Analyzing "Theory of Everything" by dj-Nate (Geometry Dash) | Basterd's LFA

[00:00:00]Next up, we have Theory of Everything, the first one, by DJ Nate, featured in Geometry Dash, is my understanding. Once again, everybody, this is a bastard telefe, a layman friendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician and composer, and my objective here is to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what is happening here, musically. So, if you like the sound of that, make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, whatever you want to do, use like the video, share the video, comment on the notifications, become a member.

[00:00:27]Once again, everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server, join the Patreon, subscribe to the gaming channel, subscribe to the reacts channel. How to request songs even though I'm not on the live stream.

[00:00:36]Members getting early access to content.

[00:00:39]I have a spiel for this and a bunch of other things later down the video, so stick around for that. Disclaimers showing on your screen right now, so go ahead and pause the video to read them in full. Otherwise, please be patient with me. I am acoustic and guitarded, so please keep that in mind. Also, at the time of recording, we just hit 15,000 subscribers on YouTube, so thank you again, everybody, for that. In celebration, we're doing two main things. Number one, we're going to have some giveaways on the Discord.

[00:01:01]Make sure you join. Link in the description. Details will be announced there in the specifics. And number two, once we catch up with Limbo's Company, we're going to start playing Undertale and Are We There Yet live on stream, so make sure you join us for that. With that, let's do this. Theory of Everything.

[00:01:16]Let's go.

[00:01:24]>> [music] >> We start with a single piano.

[00:01:29]Very, very nice. Giving us that initial melody. It sounds like it's playing in octaves, maybe. Octaves just that the same note repeated up or down throughout the the range of the instrument, you know? Like And we might be doing kind of thing. That initial melody giving us the initial motif. Motif being the smallest version of a musical idea, the seed, the essence from which everything else comes from. Let me go back a second, cuz I think we just had something else.

[00:02:02]>> We bring in Okay, we bring in first one audio one string one sample of a string like violin synth giving us a slight variation of what we just heard adding a couple of adornments here and there primarily passing tones. A passing tone is well a note that is passing in between right like passing tone usually it means that if we have two core tones like say we have C major over here.

[00:02:27]And I want to play C and E and then I want to add something in between we add a passing tone.

[00:02:34]We have now that in between. Yeah, that's just the name for this right we're having some extra passing tones in between.

[00:02:41]And then I think we added an extra violin on the other side of here.

[00:02:47]>> [music] >> Yep, one more violin on the other side and >> [music] >> We switch over to triplets this time around we we started with like straight eight notes kind of counting. Now we're moving to triplets.

[00:03:13]We now bring what sounds to be a variation of it we bring the drums and the bass and here we go.

[00:03:17]>> [music] >> Okay, now the motive is now a little bit more hidden in the background is one of the synths giving us an arpeggiated version basically arpeggios when you play a chord one note at a time for example here's C major here's arpeggiated.

[00:03:34]So yeah, let's see where this goes.

[00:03:38]>> [music] >> Make sure since there.

[00:03:42]There's the piano again.

[00:03:45]>> [music] >> Oh, the whole thing Okay, I was wrong. I was wrong. The whole thing is in triplets it's just because of the spacing that we had in the original phrasing, it sounded more straight eighth notes than it is now. Now with the reverb included over here, it's a lot more clear. Yeah, there we go.

[00:04:00]>> [music] >> There's the motif back on the piano.

[00:04:08]The other synth made up the texture.

[00:04:15]A little bit of of of octaves over there, adding mainly just adornment over there. Really cool phrase in general. Yeah, there we go.

[00:04:26]>> [music] >> Yep, some little bit of syncopation there.

[00:04:32]>> [music] >> There we go. There's the piano's back.

[00:04:36]Some extra adornments.

[00:04:38]But I think this time it's [music] with the Yeah, with the violins this time.

[00:04:46][music] It's really pretty in And now we switch over.

[00:04:54]Um we switch over now to just the bass. We remove the drums off the ramp we go, right? Off the ramp being a colloquial term that I like to use. Colloquial, by that I mean there is no official academic definition for this, or at least I'm choosing not to use this for the sake of simplicity.

[00:05:09]And off the ramp is what I like to call a particular type of transition. Makes your listener feel suspended up in the air at the mercy of inertia, waiting to see where you land. Kind of like going off a ramp. How do you do this? Remove the drums in this case, not the bass, just the drums. We just the bass drum for that matter.

[00:05:25]That's where it goes.

[00:05:27]Just keeping the rhythm.

[00:05:30]There we [music] go. Bringing back the piano.

[00:05:35]And this time we add one more layer to the piano playing the bassline.

[00:05:40]So the bassline is basically going to play the lowest note of your of of what's it called the chords that you are playing and in this case we are using it as a way to one keep the downbeats of the like the start of every measure that we are doing since there is no drums right now. It's a way to keep the beat and number two it adds a very nice compliment to the rest of the piano, right? Let's see what it sounds.

[00:06:12]Nice. And yes, by the way the the bass right now is syncopated. Syncopation being when you play against your drums, against your beat or against your metronome. In this case you can hear the bass is going against the well absent drums like we do have the like clap snare and the bass is basically playing whenever that isn't. That is syncopation. It gives you extra motion.

[00:06:33]It gives you extra inertia for this kind of stuff. Works really well. Let's see where this goes.

[00:06:39]There's the bass drum [music] now.

[00:06:43]Another synth, arpeggiating the chords.

[00:06:47]Very far in the back.

[00:06:49]Very far in the back we have the two layers of violins giving us some parallel motion. Parallel motion is a type way of measuring counterpoint.

[00:07:01]Counterpoint the study the art of melodies. How they are, how they develop, how they interact with one another. Usually in the context of having two or more melodies playing at the same time. Parallel motion is a type of motion. Motion is a way that you can develop you can measure counterpoint.

[00:07:16]Parallel motion means that you're having multiple melodies doing the same thing at the same time from a separate starting point or a separate interval.

[00:07:23]In this case I think we're having um like octave plus third. Like we have one that have the original melody over here. Let's do major and seventh.

[00:07:32]We're having the first melody over here.

[00:07:34]Then we have the second one over here and the third one over here giving us this whole feeling over here. Yeah, the way you the way you can introduce these kinds of variations can be insane.

[00:07:49]So yeah, we're doing I think we're doing something like that that we're having two layers of parallel motion for this.

[00:07:55]Let's see where this goes.

[00:08:01]And we use some rhythmic displacement before dropping the beat. Rhythmic displacement as the name suggests we displace something in the rhythm so that you're either pushing something down so it sounds later, rushing something up so it sounds earlier, or you're using silence or some sort of interruption in this case the audio sample to achieve either of the two. What this does is when you're making music you're doing one of two things. You are building tension or you're resolving that tension. That point in between we call the cadence.

[00:08:31]Usually this is something that we do with our chords, but electronic music building and dropping a beat has the same dynamic. And when we use rhythmic displacement, what we do is we take this moment of resolution or dropping the beat. We push it down and now with whatever we do we get extra phantom tension that gives us extra tension.

[00:08:51]Makes the resolution that much more pronounced. So we use that to drop the beat. Let me go back a second. Let's see where this goes.

[00:09:04]New variation [music] of the motif.

[00:09:12]New variation of the motif leaning more into a solo. When you're making music you want to keep a careful balance between what is familiar and what is new. Too much familiarity, too much repetition, too much of the same thing, you risk boring the listener, they tune out. Too much too much new material too quickly you risk overwhelming the listener, they tune out. There is one universal exception no matter the style or genre which is solos. And then electronic music has an additional one which is dropping the beat. You bring in a solo, you drop the beat as long as it sounds cool enough and it fits enough, you can get away with almost anything. Meaning, this the principle of familiarity and new material become more relaxed, which just means you're not going to be able to get away with everything, you will be able to get away with quite a bit though.

[00:09:53]So, we're using that and right now we're doing this whole thing that we are doing a little bit of the motif and then we're trailing off to do something cool. And that's the approach we're taking on top of dropping the beat with the really cool bass, the really cool drums.

[00:10:11]And we just and we just land with this.

[00:10:14]And you know what else is cool that we drift off and do our own thing with?

[00:10:17]>> [laughter] >> The Patreon. patreon.com/jamesrbastard.

[00:10:21]If you don't support this channel more than you already are, consider joining the Patreon today. Even if you're not pledging any funds, do join the free tier at least cuz this is where the non-gaming LFAs are going. What are those? Anime, film, TV, label music, the kind of stuff that we usually don't do on the main channel on YouTube. Why?

[00:10:37]What we do on YouTube is inherently fair use. That does not stop bad actors such as record labels, film studios, individual independent rat scammers out there from abusing the copyright system on YouTube. So, in order to just not deal with that for these LFAs, we're putting them here on Patreon, free for everyone to watch with paid members, citizen tier and above getting early access to the content. So, if you want to support this channel more than you already are, consider joining the Patreon today, consider becoming paid member today. patreon.com/jamesrbastard.

