Yes, the wrong note school. I swear, if Bach was alive today, he would be saying, “Why are they intentionally playing the wrong notes?” It reminds me of Glenn Gould (made his reputation playing Bach on the piano) who abhorred playing live because he believed the audience were there to see him make mistakes, like they would be there to see a person fall while walking on a tight wire. Later, in his career he started to play modern pieces (Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, etc.) and I think there was almost a relief that he experienced, a liberation of sorts. If you screw up some notes in performing a modern piano piece, who can tell! The audience would surely not! It's all gibberish in their minds anyway. So Gould seems to be off the hook of his own neurotic hang up with performing. This is just a theory I have about Gould, but if you see him play these pieces, he seems more relaxed. He's embraced his shadow, in Jungian terms.
BINGO! That is the riff. In this case, Bill keeps the riff going down (to the G-string). It's that diminished (dissonant) sound. There are bigger, more crazy styles of dissonance. For me the penultimate is "Free Jazz" and I've seen compositions go from total structure to just whacked out sounds. A good example is Cecil Taylor's music. I have seen him live where it sounded like normal jazz and then things became chaotic: people were just making noise, were walking around and banging things. But it did cast something like a pal or a dark force over the audience. Spooky. I've never done that, but I have tried to come close in a piano piece and a progressive rock song that starts almost like Zeppelin's Kashmir and then goes into the chaotic dissonance. It's a bizarre piece -- after the dissonance section, it goes into a clip of the movie BOOM with Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. Why? I don't know. But I do like the Coleridge poem and Burton's voice.
Hello Serge, I'm not sure if you're talking to me or Orphan or both? I agree with expression! Amen to that! Orphan, I'm trying to understand what you're hearing. The song centers around the key or tonal center of G. That is where it starts and stops. The chords are not typical like you would hear in a blues song (I-IV-V). Technically, I say the scale used was a Lydian with a flat 3, and it's also called the Lydian Diminished scale. I think it's that diminished sound that you associate with atonality. It is an “outside” sound. The solo uses a diminished sound in parts. Grab your guitar. Take this shape, start on the 6th fret (Bb) of the bass E string and play each note as an arpeggio going downwards. Do the same again, starting on the A string. Repeat on the D string. Voilà, part of Bill's solo.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that is what you are associating with atonality, and possibly that the chords are not your usual grouping. It is a “progressive” song in that sense, with an unusual chord progression. No crazy meter changes, but some movement or shifting of tone centers for soloing. It's a good song and to do this analysis I was listening to the BBC version where the ending goes on at length. Did BBD ever play the Royal Albert Hall? If the BBC was recording their material, you'd think they would have played there.
Orphan, Bill isn't really doing atonality in "New Precision." There are some outside notes like an arpeggiated diminished climb, but it's mostly pentatonic and modal. Here is a good video to understand atonality in classical music:
Yeah, I like discussing these things too. And I agree, the mood can be really compelling and captivating. Bartok is like that with his angular lines. Like most things in life, there are good points and bad points to things. Just when you think an artist is shit, you'll be surprised by what he does and just when you think an artist is God-like, he will disappoint you with crap. It's through the ticket of adversity that our salvation runs. Music is like that too, in that we like what we like, but sometimes we are surprised and have to take stock of the situation. I can't say atonal is complete rubbish because there are people who can conjure an incredible world with it, it's a gift and a gift for our times. I personally don't have a big appetite for atonal or serial music. Part of it creeps me out. And part of it is that I know how a lot of it is done… and it is done by unmusical processes. There is a built-in logic to it, with rules that determine your note choice. Nothing about the free expression of your soul. In serialism, for example, there is a note order, and you have to abide you abide by that order, and your choices of what to do are limited to certain processes (inversion, retrogression, inverse retrogression, etc.). You are building a hall of mirrors. All you need is an Orson Welles to come in, and the shooting starts, like in “The Lady from Shanghai.” I admire your diverse tastes, and I'm somewhat that way too. I haven't centered on a style of music -- I'm the hectic eclectic -- and like lots of everything. Should check out “New Precision.” I just remember that I enjoyed it as a song to do bennies (amphetamines) with; as well as the song, “Don't Touch Me (I'm Electric).” Very bold and brazen -- hyped up for the hopped-up. I wasn't too crazy about the “let's walk into the sea” line… I thought, good God, are we lemmings! Are we men or are we lemmings!
