songs ever, the chorus is just in A mixo, right? So, yes, D, pretty much, but -to me- that G totally and absolutely sounds like a bVII (it's the unmistakable stadium-rock motion, from Hey Jude to Highway To Hell to Sweet Home Alabama to 10000 others. See also Adam Neely's video on Sweet Home Alabama's key.). The melody outlines the 1-5 of A all the way through; it really doesn't sound like he's in D singing around the 9th the whole time, it's way more stable than that. Your work is usually great! But in this case, your analysis still feels a tad unnecessarily overthought/counter-intuitive, to me; feels like you're kinda shoehorning in the Axis progression to have an educational tidbit in there. The verse is very much in B-minor to me; both because it starts there, outlines it in the harmony, and because after the chorus he lands on a Picardy Third on B, very much implying a new tonic and making it the new center of gravity. So is there a key change in there? It sure sounds like it to me, although theoretically you could certainly say there isn't (A mixo and B minor as modes of D). The drone on A (and lingering on that chord), the Picardy Third back to new home B, the chords that feel like tonic and subdominants in the pre/chorus, lend me personally to believe that there is, because it very much sounds like there is... To me the experience of harmonic/melodic movement trumps any theoretical framework in which they happen to fit. Otherwise, what is ear training even for. Kbye! X
Do you think that the composers of this song made these musical allusions to addiction intentionally, or did they composed what they felt and all of the references just existed in that? Either way, these analyses are fascinating!
I'd guess in terms of Reznor, he understands what feeling he wants his music to have and does his best to find something that fits it. And by fitting to the mood he also fits to the meaning. Reznor typically keeps his songs sounding the way that emphasizes their meaning.
Most of the time, the songwriters probably lacked the music theory to do these things intentionally, and instead write by feel and intuition. But in Reznor's case, he was a classically trained pianist since childhood, so it is certainly possible that he knew exactly what he was doing, theory-wise.
@@lottieluna123 That's certainly possible. I was just pointing out that he almost definitely knows the theory side as well, which is not usually true of the majority of popular artists.
2:03 it sounds like you’re saying that very high notes are inherently unnerving, and that’s really wrong, I think. Children’s voices sit up there too, and mouse squeaks and stuff.
I wouldn't say that playing a bit of variation here and there is much related to actual generative music. Varying is as old as music itself, you play something, and when you repeat it, you play it a little different. It's a very natural human thing to do and you can hear it in many many recordings, obviously in jazz ("Never play the same thing twice", like Louis Armstrong said), but also in rock and pop and folk and what not. Here's for example a video about The Beatles' "yesterday" how a single note of the melody gets varied throughout the song: czcams.com/video/pOtcLmOeScM/video.html
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Some additional thoughts/corrections:
1) In my defense, there's definitely some parts of that analysis I'm proud of, which is why, despite its flaws, I've chosen to leave the video up. Like, catching the idea of separating the parts out into high and low progressions was good, and a lot of the general structural analysis in the verse was pretty on point. Overall I'm not happy with the video, but it wasn't a complete miss.
2) It might be interesting to read the chorus in the key of D as well, just without the I chord. Given that the drone makes the B chord fairly unstable, I don't think that's an unfair reading. Personally I kinda like the idea that the major axis progression sort of melts into the minor version on the section boundary, but I could see the argument for staying in D.
3) On the ending, I reached out to an audio engineering friend to help break it down. I only wound up using a short summary, but here's his full response if you want more detail:
The sound that comes in at 4:45 seems like amp noise on a loop. Not necessarily feedback (which comes in later around 4:50) but just the sound of the amp on with all of the fx going. Theres a bit of a pattern to it so they probably found a measure with a slight rhythm to it and looped it out.
At 4:50 feedback comes in at cuts back out at 4:58
Theres a sound that comes out at 5:28 that sounds like it was the decay of another guitar track where it started to feedback on the root note. I thought it was part of the main loop until it was removed independently.
Im not entirely sure what the sound is at 5:53 when everything else comes out. Sounds like if I try and record in my control room with the AC going. So, could be some kind of ambient pad with a bit of filtering and distortion.
4) Some transcriptions say the final chord has a D in it, which would make it a full B minor. I'm not super hearing that, but it may be getting lost under that big, distorted F# on top. The analysis doesn't change if it's there, but if I missed it, sorry.
