Half Moon Run is Criminally Underrated! | Steal This Song Ep 12

Friedemann: Today we're looking at one of my favorite bands of all time that I think is heavily underappreciated. I can't believe not more people are talking about this band. These guys are so phenomenal at what they're doing. They have exactly my sound. I feel like this is the soundtrack of my life, in that they have a very calming sound that is at the same time kind of high energy and very well thought out, very meticulous, very puzzly. So I feel like this is right up my alley. It feels like this is my personality. Obviously I like it. It has some great instrumentalists in this, some great singers. right now it's just a three-piece band, some really cool stuff. If this is one of the few big bands that I've seen live. I'm not actually a big concert goer by any means. This is one of the bands that I went out to see, and I had a great time. These guys are just fantastic at what they're doing. This is a band called Half Moon Run. Welcome to Steal the Song, the podcast where we steal the techniques of the greatest songs of all time because stealing is the greatest form of flattery. I'm Flieda Mantasen, song creator, author, and head of holistic songwriting, where we unlock the source code of songwriting and production. All right. Half Moon Run, you can let go is the song today. Let's take a look at the credits here. So as for the crediting of the songs, we have the band members Connor Mokantor, Devon Potielya. Dylan Phillips and Isaac Simmons, I think. Producer is Connor Seidel or Seidel. I'm not quite sure. I think it's a Canadian band, so maybe some of these are pronounced French. Dylan Phillips, I believe, has left the band in the meantime. When we saw them live, they were just a three piece band, still kind of carrying all the instruments and just kind of dividing them up between themselves. It was pretty impressive to see. Anyways, let's start listening to it and we'll stop a couple of times in between and I'll talk about a couple of the things that I think are interesting. So, first of all, can I just say that I really love the sound of this band? I mean, I love the slightly detuned guitar sound. It's so precise. I love the drums in this. I mean, I'm a big fan of sidestick drums anyway, but this is such a it's such a precisely composed section. We'll talk about why that is in a second, but let's take a look at the guitars here first. So this is the guitar part. we're in the key of B minor and we can see it starts out so starts out on the octave B to B. then we move to the sixth chord, which would be G, still with that B at the top, although we now have a third there as well. Then we move to a C sharp chord, So C sharp and the bass here and the guitar, what exactly that is, we'll talk about. And then we end on F with a B flat at the top that then later moves up to C. So presumably an F sharp major chord. So we have a very clear toggle pattern here. It's played in twos. Bo gado, gadou, gadou, gad one and two, and three and four and right. Very clear twos, which is later going to be contrasted when the vocals come in. We have we hear threes a lot. So it's very important that we have a very stable structure here in the background that is then soon going to be broken when the vocals come in. Chords wise, here's what's happening. We hear B minor to G major to either C sharp diminished or E minor six, depending on how you look at it. We have C sharp and the bass, so C sharp diminished would be a sensible option. Later on, sometimes an E is played when the bass comes in, just once, I think, throughout the entire song. But it's that E minor six sounds. It's the same notes, right? E minor six is the same notes as C sharp diminished. It's just a different inversion if you if you want to call it that. It could be E minor six, depending on how you look at it. And then we end on F sharp seven on the five of the six. So it loops very nicely back to B minor at the start. So it's a six, four, and then either seven diminished or two, six, two, five of the six. That's the chord progression. So it ends on a secondary dominant. what I really like about That third chord, again, C sharp diminished or E minor six is I mean, again, they're the same chord. What shows me how musical these guys are, that we can hear both versions of the chord. First, that C sharp diminished chord, that C sharp diminished sound with the C sharp clearly in the bass. And then the second verse, we'll hear the E in the bass when the bass comes in. It shows me that they understand what they're doing here. They understand the music theory involved between those two chords. And they're reinterpreting the chord to show us a different side of it when we get to the second verse, which brings in a new element, a new sound, without obviously changing the actual sound of the chord. It's still the same notes, but by adding a different bass, it changes the vibe ever so slightly. And again, it's just to me a s a sign as a musician. I'm hearing this and I'm going, cool. Yeah, nice. You're reinterpreting that chord. You're