Student Spotlight: The Music Breakdown

By Kabir Samsi

What makes music sound the way it does? Why do we feel happy when we hear one song, but sad with another? What effect does this key, this beat, this chord progression have on the song? What did the artist do to make a song sound the way it does? For a long time, I have wondered exactly this – what influences the way we perceive music? What goes on behind the scenes of a tune that influences how we interpret it?

I started The Music Breakdown as a way to explore these questions. There are so many different factors that influence a song: theoretical concepts like dynamics and chord progressions, genres of music, revolutionary new forms of music technology, and so much more! In each episode, I’ll take one of these characteristics, deconstruct it, and try to see how it influences our music experience. Then, I’ll look at a few actual songs, break them apart, and hunt for where the characteristic manifests itself. 

I’ve looked at a range of different musical concepts including the chord progressions that define modern pop and the jazzy rhythms that built the 1920s. I have even taken a song and rebuilt it with an entirely new musical style. Through The Music Breakdown, I try to demystify how these concepts work and how they make their way into the music we listen to. I hope that you enjoy it! 

Find Kabir’s podcast here and check out the many platforms on which you can listen to it: