Switched on Pop - Morgan Page Reveals the Rule of 3 in Julia Michaels and Maroon 5

Episode Date: June 16, 2017

Your brain can only hear three things at the same time. What you may not know is that musicians use this cognitive limitation to guide your listening all the time. Charlie and Nate are joined by Grammy Nominee music producer Morgan Page to reveal the secrets of this ubiquitous technique. Listening to Julia Michaels' hit "Issues," we unveil how the rule of three is used to draw our attention and keep us free from sonic distraction. And we look at how Maroon 5's "Cold" uses the same technique but creates an exceptionally different sound. Of course, it wouldn't be Switched On Pop if we didn't dig into the classical past to find out if this rule really holds up in the history of music.  Featuring: Morgan Page - Fight My WayJulia Michaels - Issues Julia Michaels - Issues (Acoustic)Maroon 5 - Cold ft. FutureSkrillex - First Of The Year (Equinox)Ed Sheeran - Shape Of YouDJ Khaled - I'm The OneSelena Gomez - Bad LiarThe Beatles - When I'm Sixty FourArnold Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire - III - Der MondfleckDead & Company - Live at the Hollywood Bowl 6-1-17The Beatles - A Day In The LifeIke & Tina Turner: Deep River Mountain HighSwedish House Mafia - One Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I am joined by Morgan Page, who is a Grammy-nominated DJ and music producer. Welcome to the show. Hello, Morgan. Thanks for having me.

Morgan, page in the house. So, Morgan, as a quick point of introduction, you are a Grammy-nominated music producer and world-renowned progressive house DJ. And on top of making super-danceable club anthems, you're also, extremely thoughtful about the process of making great music. Thank you. I've been following your writing on music production for the last year or so, and I wanted to invite you here today because I'm hoping that you'll unveil

one of the most prevalent elements in music that is seemingly ubiquitous, but also totally in disguise. You call it the Rule of Three. What is this Rule of Three, and why is it so powerful? Yeah, so the first time I heard about the Rule of Three was visiting Jack Joseph. of Pug's studio at Ocean Way. There was a Grammy tour, and he has this incredible

Willy Wonka-esque studio with every mixer and compressor, every device in the universe, the audio universe. And he told me about the rule of three. Cool. So it basically has to do with that your brain can only hear

three distinct things happening at once in music or with anything, really. So it's kind of like your bandwidth is limited in your brain. You can only really hear two conversations at once, two distinct conversations. So it's like if you're at dinner,

you can overhear like the couple next to you at the other table while staying somewhat present in your conversation. Right. So it's what the conscious brain can do. The brain's just optimized to handle these two discussions, which is, that's really the maximum. And you can't really get past that. So you have to alternate elements or, you know, one thing suffers.

If you're listening to one conversation, your processing is going to suffer. Right. It's very hard to listen to three. Two is perfect. So we're going to find some ways today that you can push those rules and that three is actually a great number for it. Cool. And so this is something which applies, I think, both as a producer of music, but also as a listener of music. Looking for those elements can be, I find a really exciting way to hear things in a new context. So what we're going to do today is we're going to look at this rule of three. We're going to see where it works, where it's strongest. We'll look at some of the ways that it plays out through music history. We'll even try to see if there's places that it doesn't work. But we want to do that obviously grounded in popular music. And so you've come to us with a song to explore in the first half. That's right. So Julia Michael's issues.

And we think we're going to touch on both the acoustic and the original mix because there's really interesting contrast between the two. Okay, fantastic. I don't know about you, Nate, but Julia Michaels issues has been one of my favorite tunes. Oh, I'm a big fan. I'm not familiar with the acoustic mix. I'm eager to hear that. But yeah, issues, Julia Michaels. Wow. All right. Rule of three. Take us there. And so for those who may not be as familiar with Julia, she is the 23-year-old songwriter, producer, performer, prodigy who has written for Fifth Harmony, Demi Lovato, Haley St. John fell, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, in the list goes on and on and on and her single issues She wrote with Justin Tranter, Benny Blanco, and Stargate. It was released in January and has been climbing the billboard charts with its idiosyncratic message about the anxieties of love using a really minimalist approach that I think is Successful and a great demonstration of the rule of three. So to start off, we should drop the needle and take a listen to Julia Michaels issues

