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Comedian Tim Minchin does the musical equivalent of simultaneous head-patting and belly-rubbing. AND YES, WE KNOW THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS F-SHARP. THAT’S THE JOKE.
Edit: The person who wrote that last sentence was, in fact, thinking of E-sharp. We are working to correct the situation; management is currently dragging him outside to be shot.
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Well, technically there is such a thing as E#, it’s just F for the purposes of actually playing music. Tim Minchin is one of my favorite comics though, love seeing his stuff up here
No such thing as a E sharp ? fis cis gis dis ais EIS his… So what if it sounds like an F on most instruments. In most tunings…
For most types of musical scales, you list off the letters in the octave sequentially. For example, C major is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. C minor is C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C. E# exists in any scale where you’d need to raise E to a sharp to make the notes count out sequentially. For example, in C#. C#, D#, E#, F#, G#, A#, B#, C#. Nevermind that it’s always the same as an F-natural. Musicians talk about it and play it as an E# because it’s easier to think of it that way in terms of a piece that’s in a key with a lot of sharps.
THANK YOU.
I’d have been impressed if he actually sang a whole verse or chorus a semitone above where he and the orchestra were playing. That would be tremendously difficult. All he did was shift a single note. It’s not even slightly difficult to do that.
Well, it’s a joke, he’s not trying to impress you.
Unfortunately, the entire thing is actually sung in F Major, except for the occasional “joke note” F#. Actually singing a melody (not just a single note) in F# would be impressive.
Regardless, it IS kind of funny so I guess it’s okay.
In fact, the entire song is really in the key of F. The couple of joke F# notes he sprinkled in there sounds like they’re part of a D major chord where the F# is the major third…which is really just changing the minor vi chord in F to a major VI chord. So he’s never truly singing in the key of F#.
Nevertheless, Tim Minchin is awesome.
Actually, he’s not really singing in F major…the whole song’s in D minor, the relative minor of F major. He’s simply switching to D major by singing the F as an F#.
Although while he’s singing the F#, the orchestra is still playing the d minor chord against him. (It’s just a little hard to hear in the recording balance.) Which is kind of tricky — though I agree it would have been more impressive if he’d done it for a whole verse.
And I kept being bugged by ‘playing in F major’ when it was, indeed, clearly in a minor key. Oh well.
(And E# totally does exist. Saying it doesn’t it like saying C# doesn’t exist because you can also call it Db…)
In fact, the entire song is sung in BMaj Dim.
It’s just really out of tune
Well, if you say that, you could say the whole song was in C major…just really out of tune.
Not tricky at all. F# is just the major third.
He is just singing the major third while the orchestra plays the minor.
Although technically… If the orchestra is indeed playing in d minor, that would not make that tone an F# but rather a Gb.
That would make this a simple d minor with a diminished fourth.
Sorry, no; it’s not a G-flat (which would require downward resolution). There are many pieces that are predominantly in d-minor, yet end with F# (a so-called “Picardy third”). Many chorales of J.S. Bach (and many hymns) end that way–and the surprising third is spelled as F#, not Gb.
Famously, the ending of the Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem …
Yes, indeed, many of the great sacred works or sections in a large sacred work end with the Picardy third. And even in the 19th century, Chopin used it in many of his minor-key nocturnes–and the effect is still surprising and beautiful!
I know that. I play such music every day, but this is not a major ending or anything. This has a F#/Gb (in the vocal) simultaniously to the E#/F (in the orchestra). So to make the chord make sense, it has to have a diminished fourth.
You can’t say that a chord is minor and major at the same time.
So I withhold my proposition that this is a Gb.
It would traditionally require downward resolution, but I seriously don’t think that applies here.
1) It’s called a split-chord. In this case it’d be D!3. They have no resolution because the point is the static dissonance. Go to Wikipedia. Further references: Bartok, String Quartet no. 2, 2nd mvmt… just happens to contain this specific chord until the coda. Go read Halsey Stevens’ book on Bartok and stop being a moron.
2) There is no E# in this piece to be found, anywhere. I swear to god, if you refute that then you are not a musician. There are no diminished 4ths in this piece. I swear to god, if you refute that then you are not a musician.
3) This is not a Picardy 3rd because it’s a static dissonance. I swear to god, if you refute that then you are not a musician.
4) There is no resolution of a Picardy 3rd; it is the resolution of the tonic minor triad because it was unseemly to end a piece with a minor chord. I swear to god, if you refute that then you are not a musician.
5) If you’re going to talk, please keep the past 100 years in mind. If you’re going to stop at 1911 with your theory, then you’ll have to with your medicine too. And transportation. And get off the internet.
You’re all giving music nerds a bad name. Just point out that it is disappointing that the song isn’t polytonal, and move on. The best example of polytonality I can draw when this drunk is Stravinsky’s Concertino. I prefer it for string quartet, where the two violins are playing in B Maj. and C Maj. simultaneously. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opWyv1nqfBk
I should be getting paid to resolve this stupidity-cloud.
