Opeth has an insane amount of guitar bridges I noticed.

[sadistik necrofiend]

(FYI, I fucked up the title of this post......Open should say OPETH)


God Damn!!!!!

I was listening to Blackwater Park last night and I was like......holy shit!!!!!!

It seems like between every riff there is a bridge. This is not at all a bad thing, its just incredible. I find myself very jealous as a songwriter.
If your not a guitarist, you may not have any idea what I am talking about. They end up coming up with a riff and then write a short bridge passage which somehow just flows insanely into the next riff. Its just insane. Why music professors are not pulling their hair out over this band, baffles me.

 

[wut wut]

I'm not a guitar player.

Could you explain what part the bridge is on, say, the first riff in "The Leper Affinity?"

 

[sadistik necrofiend]

from the 1st riff into the 2nd riff there is a bridge. Seems to happen through the rest of the song if I remember correctly.

 

[wut wut]

I can only think of the first riff, and that going into the riff with the vocals going "Your body is mine to avail." No bridge that I can hear.

Of course, that "first riff" I'm thinking of could actually be half riff, half bridge.

First riff: Duh-nuh-nu-uh, Duh-nuh-neer, da-de-da-da-da-da, repeat

 

[Lateralus14]

I don't believe there's a bridge between the first and second riff of TLA but there's definitely one between the second/third and the third/fourth. I envy Mike too as a songwriter, but I envy most songwriters cuz I can't write a damn thing that's interesting yet not disjointed. My guitar teacher had never heard of Opeth until I brought Ghost of Perdition to work out a few months ago, he never mentioned the bridge thing but he just thought it was awesome that we got to "Section Q" while writing down the notes, most songs just being repetitions of 3-5 sections.

 

[truhlo]

Yeah, thats a good observation. I think the exact point where Opeth's songwriting leaps out of conventional writing, or even transgresses from "songwriting" to composition as more "advanced" artistic expression is the whole bridge/interlude thing. Its how they manipulate this "connective tissue" of their compositions that maybe shows best how much more there can be to music than standard classic rock vocabulary. I also love how those bridge sections always have a purpose and steer the songs forward rather than make them stop and plod in self-indulgent improvisations and solos (which is often the problem of ambitious yet not fully mature bands). Bridges make the music expand formally ("Section Q", sounds almost mystical, lol), yet they are terse and brisk!

And, yeah, i think music professors should be pulling their hair , but lets not forget many of them have traditional-enough taste, so it will take time perhaps before some of them dig really deep into musicological aspects of O's music.

 

[Arasmas]

bridge
noun

a short section (typically of eight bars) in the middle of a conventionally structured popular song, generally of a different character from the other parts of the song.

-oxford american

the word you're going for is probably "transition" or "segue," and regardless, the reason music professors aren't "pulling their hair out" is because it isn't particularly complicated or hard to understand

 

[Bucu]

no Modular structure of songs in opeth`s music

 

[Koi]

A bridge is usually something that links together parts that otherwise wouldn't work together.
I think opeth had alot of bridges in the early days because they couldn't write songs as well
and ended up having to somehow piece together everything anyway
But they make it sound good so i won't complain.

 

[dwoakee]

the word you're going for is probably "transition" or "segue," and regardless, the reason music professors aren't "pulling their hair out" is because it isn't particularly complicated or hard to understand

i wouldn't say that writing transitions in between riffs isn't complicated, but music professors (at least such that deal with classical music) will not be amazed because classical music transitions virtually all the time. however, they might acknowledge the high standards that Opeth has (have?) among rock/metal musicians.

yet, in classical music the riffage just isn't the same.

 

[wut wut]

the word you're going for is probably "transition" or "segue," and regardless, the reason music professors aren't "pulling their hair out" is because it isn't particularly complicated or hard to understand

Oh, that.

Megadeth was doing that shit all the time in the 80's. They were the masters of riffage and riffage transitions for a while.

 

[Lateralus14]

A bridge is usually something that links together parts that otherwise wouldn't work together.
I think opeth had alot of bridges in the early days because they couldn't write songs as well
and ended up having to somehow piece together everything anyway
But they make it sound good so i won't complain.

No, in the early days they pretty much just recorded one riff after another because they couldn't write transitions very well.

 

[Crepuscularia]

No, in the early days they pretty much just recorded one riff after another because they couldn't write transitions very well.

Lots of times, they still can't. See e.g. Porcelain Heart.

 

[Chinese Whispers]

It probably wasn't until My Arms, Your Hearse that Opeth really started getting these bridge/transition parts down - there are a few smooth ones in the first two, but there are plenty that aren't, but in a twisted way I kind of like that train-of-thought riff rambling. It's not as if it is St. Anger anyway

 

[Koi]

No, in the early days they pretty much just recorded one riff after another because they couldn't write transitions very well.

Wasn't that what i said?
Writing a song as one whole is completely different than writing a riff or a compilation of riffs.

 

[Jester-Race]

SAIIIENT ANGerrrrrrrrrrrr ROUND MAH NEYYYYYYYYYYCK - AH

 

[Iki-ilkkuja]

They're not bridges as there are rarely choruses, so transistions would be the right term.

 

[Mr Samsara]

(FYI, I fucked up the title of this post......Open should say OPETH)

You don't have to thank me, but it would be nice.

 

[sadistik necrofiend]

You don't have to thank me, but it would be nice.

I just berely noticed yesterday. Thanks