I'm jealous Oversellers When I'm down I get real down When I'm high I don't come down But you don't Judge me

Because if you did Baby I touch you too You don't Because you see it You like this song Yeah I'm feeling it I'm grooving hard

It's kind of a rainy afternoon Here in New York And it's bringing out a lot of feelings Oh Complex feelings So I thought just before we don't into how this song uses the rule of three. It'd be nice to just share a little bit about

what is working about this song for us. So I'm curious for you, Morgan, what stands out about issues? Why is this song working? I think the biggest thing is this vocal cry that's happening in there. So the way she's sort of twisting this emotion, it feels like she's really performing it,

that she's really owning it, and it's definitely not phoning it in. No, you don't judge me, because if you did, Yeah, so I mean, I think when I'm recording vocalist, I'm always pushing for that extra level of commitment to the song. And she's really squeezing it out in a natural way. So she sounds like she's crying to you on the phone. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Which is huge. And everything else is secondary in the song. You know, I don't love the pizocado sounds, but they work really well in this. They have a nice

contrast to it. Yeah. But it's such a sparse, open song. And that's why it's such a good example of Rule of Three is. Yeah. There's nothing competing for your attention and everything is taking turn. And her voice is definitely, it's got your attention for sure. Nate, how about you? Yeah, I mean, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but even in like identifying this, I realize it might be an example of a rule of three thing. But I was going to say, I really like the way she breaks up the verse. The pre-chorus and the chorus.

into this seamless build where it's like her voice is moving higher and higher and the tension is rising and rising and then it finally comes to like this culminating point with that amazing line as the music cuts out yeah I got issues and one of them is how bad I need you yeah and the cycle starts over I just think that construction, one, two, three, restart is kind of very, very successful. So I want to double down on that because I love how she brings that idea together with the music itself. The opening chord progression is a non-resolving chord progression. Oh yeah. It goes from the four chord to the five chord and then down to the three chord back up to the four chord. Of course, most chord progressions set up the expectation that they're going to resolve back home, but this one doesn't.

It could have gone like this, but Julia Michaels prefers to keep us hanging in there, keep us guessing. Which is the best chord progression to have one that doesn't resolve. It doesn't resolve. It's the endless loop that you anticipate. And what is she talking about, about all the issues that she has? And so you're thinking like, these are unresolved issues. And she's basically talking about the fact that she's got issues. And then the second verse is about her partner's got issues.

and when they get together, I love this line. She says, all our problems, we got the kind of love it takes to solve them. Interesting. It's a different take on a typical love song. It's saying, hey, I've got stuff that I'm dealing with and you do too. And the strength of our relationship is our capacity to navigate them. It's a very nuanced and unique perspective. I've never heard a song quite like this.

But there's this twist, which is on one hand, you say, I've got issues. and one of them is how bad I need you, I can't figure out if that is a positive quality or a negative quality, right? It's both like, I love you. She's throwing shade? Yeah. On one hand, like, you're my issue that I love, but it's also an issue that I love you so badly.

And when she does that, she goes back to this unresolved chord progression. The line is unresolved and it goes back to this, I've got issues. Yeah, is it passive aggressive? I don't know. It's all right. Ooh, can I have one more? I know we all just went around. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Because I'm thinking now, I was very drawn to the instrumentation with these strings. I'm not sure if they're synthesized or highly processed, but it's a very sparse texture with these strings. And I was thinking it's like, it's kind of a bold move to put them out there like that without any dressing at first. But I guess that's maybe... That's the point. Supporting the fragility of the song's lyrics. It's a very thin sort of reedy. texture those strings and you're like

makes me a little nervous almost when I first hear them. It's a balsy move because it's almost this like Disney cuteness Right. Yeah. Yes. Which I think it's it's sort of this almost bipolar thing where She's talking about deep issues and having major problems and there's these cute strings softly plucking in the background. So I think they must have chose it

For that reason. Yeah. And so if you listen to the acoustic mix, it's interesting because it's a whole different feeling. Right. You don't Just me. Because if you're dead, baby, I read you too I like the acoustic one more, but I mean, this one's more successful. All right, I got one more.

We've talked on our show a lot about text painting. So there's just a great example of text painting in this song where she says, when I get down, I get real down. When I'm high, I don't come down. And the melody soars high and stays high when she says that, right? She's like, it's something like, when I'm down, I get real down. When I'm high, I don't come down. And it stays high.