making it something a little bit different. Similar to what we talked about last week, although there it I'm not sure if it was entirely musical or more of like a let's try out and see what happens, when we talked about I'm Gone by Oliver Tree, which had that guitar riff, four-bar guitar riff, that used a different bass line the first time as the second time when we heard it, with just different bass notes, reinterpreting that same guitar line to mean different chords, basically. And I thought that was very cool and that was really well done as well. But these guys know their chords and you will we'll talk about the harmony in this. It's really spectacular. There's some really cool harmonic movements in this. but this to me is a first sign that they know what they're doing. And hearing a diminished chord in something to me, it still sounds very commercial. It still sounds very pop. It again, it has that stressful vibe to it and it feels very unsettling. While at the same time being very relaxed and beautiful, right? I really like what that diminished sound here is doing for us. All Let's listen to the vocals. So here's the first couple of bars of this. Remember, it's two bars per chord. So this is just the first half of one of the the turnarounds. it's just B minor G here. it's more about the rhythm than it is about the actual pitch. But what the rhythm here is doing is this self-medicate, self-deprecate, self-help books on the shelf, help meditate heart on my right. What this tells me is, and I've tried to kind of signal that With the bows here, is that we have groups of three. Self-medicate, one, two, three, right? That's the first one. Self-medicate, self-deprecate, self-help, books on the shelf, self-medicate, hard on my actually I should have done that a little bit differently. I think it's self-medicate is the first one, self-deprecate is the second one, and then we just have self-help is a group of two, and then it's books on the shelf is the next group of three. So it's a little bit like it's maybe a slightly weird comparison. But what it reminds me of is that bum ba da dum bum ba da dum bum ba da dum bum ba da dum bum ba da dum bum ba da c that classical piece? very similar happens here as well because when the second vocals come in, so it very much reminds me of that. Rhythmically speaking, it's very close to that. And then melodically as well with the backing vocals coming in a third higher than that. I I might be hearing that wrong, but that's what it reminds me of a little it feels very musically driven. A lot of interesting choices made by somebody who clearly understands music and the inner workings of a great song. So, anyways, that's the core melody here. Let's take a look at the lyrics, which are really great. I again, this speaks to me, right? This this constant struggle with yourself, self-medicate, self-deprecate, self-help books on the shelf, help meditate, hard on myself, friends can't relate, time is your friend, can't reciprocate. Time's up, come on out. Now I'm trapped in the grass, not gonna laugh, not gonna go home, not ready for the crash, heavy body frozen. Hand on my wrist, hand it's on my cold shoulder, skies open up. I think I got a little older. So that's essentially the first verse. And that really speaks to me, especially the first half of this. I think is really great. I love it when lyrics introduce words that I haven't really heard in songs before, like self-help books on the shelf. It's such such a cool line. Like immediately when I hear that, I'm like, first of all, it's an early bird line. We have a clear visual very early on in the song. But also it's it's a great image. I I love it. Like it it really fits the music so well, right? It's got that we have that sense of somebody who's tr trying to change, who's never quite happy with themselves, which is very true for a lot of perfectionist musicians. And that's you can totally hear that here. Now you might think, what are the numbers before the lines? s it's the number of beats in the phrase. So it's self-medicate is three beats. Self-deprecate is another three beats. And I'm talking about beats here, not notes, right? Obviously it's four notes because it's self-deprecate. We're talking self-deprecate. self-medicate, self-deprecate, self-help books on the shelves, help meditate, hard on myself. Friends can't relate. Time is your friend. Can't reciprocate. Time's up. Come on out. So at the end it we have two groups of two. But other than that, it's almost all groups of three. And if you remember, we talked about the the guitar riff being very simplistic groups of two. And that really helps for the juxtaposition of the polyrhythm, the vocals. being in groups of three, guitar being in groups of two. And there's not a lot of alignment happening of the vocals with the the beat, right? We never, we very rarely get it that they align and we have a strong hit of a note on the one, on the downbeat of a bar. Now, if you count up all of these values, you will find that you do not end up on a multiple of four, even though all of the notes, all of the quarter notes are filled with text, if if you if you know what I'm saying. and that is because the last bar of this phrase, of this chord progression, is actually a two-four instead of a four-four. So it's cut short. We'll listen to that again in just a second. But try to count along and you'll see that it's not the full section. It goes back into this. Trapped in the grass a little bit earlier. Already on the three, basically, we have a new one. So it's a two-four instead of a four-four at the end of that first half of the verse. and what it does is it creates a sense of unrest. Whenever we hear our time signatures, it's not actually an odd time signature because it's a two-four. But what this does is a very similar effect of we're cutting something short, moving into it sooner than we would expect. It it's has a sort of jolt feeling, and it makes you feel a little. bit unsettled. And again, here it very well adds to the stress that this already produces. let's listen to that transition one more time. Listen to the two four in it. And then to the second half of the verse, which has the groupings three, three, four, four, four, three, five, three, three. Did you hear that two four in there? I think that's pretty, pretty, pretty cool. You can also see that the groupings in the second half of the verse are a lot longer, right? We're moving from pretty much exclusively threes now to fours and even one five, hand on my cold shoulder. now we're moving into this sort of interlude in the middle of the first verse, which has the following chords. It's a five-bar chord progression going B minor to G to E seven, C seven, F sharp seven. That's the chord progression. So I've labeled that as. six to four to a secondary dominant to another secondary dominant to another secondary dominant. So let's move back to front, right? F sharp seven is the secondary dominant of the six. C seven is you kind of a secondary dominant of F sharp seven. Not really though. I mean it's it should be C sharp seven, shouldn't it? So it's a tritone away, but we get a try we get a a seventh chord there. It's quite weird. And then we have E7 in front of that. so E7 can sometimes be used as a dominant chord for a C. It's a little bit weird. It's it's certainly the weirdest of the dominant chords that we have. there's four different dominant chords which we can essentially use to resolve to a chord, which in the case of C would be obviously G7, so that's the primary dominant. And then we have secondary dominants like B flat seven, E7, and what's the other one? D flat seven. Right. So we have the tritone substitution, D flat seven, backdoor resolution, B flat seven, and then this weird chord E7. Although it doesn't really sound like that to me in this song, if I'm perfectly honest, I'm not sure why I put the five there. it almost sounds more like a mediant sound to me. It sounds very Whoa, this is where we're going. And then F sharp seven comes in, it's another whoa, another shift, like an out of, you know, we're sort of out in outer space. That's kind of what it feels like to me. And I'm pretty sure that's actually what they were trying to do with this. so this is what happens harmonically. What I think is much more importantly is why did they make that decision? Why would they go for this chord progression here? Again, the verses feel very meticulous, very precise. And very stressed. And now this comes in. We have that that beautiful synth coming in. And now this feels wondrous. It's a wondrous chord progression with, we're going here. I didn't see that go. no, this. okay, strange. And it's a five-chord progression, very strange, instead of just four chords, which is the standard. So there's a lot of interesting modulations in this almost, it feels like. And what it adds is this sense of wonder, is the sense of there's more out there. Okay. And that's going to become very important because the song, as you already know, is called You Can Let Go. And the chorus is going to be, you can let go the weight you carry with you. the entire weight that we heard during the verse is now already kind of being morphed into something slightly different. We're gonna return to the stressfulness of the verse in just a second, but then in the chorus, all of that is resolved and we have a very beautiful, perfect sort of chord progression. Perfect in the in the very traditional classical sense almost. So again, let's listen to that interlude and you can hear those beautiful chords one more time. So what you may have noticed there is that the groupings get longer and longer and longer, which again kind of adds to the stress of it, doesn't it? It feels like the melodies are kind of pushing more and more out of bounds. And this is very consciously done. You can tell that every time we get a new verse, it gets longer and longer and s more and more stressful. Okay, now we move into the chorus and here's what that looks like. We're going to hear a two, five, one, four chord progression, which is really very close to a a classic turnaround in jazz, right? We have the two, five, one, and then usually we