[00:11:07]Thank you to those who are already members, especially those who are paid members, particularly Real Nemesis, French Guy, and Amaya. Your support means the world to me. For everybody else, become a member today, consider becoming a paid member today.

[00:11:18]patreon.com/jamesrbastard.

[00:11:20]Link in the description down below.

[00:11:21]Become a patron today.

[00:11:23]patreon.com/jamesrbastard.

[00:11:24]Link in the description down below. All right, back we go.

[00:11:28]Let's continue. Let's see where this goes. We have the um the the the the the synth giving us a almost solo. Let's hear what it goes.

[00:11:36]This I don't know if this is playing in there.

[00:11:39]Nice.

[00:11:41]Fear routine brushing it.

[00:11:45]And we do have in the back we have like the other synths arpeggiating in a little bit almost echoing what the um what the what's it called what the main synth is doing. It goes off the ramp and >> [music] >> Okay, so we bring back the piano. We're now doing a new version uh we're doing a variation of the motif and now we are doing two things. One, we have the piano doing the like we have base when you play the piano you basically have the two hands and we each hand can do something different. We have the right hand doing the melody giving us this really really cool melody and then the other hand is giving us bass plus chord where we are having basically bass down and then we get the rest of the chord.

[00:12:35]And then basically I mean I can do this a little bit higher over here so we can uh then we have we can go for that kind of um approach, right? So we have bass down below chord while the everything else does is is a very very cool way and it might even be like uh octaves, right? Like down here and then up here uh going back and forth while getting the rest of the piano.

[00:12:59]This uh opens up the chord a lot more which um have is that uh dash F? I don't I don't even know. Let's hear what it goes.

[00:13:07]>> [music] >> Yeah, it's octaves.

[00:13:11]Octaves.

[00:13:13]Build up and Ooh, more [music] chilled drums.

[00:13:21]And then in the background we have a sample of singing giving us a very slow arpeggio um arpeggiation of two higher notes, right?

[00:13:31]Um so, while we're having like the this thing going over here, [music] we have another one over here like then We're doing that with the like vocal sample over there. Half time?

[00:13:46]Maybe. Maybe I'm not entirely sure.

[00:13:49]Um but yeah, in general we're doing that again. Arpeggio, I don't know if I explained it over here, but arpeggio when you play a chord one note at a time. For example, here is C minor.

[00:13:58]Here's arpeggiated.

[00:14:00]So yeah, let's see where this goes.

[00:14:07]I wouldn't say this is half time. It's that we went from the bass having the uh rhythm triplets to now being the high hat.

[00:14:16]So maybe, I don't know. I don't know.

[00:14:24]We bring a new synth and now we have a doubling with the piano. Doubling again is when you have more than one instrument doing the same thing at the same time.

[00:14:33]Nice. It's really good.

[00:14:36]>> [music] >> Oh, so good.

[00:14:39]Uh Violin samples coming [music] back.

[00:14:46]Violin samples come back, basically just holding down the chord tones and we are getting them a little bit of a of a kill switch, right? So a kill switch, this is something that started with guitars mainly, which was a button like if you look at a guitar kill switch or a guitar kill switch, uh you will see that these were like just buttons. Just like a little button that you can add to the guitar, but what this does is that when you press it, it kills the audio. It It's a switch that kills the audio. You release it, the audio comes back up. Uh I would say some of the best artists to ever use some of the best guitarists to use a kill switch, definitely Tom Morello, definitely Buckethead.

[00:15:28]Like they have it's such a fun thing because you're basically muting and unmuting the guitar um to this kind of thing. And uh you're becoming a murderer of the sound, yes, of the sound uh absolutely. And basically like there are some of them that you can even add to like what is just basically just the the jack of the guitar and here is the button. You press the button and it literally just kills the sound that is going to the um to the jack that goes to the amplifier, right?

[00:15:53]Like it's a very relatively simple concept, but you do this and you add this to electronic music. We are using basically that. So we're basically just holding down the note. By all intents and purposes, the note that the violin is holding is a pedal note, by the way.

[00:16:08]Uh pedal note or pedal tone, a note that you hold down for an extended period of time as you're hearing that um that violin that that violin sample doing. And we're basically doing the uh kill switch over there so that the silence becomes the rhythm.

[00:16:25]So we are we the kill switch creates this this environment in which you can use silence as rhythm.

[00:16:32]Let's see where it goes.

[00:16:34]Up, new synth there.

[00:16:38]>> [music] >> Very slowly.

[00:16:45]Nice.

[00:16:47]And going very high with those arpeggios off the ramp and we bring everything back down.