Yeah. So I really love that moment. Ooh, that's good. We could just keep on going. But we said we were going to talk about the rule of three. So Morgan, how is this song using the rule of three? Can you help break this down for us? Yeah.

So the big thing is in the first verse, and you hear it from the first note, is that things are taking turns to occupy your attention. So, you know, in music, you want to be filling up space to create this wall of sound a lot of times, but you want to open it up. So you want to use all that bandwidth It's available, all the frequencies But not necessarily at one time So what's happening as your attention shifts

It's almost like a radio dial switching Where we go from her voice And then the pitticado is alternating with her voice So there's the bass line while she's talking And then she takes a break And then the chords hit Oh So everything's breathing and ebbing and flowing

It's call and response When I'm down I get real down It's a question and an answer. When I'm high, I don't come down. And it's happening very subtly, and you don't really hear it until you really consciously listen back to it several times.

I had not noticed that, and you're totally right. Even from the very beginning, there's spaciousness between the only two elements that we have. Yeah. And eventually they all come together in the chorus. They all build. But it starts out very sparse, typical form verse form,

where you have maybe two elements happening. So with the rule of three, the three is usually the maximum limit. Sometimes there's a fourth layer, but it's usually a bass line is in there just providing the foundation and the root note of the chords, so I don't count it. And it's usually maybe supporting the same rhythm as the bass drum or the same rhythm as the lead. And so it's just a support element. I would only count the bass as a distinct element if it's a lead, if there's like a bass solo or whatever. So when I speak of Rule of Three, it's three distinct conversations happening.

So it could be more than just three instruments, but multiple instruments may be or. orchestrated such that they're supporting each other. So like the pizocado strings, there's probably a string quartet in there, but we consider that one element, right? Yeah, they're playing in unison at different octaves. If they're hitting at the same time, I'm considering that the same phrase. So it's really the rhythm and the delivery and the timbre. But if you're stacking everything together and everyone's singing the same note, that's just one

layer. Right, okay. That's how we define it. Okay. So we start out in the, you said in the verse, we've got two elements. So what happens next? Yeah. So after the chords and the vocal are alternating, there's the pre-cord.

which has, it's again the pizicado chords and vox, but it builds towards the bass and the kick. So there's this duality between the bass and the kick are the same thing. You don't judge me, because if you dip it. Right. So it's pitched percussion. And a lot of times when I'm making music, I try to tune everything.

You know, maybe I'll shift the snare up, a fifth or a third, so that everything is hitting at these harmonic intervals. Just that's what the ear likes to hear. So with this, it's nice, because you can achieve that fundamental, instrumental bass presence and get the kick and have this bigger chorus without occupying a ton of space.

So to be clear, these are the same instrument. Yeah, it's a distorted kick. It's a distorted kick. It's a tuned kick, essentially. They're pitching it to move around with the chords. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah, and the big part of it is that, so everything's interacting, you know, the kick is hitting

at the same time as the root note of the pitticado chords. So those chords have their little root note that before they play the triad or whatever it is they're playing. So everything's alternating and there's this space and you can hear it ring out and the reverb. You don't judge me. Because if you dip it... This song could almost sound too naked

if there weren't a spaciousness to it. So you're saying they're putting a reverb on these strings to give it a sense of space. If it was dry, if those pitticado plucks were dry, it would sound kind of cheap, I think. I don't think it would work as well. So you're adding sustain to kind of create interest in the song.

And what these songs will reverse elements to kind of create an extra sustain and anticipation for the turnarounds. So yeah, so the reverb really important role in it. It's not a distinct instrument in this, but it's pulling the song along. But throughout the song, we go from sparse to dense

and back again. Yeah, so describe density in this song. I guess this would be in the chorus. This is a very sparse song in general. But in the chorus, the most dense section is the final chorus where there's the vocal harmony. I think you're singing like a triad, all the chords in the background

that essentially the plucks we're doing. The plucks are still there. There's synth sparkles. There's a ton of elements all working together. synth sparkles. And I won't count that as a distinct element because that's just sort of window dressing on that. That's just a texture.

And it's not really a phrase. Right. It's all about phrases. They're playing the same thing. So really it's just changing the total texture of it, but not adding a new element, just adding frequencies, I guess.

