Week 10 Listening Guide

Week 10

               This week I chose “Bitches Brew” by Miles Davis because I am a big fan of Miles Davis. He really has such a classic sound and he can tell he really inspired a lot of people. The strangest thing about this song is that it appears to be around twenty- nine minutes long. I think this is more of a fancy hotel lobby/ elevator song. It is definitely all improvised, which makes it never boring. I love how the instruments correspond so well with the percussion (both elements would change over time). That’s another thing about Miles Davis—the band members he had were so talented. You can tell they were just having a jam while recording this.

               The tempo seems to change nonstop in this song. I’d say it switches up every five minutes or so. I bet this was in a major scale but you can tell they’d break scale and use diminished chords to get that classic jazz-chord-change sound. It’s so satisfying when it goes out of scale for a split second then corrects back into the scale with the next chord. I also like the rhythm. It would go silent, then everything would come back and clash in a good way. I also like the mix of this song. The reverb is set just right to get that beautiful ambient sound of a jazz song. The main lead (sounded like maybe a trumpet) is persistently creating catchy harmonies and I love it. Overall it’s such an experience of a song.