Interesting video w. Steven Wilson incl. production, songwriting...
- Thread starter abyssofdreams
- Start date
egan.
daylightdies.com
I don't feel like all of these comments relate to the actual video. If you watch the whole thing it's clear he knows a lot about music but is grabbing at chords until he finds what he likes and not bothering to analyze "oh well this D with a #4 a major7 and 9. Besides the fact that I think you are intellectualizing too much if you can't tell that he knows what he's doing by listening to his records.
If you think he doesn't act cool enough I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, he seems like a dork....HE'S IN A PROG ROCK BAND. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but prog rock guys are generally between white jazz studies majors and computer programmers on the cool hierarchy.
If you think he doesn't act cool enough I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, he seems like a dork....HE'S IN A PROG ROCK BAND. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but prog rock guys are generally between white jazz studies majors and computer programmers on the cool hierarchy.
HandsOfDespair
Member
drew_drummer
Dancefap
+1
To me, the most uncool and utterly pointless stuff usually comes from formulaic metal bands, who focus on production waaayy too much to be bothered with experimenting with the actual song-writing process.
And the award for most obvious transition to a totally unrelated personal grudge goes to...
drew_drummer
Dancefap
Kazrog
Kazrog, Inc.
Haha, I agree 100%.
He never comes off as pretentious IMO, if anything he's self deprecating. Steven Wilson is the guy who, more than anyone else I can think of, is proving that low budget home productions can sound amazing and gain the respect of audiophiles, as well as have strong record sales. He's very humble and honest about it, and his way of describing what he does isn't all that different than most of us here.
Besides, I thought we were all dorks on this forum anyway?
This specific idea is *exactly* why there's so much jerking-off over knowing or not knowing theory. Nobody is arguing that the music is what counts - even Dream Theater, the favorite whipping boy of so many twats who somehow think that knowing theory is equivalent to having nothing but theory involved in songwriting. I know this isn't the exact argument you're trying to make, but I still think there's something missing here.
The relationship between theory and interesting songwriting is *exactly* the same as the relationship between having a grasp of a language and being able to say interesting things in it. The relationship between having an understanding of theory and an understanding of the language of theory (which includes things like scale and chord names) is like that between speaking a language and being able to speak coherently about the language.
Nobody without a serious case of empty-head-secured-firmly-up-ass syndrome is going to claim that knowing how to speak a language fluently and having something interesting to say are equivalent (for a clear counterexample, listen to Noam Chomsky) and to pretend that such a relationship holds in music is positively fucking absurd. Assuming that someone else believes so is a massive insult.
Even someone who doesn't know the names of the chords, scales, progressions, or [insert other favorite tool here] that they're using has to have some basic understanding of the ideas going on, and all theory does is cut away a ton of the clutter and bullshit to make things more accessible - you wouldn't write a novel by looking up every word in the thesaurus and passing every sentence through a spelling- and grammar-checker, because that would be a stupid waste of time compared to what would take to get more confidence and writing ability. This is exactly what music theory does - nothing more, nothing less.
This stupid "theory nerds versus feel players" bullshit has gone on far too long. Both imagined 'sides' of the debate need to take a few steps back and think this through a bit more.
(Yes, I am arguing about an argument, because I'm a meta-asshole who hasn't been drinking enough. Whee. Also, Steven Wilson is most likely better than you, unless you happen to be Devin Townsend or a discoverer of distillation.)
Jeff
SteelRat
Member
He annoyed me very quickly the first time I heard him speak on the Opeth DVD about the recording of Damnation and Deliverance.
He was trying to talk up Opeth's musical complexity, I guess, but he couldn't seem to do it without sounding condescending toward metal music as a whole. It seems like the people who like to think of themselves as intelligent and artistic always take shots at metal being big, dumb noise, without even really giving it a serious listen.