It's like when you were talking about the architecture examples of sound, we're changing the paint on the walls, but we're not putting new posts and beams out. Yeah. Yeah. Element is in elemental. And really,

the foundation and then there's some lichen growing on it or something. It's a patina on the song, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of these things will pop up during these breathers and turnarounds things. So they're transitional elements.

They're there to add the texture, but they're not maybe saying anything really distinct. If we listen to the chorus, are there basically three elements that are popping out during the chorus that stand out? There are. And actually, one of the most important things on there is that there's a vocal staccato layer.

Because I got issues. where they take a chop of her voice, and it's almost like a drone being chopped up. So repeating a single note, and it's adding this tension and this urgency, and it's also rhythmically pushing the song forward. And that's even in the acoustic mix. So it tells you how important that was

that they decided to keep that in the acoustic mix. Okay, can we take a listen to that real quick? Yeah, I want to hear that. So it's those ha, ha, ha, ha moments. Yeah, and they're really effective. I mean, that's exactly what I would do if I was producing the track. They did the right thing.

It seems like these textural and sort of more producer changes really matter when you have very distinct minimalist elements. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's interesting if you look at the two different mixes, the acoustic mix,

I miss the drums, I'd miss that punch. So I would maybe, if I were doing a remix of it, which I'm actually going to do, just for fun because we're talking about it. And I want to play this out live. It's a scoop.

Breaking news. I want the punch of the drums, but I want that intimacy of the space of the original, of both mixes. So just that chorus is so powerful. I can never play something with pittigato strings out live that just wouldn't work. Unless it was like an epic trance mix.

So would this be a good time to close out the Julia Michael song or do you have anything else you'd want to point about the rule of three in it? I think, you know, the big thing too is we were talking about rotation with the song and that to keep things fresh, your brain almost can't remember everything it's heard before it.

So you can rotate and still stay fully focused and occupied on the song. as it switches to just baseline in a vocal or the chords come in. It doesn't feel like anything's missing. So the trick is figuring out how to rotate these elements so that everything is being heard and you're not wishing you could keep layering more things on it. So as a producer, you're always juggling that.

Like, do I add more layers, do I take away? And I know a song is done when I can't remove anything else. That's when you know you're done. And it's a really hard point to get to because it's very tempting to just layer more and more and more. But you can't hear it. So that's what the Rule of 3 is all about. It's about there's a certain,

cognitive bandwidth. Your brain can only hear so many things at once and your ear can only hear that many things at once as well because all these sounds are going to mask each other. They're going to sound muffled. Things will distort. Things will phase out. So you physically can't have, even if you could mentally process that many things, they're all going to step on each other. So you have to rotate the elements, delete tracks, swap things out, and be really clever. You know, have the base be the kick, have the lead, the bass and the kick be one element. I think a great example where she's using rotation to keep our interest is in the bridge. The bridge is using basically the same chord progression, but the elements are different than we've heard them in any

other context. So this is different because we have the pizikato strings. We have the sort of sparkly stuff that we had in the chorus, but we've lost her lead vocal and just have the backing vocals. So it's a totally new arrangement and we've lost the kick and the thing that's pushing us forward, which I think is probably effective because it sets us up for wanting something to come back. And it's interesting bridge, too, because you're singing the chorus, whereas, you know, the Max Martin trick is swap out the pre-chorus instead of writing a new verse bridge. Or, you know, but I like to get lazy sometimes. I'll just do the chorus and they repeat it again because you really want to hammer that home.

Yep. But sometimes I think the strict bridge would be, oh, don't even say the title or build up to the title. Maybe you do the bridge, then the pre-chorus. But it's a whole different technique. She's a good writer. Yeah. Okay. I think that that is a sufficient exploration.

That's pretty exhausting. This is a deep dive into a very minimalist song. What I want to do when we come back is look at whether or not this is a Julia Michaels thing. And if this rule of three holds well across the rest of the billboard and other popular music and sort of stretch it to see whether or not there's places where maybe it doesn't hold. We'll explore that on the other half. Right on. Convierce your passion in a

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I think that Maroon 5, Cold, is one of the best examples on the charts. Yes, absolutely. Nate, do you know Cold? I do. And I can't help but find. it to be a very catchy number. So why don't we play Maroon 5's Cold for just a moment? This is also with Future and I guess we can see how it uses the Rule 3.

