Imagination Off the Charts: Jacob Collier comes to MIT

from this video i learned 3 things: 1. jacob is a musical genius 2. he's a really cool person too 3. being a drummer in his band looks harder that whiplash

I was so distracted by the music and marveling at the level of creativity that I wish I had, it never even crossed my mind to question why one of the vocalists was wearing a cow costume.

I just stumbled into a Jacob Collier video last night at 11 PM. It's now 8 : 35 AM and I have watched this genius kid talk about music, play music, teach music, lead music ... he IS music. He thinks in music - not the technical terms of music but literally in a language only few humans have ever understood. I'm not jealous. I'm thankful that God graces mankind, every once in a while with this kind of talent and gift.

21:56 the happiest conductor I've ever seen

He's so humble too, it's like music is the diva and he's just his most faithful servant.

14:49 Jacob even types a computer in time

At 21:42 the percussionist is thinking "since when was the tambourine so bloody hard!".

I just want to say Thank You, MIT, for putting this up for everyone to see. Man, what a ride. Thank you!

Watching this I suddenly realized that the title “Hideaway” is actually the musical theme of the arrangement. He establishes the “hideaway” in the first verse, and as things become more chaotic, the listener is grounded in the introductory motif, acting as a “hideaway” from all the complexity in the onslaught of polytonal and polyrhythmic explosions later on

27:49 the way he swings the snare giving that groove on the drum is actually a Dilla signature, Jacob talked about how he's inspired a lot by hip hop ! He does an excellent job at blending elements from different music eras/genres together it's mind blowing

I was just searching for the KMS 105 microphone and this came up... somoone in MIT went crazy with the tags.

"He's kind of playing with this notion of you, the listener, thinking you know where you are. And he'll throw something at you that unmoors it, but without completely divorcing you from the structure that you knew before." Well said!

"I'd rather write words that invite people to understand rather than projecting my understanding to other people." At 18:35. This was a really profound and a great thought. Not because it's something new, but because it expresses the idea that ideologically vague (say f.e. politically neutral or even instrumental) music can be intellectually cultivating.

It's kind of depressing to me as a musician because Jacob's mixing of an extremely intellectual and an extremely emotional approach to music is exactly what I want to achieve and I know I will never achieve it in the same way he does.

23:45 I love how the violinist in the back frowns and then smiles at the direction Jacob took the chords there

The fact that there is unreleased footage of Jacob Collier is borderline criminal

2:00 Interviewer: Jacob, you’re one of the most creative artists in modern music, here at MIT, hub for the world’s sharpest intellectuals. What do you have to say about your experience so far? Jacob: These guys think about stuff

"You don't hear the math of it when you're listening to the song. You just suddenly become unmoored in this kind of dream-like state. And yet you still hear the slow pulse from the original part of the song. He's kind of playing with this notion of you the listener thinking you know where you are and he throws something right at you that unmoors it, but without completely divorsing you from the structure that you knew before. It's just a revelation, it's amazing. And all of this is happening, you know, in what at the beginning seem to be a simple four-chord pop song. This is kinda what our lives are like. It's that we try to reduce them, so we can get through the day, but the stuff going on, that if we just pay attention to it. Is beautiful, inspiring, frightening and he's kind of encapsulating all of this in a five or six minute song that appear to be a pop-ballad in the beginning" Damn. a 6 minute song made you think about life that's what Jacob does.

i gotta say, don’t think i’ve ever seen a more joyful conductor. he was FEELING that groove

all the great comments about jacob are certainly deserved, ut i’d like to give a shout out to the great video production here.  nice work by that team.  great camera work at the live event and the foresight to set up the informal bits all through the process so as to be able to put this together later.  :)