Jarod: Oh, yes, that's cool. Collin: Yeah. Yes, they layered more, yay!
Isaac: Yes!
Yes! Sunmi!
Umu: Now you're about to react to a solo artist named Sunmi, who was originally part of the girl group Wonder Girls. Isaac: Yes
Umu: This song is called 'Black Pearl', and it was composed by her and France. Does it include Captain Jack Sparrow? Umu: Sadly not.
The lyrics describe her feeling towards fame. From the outside, it looks like a bright shiny gem, but underneath it's ugly and dark. Lindsey: Oh. I mean, yeah.
Hugo: Un, deux, trois.
Wow. Oh, sh*t.
I like how it was just right out of the gate. Jeremy: Yeah
Elizabeth: Oh! Modal mixture!
James: I know what that is now (bc we learn about it Sophomore year in theory)
Elizabeth: Yes, you do! James: Woo!
Henry: Oh, yeah
Collin: Okay, that's sick.
Keep layering.
Jarod: Oh, yes, that's cool. Jarod: Yeah
Collin: Yes! They layered more! Yay!
Peyton: Can you track this progression?
Charlotte: It's like a 1, 4, 5, 1, but like when we go back to 1 it's like they add in some sort of major.
Peyton: Yeah. Charrlotte: It's not a third. Peyton: Right
Charlotte: But it's like some sort of major
7?
I think we're tracking one of the inner voices. Peyton: We might be. Yeah, because that
that color note is, it is like a major third of the whole... Charlotte: Yeah
Jarod: It's like a brassy synth. I really like that. Collin: Oh, yeah!
Jarod: It's like subtle. It's like a feel. Collin: It's good.
Collin: Soprano sax? What?
Jarod: Dude, cuz why not?
Emiel: Sounds really wacky, though, for a sax, dude, sounds really wacky.
Henry: (singing)
Fiona: With the cool beat, it like... Lindsey: It just sounds like smooth jazz.
Lindsey: Oh, man.
Fiona: Yes, come back. I love her voice. I love how she articulates her words.
Emiel: Good, catchy beat. So, gotta give 'em that. Henry: Yeah, that's what you're about. You're right.
Emiel: Much better than a lot of other beats and
choruses that we see.
Fiona: Cool guitar bass thing. (mimicking bass)
Lindsey: Yeah, the bass sounds groovy.
Fiona: That's cuz it's like, on the ends. You're cool if you're not on the beat. Lindsey: Yeah. It's like syncopated.
Jarod: I just love how they harmonize that. Collin: Yeah
Hugo: You know what it is, it's the staccato bass that I'm really diggin'. Like,
Jeremy: Yeah
it gives it an edge.
Hugo: Yeah, if it didn't have that, it wouldn't be as good of a song but, that really kinda adds a lot to it.
Collin: She's really in the pocket. It's nice.
Lindsey: The guitar line in the background of this sounds very like improvisatory.
Fiona: Um, hmm. Yeah. Lindsey: I can't tell if it's actually yet, it's probably not.
I don't know, but it sounds like it could be. Fiona: Yeah, it sounds like a guitar solo in jazz. Lindsey: Yeah
Jarod: Yeah, baby! That's how you make an entrance.
Elizabeth: That sax player is having a field day.
James: I love that sax. That's so cool. Elizabeth: We need that Holst's 1st Suite
Kevin: Gotta love it when an instrumental solo happens at the same time with the voice.
Collin: You're welcome. That was good! Yes.
Collin: That was really good. Jarod: That goes into like probably one of my all-time favorites.
Collin: Yeah, like I'm
going to listen to this. Right off the bat, instrumentation was, like
okay, the way they mess with like ambient sounds to begin with was good.
And then the instruments they added to it, like first of all the guitar,
I don't know what effects they were using, but that was great.
The soprano saxophone actually kind of worked, even though those were, I think, kind of the worst part,
cuz those were like pretty trite. Jarod: Oh, I really liked it.
Super corny, yes.
Trite, probably...
Collin: No, but the point is it worked with with the like, weird ambient sound that they used for like a base of the whole thing.
What else was there? There was the brass?
Jarod: Yeah, it was like it was definitely, there was definitely like a synth,
but it was cool because you kind of got, it was more of like a feel to the overall texture than like its own kind
of sound, because it's like that little, I don't know, sizzle that came with it.
I liked the the way
they slowly added each piece, and then at some times like they would take a little bit away. Like they'd harmonize the voice
for like a line or two,
but then they would go back to just her, so that way it felt fresh and it felt new, and you wanted it to come
back, instead of like
okay, here, we're adding this new texture, and now you have it the rest of the song. Like I like how they kind of like,
they put everything in, take a few things out, and then put reintroduces. That way it stays,
you stay engaged, and you end up wanting like I want to hear those brass pads come back.
I want to hear the harmonization again.
Collin: This was just like very intelligently crafted. Like that's what I want to say.
Collin: Well, there's some composers that are just great craftsmen.
Like Debussy. Like great craftsmen. Like this is like, the same sort of just like it's just
great.