Cold enough to chill my bones. It feels like I don't know you anymore. Are you so cold? Are we taking time or time out? I can't take the in between. Beautiful. All right. Cold. Yeah. Cool. Take us through it.

I mean cold. What? What? Nate, that was bad. I've held so many more back. When you said triangulate, I was like, don't say anything, don't say anything. So I think the big thing with this, just like the other single we listen to do with issues,

there's a lot of sparse elements that are taking turns. So there's this initial chorus. I call it a teaser chorus. Yes. Which is an interesting technique of kind of locking you in early instead of just going first to the verse. Right. A lot of guys do this.

It's just vocal and bass, and there's a touch of that muted guitar. So there's three things, I would say primarily two, because you go into the verse and it's really just the vocal and the bass together. And the bass and the kick are the same thing. Okay, just like in issues. So there's a duality of the kick and the bass. The muted guitar is really serving as a turnaround element. It's pulling the rhythm a little bit, and it's adding a lot,

but it's not taking all your attention. It's almost like a James Brown approach to guitar, which is consider it in the rhythm section. Don't think about it as a lead element doing its own thing. Yeah, and it's only playing for that one or two bars there. So it's a very quick element. It's not this constant element that's legato that's taking up all the room in the song.

Another producer might have you could have done like a snare roll leading into the next moment. Yeah, it could be like the Zed timbali role. Yeah. But it's really satisfying. I love it when there's this vocal and just the bass and not even chords. I'm a big chord guy,

so I think it's amazing when people can pull it off to just have that the acapella, that bare vocal and a baseline, and you get goosebumps. Like, that's incredible.

There's just, you know, two voices going on there, essentially. Cold enough to chew my bones. It feels like I don't know you, like Julia, the Maroon 5 vocal has a real

distinct quality to it. It's a real person on the other. side who has, who forms their words in a distinct, unique way. He has these funny, I don't know if they're also vocal fries, but you hear these, uh, sort of things underneath in between words that make it sound like, you know, it's right there in front of you. Cold. Are we taking time or time out? I can't take the in between. Yeah, and he's always changing the cadence. I think it's interesting. He'll sort of speed up

and slow down. And there's a very clear syncopation on the word cold. And it's really providing that emphasis. So the vocal is a rhythmic driver in this for sure. And it seems like it's important to have a bold vocal if all you've got underneath you is a baseline to support you. Yeah, I think just like we were talking about earlier, you're assembling the post and beams of your musical structure. And if you get one of those pieces wrong, the house falls apart. So that vocal has to be incredible. And during the production process, a lot of times what I'll do is I'll solo elements and mute tracks and try to find that best combination because sometimes you just have too much stuff piled on there and you can't hear that there's a hit song underneath. And it takes that process of

muting it to find what those posts and those beams are that are going to be the foundation for the song. Sometimes you don't know. Yeah. Okay. So then we've got our posts and our beams. Right. What is our roof? What is the third piece holding the whole thing together? At its densest moment in the chorus, it's the vocal, the bass, the bass, the bass is the drum. And there's more percussion going on there as well. There's piano chords. So the big change, really, beyond the additional drums are the chords. Okay, yeah. There's triads going on there.

It's a piano chord, I think. Right. And that really just creates that satisfying chord progression feel, which always amazes me with the vocal and bass, because it's like, how can that be satisfying with those two things without a chord? Like, where's the chord? And the chord can come from the harmonies or it could be a keyboard section. But with this, it's fairly low-level piano chords that are in there

and just a big beat driving everything along. So we have a couple of different elements coming in here. At the chorus, we get the sort of fullest moment. How does Cold use this idea of rotating different elements to give you a new context? I think the most interesting rotation, I mean, between the space of the chords,

there's a fairly layered things happening, but Future's integration where he is the response to the call. So in the final chorus, after he ducks in for, I think it was the verse, the bridge, he comes in and he's saying cold and he has this refrain where he's reinforcing the title

as a response to Adam Levine. Yes. So his refrains, they're sort of rising and becoming more of this primary lead element. And if you had heard them earlier in the song, I think it would have taken away from the impact of the chorus. So you have like your first rep of the chorus

where it's fresh and they're like, oh, there's chords there. It sounds interesting. It would have been overwhelming with future all over it because he hasn't been introduced yet. Totally. And you don't even notice. That's the beauty of the rotation. Right.

