I visited one of my old haunts recently, a coffee shop not far from my house in Nashville.
The cafe was pretty full and I was waiting in line behind a handful of people.
As I was standing there the next song came on.
I am not kidding you, within first second of the song, that first little piano run, about everyone in the room looked up or looked at the person next to them smiled, bobbed their head and felt sassy. And I’m not exaggerating about the one second thing either.
The song was Roses by Outkast.
If you know the song, go listen to it. So good. That piano intro is a signature, a stamp, an ID tag, and is instantly recognizable, in one second.
In a similar vein…
One night this past summer I was hanging with friends. Listening to music on a back porch with a bon fire going. A great summer night.
Someone was playing DJ with Spotify and a jambox speaker and he said “see if you can guess this song…”
He played the first 3 seconds of the song…everyone knew what song it was. Easy.
But this was fun.
We kept going only we shortened the time, so he would only play 1 second of the song and then cut the music and we would guess.
We went by decade, first doing a 60’s playlist, then 70’s, 80’s all the way up through today. It was amazing. You need to try this game.
I’d say as a group we had about 95% of the song titles and artists correct by hearing only one second of each song.
The intro is important. All the hits have an audible ID tag, a signature within the first 2 seconds.
The chorus is the most important part, but so is the intro.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com