For me it's not about the density of TP music, it's about my own density. Density's Child.
For me it's not about the density of TP music, it's about my own density. Density's Child.
Originally Posted by KerryKompost
My progressive music site: https://pienemmatpurot.com/ Reviews in English: https://pienemmatpurot.com/in-english/
My favorite 9 seconds in the entire recorded ouevre of The 'Plague is 2:13-2:24 in "Dead Silence". Its a real toe-tapper of a section. This is no joke, I usually rewind that part like 10 times each time I spin that tune, so I never really end up hearing the tune the way it was intended. Its OK, you don't need to feel sorry for me, I somehow manage to make it work for myself.
Holy crap, I can't count. Its 11 seconds! Wow.
Last edited by chalkpie; 03-20-2017 at 04:12 PM.
Ah, the beginning of Part 2 of the song, aka the 'dying goose' section, so named because of the sax part! A real toe-tapper....
Sheesh
And the code is a play, a play is a song, a song is a film, a film is a dance...
A fun piece, that one. One of my favourites along with Maelstrom.
And the code is a play, a play is a song, a song is a film, a film is a dance...
Mike, are all of the guitar parts scored or are you and Bill improvising? There's some really knotty guitar parts, but they seem so precise and interwoven that I suspect they're scored. Quite an achievement in itself!
There's plenty that works for me. Always has been. And, after going back and listening to "Dead Silence" to see what part Frank was referring to, I realized that the whole thing sounded like, "yes, it does this, and that is right." Which in turn made me realize that what I said was based on impressions that may be years old, in some cases; and that I might be a better listener now, with more of a taste for "difficult" music, and better able to assimilate what you're doing. So I'll try to go back and listen to some of your older albums again (although I have a lot of other stuff that needs listening to, so that may take a while).
Last edited by Baribrotzer; 03-21-2017 at 04:16 PM.
There has never been very much improvising in TP - only in certain 'special' limited areas. As for Hoping Against Hope, there is almost no improv anywhere on the record. Bill's insane riffs on Thus Have We Made the World are possibly the only example of improv. And even then, he may have practiced and prepared those insane licks, but Drake and I placed them where we wanted after the fact. Otherwise, yes, the guitars, reeds, accordions, vocals, bass , drums, everything, are all scored out to achieve the interwoven effect you hear, which creates the harmony you hear. Not as blocks of chords but rather as a kind of morphing harmony. That kind of very intentional thing cannot really be achieved spontaneously. One can get lucky, but not THAT lucky. But this is the nature of TP music. While we allow for some improv live, very little is left to chance on our recordings.
^^ Thanks for that! Truly amazing. The guitar parts are very complex, though beautiful! It's a little difficult to tell you and Bill apart as the tone is very similar.
Ha - now that you say that it does sound like a dying goose! Great. Its an amazing tune overall, but that little segment just blows my mind, just spectacular.
Mike's tone is a little rawer, Bill's more like the Holdsworth "alto sax" sound. Also, Mike plays the stuff that is merely hard, Bill plays the stuff that is flat-out impossible.
^^ That helps! All of it sounds flat-out impossible to me!
Well, Mike sounds like Steve Howe taken further - what he's doing is tough, but it's within the limits of a good rock guitarist; it's more his musical conception that is difficult to grasp. Whereas Bill sounds like Holdsworth - the sweep-picking and the insanely fast and precise passages that a violinist would have trouble with. When I saw them at the record release party, I was cracking jokes about Bill being the "stunt guitarist" who played the stuff that Mike couldn't.
Most of the time, not all, Bill is on the right and I'm on the left in the mix. But as I say, occasionally it switches, sometimes a guitar will move to the middle. A few times they just trade places...the arcane mysteries of mixology! If anyone is really interested, I can make parts available as PDFs.... Bill tends to use a little vibrato at times, and I tend to use almost none, or just a little violin-style. Tonewise, it's hard to tell because in 'producing' the guitars, I often used similar additional distortions and EQ to make the tones fuzzier or more compatible. That said, Bill tends to roll his tone knob back and to go for a dark overdrive tone that decays faster, whereas I often go for a 'singing' distortion-almost fuzz that is very sustainy, and usually brighter than Bill's. But like I said, some of the differences were de-emphsized in pre-mixing and mixing.
Soooo glad you like it! But it does make me think I've failed, if I haven't produced anything in the 20 years since, that could supplant that bit for you!
Oh well... A lot of it was impossible for both of us initially! But practice can conquer all...or nearly all barriers. However, I *must* take credit for the pretty near impossible, bizarrely-buzzing-serpent guitar solo in the middle of Dirge. That took some work.....before and after the fact.
To a certain extent that's true, especially when he plays parts that were originally played by piano or other keys; or when he solos, like at the end of Behold the Man or Consolamentum live. But any of the written 'guitar' parts I could in fact play if I had to. Just sayin..... ;^>
Definitely not true sir! I dig many huge heaping spoonfuls of The Plague post-In Extremis, its just happens that the "dying goose" bit is and will be forever embedded in my feeble meatball, so it holds a special place in my gallbladder. A History of Madness took a while to set in, but now its one of me favorites. In This Life might still be my absolute fav, but quite honestly every album is different and holds different aesthetics, so its difficult to compare apples to oranges. Its quite an achievement when you look at the entire Plague catalog.
That's excellent, John. Proves what I've been preaching!
Blush...thankee, sir. (For a sedond I thought we were galking abput paté de foie gras! 8^> )Definitely not true sir! I dig many huge heaping spoonfuls of The Plague post-In Extremis, its just happens that the "dying goose" bit is and will be forever embedded in my feeble meatball, so it holds a special place in my gallbladder. A History of Madness took a while to set in, but now its one of me favorites. In This Life might still be my absolute fav, but quite honestly every album is different and holds different aesthetics, so its difficult to compare apples to oranges. Its quite an achievement when you look at the entire Plague catalog.
This is a listenable rock music record, I think.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
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Well, that's progress!Of course, if it's "listenable" for YOU, Monsieur le Scrote, then we must be as obscure as ever!!
^ I dunno 'bout that, Mike. I remember something you wrote many years back on how you wished for the overall challenge of a TP-listening experience to be NOT about in-yr-face forceful intricacy (as in the music of Ruins or Upsilon or whoever), but rather a communication of density in "underlying vision" - or something like that. And I would absolutely agree on this; TP's expression - as opposed to some of those "punk-prog" bands or whatever - is very profoundly based around the logic of a small ensemble format, albeit working in orchestral modes of voicing and dynamic etc. not particularly common even to 95% of what's usually discussed in places like PE.
As such I think there's a LOT more for the uninitiated "advanced" listener to hack into with TP than the case would be if you were writing music for, say, a laptop and two bass guitars ála Weasel Walter/Ron Anderson style (both of whom I very much respect as well). Just sayin'.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
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