would expect like a six there, or maybe a six major, like a five of the two. but it's very plain sounding. Like this is so in-key, nothing non-diatonic here. Also, you'll hear musically, it's so plain. The melody is very, very simple. There's not really much going on. So here I think that's used to get this idea across of you can let go. Simple. No tension. Just keep it simple. Right. So, what effect does this have on you? To me, it feels very simple, very plain. That chord progression is already very standard, right? It's as opposed to everything we've heard before, which felt very, you finicky and complex. This is like literally one of the first chord progressions you learn in classical music or maybe in jazz music. Very, very simple stuff. The melody, also very simple. basically just hitting all of the chord tones. to me, that basically suggests you can let go. Let's take out all of the tension that we had during the verses and just resolve it. And now here's a very simple section for you. And that's all about letting go. Now we're going to hear another interlude, like the one that we heard in the middle of verse one. Again, chance for you to listen to those beautiful chords, and then we'll talk again when we get to verse two. Okay, during this section, I want you to pay attention to the drums. Because this to me is one of the real standout things about Half Moon Run. As I said, they are a three-piece band, but they're not guitar, bass, and drums. I mean, they're multi-instrumentalists, they often switch instruments, the guitar and singers, right? There's two people singing, two people playing guitars, sometimes basses, sometimes you know, mandolins and other weird instruments, like other stringed instruments. But the drummer to me is probably the most interesting person in the band since he plays a lot of the synths. And so in this case here he plays that beautiful synth that you just heard in the interlude. He plays the bass quite often during the song. And so how does he do that if he needs his hands to play the drums? Well he only uses one hand to play the drums. He only has one stick. And so all of the grooves in this and many of Half Moon Run's songs are one-handed grooves. So that's why we're hearing this really this is one of the first things I noticed about this song when I heard it for the first time. I was like, what's up with the hiat? It's just a hiat on the one and three. I've never heard that pattern anywhere before. Like the very the most minimal pattern that I know is hiat on one, two, three, and four. Like that's the most minimal I know. But just playing it on one and three, what's up with that? Until I figured out, it's because he only has one hand to play that. So he needs the two and four for the snare. So it's t-k- t k. Right. That's literally what he's doing. And with the other hand, he's playing a synthesizer on top of the drum set. And so here is the the core groove in this. So the thing that this reminds me most of is beatboxing, right? Where we also can't produce two th two sounds at the same time, the boot k boot k. So it's kick, hi-hat, snare, hi-hat, but never two sounds at the same time. some artists do this as a stylistic choice. For example, Stressed Out by 21 Pilots uses this in its in its groove, but there it's just a purely stylistic choice. this is called linear drumming. By many, but here it's done out of necessity because the drummer also has to play synths or bass. So we'll listen to it, we'll continue listening to the song. This goes throughout the entire song, by the way. Also in the chorus, it's the hiat is just replaced by a ride, but it's just pin ka, king ka, ting ka ting ka, right? So ride, snare, ride, snare. And then we have kick drums on all of the offbeats, which is also, by the way, super unusual that we don't get a kick on the one. It's weird. It's very, very strange. Very strange drumming, but I'm absolutely obsessed with it. Again, it has such an interesting sound when I heard this band for the first time with their debut album, Dark Eyes, Dark Eyes, my I think that's probably my favorite. But this record, Salt, is also just a fantastic record, has so many good songs on it. But the first time I heard this band, I immediately was drawn to the drums because I'm like, wow, what's going on here? These are such interesting drum groups. and I think the linear drumming or the necessity of having to play it with one hand probably contributes to that. But it's immediately has such a strong sound. Again, limitations can sometimes produce the most interesting sounds. Let's continue listening and then we'll talk about the production and structuring of this next. By the way, new guitar coming in here. Did you notice? And it's so good. I love this part so much. Like all of their guitar parts are always very musical, so well written. Like they're this is just an overdub, but it's so good. Listen to this amazing overdub that comes in here. Okay, so here's the structure of the song. We started out with an intro of just the guitar and drums on kick and side stick, already playing that linear