To follow up my previous post, I would like to provide an example of a song that strays away from the modern monotony, and produces sounds not often heard by the the casual listener.
Here is a video of me playing a song I wrote entitled "Goldilocks Jig." Any comments are more than welcome.
I will be playing this song along with many others when I perform my first gig ever on March 24th at Chums here on Brandeis. If you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate your support on that evening.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
I Smell What You're Cookin'. Let's Eat Out Tonight
Oh Rock. What the hell happened to you? There was a time when Gods like Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck represented all that made Rock n Roll rule the world. One would think that the next generation of musicians would have been influenced by these virtuosos and continued the force of Rock, right? To my utter disappointment, the faces of Nickelback and Weezer rule the land, and those who don’t want to succumb to mediocrity are forced underground in their Classic Rock shelters, hoping some band will nuke the living hell out of Modern Rock and shape it back to its once heavenly form. But this discussion of Rock presents an interesting question. What really defines a great rock band from an awful one?
Before I delve into the question at hand, let’s get a brief overview of the history of music. The true roots of music can be traced nearly as long as human existence (Gary Larson insisted through a few of my favorite cartoons that music existed during the time of cavemen), from war chants to African tribal ceremonies to more recently the likes of Jelly Roll Morton and The Beatles. The face of “modern” (I’m using quotations because the term 'modern' is relative to the exact moment you say it, thus it has a different meaning in 1980 than in 2008) music has gone under the knife quite a few times, having a scheduled appointment every 5 years or so (this explains why Michael Jackson had such an influence on music…), to the point, I believe, that the person music once represented is so diluted and saturated by its constant surgery, that it rarely has a chance to been seen in our current time.
Let’s cut to the chase. I’m sure it comes with no surprise to you that I consider the phrase “the golden of age of music” synonymous with the ten-year period of 1967-1977 when rock ruled the world. This was a time music had a different sound, a different style, and most importantly a different soul than any music of any other era. Then suddenly the face of music morphed again, and the glorious times of Rock and Roll were forever placed in the speakers of history, only to be heard and not seen. But what made the music of these bands so distinct, that one can easily distinguish a modern rock band to a classic rock band? Not too long ago, I devoted some of my time trying to enjoy (which, might I add, I failed to do) an aspiring rock band named “Death by Fame” during one of their gigs at Brandeis University, and I had an epiphany. There was no soul, no feeling, nothing unique about this band. I decided to allocate seven minutes of my torment examining the right hand of the lead guitarist for Death by Fame and I made an observation for which I believe I can generalize to a good majority of modern rock bands today. Outside of the rare moments in which he was playing a solo (which, obviously, was absolutely dull compared to solos out of the 60’s 70’s or 80’s), his hand could have been played by an oscillator, strumming with the same the repetitious up-down stroke for every chord he played. Where’s the excitement in that? When I listen to a band, I want to hear something I like to call a “unique rhythm” – a rhythm that is only known by the listeners and composers of the song; a rhythm that cannot be read but must be heard to duplicate. This guitarist contained no flavor, nothing to distinguish him from any other random guitarist, and while he may have some unique chord progression (which I highly doubt), he added neither soul nor style to it, leaving it bland and uninspired. Classic rock bands rarely fell for this trap. While many bands did jump on the chord progression bandwagon, each song had its own “unique rhythm” and did not contain a monotonous oscillator in their songs and produced some great solos in concert with fluent melodies to compliment their music well. Furthermore, most legendary bands from the classic rock era preferred to use my favorite element of rock roll instead of a simple chord progression: riffs. While riffs can be made utilizing only chords, the vast majority of riffs are a series of notes, each played with different emphasis, rhythm and sound. This is where the soul and style of a guitarist is observed and marveled upon. Even though Jimi Hendrix was not the greatest riff creator to ever grace this world, each riff that he played will never be played again with the same soul and passion he had. The way each note glided so well with the next, his usage of vibratos and trills, his tone, all of these elements and more come into play when Hendrix unleashed a lick on his guitar, and each time it expressed his uniqueness as a musician to everyone who was fortunate enough to listen to him. When I hear one of the greats play on guitar, I can tell from just hearing one of their licks who it is, even if I had never heard of that song before in my life. Why does something so undeniably awesome have to be a thing of the past?
