MUSIC IS SIMPLE

I have always liked classical music. My mother was a music teacher, and is a gifted pianist, so I probably got it from her. At school I learned to play the recorder and the bassoon, and was in the school and county youth orchestras. I can potter about on the piano, though with bad technique.

For many of my schoolfriends, classical music was weird; how could you like Bach if you liked Black Sabbath, Elgar if you liked the Eagles? Yet listen closely and you'll find that many of the structures underlying all types of music are in fact very similar. They all use the same limited number of notes, the same chords and chord progressions, and the same rhythms (mainly 3/4 and 4/4). That is why other music traditions that use different notescales and odd rhythms, sometimes seem difficult. I remember when I lived in Lesotho going to see a touring bunch of Indian musicians. Their rhythms and harmonies sounded so odd to my ear, that I had to leave, I couldn't handle it.

To illustrate my point, listen to the following video by the Axis of Awesome, which was part of this year's Comic Relief Red Nose Day. It shows not only how many pop songs are written with the same four chords, but with the same four chords in exactly the same order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw3eYsnl31c

Enjoy. Then think about it the next time you listen to Mozart.

Walter Blotscher