The most feared song in jazz, explained

Vox · 10.6M views · 2018-11-12 · 10:50

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Overview

Vox Earworm explains why John Coltrane's Giant Steps is so hard to improvise over: it is fast and moves through three keys. Musicians Braxton Cook and Adam Neely walk the host through the underlying music theory.

On Hacker News

Recommended as a well-produced, accessible explanation of Giant Steps and the harmonic ideas behind Coltrane's work.

Recommended by 5 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2021–2025

Topics

Music theory, synthesis & production Music performance & songs

What people said

peteforde · 2023-01 · Strong recommendation
I highly recommend this Vox explainer on John Coltrane's "Giant Steps", for anyone interested in learning about the math behind one of Jazz' greatest innovations. [VIDEO]
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ghostpepper · 2025-09 · Recommendation
If you don’t have the time (or the musical background) for the full article, this short YouTube video touches on some of the same ideas in a much more condensed and accessible version: [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

zzzeek · 2025-09 · Recommendation
Nice site but we're at the point in "Show an In Depth Thing on Hacker News" where circles like these need to be presented with a live GUI that includes sound and colors as you spin the circles around to play different chords. towards my craving for instant gratification with sound and lights I found a well produced video by Vox on the subject: [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Vox, played through YouTube.

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