I have to laugh... that's quite a tribute to Bach. I am aware of Anton and his atonal predilection. But what it really reminds me is Beat Poetry in 60s coffee shops, where poets with goatee beards would wax eloquently on whatever floated through their coffee-drenched minds. They would smoke cigarettes and get on stage and say stuff like, "The moon shines down through the window of the warehouse.... everywhere mice walk on broken glass... over there is a tiny termite... he happens to look up and sees the moon and thinks about his lonely existence... and we feel sorry for that termite because he is really us... we too are orphans of the universe... left alone and abandoned, to wander aimlessly in a big, empty, meaningless universe... where is our dad, dad, dad, daddy-o?... where did God run off to?... is he in family court charged with neglect for abandoning his children, children that he claims he loves?... Let's take some LSD and talk to the Big Guy..." And there could be dissonant music, maybe played from an unturned guitar to accompany the existential skit. Bob Denver played such a beatnik character before his role in "Gilligan's Island." Allan Ginsburg was also a beatnik, hipster, and his poem "Howl" is a good example of what you might hear in these coffee shops. This is just before the hippy times and the hippies owe a lot of these guys. The chaotic, extreme tonal range and atmosphere in Weber's piece is perfect music for these beat guys. You get a sense of dislocation and being adrift, whereas Bach is the total opposite: Bach's music is like watching the inner working of a beautiful watch with all the gears and cogs, turning and doing exactly what they were meant to do with stark precision. You don't even need a good melody. Get caught up in the machinery of the piece that just blithely chugs along. Bach is talking to or imitating God. It's a super-ordination of harmony, unity, and beauty. Note: There is actually an easy trick to creating some of this dissonant music: just play diminished and augmented chords. There are guitar players that have built careers on this trick. I won't mention any names... but they're both in classical and rock music.
I'm glad you like it. Here is another piece that suggests performing a baroque dance. I have to fix up the imagery a bit. It was meant to be a play on mask vs masque. The movements in the piece could be slowed down in parts and drawn out differently.
I just finished a classic example of how I write with a score, though I don't write this way for pop or rock. This piece "Dancer's Heath" was not written this way. I like using the score if it is classical, otherwise, I resist it like the plague. If you need to get very precise this is the way and I also outlined the chords I was using conventional notation. It's for piano and flute and if you can think of some imagery to do a regular video that would be great. I'm at my wit's end with this.
Yeah, Jean Michael has done the same to his hit album Oxygen. You have these spin-offs but as long as you mention the first name, the associations and curiosity kick in. I didn't know that Richard Branson was involved with the first album either. Oldfield had talent and luck.
Yeah, he likes long epic versions. I've listened to "In the Beginning" and some other works and was even surprised that Tubular Bells was as long as it is. It may have been edited down to fit a Top 10 Ten radio format. Some nice laid-back stuff and I like Tubular Bells II better than the original. It seems woven together in a better way and flows more evenly still using the main theme. There are small harmony guitar parts to Tubular Bells that I question as too discordant, almost mistake-like -- but, no doubt, he was young and experimenting. The Live in Edinburgh Castle is very nice and if that is him playing the guitar with his fingers he has a nice feel. I counted like 6 keyboards and what looks like a Japanese or Korean prodigy playing the piano, women choir, orchestration, etc... so grand and epic is his specialty!