Before I delve into the question at hand, let’s get a brief overview of the history of music. The true roots of music can be traced nearly as long as human existence (Gary Larson insisted through a few of my favorite cartoons that music existed during the time of cavemen), from war chants to African tribal ceremonies to more recently the likes of Jelly Roll Morton and The Beatles. The face of “modern” (I’m using quotations because the term 'modern' is relative to the exact moment you say it, thus it has a different meaning in 1980 than in 2008) music has gone under the knife quite a few times, having a scheduled appointment every 5 years or so (this explains why Michael Jackson had such an influence on music…), to the point, I believe, that the person music once represented is so diluted and saturated by its constant surgery, that it rarely has a chance to been seen in our current time.
Let’s cut to the chase. I’m sure it comes with no surprise to you that I consider the phrase “the golden of age of music” synonymous with the ten-year period of 1967-1977 when rock ruled the world. This was a time music had a different sound, a different style, and most importantly a different soul than any music of any other era. Then suddenly the face of music morphed again, and the glorious times of Rock and Roll were forever placed in the speakers of history, only to be heard and not seen. But what made the music of these bands so distinct, that one can easily distinguish a modern rock band to a classic rock band? Not too long ago, I devoted some of my time trying to enjoy (which, might I add, I failed to do) an aspiring rock band named “Death by Fame” during one of their gigs at Brandeis University, and I had an epiphany. There was no soul, no feeling, nothing unique about this band. I decided to allocate seven minutes of my torment examining the right hand of the lead guitarist for Death by Fame and I made an observation for which I believe I can generalize to a good majority of modern rock bands today. Outside of the rare moments in which he was playing a solo (which, obviously, was absolutely dull compared to solos out of the 60’s 70’s or 80’s), his hand could have been played by an oscillator, strumming with the same the repetitious up-down stroke for every chord he played. Where’s the excitement in that? When I listen to a band, I want to hear something I like to call a “unique rhythm” – a rhythm that is only known by the listeners and composers of the song; a rhythm that cannot be read but must be heard to duplicate. This guitarist contained no flavor, nothing to distinguish him from any other random guitarist, and while he may have some unique chord progression (which I highly doubt), he added neither soul nor style to it, leaving it bland and uninspired. Classic rock bands rarely fell for this trap. While many bands did jump on the chord progression bandwagon, each song had its own “unique rhythm” and did not contain a monotonous oscillator in their songs and produced some great solos in concert with fluent melodies to compliment their music well. Furthermore, most legendary bands from the classic rock era preferred to use my favorite element of rock roll instead of a simple chord progression: riffs. While riffs can be made utilizing only chords, the vast majority of riffs are a series of notes, each played with different emphasis, rhythm and sound. This is where the soul and style of a guitarist is observed and marveled upon. Even though Jimi Hendrix was not the greatest riff creator to ever grace this world, each riff that he played will never be played again with the same soul and passion he had. The way each note glided so well with the next, his usage of vibratos and trills, his tone, all of these elements and more come into play when Hendrix unleashed a lick on his guitar, and each time it expressed his uniqueness as a musician to everyone who was fortunate enough to listen to him. When I hear one of the greats play on guitar, I can tell from just hearing one of their licks who it is, even if I had never heard of that song before in my life. Why does something so undeniably awesome have to be a thing of the past?
Take a Seat...Have a Seat
Hey, I'm going to use this blog as a place to post the random thoughts that go through my head on a daily basis, none of which I expect to make any sense whatsoever. And when I say random, I mean random. My mind is so screwed up that I can spend 30 minutes wondering why the hell ants can work so smoothly together and build massive colony for hundreds of ants, yet a group of five adults can't seem to build a paper airplane together if they don't get along, which makes my mind jump to a tangent about the flaws of human emotion, and so on and so forth.
You have been warned.
You have been warned.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)