Song Exploder on Netflix has an episode about Hurt. It's excellent. Also, here's a dope cover song: czcams.com/video/TbK8rVtgXMc/video.html
Hi. Please read till the end for the request.
I love the way you analyse and provide a way of looking at the music. Sometimes providing more than one way of looking at it(teaching me more theory in the process) And that's why you are my goto guy for song breakdowns.
Please breakdown the Pink Panther theme. I could not find any analysis videos or blogs whatsoever.
I want to understand why it's so gratifying to play it. I realized that it's much more gratifying to play it than just to listen. I wonder if you could shed any light of that as well
@@sharadsemilo Good shout. Love that theme.
Don't beat yourself up too much about it. This video is way too apologetic for something that, let's be honest, is ultimately totally trivial. But I guess over-analysis is what you do. It's like the song made you go into a downward spiral too!
It makes me a little sad how overshadowed the original is by the Cash cover.
Like, I *love* the Cash cover. It changes the song fundamentally to have an old man singing it about a life he is looking back on with bittersweet regrets, but like... that's the point. It changes the song. And the original, a young man singing entirely bitterly about a life he thinks he's already ruined, has important merit too. I don't think either is better than the other, I think they're bookends on a theme and you need both of them.
Cash is a true original while Trent Reznor while incredibly talented is extremely derivative.
The older I get, the more I appreciate these two contrasting takes on the song and the value they both have. Honestly, I wasn't listening to this genre when the original came out so didn't really have a reaction to it at the time, but I do appreciate it now when I probably couldn't have back then, even if I had been listening to it. I definitely appreciate it now in a way that I couldn't have back then.
@@sea-ferring Wait, wait... What music did Cash make not derive from other popular artist that around before him? I guess you could argue for his lyrics but let's not pretend Johnny Cash broke any barriers with his instrumentation. Don't confuse original with old.
@@illuminahde Agreed, none of those guys "created" Rock&Roll and mostly stole from black blues artists. Regardless, the best art is stealing and imprinting your own mark on something. The critique of calling artists derivative is... well derivative hahaha
@@sea-ferring I find what you just wrote insipid and ignorant. Cash, like every other musician, stands on the shoulders of everyone who came before him. Cash is a legend, but he didn't invent country, blues or rock. He made music in the context of his era, and so did Reznor. And they're both considered legends in their respective genres, and will continue to be into the future.
In an attempt to become a competent composer I decided to binge watch the entire channel. Glad to say im officilaly finished watching all the 12tone videos. Cant stress how grateful Iam for how you poured your time and energy into this project. Youve officially turned me into a theorist and for that I thank you sir
FYI, there's a cleaner mix on Further Down The Spiral, called "Hurt (Quiet)", with the warble removed. It made it easier for me to pick out the notes when I was learning it on piano.
In the songexploder episode of this song Trent says the "wind noise" was a white noise device that the audio technician uses to check the frequency of a room. He liked it so he made a bunch of samples of it to put in lots of songs.
Now we know that if 12tone could start again, million miles away, he wouldn't keep mistakes, he would find a way.... to correct them
Mistakes while you make music are simply things you didn't know you meant to do yet.
The chorus has a pick-up bar:
“So, come here often?”
I'm the 69th like lol
Interesting to compare this reading against Trent Reznor's descriptions on Sound Exploder that has only just been released
Well, like the song says, “If I could start again/A million miles away/I would keep myself/I would find a way”. THUS IT HAS BEEN WRITTEN!
9:37 wow it's been a long time since I've seen Chicken Run
I remember in the liner notes, this is the one song on that album where Trent Reznor was its sole producer and sole mixer, thus he really had something in mind with that song. And he did say that it was incredibly personal, even back then.
Its called growth. And thanks for making these videos, i can't nerd out like this on my own. Merry Christmas.
it's ok 12tone my mom thinks i'm the bigger mistake
I feel this bro
@@taatanka it hurts bro
Love the username.
@@ZipplyZane i wish my mom could love me
@@miskate5690 Cool name, but less cool gimmick. You might wind up actually believing yourself some day.
(At least, I hope you don't believe yourself now.)