Jarod: Yeah
Collin: It's good.
Jeremy: It was like a chill song, you know. Hugo: Yeah Jeremy: It was like, there wasn't a lot going on,
but I didn't mind. Hugo: And the nice thing about it too, I kind of liked that they had two bridges.
Jeremy: Yeah. Hugo: Like it added some variance to it. Like songs like that where it's really just layering,
it's a lot of different layering, can get really repetitive, but I don't think this fell prey to that. I think it had enough variety Jeremy: Yeah, it did.
Hugo: within unity.
What was cool, too, is a lot of songs
in K-pop rely on the swell to give them, like to reach the climax of the song. Like they kind of like the hype.
Even some of the songs that aren't hyped, they hype to get to the climax of the song, and this really,
the way that they, you know, the line of the piece that the phrasing of the piece was all through layering,
so as it was getting like more and more amped up, which never really got more amped up,
it was really just they were adding layers, adding layers, adding layers, which was really cool. And I think they did it really well.
And I thought the vocal line, while it wasn't really, you know, what I would consider
dynamic, as a vocal line, like there wasn't a lot of range. Jeremy: There was nothing.
Hugo: Yeah, there wasn't a lot of range and there wasn't a lot of skips or jumps.
I thought that they used it
rhythmically as opposed to melodically, which was cool in the way that they used that as a tool.
Really kind of lent itself to the piece. So it was...
Kevin: It's a great mood piece. I'm glad we're we reacting to stuff that's not just about crazy musical stuff.
But then again, the saxophone
solo and just her voice and the way her melody works, it's musical in its own sense. Yeah, just vibin'.
Isaac: I've listened to this before. What I like about songs that I enjoy listening to is the first time you listen to it
you're captivated by the trope. So it's like you have the trumpets blaring in the background, like slowly as she
develops like from just beats with her voice, and then slowly like having a call-and-response
with herself, and then later adding fanfare, all these things were very attractive. But this time I was very
keying in on the pickups before entrances, and it's very interesting--I never heard her breathe until like this one part where she's just (deep breath),
and then goes into the section, and then it was replaced later with the saxophone, and it was just so interesting,
it's like the way it constantly evolves and develops these motives. It's a very worthwhile listen.
Fiona: Wow. She sounds really cool.
Love the way, how she speaks. And then what she was saying, like the depth of her words is like, oh, my gosh.
She's like, I'm just a product. Lindsey: I think it sounded like 'Can't Stop the Feeling', the Justin Timberlake song. Fiona: (singing) Lindsey: In the beginning.
Fiona: Mmm. Lindsey: Anyway, the point is in the beginning, it sounded like a traditional standard pop song,
but then as it progressed, it got a lot more interesting. And her voice is beautiful.
I mean, it's very, very nice sounding. I really liked how they had those little solo lines going on in the background.
Fiona: Yeah, while she was singing. Lindsey:That was awesome. Fiona: That just added so much interest, and made this song a gem. Lindsey: Fo sho!
James: I thought it was a bit different from most of the other K-pop songs
I had listened to. Like, I've heard that thrown the term subdued around a lot, Elizabeth: Yeah
James: and I think some music certainly fits under that bill, but this was like, it was really simple,
it wasn't too much, like a lot of the K-pop we've heard.
It's just like a lot of things to listen to, a lot of interesting things to pick up on. This was like pretty,
pretty bare-bones, but I actually think it was effective. It was actually pretty refreshing. I thought the lyrics were pretty deep.
She was really, really clear that this is not something that was all like daisies and rainbows and flowers and beautiful things,
that there's like definitely a dark side to it. And I loved the sax. That was great.
Elizabeth: Yeah James: Somebody got paid to do that, and it really made all the difference.
I don't think it would take you know,
someone who goes to music school or someone who's pursuing a career in that to know the difference between like a MIDI sax and a
real sax, even though I was a bit confused at first, because I heard sax, and the first thing I thought was MIDI, but like....
Elizabeth: Yeah.
It's just that's what we expect.
James: Yeah, it is, yeah. That's the expectation. So they subvert our expectations a tiny bit. Elizabeth: That's my favorite phrase. James: I really liked it.
Elizabeth: I thought the progression was actually pretty interesting, cuz it ended on a flat 6 chord,
which is not dominant in any
way. And it was really interesting cuz the bass line went down to the regular
6 scale degree and then ended on the flat 6 scale degree,
so it really like messed with your idea of tonic, which I think probably goes with theme of her song,
cuz it's about like being in...like, the pressures of being a pop star, right?
So it's like, you know, wow, it's four chords, but they're not
quite
what we expect them to be, and they're not necessarily what sounds the most comfortable, you know,
which is interesting. And then like the repetition of the four chords in the chaconne
really like made you feel like her life was
structured, and you know, that she had to stick to those four chords if she was gonna be able to make the song work.
So I think there was definitely a lot of ideas leading into that.
Hello everyone. I'm Umu, and I'm the channel runner of React to the K.
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