pattern that we heard, even though the drum drummer wasn't playing any other instruments there. Already sticking to a simpler groove so that when later he had to play bass or synth or whatever, he wouldn't have to simplify the drum groove, right? So keep things consistent, already starting off with a very simple groove. Then we go to verse one where the vocals are added and we have a hi-hat now. then verse one continued where backing vocals come in a third above, bass and sidestick switches to snare. Then we get that intralude with the beautiful chords, five bar section, vocals go out. It's just synth now playing the melody. And I think the synth is, by the way, the reason that that chord progression works so well and doesn't sound odd, because it's very naturally transitioning from one chord to the next. Again, highlighting their musicality here and showing us that they really understand and can hear that beautiful harmony. We go to verse two. which is the same as verse one, except we have a bass now, and that's where we hit that E in the bass, turning that C sharp diminished chord into perhaps an E minor six. You know, that's where it kind of plays with the chord and kind of reinterprets Verse two continued, backing vocals come in again with the third above. We have a second guitar, that beautiful overdup that I just showed you. We hear the side stick moving to the snare again. And then we go to the chorus for the first time, which adds that beautiful pad. And we go to those very simple chords, hi-hat switches to ride. Then we move into that interlude again after the chorus. We move into the same interlude we heard in the middle of verse one. So it's exactly the same interlude, same synth, same everything. Now we're moving in ver into verse three, which is kind of very low energy. It's vocals, backing vocals, bass, clicks, and kick. So it's not really a snare, it's like a sample or something. I'm not quite sure what it is. Then we move into verse continued, which is the same as verse two continued with that beautiful overdub guitar in there. Now we're moving into the second chorus, We have some new chords there at the end, which transition us quite nicely into the finale, I think. And another thing I want you to pay attention to is something that's sort of a byproduct of the simplicity of the drum grooves. We don't really get a strong downbeat. Usually when we move into a chorus, we want there to be a signifier on the one, right? We want to have a that kind of makes it clear that we're in a new section now. And because the drummer is only playing with one hand, we don't really get that. We can't get like a double crash or something on the one. There's not even a kick on the one. So all we get is just a ping from the ride, and that's all you're getting. And what I think is amazing about that is. That I'm always working with signifiers. I'm always playing it safe in that regard. And it never even occurred to me that I don't really need that. I mean, in pop music, it's more common not to have like a crash on the one, but there you'd still use like a downlift or like a ph or like a drop or something to make that one stand out. But this song here, and a lot of Half Moon Run songs, doesn't do that at all. The one is it just comes without much, you know, bravado. It just Happens basically. There's no added kick to it. Literally, there's no kick on the one. so that to me is really interesting. It kind of makes it less exciting. But I think in this case, that works in its favor. because this is ultimately still a very calm-sounding band. It's not high energy, it's not about pulling your attention at every turn, it's not aggressive in any way. It feels very gentle, the music. And I think that's a choice that helps the music be a little bit more floaty. And I really love that. So as we move into this final chorus and then the finale, I want you to pay attention to how the chorus comes in and how unspectacular that is, really. Really, what what sets it apart is how different the chords feel, how simplistic they suddenly feel, and how simple the melody now is. want you to focus on that. I want you to focus on. The end of the that chorus and how the chord moves away. I think it goes to I'm not sure. F sharp seven is what I'm hearing right now, but I'm not quite sure if I remember it correctly. And then we go into a finale, which is the same as before, except we now add some guitar licks. So did you hear that transition? There is a fill, right? A one-handed fill. There's nothing happening on the one though. Let's listen to that one more time. Actually, I was talking bullshit before, because there is a clear one. We do have a one. The groove changes from that that offbeat driven kick pattern to bung bum bung. So we do have a clear one. And it's actually the only time in the song when the groove gets more steady. Right before it's always on the offbeats, making it feel very unsettling. And now in the chorus here it's more steady. Again, we have the steady chords, the steady melody for the first time, and now a steady groove on top of that. So