On the topic of everyone experiencing music differently, I almost immediately thought about the Johnny Cash cover of this song and how the analysis might be different if that was the version used as the basis. I mean, Cash famously had his own history with addiction and so that part of the analysis could certainly carry over but the cover was done near the end of his life when he was also dealing with a neurodegenerative disorder. But then I guess, that's all covered in the podcast, so, one more reason to think about a Nebula subscription I guess. Thanks for this!
It's hard not to let memories of the Cash arrangement lead to assumptions about the tonality in the Reznor original.
For me I feel like the pre-chorus/chorus starts on the first bar, and the vocals just genuinely starts on the 2nd bar of the 4 chord loop. Just feels right considering the drums comes in there and it lines up with how the chorus ends.
I was listening to this song, but I had listened to it again several times. This was the first time with good headphones and the power chords at the end jump scared me
That aural pad thought-out of wind and other ethereal sounds reminds me of the similar treatment of songs of the lady in the radiator in "In heaven everything is fine" in David Lynch's Erasurehead. Thank you
Anyone finding this now who hasn't found ixi's wonderful breakdowns of NIN stuff, go to that channel NOW and look at them. So in depth.
2:05 Wait what? The b7 interval has no character? It's fascinating how much musical perception can differ, because that interval most certainly made me start playing music as a kid. It's a staple in blues based music. I mean, swapping major chords with dominant 7's might be the most instant way to give a song a bluesy flavor, also the blues scale itself contains the b7. Hammering that interval again and again (and again) into our family keyboard to reproduce Jerry Lee Lewis' riffs was probably the first time I played black and white keys together! I was electrified by that mighty sound and for years every chord I played got to have a b7 put on it's head ... of course musical tastes are different and that's a good thing, but really man, hearing that it "sounds like nothing" really hurt a bit. I am baffled.
In the blues context yes. Here, obviously not used that way
I'm probably a little late, and I'm not sure if this is where you look for suggestions but:
Please do anything by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Hard Mode: Do anything from their album "Flying Microtonal Banana". That would make my day!
Mistakes happen. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the analysis again. It kind of gives it a spin why something wouldn't be a different way.
Is the Axis Progression named after Axis of Awesome's (thanks to _musique for correcting me on the band name!) "Four Chord Song"?
My thought exactly
Axis of AWESOME
@@stefan1024 You are, of course, correct! I must have been more tired than I thought when I commented that.
I'm not sure if you mentioned this in the original video, but it's not really a B minor. It's subtle, but Reznor's vocal melody slides around the major 3rd. He can do this because the original chord is just the root, 5th, and flat 5th. We hear it as a minor chord because of the context created by the other chords.
I had thought that this was Cash’s song and I already loved it but my brother told me of the original and now NIN is one of my favorite bands. I wasn’t expecting the ending to be so loud the first time I heard it though and it hurt my ears really bad.
Very respectable that you were able to accept and correct your mistakes!
When the distorted chords kick in I hear a tritone-ish relation between the two first powerchords - probably because second chord is hit ao hard that the "twang" pitches it up a halftone (or is the bass bending it up?)
I love that the Axis of Awesome got the recognition they deserve.
You may have already checked out the episode of Song Exploder on this song but Trent said that the wind sound was a sample of the machine that the sound engineer used to tune the studio. Kind of a fun little detail. Thanks for the analysis!
a 12tone explanation of BOC estructures will be a nice xrtmx present...
I just rewatched your "Bring Me to Life video" and the piano intro in the song had me thinking, could you analyze "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance? The piano intro to that song is widely recognized by many people. It's so widely recognized that the first note of the song has been referenced in several memes and vines. "G Noting" someone is a thing because of Welcome to The Black Parade.
well, they did it
@@abridge2 I saw! Thank you Thomas for letting me know ♡ Now all I need is Jesus of Suburbia
2:07 You sent me back to 2009 (Age of War)
can you do songs from bill wurtz? i think he has some interesting stuff going on
How to make music extra interesting! Thank you!
I like these correction videos: they force me to go back to the original videos that I missed because I didn't know 12tone back then. Very clever ;)
Great stuff. I remember the original video and feeling it wasn't up to your normal standards. Thank you 12 tone.
I never knew that the protagonist shoots himself in The Downward Spiral. Suddenly it reminds me of The The's album "Infected." Which is super interesting to me because I always thought "The Only Time" sounded a lot like the second-to-last song on "Infected," called "Twilight of a Champion." In. the video, the protagonist shoots himself, and then the final song, "Mercy Beat" has a slightly more hopeful tone. Is Trent Reznor a fan? Was there an intentional parallel?
