Fellow Opethian's, I'm here to propose what churns in the caverns of my cerebral cortex.
Is Opeth's song writing naive, or is the absence of major chords an intended effect, to create this "unique" sound.
For classically trained musicians, when creating a melody, to bring "closure" to a melody usually a major chord is inserted in a chord progression. Thus far, the only songs I know of to contain major chords is "Harvest" and the "Pull me down again..." part in The Drapery Falls, although, it appears to be used either foolishly or innovatively, but it all depends on the view Mikael has in his song writing. Either he looks at it as "why do you have to use major chords in a chord progression, everyone does that, I want to do something unorthodox (respect knuckles)" or he doesn't really know how to form proper chord progressions and uses them out of spite, possibly like in Harvest where he plays the same root note as minor and then major. Are the intentions to be unorthodox or is it because he doesn't know the orthodox formula for a chord progression? Oh, and the the use of major chords doesn't really count in The Drapery Falls because it's part of the key it's played in; the major chords are not used to close the melody.
I recall watching some thing about dissecting The Drapery Falls and when he was talking about the eerie acoustic part about 2 or so minuts in the song, he said he didn't know what one of the chords he was playing, but they use that chord in alot of their songs. This, to me, indicates he has a mediocore knowledge in music theory, and maybe indicating a randomness in the chord progressions he writes, which is immature. As my second grade teacher said "You got to learn the rules before you break them" referring to poetry and grammar.
Disproving facts strongly welcomed.
Is Opeth's song writing naive, or is the absence of major chords an intended effect, to create this "unique" sound.
For classically trained musicians, when creating a melody, to bring "closure" to a melody usually a major chord is inserted in a chord progression. Thus far, the only songs I know of to contain major chords is "Harvest" and the "Pull me down again..." part in The Drapery Falls, although, it appears to be used either foolishly or innovatively, but it all depends on the view Mikael has in his song writing. Either he looks at it as "why do you have to use major chords in a chord progression, everyone does that, I want to do something unorthodox (respect knuckles)" or he doesn't really know how to form proper chord progressions and uses them out of spite, possibly like in Harvest where he plays the same root note as minor and then major. Are the intentions to be unorthodox or is it because he doesn't know the orthodox formula for a chord progression? Oh, and the the use of major chords doesn't really count in The Drapery Falls because it's part of the key it's played in; the major chords are not used to close the melody.
I recall watching some thing about dissecting The Drapery Falls and when he was talking about the eerie acoustic part about 2 or so minuts in the song, he said he didn't know what one of the chords he was playing, but they use that chord in alot of their songs. This, to me, indicates he has a mediocore knowledge in music theory, and maybe indicating a randomness in the chord progressions he writes, which is immature. As my second grade teacher said "You got to learn the rules before you break them" referring to poetry and grammar.
Disproving facts strongly welcomed.