If the musical error of claiming that there is no F# or no E# (which of course there is) is grounds for someone’s being shot, then the comedian perhaps should go first! He’s actually singing, and the orchestra playing, in d-minor the entire time, not F Major; the harmonic clash is because he actually is singing the note F# when he says he is (and it clashes with the F natural in the d-minor chord occurring at the same time). But the worst villain is whoever decided to lend the gorgeous Hamburg Steinway for such a silly enterprise!
wow…you guys are total music nerds….. ^
…yes…and therefore my heroes….
Now people who have an exceptional understanding of how notes work are nerds? Everybody is a ****ing nerd
Reblogged this on bluepearlgirl's world and commented:
He is a GENIUS!!
Oh hey, another attention seeking female with too much time on her hands. OMG You have a blog, I bet you think everyone wants to hear the interesting things you have to say (or more realistically, you saw a lot of girls are making dumb blogs and putting cutesy pics up to get attention from strangers). Get your effing blog advertisements off of the blog we all actually want to view, NOBODY cares about what you think because you have a vagina and a false sense of self-importance.
Thanks,
The rest of the humans
(Does that blog have pictures of playful kittens, and breathless accounts of trips to the mall?) Finally, someone who cuts thru the crap and calls a spade a spade; but of course your comment will be pulled for not being “sensitive” and PC.
Malls? How old do you think i am and in what podunk town? San francisco has possibly what could count as 1 mall (stonestown on the outskirts). I worked there about 20 years ago and beyond that havent stepped foot there since. I am a grown adult who is a talented artist and an interactive member of my community. I am educated and experienced in life and if you just shut up and listened once in a while before jumping to judgement, maybe you wouldnt look so green to the world.
But… in all fairness, if i was a younger generation, i would be pretty pissed off with the state of the future too. I would possibly be as bitter and depressed about life as you sound. And unfortunately justified-le so. I forgive you because i understand where this bitterness stems. Take that for pc.
By the way… What a jerk. You are.
Oh hey, another smarmy jackass claiming to represent the rest of us humans. OMG you are sarcastic, I bet you think everyone believes you’re really funny (or more realistically, you lurk on memebase and fancy yourself a troll when you actually have all the wit of a damp rag). Get your effing wannabe snarky comments off of the blog we all actually want to view, NOBODY cares about how clever you think you are because you lack sex organs of any kind (or they’re practically defunct for lack of use) and a false sense of entitlement.
Thanks,
Non-jackasses everywhere
What everyone else has said. “Sharp” basically means “move it up a half step” – a half step up from E is indeed E sharp, but (assuming we’re talking about a piano) because there aren’t any black keys between E and F, it’s more usually written as F.
And good call, everyone, on the minor key.
So, management, don’t shoot him unless you’re also going to shoot yourselves, and please don’t do that because we like you and what you do around here.
There’s no way this is a fail
And all the “technically proficient musicians” seem to miss the joke by pure nerdism.
they’re missing the joke to fuel their own egos
And you’re failing to appreciate the truth of what those who understand something of music and key signatures are saying in order to fuel your own self-satisfaction in spite of musical illiteracy.
LOL, How is “the truth of what those who understand… yada yada yada” even remotely relevant to the enjoyment of the song/joke?
It’s just a bunch of nerds trying to look cool and one up each other- I bet they’re all hipsters or play the keyboard or something.
Good music is intuitive- a real musician wouldn’t have to know anything about scales or keys to write something, just to explain it is all.
“A real musician wouldn’t have to know anything about scales or keys to write something”? That’s real nice, James. Apparently Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms and others weren’t “real musicians” as you understand them. It’s fortunate that we have you to counter hundreds of years of music history. Now go back to listening to your Brittany albums.
LOL. Oh you hipsters. ex; Hit Me Baby One More Time was written by Max Martin, a producer and composer who does a lot of pop music- Britney Spears was just a hot face to a catchy tune. I get it, You’re basically trying to look cool by dissing some manufactured music without taking into account the sheer amount of money that session musicians and writers can make off these “mass-market” tunes.
Secondly my statement in no way implies that Bach and co aren’t real musicians; intuition and creativity is what it’s all about. Bach was a human being born with a natural aptitude for music- not an encyclopaedic knowledge of chord progressions.
(oh and misspelling Britney Spears’ name in an attempt to appear indifferent to the pop-culture of the late 90s; nice touch, I’m sooo cut up by that).
Sure someone can be born with masses of musical aptitude, but until they are musically trained their aptitude can only take them so far. For instance, look at Mozart’s first symphony, written at the age of 8, although wildly impressive for that age, it was relatively simplistic. As he was trained further, he gained a broader understanding of chords, tonalities, modes and music in general. This is becomes apparent in his later symphonies, which are thoroughly complex and beautiful.
This helps explain why most of today’s music is so plain and repetitive, because people refuse to go through the process of learning music, so they are limited by their own ignorance. Quite unfortunate, as there are some impressively apt musicians today…
I’m getting bored of having to keep referencing long dead musicians. Can’t we be a little contemporary? To reiterate my point; it’s like with art, you can train anyone to paint a picture, but you can always tell who has intuitive talent because their work has soul to it. A good painter can form a composition without needing to know about compositional elements because they just know what’s right, and an over-reliance on technical knowledge will result in stilted and formulaic compositions.
