adamneely

Does gear matter?

Hey Patreons!

This is video-essay-ish vlog about having nice instruments, and your relationship to nice instruments. I hope you enjoy!

I play a Fender Mexican P-Bass, so I clearly am not one to say that nice gear is essential. I tried to keep it all nuanced and stuff.

Adam

Do you have PERFECT PITCH?! | Q+A #49

Hey guys!

I just crammed in a new video at least 4-5 days earlier than expected since I won't have that much time to work on things over the next week or so. So hope you enjoy a new Q+A!

Adam

Janek Gwizdala and the Sour Patch Kids | Gig Vlog #23

This week brings you a goofier video, after the heaviness of last week. Enjoy this (fake) beef between me and bass fusion phenom Janek Gwizdala, as well as a tasty Aberdeen gig vlog.

Adam

What does music mean?

Hey Patreon Patrons!

Here it is! A video about how music is pointless and meaningless...in the sense of semantic meaning. Otherwise, it's very powerful as an expressive tool, and is very similar to language, but NOT a language in the traditional sense. It's a language of pure metaphor. No literal meaning anywhere to be found.  

I took a week off just so I could try and get this one right. One week ago, it wasn't at all ready for primetime, so I wanted to makes sure this bad...

No Video This Week!

I did it finally.

For the past three years I have uploaded a new video every Monday without fail, and today, Monday April 23rd, I finally did it. I failed.

But for good reason, I think! 

The video essay I was working on for this week ended up being even more sprawling than I could have anticipated, and instead of rushing it out being 70% of what it could be, I'd like to take some extra time making it as awesome as I know it deserves to be. I've had to half-ass some things on v...

The Pulitzer Prize is NOT a Charity

I have OPINIONS.

I am very, very, very much in favor of DAMN winning the Pulitzer, even though I think it's the inferior work compared to To Pimp a Butterfly. I also think that it's a form of "consolation prize" in a way for the genre of hip-hop, but even in that, it is very important that it won.

Adam

100 Musicians play "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire | Apartment Sessions Vlog

This was actually done about a month and a half ago, but it's only being released now. Almost 100 musicians crammed into 3 apartments across several buildings to play Arcade Fire's Wake Up. This was a really insanely huge production and logistical nightmare for the people in charge, and I was along for the ride!

Hope you enjoy.

Adam

A note on my "write a song in an hour" livestream

Hey everybody!

A couple of days ago, I did a live stream where I composed a goofy little tune in an hour. I thought it would be fun to take suggestions from Patreon and from the chat and mold a song out of crowd suggestions. 

(You can watch it here, to watch me struggle)

It started off rocky. The chat that I was taking suggestions from quickly devolved into chaos and a torrent of negative feedb...

Can you learn Synesthesia? | Q+A #47

Hey everyone!

Here's a new Q+A for you! Hope you enjoy.

Adam

Interview with Samuel Andreyev

Hey guys! I did an interview with Samuel Andreyev, who runs a very excellent musical analysis YouTube channel you should definitely check out! It was an honor to be interviewed by him.

https://youtu.be/qyYHCxznWY8

Check it out if you have a second.

Adam

Irrational Time Signatures

Well guys, it's a week just chock full of weird time signature things. Today we're talking about something that definitely DOES exist, and they're called Irrational Time Signatures. I sat down with my buddy Brian Krock and talked shop.

Adam

Negative Time Signatures

This was a goofy short one! Hope you enjoy.

Adam

New Apartment Sessions - Slip

Hey guys!

I don't have a Vlog scheduled for this one, but I took part in another apartment sessions with Shubh Saran, a great guitarist I play with a lot. I played synth bass and keys on this one, and also orchestrated the B section (1:17 to 1:42). 

BTW, it's all in 4/4, believe it or not! More or less.

Adam

I played a show using only the 1991 Casio Rapman

This video is a little more in the vein of "waxing philosophic" than "check out this cool theory stuff," so apologies if you are all about the theory. It's an essay on limitations and what they might mean for musicians - all with the help of a fun toy keyboard thing that Casio briefly made in the 90's.

Enjoy!

Adam

Modulation Music Theory | Q+A #46

Hey guys!

Have a Q+A! A TON of stuff was covered in this one, I really should be breaking these up into a bunch of smaller videos, but...meh. 

Adam

Interview with The Milk Crate

Hey guys,

I did an interview with a small school blog, and I thought it turned out OK! Hope you enjoy it.

https://www.the-milk-crate.com/blog/interview-with-adam-neely

Adam

LIVESTREAM arranging

Hey! We're back on the stream.