I mean, people’s perception of music changes with repeated hearings, and the initial impressions we have, even if we later update them, have the unique quality of being our initial impressions, which teach us vastly about how art works.
I actually thought my speakers were broken when I first heard this song haha. I paused it and called my father: "uh, dad, we need to fix it", then he told me the song was like this ;•v
This isn't actually related to Hurt, but I've been looking at alternative tunings (other EDOs, mostly) and 'Rank 2 Temperament' has come up. I haven't heard it mentioned before, and google just provides lists rather than an explanation, so I thought I'd leave a reply here in case it randomly happens to be a good video topic, or if someone else here knows what the term means. (the default Rank 2 scale (3/2, 2/1) on Scale Workshop sounds nice at least)
Isn't the final B5 chord diminished, like, just a big tri-tone? That high note, at least, sure sounds like an F natural.
We got Pyrocynical’s apology, and 12Tone’s apology? Is this 2019 again?
i.. just came from pyro's apology
Same
2021 needs to find 12tone’s channel imploding. Rick Beato is order of magnitude smarter, more interesting, more educated, and more well connected than this dickhead. Wake me up when 12tone manages to book interviews with everyone Beato has.
@@TheCpj1976 ok boomer
I'm not a musical theorist, so I would hesitate to question you on this, but is that final chord just a B? The way I've always heard it there was some atonal note that made it something similar to how you describe the tri-tone. Something that almost felt like running into a brick wall at the end of the song.
I like the way you describe the noise in the song and I'm going to have to go back and listen to it now with that in mind. I'd always imagined it sounding like the scratch you get in REALLY old recordings like the Robert Johnson originals. Not sure how that would fit into the theme, but that's just what I heard.
Hey I’m learning so much from you is crazy
To me, the song seems very intimate. I interpret it as a song about being trusted by someone who can’t trust himself anymore. The music is a messy, confusing situation and you’re there with him, listening. The music doesn’t make sense, so all we have to really hold onto during the verses is the sound of his voice. The Cash cover seems like sitting upon the “Lier’s chair” and and the NIN version seems like being the “someone else.”
I think the ending can’t be analyzed without the lyrics. As he says, “I would find a way.” The power chords come in and drown him out. 12tone is right, they’re a final embarrassment, but to be more specific, they’re an illustration of just how stupid his new hope is. He says, “If I could start again a million miles away, I would keep myself.” And then the guitars come in to remind him that it’s all his fault-that reincarnation can’t save you from yourself, nothing can. Maybe Trent Rezner was trying to teach the audience to take responsibility instead of making wishes… or maybe it’s just the protagonist concluding that some people-including himself, are just doomed souls that will fall into drug addiction and sex obsession no matter where they start or what they try to choose.
Speaking of sex obsession, one thing to notice about the lyrics of the last song is how unsexual they are. Sure you can take some lines that way, such as “I will let you down, I will make you hurt.” But there’s nothing blatantly, unnecessarily dirty like “I wanna go everywhere, I wanna f*** everyone, I wanna do something that matters!” That one line, and others like it, illustrate the progression of the obsession, and letting them disappear under layers of nuance shows us that He’s at the bottom of the downward spiral, a point so low and sobering that he can’t even sexualize it.
2:13 HAHahaha "Hollow" ;)
favourite game?
The knight
You want to hear two amazing Queen covers? Bohemian Rhapsody by Puscifer (Maynard's side project) and Bicycle Race by Between the Buried and Me.
Bonus: Puscifer also does Elton John's Rocket Man
Covers are not great simply because your favorite artist does them. Truly great covers bring something completely original to the song in question. These are few and far between.
@@sea-ferring Check those out. Those are done by incredible musicians in their own right. Freddy Mercury is a singer who is almost impossible to cover but these songs manage to do it well. Bohemian Rhapsody in particular is done with more traditional operatic vocals in the harmony using a female vocalist.
Trust me, check them out. You'll see. The video is goofy btw but don't let that confuse your ear.
