#Four Chord Song

[grahamstoney]

The Power Of Music & Comedy: Tim Minchin

New Post has been published on https://grahamstoney.com/music/the-power-of-music-comedy-tim-minchin

The Power Of Music & Comedy: Tim Minchin

Tim Minchin is a thoughtful performer who combines the power of music and comedy to both entertain and impact his audience, while expressing what is on his mind in an engaging and memorable way.

I first came across Tim when a friend offered me a ticket to his Sydney show during the Ready For This? tour in 2009. While I’d never heard of him before, I was immediately drawn in by the proficiency of his piano playing, the intellectual nature of his comedic observations, and his bizarre teased hairstyle.

Tim’s meteoric rise to fame was captured in the documentary Rock ‘n’ Roll Nerd, named after one of his early signature tunes that expressed ambivalence at not fitting the traditional rock star mould:

While he achieved success as a musical comedian in a relatively short period of time, it came after many years of playing keyboard in an 80’s rock cover band. At the beginning of his career he as constantly under pressure to create an income as his wife was keen to give up work and start a family. They were both overjoyed when she became pregnant, but this also ratcheted up the pressure on Tim to provide for his family financially. A particularly vulnerable moment in the documentary happens when his wife has a miscarriage while he is on tour, and we get to see Tim in grief revealing his sensitive side. There is more to him than just his on-stage trickster persona. The one silver lining in this cloud was that gave him some breathing space to launch his career, move to London and become successful before they became pregnant again.

Giles Hardie said that Tim’s success was often a reflection his past experiences, describing him as a “jack of all trades” and quoting co-star David Duchovny from TV series Californication calling him “a high-energy dude” with a “comedic soul”. In an interview with Leigh Sales, Tim described his joy in musical collaboration and the difficulty of avoiding celebrity narcissism.

His song Canvas Bags drives home the importance of taking reusable shopping bags to the supermarket with a degree of repetition bordering on the absurd. We don’t even use canvas bags much in Australia, but with this song in my head, I always remember to take shopping bags every time I leave the house:

One of the hallmarks of a great artist is getting referenced in other artist’s work, and the inclusion of Canvas Bags in the Four Chord Song by The Axis of Awesome is a nod of respect from his comedy colleagues:

Tim frequently tackles important issues in his music, such as the foolishness of belief systems based on pseudoscience in his 9-minute beat poem Storm:

His song Prejudice uses an ironic twist to assault racism:

Tim isn’t afraid to offend his audience, using profanity to highlight the distorted priorities of the Catholic Church’s response to child sexual abuse by priests in Pope Song.

If you think the song is offensive, how could that possibly compare to what some priests have been doing to children with the protection of the church?

Neil Genzlinger says Tim “looks like a character out of ‘Sweeney Todd,’ alternates between absurd, low-key monologues and incongruously comic songs, accompanying himself with gleeful piano pyrotechnics.”

While his ability to weave his comedic genius into his songs is the underpinning of his success, he also has the ability to write sensitive songs. White Wine In The Sun describes the strong emotional dynamics in families as the basis for our feelings of safety and security in the world. Even for atheists like Tim and I, spending quality time with family on Christmas Day feels special, and hearing this song always makes me tear up as I think of Christmas Days spent with my own family in the sun together:

Social issues have always been a significant influence on Tim’s work, and his ability to write, record and produce catchy, quirky and relatable songs rapidly allows him to respond to newsworthy events in a timely manner. Come Home (Cardinal Pell) expressed the outrage that many Australian’s felt at the perception that Cardinal George Pell was avoiding Australian justice by hiding out in The Vatican:

However, Joel Hodge considered it “name-calling and abuse”, saying Tim “seems more interested in provoking reaction than dealing with the facts”, and that “it gives an indication of the level of public debate in Australia”. Gerard Henderson described the song as “abusive”, calling Tim a “militant atheist musician” and accusing him of engaging in guilt by association.

In the wake of the recent bush fire disaster and the coronavirus lockdown, Tim featured on HouseFyre with Briggs, expressing the frustration that many Australians feel with our political leadership’s response in recent times of major crisis:

It got played on Rage last Friday night, a sign of success and mainstream acceptance in the Australian music industry.

Music is unique in its ability to affect us emotionally, and comedy is unique in its ability to disarm our prejudices and highlight inconsistencies in ourselves which we could otherwise easily ignore. By combining the two, Tim Minchin has tapped into a powerful force to not only entertain, but also to enlighten his audience and inspire social change from a grassroots individual level.