Adam

Gig Vlog M I X T A P E vol. 1

Hey everybody,

I just released my "gig vlog mixtape." I've been posting snippets of these songs for a while now, but I figured I'd get it all out there and release it as a thing. 

FREE.50

Hope you enjoy!

Adam

This gig was, as the kids say, lit | Gig Vlog #21

Yes, I hate the title of this vlog, but clickbait gets the clicks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The horn band that I'm part of played a particularly high energy gig with Childish Japes and Lauren Desberg. Childish Japes is the band run by JP Bouvet, a really awesome drummer, and it was fun getting to meet him. 

The full concert will be up here on Patreon for backstage pass people tomorrow. Thanks for being awesome people, people!

Adam

I hung out with Aimee Nolte and did a thing

Aimee Nolte is an awesome jazz YouTuber, and I got to hang out with her at her place while I was on the West coast for NAMM this weekend. Check out this video we did on her channel! More stuff is going to come from this session in the coming weeks. 

Peace,

Adam

What is the slowest music humanly possible?

Yes, I realize I'm giving away the answer in the thumbnail, but I spent a long time ruminating on what slowness MEANS, and what a ridiculous project in Halberstadt Germany means for understand what Immanuel Kant called the sublime in music.

Hope you guys enjoy! It'll be a second before the next full-blown video essay. I kill myself every time for these, and every time I swear I'll scale back so that I can meet my Monday deadline more efficiently.

It never really happens, though.

Ad...

Ben Levin and I are live right now doing ear training stuff

BETTER LINK

Adam

Is a perfect 4th dissonant? | Q+A #45

Thanks for being so awesome, everybody! Here's this week's video, there was a video essay scheduled to be released this week, but unfortunately, that had to get pushed back. Instead, here's a Q+A, don't worry, a meaty essay is coming soon!

Adam

Please don't use Eb11 chords! - How to NOT suck at music #6

Hai guyz!

Here's this Monday's video, a How To Not Suck episode! Hope you enjoy, lots of stuff in this one.

Adam

Lesson with SBL

Hey guys! 

Just thought I'd let you know of a lesson/performance I did with Scott Devine over at SBL, it's all stuff I've talked about on my channel before, but with the added bonus of a live performance from Sungazer. I recorded this last year, I was VERY nervous, so I was talking fast and my voice is unnaturally high, but I think it turned out all right. 

Enjoy!

Adam

Coming to London/Paris in February...need help?

Hey Patrons! 

Happy 2018, I hope the coming year will be as delightfully musical, artistic and expressive as we can make it, and I'll see you at the other side with another year worth of videos that you guys will have funded. My cup runneth over, and I am so grateful for all of the support!

So I’m planning a short trip to Paris and London between February 6 and February 16th. Originally it was going to be a bit of a vacation for my girlfriend and I, but now we’r...

Have a merry Dm7b5! (MINORLY REVAMPED PATREON REWARDS)

Hey everybody! Hope your holidays are going well.

I just did a minor revamp to the Patreon rewards to better reflect what I've actually been doing for Patrons over the past year, and to give a better idea of what I'm planning as far as bonus content! Nothing is going away! I've just clarified some stuff on all reward tiers based upon what has worked, and what I feel like I can deliver on a regular basis.

In the new year there are a couple of possibilities for more reward...

Christmas day Q+A!

Hey Patreon people,

Here is tomorrow's Christmas Day Q+A, today! Hope you enjoy.

Adam

REUPLOAD - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (with the original lyrics) | feat. Justina Maria Sóto

Hello Patreon People,

So after a lot of feedback, as well as some time away from the mix and time to listen back properly, I redid the mix on the last tune. It was really unbalanced - too heavy on the strings and drums, and in general not as great as I wanted.

It has made me learn several uncomfortable truths about myself that I've known for a while, but just avoided - I kinda need to stop mixing my own stuff. I get too close to it when I'm writing it, and focus in on the wrong parts whe...

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (original lyrics) | feat. Justina Maria Sóto

Hey guys!

I did another session with strings, this time with amazing jazz/R&B singer Justina Maria Sóto. We wanted to do a Christmas song, but do it very NOT Christmassy (sleigh bells, Dm7b5 lol). Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was a great candidate, especially when you check out the original lyrics - they're incredible pensive, dark, and foreboding. 

This was all fairly last minute - the session was last week, and we had the idea two weeks ago. In the grand scheme of o...