It's a big pet peeve of mine when people talk down about metal, saying stupid things about how "limiting" it is, or how "dumb" it is. Look at the variety and breadth of styles and sounds available to the metal musician...every style and mood from Blind Guardian's "The Eldar", to Cannibal Corpse's "Stripped, Raped and Strangled". You can incorporate elements of every other style of music into it, and still be metal, you can cover virtually any subject matter, and it fits.
No other genre of music can cover the amount of ground that metal can, and yet this is the most maligned music format ever. Comments like the ones he makes (maybe innocently) just continue to mislead those who haven't given metal a good chance, and it's very aggravating, to say the least.
I know I'm preaching to the choir, but sometimes I need to vent, and I've had a bad week...
He was trying to talk up Opeth's musical complexity, I guess, but he couldn't seem to do it without sounding condescending toward metal music as a whole. It seems like the people who like to think of themselves as intelligent and artistic always take shots at metal being big, dumb noise, without even really giving it a serious listen.
It's a big pet peeve of mine when people talk down about metal, saying stupid things about how "limiting" it is, or how "dumb" it is. Look at the variety and breadth of styles and sounds available to the metal musician...every style and mood from Blind Guardian's "The Eldar", to Cannibal Corpse's "Stripped, Raped and Strangled". You can incorporate elements of every other style of music into it, and still be metal, you can cover virtually any subject matter, and it fits.
No other genre of music can cover the amount of ground that metal can, and yet this is the most maligned music format ever. Comments like the ones he makes (maybe innocently) just continue to mislead those who haven't given metal a good chance, and it's very aggravating, to say the least.
I know I'm preaching to the choir, but sometimes I need to vent, and I've had a bad week...
Although I don't like seeing people speak poorly of all of metal, as if it could be shoved into one tiny little hole and treated as bazillions of copies of the same thing, the impression I got from the Opeth commentary was nothing like that. As with anything else, 99% of metal is worthless garbage and there's no point in denying that. Metal doesn't have to be 'limiting', of course (unless you buy into the worst combination of elitism and narrow-mindedness imaginable), but those that find metal to be freeing and not limiting are, sadly, not very common.
I don't think metal can outdo jazz as far as covering ground - at best, they're at about the same level there.
Jeff
I don't think metal can outdo jazz as far as covering ground - at best, they're at about the same level there.
Jeff
GarethSE
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Me neither, and I'm not sure how someone could... I happen to know one of Steve's favorite bands is Meshuggah so the idea of him looking down on metal is a bit of a stretch.
Classical as well. I've never heard anything in metal as avant-sounding as Koshkin, Penderecki, Berg, Webern.... and yet you all know how awfully conservative a lot of classical music is. So there's a lot of ground right there.
Plus... I haven't heard a metal band with a musical saw or ondes martenot player
RemoWilliams
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Classical as well. I've never heard anything in metal as avant-sounding as Koshkin, Penderecki, Berg, Webern.... and yet you all know how awfully conservative a lot of classical music is. So there's a lot of ground right there.
Plus... I haven't heard a metal band with a musical saw or ondes martenot player
I know. I remember listening to Berg's "Lyric Suite" and Gorguts track "Obscura" and thinking, "Waaaait a minute. These sound almost the same except one has drums and distortion." So yeah, any style of music and blend and push boundaries.
GarethSE
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yeah but gorguts are avant-death metal sorta
obscura is retarded as all fuck
it still isnt really all that out there compared to what it could be
its still too obsessed with notes over atmosphere and mood
edit: that probably came out wrong. im not putting berg down, i was just comparing gorguts to the rest of the metal world inside my own head
obscura is retarded as all fuck
it still isnt really all that out there compared to what it could be
its still too obsessed with notes over atmosphere and mood
edit: that probably came out wrong. im not putting berg down, i was just comparing gorguts to the rest of the metal world inside my own head
RemoWilliams
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None taken. I believe Berg would have some very abstract thoughts on his music and probably the metal of today as well.
RemoWilliams
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Zack Uidl
Member
when he sings over the chord progression at the end, it totally reminded me of spinal tap when nigel is explaining "lick my love pump" hahaha
cool video, thanks for posting
cool video, thanks for posting