It reminds me of when they would do taste tests between different colas. And if you, you can taste a difference when it's A, B, test, you can process that. But when there's three choices, You can't do a proper taste test that way. Your brain cannot handle it.

So whether it's drinking soda or listening to musical elements, it's like a shell game. You're going to lose track. But here what we're getting is a quick rotation of things. It's not to say that we can only hear three things for a long period of time, but here we're getting maybe element one, two, and three, and three, and four for a second, and then five, two, and one for a second, and they're constantly rotating, and your attention is being drawn into things and out to other stuff. I imagine, especially in dance music,

That must be a really effective way to put people in almost like a trance-like sort of stage. Yeah, it almost reminds of those old spice commercials where something happens every microsecond and you're like, I don't know what's going on, but I'm still watching this commercial. The man on the horse sort of thing. So in electronic music, it's like with Complexra,

which is sort of, I don't know, that's turned into other things. Like with both Dobsstep and any of these really complicated subgenres? Do you have a favorite example of something from that genre? I think if you listen to any of the Skrill-X stuff, he's doing a lot of these complex modulations and movements. He's, you know, automating a lot of things. Things are morphing and changing over time. There's something changing. It's not just every bar. It's within the bar. So you have microchanges, micro rotations happening where people are dropping these little one-shot samples of bass sounds

and growls and things like that. And your brain doesn't even know what's going on, but it loves it. It's this novelty. So it's this sugar rush and attention switching that's going on. And by the way to do it, though, is that you're still focusing on one element at a time or you're focusing on the rule of three for that given moment in time. But you basically have a quarter a second to catch three things and then the next quarter second you're on the three others. That's like psychological warfare. It's it's I've never thought about production in this way. It's fascinating. But in general, one example that I almost didn't hear for years is that even with a drum fill, you let that moment, let the build be the build, I always say. And you're sort of

introducing change before change. So if you're introducing a new element, just focus on the drum fill. Don't focus on the chord or the vocal. If you want to introduce something, you focus on one thing, drop it out. So it can be a drum fill. It could be just the vocal. So in this song, every transition, it's just a bare vocal for like half a bar or a bar. Yeah. When we're kissing, feel so different. Baby tell me, how did you get so? Huh. Okay. So I had a couple of other songs that I think are using this method really effectively. Some songs we've covered on the show,

like Ed Shearer in Shape of You. We talked last week about DJ Khalids. I'm the one. Here, both start minimally and then build and rotate different elements. I'm also really loving Selena Gomez's new track Bad Liar, which opens up with this interpretation

of the Talking Head Psycho Killer, where you basically have just this baseline and I think some claps happening. and a totally dry, bare focal. I was walking down the street the other day, trying to distract myself, but then I see your face. Oh, wait, that's someone else.

And this song kind of moves in and out of these different elements. And it always, actually, this song I always say, it's pretty simple, but does follow the rule of three, I think, really nicely. I thought it would be fun to look at maybe some classical examples that do it as well. I've been listening a lot this week to the 50th and, re-release of the Beatles Sergeant Peppers, and I was listening to the song When I'm 64. And I think this is actually another great example. I'll just play it really quickly.

You start off, you've got some wins, you've got a bass, you got a drum. When I get older, losing my head many years from now. And kind of like the cold and Julia Michaels, the kick drum and the bass are basically the same thing. They're layered on top of each other to be more or less warm. element. So you basically have the wins, the kick bass, and Paul McCartney. And the song then cycles through different elements of these things, taking prominence and receding to the background. Sometimes a piano comes in and then maybe the winds drop out. Will you still be sending me a valentine? Birthday greetings, bottle of wine.

Or backup harmonies take over and other elements kind of fade into the background for a moment. It's like, who's the star? Who's the lead player? and what's the foil? You know, what's the supporting role that's creating the contrast? Right. My task was to go through the classical canon and try and come up with some counter examples where composers just ignored or actively worked against the rule of three.

And I was able to find a few. And maybe not surprisingly, they're all from the, modernist movement of the 20th century move towards atonality and dissonance and chaos. So composers like Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schernberg who were deliberately trying to create music that was difficult and alienating and hard for your brain to process. I've never quite necessarily thought of it in this way, but often would use many more elements than, as Morgan was saying earlier, your brain or your ear can handle. That is the point of their work.

