Analyzing Opeth - the Song Structures

[dwoakee]

When I tell someone about Opeth I often say that their songs are 10+ minutes with 20-something different parts and few repetitions. And that they have complex song structures. But then I wondered - how many parts do the songs really have? What structure do they really have apart from being put together from 20 different pieces? Are there any repeating patterns? A song format that is found more than once? So, I set out to dissect the songs into sections and try to find such patterns. I submit for your entertainment and consideration:

Analyzing Opeth - the Song Structures

Mind you, I didn't go for the notes, just a breakdown of the song into sections and seeing what I can make of this. It's no PhD, I know. Constructive criticism and corrections welcome.

While I was at it, I also garnered the analysis with my personal song review to round it off.

 

[Misko]

A musician myself, I can quite understand your analysis, and I do think you made a good effort explaining their music. But if I ever learned anything in music school, it is that music cannot, no, should not be described. Try to explain sex to someone who has not experienced it. Or try explain colours to a blind man. Useless. Music must not be put to a paper. It's not it's medium. Not it's language. I'm not bashing at your effort here, I just believe you should forget about numbers and parts, forms and what not, and enjoy it like a 7-year-old kid in a amusement park. That's the right way. It's meant to be felt, not understood.

 

[Carl Hungus]

I enjoyed reading your anaylisis/opinions of those songs. I am finding that Atonement gets a liitle old sometimes. It's wierd though, because it depends on my mood. Sometimes I like it and other times it seems too repetitive.

I think all the variations are why listening to this band doesn't get old to me. I am always in the mood to put Opeth on, but I have to be in certain moods for almost every other band.

 

[Maggai]

That's pretty cool duder.

 

[RiffBoy]

I submit for your entertainment and consideration...

Cool, well done, thanks!!

 

[dwoakee]

Thank you all for the positive feedback!

To Misko: I understand what you are saying about it being pointless to describe music from a listener's point of view. I know other people who think the same. Yet, I am a bit surprised that you say that as a musician. My thinking was always that you can very well analyze a piece of music to find out what makes it so special and learn from it to enhance your own compositions. That's more or less what I think is meant by studying music. And it can be done formally or informally, consciously or inconsciously. Of course, you may choose not to do it. Some people make great music by just listening and feeling their way through it. But imo for them the analyzing happens unconsciously. The brain does it for those people without them being aware of it.

 

[hibernal_dream]

This is not really an structural analysis, is it? I mean, it's just a list of statistics and observations accompanied with an opinion of how much the writer enjoys the song.

 

[Crepuscularia]

No, not really a structural analysis, but still interesting to see the order of sections and subsections of these songs. Since there have been a number of threads discussing analyzing Opeth's music, I'm sure its only a matter of time before some music theory expert/geek posts a full functional analysis involving pdf's of Opeth's sheet music with roman numerals splattered everywhere. That would actually be of more interest to me, being a geek myself: how many modulations are there in a given Opeth song? Is there any motivic development? For example, in demon of the fall there's a riff toward the end that sounds like it's almost an inversion of the second riff.....

all this musical complexity is making my head hurt

 

[Jester-Race]

ive had this in my bookmarks for like ages what theshit is it about im too drunk plz explain

 

[DinoB]

I've actually really enjoyed this. I sort of did a little thing like this for Forest of October a while ago to get a feeling for the song structure. I find it funny that some bands have a few riffs in each song on an album, while other bands like Opeth have riffs in the double digits on almost every song...I love it.

...I'm sure its only a matter of time before some music theory expert/geek posts a full functional analysis involving pdf's of Opeth's sheet music with roman numerals splattered everywhere. That would actually be of more interest to me, being a geek myself: how many modulations are there in a given Opeth song? Is there any motivic development? For example, in demon of the fall there's a riff toward the end that sounds like it's almost an inversion of the second riff.....

all this musical complexity is making my head hurt

I have only taken a couple of music theory classes and I've thought about analyzing a couple of Opeth songs, but I feel like it would take away the mystery if you know what I mean.

 

[liquidcow]

I'd quite like to see a more visual representation of some of Opeth's song structures, I dunno, like a graph or something, would be a bit easier to take in than a list.

About what Crepuscularia was saying, I think there might be some sections on Still Life and MAYH that reference across songs. I remember thinking there was a bit in When that sounded like a riff in Demon of the Fall. Also, in Serenity Painted Death it repeats part of the tune of Benighted, which I'm pretty sure must be deliberate. I wonder if there are more that I've missed.

 

[Tepheron]

Music must not be put to a paper. It's not its medium. Not its language.

Just thought I'd correct that, since I found it hard to read.

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

I know what you're saying about Reverie and Harlequin Forest with the negative time thing. I split up Reverie into a seperate track on my iTunes, so now my Ghost Reveries has 9 tracks. Easier that way.