Isaac_de_Moorea
Silent Member
Legend, Swansong and Underworld wouldn´t be the same songs without keyboards, so I think they have an important role on those songs. But Pinella is not totally present on this new album, he is not back on the role he used to have, to show the skilled musician he is, at least on SX . Ascension proofs he still got the magic, though. No offense, but all who is talking about Pinella´s comeback has a really limited perspective about keyboards. Is like saying that the guitar tone of MJR hasn´t improved or changed since V. Or like praising the whole guitar work on an album based on simple power chords with tasty solos. I would praise the lead guitar work, not the rythm guitar work.
You wouldn´t call a "keyboard line" just a note or a simple melody in half o quarter notes doubled an octave being played for 16 bars, would you? Well, that happened on the past, but then you also had some bright percussive instrument doing an interesting melody, sometimes with polyrythym, to suddenly change to a nice lead tone for a great solo, then maybe brasses, or maybe the infrequent organ (although the church organ was a little more frequent), then back to piano, so now get back to the melody on strings but you are in a new tonality now, actually the truth is that you have been using 4 different tonalities and metrics the hole section and the song hasn´t finished...
This is an obvious imaginary and a little exagerated or infrequent example, but that was my perspective on what keyboards were on SX. That even motivated me to be more aware to the keyboards in prog in general. For me was a really classy, measured and creative way to give an important role to such interesting instrument (Being JR of DT almost the opossite, but still interesting, depends of your cup of tea) which has the ability to transport you in an easier and more graphic way, as AsoTamaki said, to a different landscape. You hear brasses, you are in hell; now pluck bells, you can be on heaven, or maybe a rock organ, we´re back on the 70s!.
This (insignificant at the end) issue on the keyboards of SX started in The Odyssey, where you start to find songs where you can ask yourself what the hell is doing Pinnella some of the time. Still, was present, and still, had plenty of tasteful moments, as in Accolade II, Awakenings or The Oddysey. But suddenly you are on IC, where is really limited amount of time where you can say, "well, there is a new landscape or color there. Or well, those are strings again, but at least they are introducing me a new musical idea, not just filling up the harmony or playing an incipient (but still good?) melody. thank you".
It is also obvious that the limitantions on patches selection started with the decreasing of Pinella´s contributions on SX songs. Compositionally, SX is more stable, less experimenting, and even more mature in some aspects. MJR is the main composer on the band, his view on what keyboards should do may have changed, and affected to limit the keys at the end.
I´m still enjoying most of Underworld, specially the songs I mentioned at the beggining of the post. I even thought making a keyboard cover video over Underworld (the song). But then I thought, well, there are parts where it wouldn´t be that interesting to see me sustaining 2 or 3 keys for some amount of time, or playing 2 or 3 times the relatively short parts of interesting keyboards it has. Nah, I´d prefer working to eventually doing some Haken, DT, or even better Communion or TtLG. There is some serious shit happening there
And still, being positive, it´s really good to see that Pinella had major influence on these albums than in the last two. What is really sad is that we will have to wait like 5 long years to see if there will be even more work of him in the future of SX.
You wouldn´t call a "keyboard line" just a note or a simple melody in half o quarter notes doubled an octave being played for 16 bars, would you? Well, that happened on the past, but then you also had some bright percussive instrument doing an interesting melody, sometimes with polyrythym, to suddenly change to a nice lead tone for a great solo, then maybe brasses, or maybe the infrequent organ (although the church organ was a little more frequent), then back to piano, so now get back to the melody on strings but you are in a new tonality now, actually the truth is that you have been using 4 different tonalities and metrics the hole section and the song hasn´t finished...
This is an obvious imaginary and a little exagerated or infrequent example, but that was my perspective on what keyboards were on SX. That even motivated me to be more aware to the keyboards in prog in general. For me was a really classy, measured and creative way to give an important role to such interesting instrument (Being JR of DT almost the opossite, but still interesting, depends of your cup of tea) which has the ability to transport you in an easier and more graphic way, as AsoTamaki said, to a different landscape. You hear brasses, you are in hell; now pluck bells, you can be on heaven, or maybe a rock organ, we´re back on the 70s!.
This (insignificant at the end) issue on the keyboards of SX started in The Odyssey, where you start to find songs where you can ask yourself what the hell is doing Pinnella some of the time. Still, was present, and still, had plenty of tasteful moments, as in Accolade II, Awakenings or The Oddysey. But suddenly you are on IC, where is really limited amount of time where you can say, "well, there is a new landscape or color there. Or well, those are strings again, but at least they are introducing me a new musical idea, not just filling up the harmony or playing an incipient (but still good?) melody. thank you".
It is also obvious that the limitantions on patches selection started with the decreasing of Pinella´s contributions on SX songs. Compositionally, SX is more stable, less experimenting, and even more mature in some aspects. MJR is the main composer on the band, his view on what keyboards should do may have changed, and affected to limit the keys at the end.
I´m still enjoying most of Underworld, specially the songs I mentioned at the beggining of the post. I even thought making a keyboard cover video over Underworld (the song). But then I thought, well, there are parts where it wouldn´t be that interesting to see me sustaining 2 or 3 keys for some amount of time, or playing 2 or 3 times the relatively short parts of interesting keyboards it has. Nah, I´d prefer working to eventually doing some Haken, DT, or even better Communion or TtLG. There is some serious shit happening there
And still, being positive, it´s really good to see that Pinella had major influence on these albums than in the last two. What is really sad is that we will have to wait like 5 long years to see if there will be even more work of him in the future of SX.