[00:17:04]>> [music] >> We bring this back and we start what could be a call and response. We could call this a call and response. Call and response musical conversation. We have the main synth giving us the bit of the first part of the motif and then we basically use silence as a response. On this, you could interpret it that way, or we're just waiting for something else to jump in. Let's see where this goes.

[00:17:26]Excuse me, where are the water bottles?

[00:17:28]>> [music] >> Ah, the arpeggios, man. So much fun.

[00:17:33]Ah, there it is.

[00:17:36]Arpeggios up and down, and arpeggios up and down to the rhythm of the motif.

[00:17:44]Nice. Removing layers.

[00:17:47]Slowly removing layers.

[00:17:49]All right.

[00:17:51]>> [music] >> Nice.

[00:17:55]All right.

[00:17:57]Okay, so yeah, it sounds like we're slowly removing layers.

[00:18:02]Okay, we're removing layers one by one.

[00:18:03]Yeah.

[00:18:04]As a way to end the track. One last hit, we bring the drums and the um and the bass one more time. I I was expecting it to uh to to escalate more, but yeah, there you go.

[00:18:20]And he kill switches.

[00:18:23]And he kill switches the final sound with one last rhythm. And there you have it. There Oh my god, that was fun. That that detail at the end of kill switching the final bit of audio, well played. And with that, there you have it, Theory of Everything by DJ Nate, the first one, cuz we already had the was the second one uh featured in Geometry Dash is my understanding. Once again, everybody, this has been a bastard telephe a layman friendly analysis by professionally trained musician and composer. My objective here is to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what's happened here musically. So, if you're watching this on the YouTube video archive thing, thank you for watching. Make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, whatever you want to do.

[00:19:05]Like the video, share it, leave a comment, turn on notifications, become a member. Once again, everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server.

[00:19:11]That's where everything gets announced first, whether it's the streams going live, the videos going up on the channels, updates, projects, giveaways, everything gets announced there first.

[00:19:17]We have the community there. We hang out, we chat, we steal memes from other people, sort of claim them as our own.

[00:19:21]We're also the vintage story. VINTAGE STORY. COME in the server, that kind of stuff. Also, at the time of recording, we just hit 15,000 subscribers again.

[00:19:29]So, thank you so much for that. In celebration, we're doing two things.

[00:19:33]Number one, we're going to have some giveaways on the Discord, so make sure you join. And number two, we're going to Once we catch up with Limbus Company, we're going to play through uh we're just going to start playing Undertale and RV there yet.

[00:19:43]More on that in a second. Share these videos with everybody that you know. Use the hype function on YouTube. We have a group on the Discord coordinates for that, so link in the description help the channel grow. Members get early access to the content and schedule the videos when they become Saturdays. And if you're a paid member on YouTube, regardless of your tier, you get access to the videos when I schedule them, at least for the LFA's. So, become a member today.

[00:20:02]If you want to listen to this without me interrupting you for three and a half seconds, I'll be linking in the description down below. If you want to request a song in your next live stream, check the pinned comment on this video.

[00:20:08]It has the instructions on what to do.

[00:20:10]If you want to catch the streams when they happen live, we aim for Monday through Friday. We stream live on Twitch, YouTube, and and Kick, so that you can tune in from whichever platform you prefer. We have the full up-to-date streaming schedule showing in your local time zone in both Discord and Twitch, both linked in the description. So, if you live in Viento, Chile, wind, Chile, and you're like, "Yeah, but what time is whatever time in Hungary?" I don't live there, do not worry. Just go to Discord or Twitch, both linked in the description, and it's going to show the streaming schedule up-to-date in your local time zone, accounting for daylight savings if necessary. And subscribe to the gaming channel, follow the gaming channel, cuz of course I have a gaming channel on YouTube. What else could I possibly have? Games are bastard.

[00:20:44]Subscribe to the gaming after show when it goes live when they happen. We play games in the later part of the stream, and then the VODs for every game we play, right now it's Limbus Company and other games, they're just going to be Undertale and RV there yet, and every other game we play eventually end up so ends up over here.

[00:20:56]So, subscribe to the channel, link in the description, or search on YouTube, same username as James R Bastard. Swap the J for a G, and you got it. And subscribe to the reacts channel. Yes, LFA's are react format. This is where we're putting the reacts for everything else. James reacts bastard. Subscribe to the channel linked in the description or search on YouTube same is with James R bastard. Extend the R to reacts and you got it. And yeah, there you have it.

[00:21:22]Theory of everything the first one DJ Nate geometry dash. That was a lot of fun dude. Really good stuff man. Really good stuff but yeah, let's move on.

[00:21:32]Let's move on.