More videos of experts explaining great musical performances?

January 30, 2023 12:31 PM

I really enjoyed watching this explanation of Yuchan Lim's Rachmaninov 3 performance (which I discovered courtesy of beisny's MeFi post yesterday [thank you beisny!]). Can you suggest additional similar videos that break down musical performances and help convey why they're great? Bonus points if the performance's genre is jazz, western classical, or non-western classical or folk music.
posted by ciocarlia to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

This is a pretty famous one for Giant Steps.
posted by dobbs at 1:48 PM on January 30, 2023

The New York Times' Five Minutes that will Make you Love ... Classical Music and more series is very wonderful. Top musicians and singers choose their favorite musical moments and explain why they love them.
posted by Elsie at 2:46 PM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

No bonus points for this one, but the Strong Songs podcast does this.
posted by humbug at 3:47 PM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Charles Cornell might scratch that itch. He's a jazz pianist too.
posted by kathrynm at 3:52 PM on January 30, 2023

This YouTube channel dissects popular multi-track recordings part-by-part, but there's more listening than commentary.
posted by credulous at 3:54 PM on January 30, 2023

I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but musicologist Graeme Boone has some great walk throughs of the Grateful Dead’s Dark Star.

((Some discussion of Boone’s work on Dark Star at the Harvard Crimson.)
posted by Winnie the Proust at 4:46 PM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

I really enjoyed the What Makes This Song Great? about the Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." He's done a bunch of them, breaking the songs down to the stems and building them back up.
posted by praemunire at 5:20 PM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

audio, not video, but NPR's old What Makes It Great (mostly classical, with a bit of popular standards and Sondheim thrown in)
posted by kristi at 2:45 PM on February 1, 2023