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With odd and unorthdox modifications in chords and time signatures, Modifications is a terrific example of David Bowie's idiomatic songwriting style.
Check out my previous video on the Spear Studios piano:.
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Leí Bowie y vine corriendo
i just finished watching the vid, ong i really want you writing one for quicksand, i think its one of the more intricate compositions bowie did in this album🙏🙏🙏🙏 (i mean his entire album is intricate in itself lol)
It’s one of my favourite albums of all time!
oh, Quicksand is one of my favorite Bowie songs.
Yes please, try to make a video about that beautiful song
The acoustic demo is what unlocked that one for me – amazing song even stripped down like that
@DavidBennettPiano Quicksand yes!
More Bowie!
yes please
Yes! Bewlay Brothers or Quicksand.
Ashes to Ashes
Uncle Arthur
Five Years!
Just wanted to say thanks for the great spanish subtitles including the adequate naming of notes and other naming conventions
Excellent! I’ll pass on your thanks to tommy subtitler 😊
Dude, you really are a blessing to the music community! Thank you! Blessings to you!
That’s so kind of you to say, thank you!
The other reason why the 2/4 sections of the chorus’ work is because the bass and piano are switching chords halfway through the 4/4 bars anyway, so that chunk of the chorus feels like 9 bars of 2/4 even though it isn’t.
Most likely here is that he needed an extra half a bar to fit the words he written.
Great point
I know that the primary focus of this channel is musical analysis, but can we also take some time to appreciate the quality of lyrics in this song? Particularly the start of the second verse: “I watch the ripples change their size/ But never leave the stream of warm impermanence and/ So, the days float through my eyes but still the days seem the same”. I don’t know if David Bowie studied Greek philosophy, but a more perfect, poetic evocation of Heraclitus’s observation that “a man cannot step into the same river twice”, I can’t imagine. Brilliant by Bowie.
Don’t know if he studied greek philosophy but he did study buddhism, that’s probably where the reference to impermanence comes from.
Bowie was very well read, and it shows in his lyrics. He always chose a more interesting line than anything obvious you’d expect. It was intellectually deep.
It contains both some of the best lyrics ever written, and… “strange fascination fascinating me.” Can’t all be winners I guess.
At least he didn’t do something like stretch “the” over 3 syllables like he did in Fashion.
@boswell255 And the less said about “The Laughing Gnome”, the better.
@boswell255Five years, that’s all we’ve got
Five years, my brain hurts a lot
😂😂😂
Straight back to my teens and surfing each day
Great songwriting
Thanks
5:31 an interesting detail is that the bluesy section doesn’t repeat the exact same way the second time around. The first time you actually get 5 chords starting on F7 resolving a tone up from Eb7: F7, D, F7, D, F7 into verse 1. But the second time around you only get 4 chords starting on D resolving a tone up from C: D, F7, D, F7 into verse 2, like you’ve cut out the first F7 chord
Well spotted!
Those chromatic chord sequences always sounded so unattainably sophisticated that I would never imagine I could use something like that in my own songwriting. However, the way you’re breaking these down, it’s like, oh, that’s actually not that hard to do. I love when I actually learned something I can use in my own compositions. Keep up the great work David!
Fantastic! So glad it was helpful 😊
Most songs are not created by applying music theory. You could do that, of course, because there are no rules – but generally most creative rock and pop performers since the 60s have not known any music theory. At which point students of music theory frown and say “But they’re using secondary dominants and modal interchange and chromatic passing and changing time signature here – they must know” but no you don’t need to know what a secondary dominant is to use them – and if you’ve heard other people using them, know what they sound like, imagine in your own head a melody and sit in front of a piano playing notes and humming the melody then you’re going to land on those things students are waffling away. It’s the Beato thing where he tries to impress Sting when interviewing him waffling about music theory and what Sting’s song uses and Sting just shakes his head and says “No, that’s not how I write songs”
Today, of course, there’s little in the way of music careers for anyone, but in the past you were better off being creative like Sting rather than an uncreative like Beato – whose career consists mostly of trying to sound smart while playing other people’s music. But it’s not telling you anything at all about how to write the music being presented. If you feel it’ll help you write music at least acknowledge that caveat – very little if any of the music you enjoy was written by studying and applying music theory. I’d suggest if you feel your songwriting is lacking (a) Listen to a ton of music as much as you can and (b) Develop your ear. Music is sound it’s not names or words. Later when you’re snorting cocaine of a hooker’s breasts in your private jet on the way to your next stadium gig you’ll see on youtube someone saying “He used a D7 chord here which is the 5th of the 4th and a subdominant modal interchange” and you’ll think “Nope”
@michael-3-l3that’s a brilliant comment 😂
@michael-3-l3 Does it have to be the breasts or ..