Thank you very much, Orphan of Babylon. I don't know much about Oldfield, but I like his hit Tubular Bells. If you think he sounds like me, I should check him out. I see him as a spacey, prog rock guy from the 70s and don't even know if he still at it musically. I give him credit if he is!
Might be -- but not consciously though. When I think of Oldfield I think of Tubular Bells and some short reoccurring line. I don't know what went through my head at the time... but I do remember wanting to imitate bagpipes. Ended up using a string sound, but it wasn't what I ideally wanted. I didn't have a lot of equipment so musicians and beggars can't be choosy. haha
Yes, the wrong note school. I swear, if Bach was alive today, he would be saying, “Why are they intentionally playing the wrong notes?” It reminds me of Glenn Gould (made his reputation playing Bach on the piano) who abhorred playing live because he believed the audience were there to see him make mistakes, like they would be there to see a person fall while walking on a tight wire. Later, in his career he started to play modern pieces (Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, etc.) and I think there was almost a relief that he experienced, a liberation of sorts. If you screw up some notes in performing a modern piano piece, who can tell! The audience would surely not! It's all gibberish in their minds anyway. So Gould seems to be off the hook of his own neurotic hang up with performing. This is just a theory I have about Gould, but if you see him play these pieces, he seems more relaxed. He's embraced his shadow, in Jungian terms.
Very Good Orphan! I think they are forgetting where they are, and who they are talking to.
BINGO! That is the riff. In this case, Bill keeps the riff going down (to the G-string). It's that diminished (dissonant) sound. There are bigger, more crazy styles of dissonance. For me the penultimate is "Free Jazz" and I've seen compositions go from total structure to just whacked out sounds. A good example is Cecil Taylor's music. I have seen him live where it sounded like normal jazz and then things became chaotic: people were just making noise, were walking around and banging things. But it did cast something like a pal or a dark force over the audience. Spooky. I've never done that, but I have tried to come close in a piano piece and a progressive rock song that starts almost like Zeppelin's Kashmir and then goes into the chaotic dissonance. It's a bizarre piece -- after the dissonance section, it goes into a clip of the movie BOOM with Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. Why? I don't know. But I do like the Coleridge poem and Burton's voice.
Hello Serge, I'm not sure if you're talking to me or Orphan or both? I agree with expression! Amen to that! Orphan, I'm trying to understand what you're hearing. The song centers around the key or tonal center of G. That is where it starts and stops. The chords are not typical like you would hear in a blues song (I-IV-V). Technically, I say the scale used was a Lydian with a flat 3, and it's also called the Lydian Diminished scale. I think it's that diminished sound that you associate with atonality. It is an “outside” sound. The solo uses a diminished sound in parts. Grab your guitar. Take this shape, start on the 6th fret (Bb) of the bass E string and play each note as an arpeggio going downwards. Do the same again, starting on the A string. Repeat on the D string. Voilà, part of Bill's solo.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that is what you are associating with atonality, and possibly that the chords are not your usual grouping. It is a “progressive” song in that sense, with an unusual chord progression. No crazy meter changes, but some movement or shifting of tone centers for soloing. It's a good song and to do this analysis I was listening to the BBC version where the ending goes on at length. Did BBD ever play the Royal Albert Hall? If the BBC was recording their material, you'd think they would have played there.
Hope you catch the wave you want! Explorations to expression, the poets rejoinder.
Orphan, Bill isn't really doing atonality in "New Precision." There are some outside notes like an arpeggiated diminished climb, but it's mostly pentatonic and modal. Here is a good video to understand atonality in classical music:
I just finished a classic example of how I write with a score, though I don't write this way for pop or rock. This piece "Dancer's Heath" was not written this way. I like using the score if it is classical, otherwise, I resist it like the plague. If you need to get very precise this is the way and I also outlined the chords I was using conventional notation. It's for piano and flute and if you can think of some imagery to do a regular video that would be great. I'm at my wit's end with this.
But I was wrong.