@@illuminahde The Bohemian Rhapsody cover is about as straight ahead a cover as you could do which makes it completely unnecessary. The Rocket Man cover is a little more creative but still not particularly interesting. Who cares how great the artists are? I'm not even a Queen fan and even I know it is pointless to cover a song like Bohemian Rhapsody unless you are parodying it - see Bad News version. I realize that Maynard/Tool fans will drool over anything they do, but that fact alone does not make a cover great - or even worth listening to.
@@sea-ferring Your analysis of what makes a great cover is your own. I think you are stuck in a time period and see music through a very narrow lens. Cheers.
No music is necessary
@@illuminahde You are talking about "great cover versions" of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocket Man but I'm stuck in a time period? That's hilarious. I enjoy artists doing original music. Artists doing covers during a live show can be entertaining. If you enjoy note by note covers go to your local bar and see a cover band.
Your decision to label the Bm as the start of the chorus loop comes completely out of left field to me. Just because that's where the vocals enter does not necessarily make that the beginning, and it completely ignores the much more obvious que of the enormous drums that come in exactly halfway through the chorus on the A chord. This idea that there's a pickup bar and then a 3 bar phrase at the end is just completely unsupported. But it comes necessarily from a decision you make earlier when you claim that the chorus ISN'T in A.
But wait, why not? You say that since these are the axis chords, starting on the A would be uncommon. But this just isn't true - it's extremely common. Punk music in particular comes to mind, but it's all over the place. You then end up with a false decision to make between the major and minor interpretation, and you go with the D major idea simply because of an F#. But couldn't it still be in A? There's nothing wrong with a D major chord in the key of A. Not to mention, it could also still be in Bm. So you've made this decision completely arbitrarily on a single note that could be in any of these keys. And you claim earlier that in your original video, the chorus being in A meant you had to go back and say the verse was in A... but why? You definitely didn't have to do that. Why couldn't the verse be in B, and then the E chord acts as a secondary dominant bringing us into A for the chorus? It even has a flat 7.
When we get to the second half of the chorus, and we have A B G A (or B G A A I guess), you've done something pretty weird here. You say the A that follows the G is an A 6/9 chord, but it seems pretty arbitrary to me that you're now including the notes of the vocals and piano melody in this chord symbol, when you haven't been doing that for other chord symbols along the way. Because all things considered, it's just an A with a melody on it (not to mention the vocals go E A E which is a very strong A sound). It feels like you're reaching for tension that doesn't exist to strengthen your claim that that tension is released at the B minor chord.
I guess I'm constantly confronted with the reality that everyone experiences music differently, but I just can't see how the chorus isn't a very simple four chord loop. A B G D for the first half, A B G A for the second. Since it would be A mixolydian, I could understand people saying it's in D, but I just don't feel the D chord as the home chord. Instead, it feels like the furthest chord on our journey, like we're peaking our head out before we sheepishly fall back to the A at the start of the loop. To me this is emphasized by the fact that the D chord is removed in the second half, like we have less motivation to go as far. In my opinion this means it can't be in D. I don't know of many chord progressions that can have their tonics removed while remaining stable.
So, if we rule out D, that leaves A and Bm as our options. If we remember the drums, they enter very strongly on the first A of a A B G A pattern (or the last A of a B G A A). If the loop started on B, then the drums would enter on the 4th chord of the progression, and this would be very strange. However, if we let the drum entrance be the start of the loop, it would not be unheard of if the chorus was still in B. The 4 bar loop could start on the bVII and move to the tonic (Bm) on the second chord of the pattern, but I just don't think that's what's happening here. In no way do I hear the A as a bVII chord. And when we think about the case of the second half of the chorus, it's a very common pattern in music to have a 4 bar loop start and end on the same chord. And in these cases that repeated chord is very often the tonic (think I IV V I). Here, we end up with a I ii bVII I, which is a progression I hear pretty frequently.
To me, the evidence and my own personal bias points to the chorus being in A.
Sorry for the short essay. I don't mean any disrespect, but this is one of my favorite songs of all time, and my interpretation greatly differs from the one you presented here. Cheers
PS: there's a small nuance in the verses that you may not have noticed. There are many times where Reznor actually ends on a D#, the Major third of the B chord. For example the line "I focus on the pain" pain lands on a D#, not a D. This makes the chord feel major for a brief moment before we're smacked with the tritone. This just further emphasizes the ambiguity of a tonal center during the verses
Anyone who talks about this being the best cover song of al time seems to forget "All Along the Watchtower". - They stand very close to each other.