Im so happy you learnt this! I can relate to this on so many occasions with this channel 🎉Progress
You know how you sometimes wish you could listen to a song for the first time again? So, I’ve just finished your video and I’m going to listen to that song with a whole new perspective. Thanks for making something so familiar sound fresh again.
Amazing! So glad it was helpful 😊
Bowie’s songs in that period get even stranger when you consider the notes that he chose to sing against the underlying compositions. He wasn’t always singing outside notes, but there are many instances when he altered his vocal melodies to extend chords straight into jazz harmony territory. If you just follow the piano and guitar, even the orchestral bits, it isn’t very apparent how complex he was being. That’s what I appreciate about his compositions, that through his vocalizations, he is telling us that HE, and no one else, was imparting the feel of the song. Another person who does that well is Colin Hay. Listen back to those Men at work recordings and notice his note choices, especially on endings, there is almost an East Indian micro-tonal thing going on. Could that be his lilt? To a degree, yes, but there’s something very intentional as well. Great video!
Colin is a fantastic singer(and a lovely guy❤)
One of my favorite Bowie tunes. Thanks for covering it.
Bowie’s a genius ! much like “Oh you pretty things” before we even get to the first verse/lyric we’ve been exposed to so much harmony, diatonic and non diatonic and yet it all sounds so natural. Great video as always David.
That’s strange because to me those verses (in Changes and Oh You Pretty Things) always seemed a bit too overcomplicated actually … Like the chords dont really relate to each other in a very satisfying way … in “Life on Mars?” on the other hand its a similar approach but it works perfectly to my ears… Shows how subjective music is 🙂
@Cengert1979 maybe because life on Mars is going in fifths/fourths, while for Changes and Oh you… they rely a lot in voice leading. The former is always arriving and departing from the harmonic ‘home’, but using typical pathways, as every secodary V7 makes a perfect prequel for a temporary ‘I’, while the other two use strange pathways to reach their (less diverse) destinations. Life on Mars feels like it’s always ascending, never getting enough, and that’s the weird part, until it reaches the chorus in a key change, also a weird part. The other two aren’t that tense or eager to resolve elsewhere, the weirdness comes from the chords chosen themselves.
For short: Life on Mars verse=a simple concept taken to its limit, using it to break other rules while still sounding natural vs the other two=being independent from rules to begin with and only trusting the ear and individual note for note changes between chords
@unacuentadeyoutube13that’s a fantastic explanation, thank you … The verses of Changes and Pretty Things definitely have more of a jazz vibe while Life on Mars has a harmonic progression that reminds me of classical music… personally I’m a classical music guy 😉
@Cengert1979 I’d say Life on Mars would be a nice Jazz tune! As they rely a lot on ii V I’s for movement, exactly the thing (but as dominant chords) Bowie used excessively to build up tension. The harmony from the other two could come from a musical or early movie score too
I don’t read notes and have only the vaguest of ideas of what Bennett’s talking about, but his videos are brilliant, showing me things I’ve never thought about in songs I’ve heard a million times
Brilliant work David, thank you.
Thank you 😊
Perfect timing David, I’m half way through learning this. Like Life On Mars the chord changes are sumptuous
I can’t put into words how much I love this song.
Every single aspect of it is incredible. The chords, the lyrics, the melody, the meter changes, the instrumentation…
It’s simply a perfect song
I love your breakdowns , just ace to get help to peel back the top . Such a great song
Thank you 😊
Been listening to song my whole life and never thought how weird those chords are…