Right. I don't think we should see this as their misunderstanding the principle of the ruler threes. Rather, their conscious bucking of that knowledge in order to disorient and overwhelm the listener. Do you have a good example? Yeah, I do. I do. Arnold Schernberg's song cycle, Piro Lunare, from 19. 1912 for voice, piano, clarinet, flute, violin, cello.

So we've got six instruments in total. And I feel like in this song, every single one of them is doing something completely different and independent. And again, as morning is saying, your brain quickly discovers, like, wow, I cannot process all of this at the same time. It's way too much. But I think, again, that's exactly the point. What's the piece called? Let's check out Der Mondefleck.

And you're like the gift swalleled right and right of the hell of mondes I don't even know how you perform that that's wild

Yeah You know But I'm not sure It breaks the rule of three Because I almost feel like there's like a cacophonous

layer of sounds which are basically an underlying musicality that supports her lead vocal that jumps out above them all

It'd have to cover on acoustic guitar That would be unpleasant. I see what you're saying. And yet I feel like this doesn't. In fact, no, I retract that. I don't see what you're saying. This is insane. No, no, you were just trying to be difficult. This is cacophon. That's the point of it. How many different instruments are in there? Do we know how many? Well, that's a good question. I know there's six in the ensemble, but I wonder if all of them

are playing. I didn't, I'm not sure I heard a cello for instance there. I'd have to look into that. But there's probably at least two many or five. Yeah. Well, I think it's like when you look at the rule of three, what are the goals you want to accomplish? So I think when you set out with intention to create a song, you're looking for memorability, repeatability. You want it to be something someone could sing back, play a cover of, you want chart success. You know, what are your goals of the song? If you want to create texture, you can just do texture or noise. It could be a museum art piece. Right. And I think the rule of three applies most to success in pop music. Right, right. Typically. But I think even in classical, it would be an interesting comparison. If you

Compared scores, movie scores, where there's a lot of layering, but it's a lot of instruments in an orchestra playing the same note or a fifth or a third. Right. They're not going well beyond that. Jazz would be a really interesting exception too. Right. What do you think, Nate? Mr. Jazz Scholar? Yeah.

No, I think that's a great point. Classical composition before this modernist period tends to privilege that kind of clarity and limpidness that Morgan was describing. Yeah, jazz by contrast is more, I mean, depending. on what area you're talking about, but sort of going beyond your conscious ability to parse and process and sometimes getting to something sort of deeper and more unruly within your side gate. It's like the original Complexro was jazz. The original Complexo. Yeah.

Well, really weird example. I watched The Dead & Company play at Hollywood Bowl a few days ago. I'm not a big deadhead, but I wanted to go to just see what was going on because there's not even that many players up there, even though there's two drummers. Yeah. It's two drummers, a bassist, two guitarists and a vocalist.

And a keyboardist, yeah. But they're all solo, is what I found. And maybe I'm wrong about that, but you almost don't hear a chord progression because it's all these singular voices of instruments weaving in and out, almost a little jazzy,

almost a little bluesy. There doesn't appear to be, there's a lot of moments where there isn't a prominent lead and everything is interweaving, and then they allow the lead to shine. It's not surprising, considering their psychedelic roots

and maybe a desire to push the boundaries of consciousness, And so I think the interweaving soloing where people are listening to each other and responding to each other, but also are their own unique thing, are probably pushing our ability to pay attention. And maybe similar to the Scrilix method, pushing us to be in a more sort of trancy way of listening. Yeah, it all comes back to what are the goals of what you want. With that, it's more extended versions of songs that are continuous and there's not really a break. I mean, they put in a very deliberate intermission. You know, it's a four-hour show. But they keep going and extending it. And you're not really sure where it starts or ends. a lot of the time. So that's a cool effect and a very different goal, a very different outcome from these efficient pop songs that are like sports cars constructed to be very tight and very neat and end at two minutes, 29 seconds or three minutes, wherever long. Yeah. It was. And the interesting thing with, I thought it was a new thing that streaming created songs that were getting shorter and shorter. It's really just going back to the past. Yeah. It's going back to the early singles. We were playing

playing Beatles and I was reading Keith Richards book and he was talking about two minutes, 29 seconds. I mean, that's much shorter than even what I'm doing now that's tailored towards the streaming world. Nate, do you have any other examples that you wanted to introduce that challenged this idea of the rule of three as a successful modality? You know, I was kind of, it's kind of funny because I was going to propose possibly some tracks off Sergeant Pepper's. Really? I think you're right when I'm 64 is a great example, but then you go a little first. to something like a day in the life. Sure.