“Aggressively agreeing with each other”
When are you going to revisit your old song analysis videos again?
So, how does it feel to set things right after all this time? (Said the guy who just started playing Planescape Torment)
Maybe not super significant for the analysis, but both the "wind sound" and the vocal distortion is caused by tape noise and degradation, with an uneven pitch caused by an unstable playback speed. He probably recorded on a low volume to tape and then boosted the volume to bring up the noise floor.
It's OK Mister Tone... I forgive you !
Sorry to say but that last chord is for sure a B flat 5, making it diminished and giving it that unsettling feeling.
Regarding some of the effects on this track. The "wind noise" is slightly leaning to the left channel but it seems to me like a simple mix choice as the bulk of the guitar is on the right channel. As the noise is varying throughout the song, it seems like it is not meant to be a background feature but more like a main feature in the song. It basically gives the eerie deserted feeling. So panning it slightly left keeps it featured instead of obscured in the background as some noise (like sometimes the sound of vinyl crackling is used in songs in the background).
The chorus is interesting but seems to me like an example where that section is maybe best described in non-harmonic terms. It tries to be the same as the pre-chorus but the bass is not completely following there (as you rightly point out). The caveat though is that a lot of the harmonic content is softer (on purpose I guess) than the other content. The heavy drums are way louder with that kick and floor tom kind of obscuring the bass. The piano melody is just following the scale but not really relating to the chords. And the other prominent sounds have a pretty distinguishable pitch but can be considered "pedal" but are outside the key. So I think Trent is trying to create the illusion that we are still in the key of D major and basically continuing the pre-chorus but in reality not playing any real chords to imply that progression. It's the same as with that E note you automatically filled in (happens to me a lot btw as well when transcribing). You think it's there but it's not.
The vocals of Trent are among one of the cleanest on the album but he sounds very upfront and emotional here. Most of the time the mic seems to be almost in his mouth and heavily compressed. But besides a modulation effect on the acoustic, there is also some kind of gritty, slightly distorted, could-be-a-bad-quality-tape-reel-effect where at some points the guitar and wind noise sounds sliced (with the vocals on top of it, but not altered). That could be either real tape or maybe the Zoom 9120 .
Regarding The Downward Spiral: I always had the idea that Hurt was a fit for the theme and overall concept but outside of the actual storyline as I believe it was about drug addiction. TDS itself sounded like actual suicide with the voice in his head (the same as in Piggy) being the narrator and looking down on the guy. I kind of think of the story line as two real characters: the bully with a very destructive influence and the weak character affected and experiencing that downward spiral. If the bully is a real person or a voice in his head is left out in the open but it makes sense if TDS actually ends the story. The only reason for me to think that is because the lyrics of Hurt seem to tone down from TDS and don't match the events described. You don't shoot your face in a suicidal order to see if you can still feel. Reptile also feels a bit like an odd one at least in that particular place in the story (before Eraser makes more sense to me).
See, I know how to play the song on guitar, and I knew your original video was kind of off. I trusted you... Lesson is don't trust anyone. No, it was off but I don't know enough about music theory to know what was wrong. I enjoy that video and this one. Not everyone will admit they are wrong
Could a gear nerd explain how NIN created that tone?
IIRC he used a Zoom 9030 for the guitar on a lot of tracks, but I read somewhere the noise at the end of hurt was some crazy analog pedal that was fairly obscure even back then.
Did you make the mistake so you could see if you still feel?
Couldn't find the Ghost Notes podcast on Nebula.
Cool thanks for this
Is there a reason you don't analyze the vocal melody?
3:53 AMOG US
This is less common (draws technetium)
Between that and the Eevee for "1 of 3 variations" the easter eggs were all over the place in this one!
Man that’s deep
You could analyze 3 or 4 songs, or just 1
It seems to me that the songs that you can interpret many different ways are the most interesting.
I mean, like all rock songs ever, the chorus is just in A mixo, right?
So, yes, D, pretty much, but -to me- that G totally and absolutely sounds like a bVII (it's the unmistakable stadium-rock motion, from Hey Jude to Highway To Hell to Sweet Home Alabama to 10000 others. See also Adam Neely's video on Sweet Home Alabama's key.).
The melody outlines the 1-5 of A all the way through; it really doesn't sound like he's in D singing around the 9th the whole time, it's way more stable than that.