it's the only time in the entire song where we get a clear downbeat. And so that's actually what makes the chorus feel more settled. And that's actually what gives us a strong one for the first time in the song. That's really interesting. So what you just heard there was the chorus again, but slightly new chords here. So it's still the 2514, E minor A D G. But then the second time around it goes E minor A, B minor, C sharp seven. Again, I'm not quite sure what the C sharp seven is doing here and how it makes sense. I think it's just one of those wondrous chords that you don't expect in the song. And I think that's what's what it's doing. Emotionally for me, it doesn't feel like it's necessarily moving somewhere. It's more like, whoa, this is a place that this song could go. and then we hear the chorus again, and we're gonna end on the interlude. So the song ends as before on this interlude, although it's not an interlude anymore since it's the the ending of the song as well, which works the same as before. The synth is slightly bigger, so we have the biggest sounding synth so far in the song, and then we are gonna have a build up, and that's gonna be the end of the song. Let's listen to that. And so we end on the sixth chord. Now, beautiful song, really well done. Again, what I really like about it is how it mixes its stressful verses and this this really hectic eighth note pattern with the more relaxed chorus that has a very simple, very pretty melody, with a lot more space as well, right? The verses are kind of breathless. The choruses feels a lot more relaxed. And then the chord progressions are so perfect, literally feeling so relaxed, right? We have the intervals between the chords are literally perfect intervals, like perfect fourths, there are so many other great songs of theirs. If you're if you love this, and there's there's so many good ones on the first record as well on Dark Eyes. a song called Drug You comes to mind. It's such a fantastic track. But there's so many good ones. I mean, I I listen to that record on repeat. It's so, so good. Whenever I'm it's it's it's one of the few records I can listen to while I'm working on something because it just puts me in that energized mood without stressing me out. so good. Totally underrated band. More people need to listen to this. That's why I wanted to do them on the show. Thanks for watching and hope Halfwound Run has found a new fan in some way. If I can help in any way, that's I'm glad. I mean they're they're big, don't get me wrong. They're they have a a trusted fan following, I'm sure. but I think more people need to know about these guys because they are just fantastic. So what's my stealable technique for this episode? I think it's probably going to be those drum grooves and being a little bit more experimental with what you can do on drums. I mean I love linear drumming. I mean, some of my favorite grooves are linear drumming grooves. I haven't really written any, so I should definitely do that. That's something I definitely want to steal. And in this case, limiting my palette to just one hand drumming, I think is really fascinating as a challenge. Not playing crashes on the one, not being able to underline those in any way, shape, or form. That's really an interesting challenge, I think, that I want to try. And I also really Really love those odd chords that the band is using and tying together with a very simple melody in that synth. That's also really cool, I think. But yeah, I think it would be the one-handed drumming. That's going to be our technique for today. One-handed drumming. If you want to learn more about the creation of songs and want to create some of your own, do check out holistic dash songwriting.com. We've got great courses. We got some really cool stuff there. we're definitely worth checking out. Some freebies as well if you just want to download something first. if you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas, you can email us at steal this song at holistic dash songwriting.com. We are available on all the big platforms. If you don't like watching this on YouTube, you can also listen on Spotify, Apple Music. Is it Apple Podcasts? Or is and it's Amazon Music and Apple Podcasts. We're on Deezer and a bunch of other platforms. So do check us out there. if you'd rather listen to this in your car. This has been a lot of fun. I'm gonna do some more bands like this, I think. some of my favorite artists and sh kind of shine a spotlight on them a little bit. Next week, I think we're going to do an episode on BTS. Somebody was asking about them in the comments, and we are going to a concert. My wife and I are going to a concert of them this week. Which we got tickets for through some weird coincidences. But yes, that's that's we're we're going to see them. It's gonna be a massive, massive show. So I'm excited to to see what that looks like. I mean, they're they're obviously crazy hyped right now. And I will report and we'll do one of their songs from their new record, I guess. So look forward to that. Until then, take care and stay gefährlich.