Well, like the Wall of Sound. I mean, which song? Well, that was the other counter example that I was thinking about was looking at the Wall of Sound as a whole concept. The Phil Specter sound. And so I actually, I went and listened to Ike and Tina Turner's Deep River Mountain High. Just check this out for a second. And when I first heard this, you know, the Wall of Sound is this idea of just filling the entire sonic spectrum with. that you're totally kind of overwhelmed

but I felt like even this song kind of fulfills that concept where you have all this orchestrated percussive elements which are kind of the same thing the guitar there's a I don't know if there's horns or strings or other stuff in the background and they all come together

as one element you have the drums percussion bass and then you have her vocal and they still sort of follow the rule of three even a lot of the Beatles stuff there's moments of reference to things like Schoenberg and a day in the life, for example, right? Where all of these wild orchestral elements start playing on top of each other and creating all this

chaos. But that's sort of an artistic intent. But oftentimes when you have a verse or a chorus, they still, I think, adhere to it fairly religiously. And I think the way I look at it is almost like actors. That one role, the role switches. So we have, and sometimes the role is playing two characters, but it's like throughout the story of the song, one element can rotate and morph into something else where so like Swedish house mafia they had this huge song uh one and the kick turns into the baseline over time it doesn't just it isn't occupying both at the same time but it increases uh in sound the way they they morph from that one kick sound and they repeat it into these micro samples and it morphs into a tone huh well Nate I'm just I'm just grinning like an idiot

because this is so cool Morgan thank you for expanding our producer minds to think about music through this rubric of the rule of three. And I see what you mean, because it's been instructive for me because I see that now it's like it's not the amount of stuff that's happening at any one time. Rather, it's how that is compartmentalized into these different elements. So say even if there is like, you know, a whole orchestra, like if they're playing the same thing, then that's not, you know, a hundred elements. That's just one element. Right. It's the phrases, distinct phrases. And, you know, it's definitely a guideline. It's a rulebook just the same way the golden ratio applies to art and dimensions and proportions.

And the same with the rule of thirds for photography. It's not an exact science, but it really, it gets close. It's like a heuristic, you know, it gets you most of the way there. I definitely listen down to a lot of songs, like the top 20 songs in the charts right now, and I couldn't find one that seriously broke that rule in a meaningful way. So this is an awesome way to think about music to listen and to produce music. Thank you so much for sharing the rule of three with us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Where can people both find your music and where can they hear you? So all the tips and everything that we talked about that I get into, we go really deep, really granular with it. So it's MP Quicktips.com, MP like Morgan Page. And follow me on Twitter

at MP Quick Tips. So those are daily tips. There's over 600 of these that have compiled over six years of this project. Yeah, and you can also check me out online Morgan-nashpage.com. I do a weekly radio show for Serious XM, and that's on BPM. You can check it out on there and download the podcast. Fantastic, yeah. And my understanding is you are basically constantly on tour. So if people want to see you live, check out your website for tour info, and you're probably heading towards someone's city real soon. Yeah, check it out online. Morgan Nashpage.com. Awesome. Morgan. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Morgan. This episode of Switched on Pop was produced by me, Charlie Harding. And me, Nate Sloan. Friient editing done by Bill Lance, designed by Luke

Harris. We are a very proud member of the Panoply Network. One of the best parts of doing this show is talking with everyone who listens to it. So please, if you have a thought on the rule of three or anything discussed therein, please reach out. It's switched on pop, Twitter, Facebook, email. You know how to find us. You can find past episodes on any podcatcher. We would love it if you left us a review on iTunes, where we've been getting more reviews and rhyme, which is very exciting. I think we might have to read one next time around. So if you leave one, it might get red. How exciting. And in two weeks, we're going to be back with a very special 90s throwback episode celebrating the 20th anniversary of a very important, well, we're going to keep you hanging on that one. Until then, thanks for listening. and discover your fragrance euphoria.