I disagree on your last point completely- I just don’t feel that such a sweeping generalisation could ever be valid.
Thank you, James, for enlightening me: I truly did not know the correct spelling of Ms. Spears’ given name–nor, given her insubstantiality compared to my musical heroes, did I trouble myself to research that spelling beforehand! And actually, without realizing it, you’ve proven my point: somehow I just knew that you would be intimately acquainted with the “oeuvre” of Ms. Spears (given your lack of knowledge of musicians and your attempts to cast aspersions on anyone not so similarly benighted)!
And now, having been right about you once, may I suggest something else for your consideration? Given your pretended ability, demonstrated more than once, to divine people’s intents and to read into the motivations behind their posts, let me posit that you ought to consider a second career (assuming you have a first one) in palmistry and/or tarot-card reading. Those crafts require an intellect of which you are clearly the proud possessor! Now back to Britney. And have a nice day!
So, you’re so illiterate you can’t spell the name Britney? Okay whatev. And good use of a thesaurus fella (if you were actually smart enough to know a word like benighted, I find it hard to believe you can’t spell a name properly).
I don’t actually listen to Britney’s music, I was giving an example which I researched in order to prove a point you completely missed, but if it makes you feel big to think otherwise it won’t bother me.
“Given your pretended ability, demonstrated more than once, to divine people’s intents and to read into the motivations behind their posts.” That’s a talent you’ve exhibited more than me, so I’ll assume you’re advising me to move in to palmistry based on how fulfilling you find it as a current occupation.
Stay classy, Donny.
Bach also studied music incessantly from the age ten on. He actually was a human with an encyclopedic knowledge of chord progressions, learned by laboriously copying a volume of famous organists, line by line, page by page. Music ran in his family, and, yes, he had an enormous natural aptitude. But he was able to apply that aptitude because of his studies, else he may have been known as a skilled organist, and not the composer of over one thousand musical works.
I’m not familiar with the 1000+ works of Bach, but I’m guessing there were as many travesties as there were hits.
At any rate, this has all gotten strongly off point and I’d only be inclined to take these arguments more seriously if anyone could cite contemporary examples. (I find that people who care only for classical music have fairly elitist and subjective opinions).
E# = F
duuuuuh
E# and F are actually distinct pitches in most temperaments. They are identical only in equal temperament, the one we are most accustomed to (e.g., the tuning of the modern piano).
In the key of F# Major, the E is played as a sharp.
Maybe the mods could just claim that they were trolling us and we can all be done with it?
Don’t sweat it, most musicians wouldn’t know the difference between the two….especially when told to B sharp (C) …. as clearly indicated above few even know there is a difference, fewer still really understand it, and a rare exception can even explain it.
And rarest of all are the individuals who can explain it yet won’t go nuts or sigh in exasperation when others say that for all *practical* purposes, E# = F.
This is not a fail, in fact, it’s a complete win, as is pretty much everything Tim Minchin does.
Find of funny, but I was disappointed that the song actually wasn’t in F Major and that he didn’t ever sing in F#.
Someone offered me tickets to this in Portland. Dodged a bullet there.
^
I used to do this randomly in my high school choir of 75 members. Drove the conductor nuts. It was the start of my glorious career as a troll.
Yeahhhh…I love ya Tim, but this piece was neither particularly funny nor particularly impressive. I was expecting an actual bi-tonal piece, and instead it’s just a very basic piece with a few notes sung “out of tune.” I guess non-musicians are easily impressed?
I do believe this is a compositional technique called….. Bitonality………….. =.=
I finally understand Taylor Swifts’ voice!
In the most simple terms, the whole E-sharp vs. F thing comes from a rule in music theory where, when notating a scale, you must use every letter of the musical alphabet and never skip or double letters. In the key of F sharp major you essentially have both F natural and F sharp, but it is considered substandard to notate it as such. Hence the E-sharp, the enharmonic equivalent of F natural.
When did Adele grow a beard?
Oh God my whole body twisted in pain when he sang F-sharp!
OH I GET IT THE FAIL IS THAT THE PEOPLE AT FAILBLOG THINK THAT THINGS ARE FAILS WHEN THEY AREN’T.
When you’re listening to this song
You may think the chords are going wrong
But they’re not
He just wrote it like that.
He looks so freaking creepy!
he sings f# over an f major triad.
As a musician i reassure everyone that it’s not a big deal.
Peace.
Peter, as a musician, you surely would have to recognize that there is no *major* triad of any kind being played. As I posted on March 1, the chord being played is d-minor; the piece is in d-minor. (I have perfect pitch, and really am a musician, by the way, not to mention having three degrees in Music, including one in Music Theory.
The clash is because of the F-sharp being played over the d-minor chord. (And no, it’s not a G-flat as some have claimed without understanding what they’re saying. And no, G-flat is not the same note as F-sharp as some have said–except in equal temperaments such as we use on the piano for the last few centuries. In mean-toned temperament, for example, F-sharp and G-flat are not the same pitch; you can have one or the other–not both–on a harpsichord tuned in mean-tone, as frequently is done for historic performances.)