[qupritsuvwix]

Genius!

[homeofwyrm]

I'm absolutely obsessed with your The Locked Tomb band AU

what instruments does everyone play?

Thanks! (I am also lol).

For the whole band, how I have it now is:

Harrow is a bassist, Gideon (aka shred-master 9000) is lead guitar, Camilla is rhythm guitar, Corona plays drums (as is her right), and Palamedes and Ianthe play keys/any special instruments (like when a band breaks out a random flute for a song or something).

[doctorwhoisadhd]

thinking about putting together a murray gold leitmotif fakebook

[impulsivedecisionsat3am]

i understand that there’s value in all music (excluding ai music cause ew) but oh god sometimes music just fucking sucks and i can’t stand it. like good on you for making a form of art and participating in creation! but i will never listen to this again

[thefootnotes]

What is your favorite song?

oh my god.

uh.

at the moment, my favourites are the grudge by olivia rodrigo, grace by henrik, angels fly by louis tomlinson, and how many things by sabrina carpenter

my all-time favourites are tornado warnings by sabrina carpenter, crisis by joshua bassett, dorothea by taylor swift, fire away by niall horan, why dont we go there by 1d, all i want by liam payne, city of churches by alexander black, and what do i know by ed sheeran :)

thank you for the ask, lovely anon. i love random questions like these xx.

[yusuke-of-valla]

Guitar cheat code: change the key until you get the four chords you can actually play

[aeolianblues]

Albums turning 20 this year: Razorlight - Up All Night (2004)

[hetheyshe-remade]

ive been getting serious about learning to play guitar and so far i know a g chord and the e minor chord ^_^

[dykeseinfeld]

was practicing some guitar before i go out tonight and i look. Extremely good so i figured i'd post a clip lmaoo

[the-story-of-how-we-died]

I'm just a rando on the internet whose opinion doesn't really matter, but I have to say, I absolutely hate these types of videos

I did actually watch the video* (it seemed to mostly be an advertisement for a book, but ignoring that), it's premise was: "these songs contain all the notes in a certain key but don't really play the tonic chord of said key, which means it never visits the tonic chord!" which I find utterly maddening.

This is such a common trend among music theorists analyzing modern pop music ("modern" in this case meaning pretty much everything released in the last five decades that's not jazz). So many of them are willing to ignore how a song sounds and treats the harmonies and melodies inside it if it means they can analyze it inside this strict, 14th century western framework**. And, if the 14th century doesn't work, they just jump up one.

"Okay, okay, so the 14th century framework didn't work... what about the 15th? That didn't either? Whew. Well, guess we're pulling out all the stops today: 16th century, here we go."

The problem isn't the specific century's framework you're using, the problem is that you refuse to interact with this music on it's own terms. (The most frustrating part is that this isn't impossible! I know that there are music theorist who do interact with this music on it's own terms, and I find their work fascinating because it at least attempts to explain what's actually happening here.) Stop focusing on the collection of notes the music uses so much and start focusing on the how and why's!***

*You should also give it a watch. Since I disagreed with the basic premise, I might be being a tad uncharitable here.

**They also do mention modes in the final, like, 30 seconds of the video before rehashing the advertisement. But, even then, that is only a slightly more satisfactory answer for why these songs work they way they do.

***It's also possible to exist in two keys at once, which is something that a lot of pop music does that many theorists just... ignore. Purposefully obfuscating the tonic of a song is seriously a staple of so many genres of "modern" pop music. This is an aside, but I did want to mention another possible reason.

[waytoobiased]

I know the people who write inaccurate tabs mean well, but when everyone makes covers of songs with completely wrong chords, I die a little inside

I wanted to listen to Rocket Ships, but instead I end up with my ears crying :/

[born-to-lose]

Guitar crash course in one day to get good enough to record a cover after about a year of not practicing

[horrorwebs]

i hate that its taking me so mich effort to learn how to play this fingerstyle song bc for someone whos been playing for like 6 years it should uhm. you know. it shouldnt be this hard

[remedialchaoticscreaming]

trying to play punk that isn't explicitly folk punk on the mandolin sucks. it's either "I can't play those chords. at all" or it's "I can play all of these chords wow you guys need to learn about more chords"