Your work is usually great! But in this case, your analysis still feels a tad unnecessarily overthought/counter-intuitive, to me; feels like you're kinda shoehorning in the Axis progression to have an educational tidbit in there.
The verse is very much in B-minor to me; both because it starts there, outlines it in the harmony, and because after the chorus he lands on a Picardy Third on B, very much implying a new tonic and making it the new center of gravity.
So is there a key change in there? It sure sounds like it to me, although theoretically you could certainly say there isn't (A mixo and B minor as modes of D). The drone on A (and lingering on that chord), the Picardy Third back to new home B, the chords that feel like tonic and subdominants in the pre/chorus, lend me personally to believe that there is, because it very much sounds like there is... To me the experience of harmonic/melodic movement trumps any theoretical framework in which they happen to fit. Otherwise, what is ear training even for.
Kbye! X
That mistake really "hurt" me back then.
Heh...?
funny :)
That pun hurt me physically
Do you really think right to left?
Do you think that the composers of this song made these musical allusions to addiction intentionally, or did they composed what they felt and all of the references just existed in that? Either way, these analyses are fascinating!
I'd guess in terms of Reznor, he understands what feeling he wants his music to have and does his best to find something that fits it. And by fitting to the mood he also fits to the meaning. Reznor typically keeps his songs sounding the way that emphasizes their meaning.
Most of the time, the songwriters probably lacked the music theory to do these things intentionally, and instead write by feel and intuition. But in Reznor's case, he was a classically trained pianist since childhood, so it is certainly possible that he knew exactly what he was doing, theory-wise.
@@bigchiefbc He absolutely can understand it conceptually, I just don't think he's consciously thinking about it every time he sits down to write.
@@lottieluna123 That's certainly possible. I was just pointing out that he almost definitely knows the theory side as well, which is not usually true of the majority of popular artists.
@@bigchiefbc I mean I know a classically trained pianist who can sightread but knows practically nothing about theory
Tab?
Lets gooooo
Always heard the Bmin as the start in the chorus.
Hej ask Trent, he should know best 😊
You might enjoy listening to VK's piano cover of hurt, it captures a lot of the nuances of the original: czcams.com/video/gtALOjLMeyY/video.html
Master composers don't care about keys or chords they merge sound and feeling.😂
a.k.a. being actually addicted
Nobody knows what's going on in this track except Trent
One could say you were hurt by Hurt
Oh my God Tamer is that a Hollow Knight reference?
Aggressively agreeing? How does that work?
My mother came up with the phrase “violent agreement”. You can imagine how that goes =]
I forgive you because if you listen to hurt over and over and over again I don’t think you would survive 🤣
12tone do you like Balinese Gamelan?
Ok, so it's fair to say that you were Hurt until now due to that mistake?
7:42 I feel like you're just making this up as you go at this point…
.
.
YES, IT'S A CHEMISTRY PUN!
The interpretation is a bit over the top but fantastic video regardless.
It’s NIN it’s all over the top
like (d)rugs filling an (e)mptyness...
So much time has passed but you are just the same. Perhaps only more beautiful. Perhaps a bit mature.
2:03 it sounds like you’re saying that very high notes are inherently unnerving, and that’s really wrong, I think. Children’s voices sit up there too, and mouse squeaks and stuff.
On behalf of the minor 7th, gfy
He's hurt by hurt?
This channel is legit almost too fast even at 75% playback speed.
Gah, I've just discovered I was unsubscribed.
Any chance this pseudo-randomness was influenced by Brian Eno generative music?
I wouldn't say that playing a bit of variation here and there is much related to actual generative music. Varying is as old as music itself, you play something, and when you repeat it, you play it a little different. It's a very natural human thing to do and you can hear it in many many recordings, obviously in jazz ("Never play the same thing twice", like Louis Armstrong said), but also in rock and pop and folk and what not. Here's for example a video about The Beatles' "yesterday" how a single note of the melody gets varied throughout the song: czcams.com/video/pOtcLmOeScM/video.html
All the stuff you just said is why the Johnny Cash cover sucks.
That Eevee is nightmare fuel, ngl
Wow im early
I know, it's pretty weird to see "2 hours ago" when I open it. Usually when I watch his videos it's already been a couple days.
forst ha ho
Have you lost weight?
FIRST