NWO Class of Musical Theory

Originally posted by DrBones666
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There is a good video on www.youtube.com of Django playing with Stephan Grappelli, its truly amazing to watch his technique of two fingered guitar.

I'd just like to know one thing. How do you properly say Django? I have never figured that one out. Don't they sell guitar strings with his name on them.


My musical interests are Country, Rock & Roll from the fifties till now, classical piano particularly on the softer side and Smooth Jazz. I change a lot though, I listen to something till I just can't stand it anymore and change a while.

Originally posted by DrBones666
...
Well....apart from being highly offensive not only to me but to the entire African race, you admit to being a fan of Hitler?
...

Technically, African is not a race. It's an ethnicity. And it's not even an even ethnicity (Saharan vs Sub-Saharan). Human races are Homo Sapien Sapien (us), Cro-Magnon, Neanderthal, Homoerectus, etc.

But I see what your hintin' at.

Anway, back on topic:

Orderoftheblazingsun

WTF is your deal man?! Nazi sympathizer? You think Classical Music is outdated? So I suppose you don't study Music Theory (or any other language at that. Maybe not even Math [a language]).

How can anyone be that genuinly ignorant?

@ the threadstarter whats with the slagging of electronic music ?

People like me who have been listening to electronic music for over 10 years dont go around slagging other people for their musical tastes as you are doing.

This goes to show that you have no idea what electronic music is made up of, of how diverse it can be.

Maybe you should grab a hold of Cosmic Babys thinking about myself

Have a listen to it then come back and tell me electronic music is bad and the djs and producers dont have taste.

[edit on 20-7-2006 by Fett Pinkus]

Originally posted by madhatter
There's not much more I could add to this thread but, Masonic Light it's hard to find fellow Ritchie Blackmore fans.

Yeah man, always thought he was great. Have you heard any of his newer stuff with Blackmore's Night? His wife is the singer, and she's into all this Renaissance stuff, so their music is sort of medieval-minstrel sounding, very unique and interesting.

They re-did Rainbow's "Self Portrait" in this style and i loved it, although it sounded much different than the original. I was always a big Rainbow fan (although I didn't follow them much after Dio left), and this ws always one of my favorite songs by them.

As to the other guy who blasted jazz and classical: firstly, jazz is a unique art form inasmuch as it is purely American. Secondly, jazz has always been on the forefront of innovation. Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Satch and Basie, etc. All those guys are untouchable.

As for classical being outdated, I did not know it was possible for art to become outdated.

Yeah, some music has a way of resurfacing. It may be old but we still like it.

I feel there is room for all kinds of music. Electronic music just uses a different sort of "instrument." Ultimately the musician still needs to know what sounds good, and needs to know how to put music into the physical universe, so it is something somebody wants to listen to.

Troy

Originally posted by Fett Pinkus
@ the threadstarter whats with the slagging of electronic music ?

People like me who have been listening to electronic music for over 10 years dont go around slagging other people for their musical tastes as you are doing.

This goes to show that you have no idea what electronic music is made up of, of how diverse it can be.

[edit on 20-7-2006 by Fett Pinkus]

Actually I did a year on music technology, more specifically how to create electronic music, including techno, but I found the recording component of that particular course much more fulfilling because I have always had more of a penchant for Real Instruments.

I started the thread by saying I didn't mean to insult anyones musical tastes, as I understand it is a purely personal preference, I merely meant to highlight the fact that genuine virtuoso musicians don't get the recognition they deserve in todays culture, instead, accolades are paid in tribute to corporate shills such as Britney Spears and talentless boy bands.

When the term musical genius is bandied about so willingly in reference to todays American Idol Trumped Up Karaoke Competition Winners, it starts to lose its true meaning.

I am not bagging all electronic music, or music technology, I have nothing but the highest regards for the uses of the computer, programs such as ProTools mean you can turn your personal computer into a recording studio, thus cutting out middlemen and sacrificing musicianship for corporate gain.

Not to mention the fact that instead of having to write out musical scores either by hand or by clicking on one note at a time, I can simply use a USB cable to plug my electric piano into the computer, and play what I am committing to notation.

Even some electronic music is not so bad, as long as its catchier kinda tunes like Spillers, some house music seems at least to comprehend the idea of music for the sake of art, even if its not a media I would ever work in.

Just because something is experimental doesn't make it mellisonant, and yes I understand that some music is not designed to be melodious, this however, I would refer to as organised noise, or musak.

I'll state once again for the record, I'm not trying to insult anyones musical preferences, or tell anyone that their audio prediliction is less than discerning.

I just prefer music played by genuine instruments.

That's cool, instrumental music is fine. It is an art form for sure. I'd like to learn how to play an instrument or electronic version. I play around with it now and then.

I have this wierd thing with rock bands "unplugging," though. I'm not big on that. I saw the Stone Temple Pilots doing an unplugged version of a song, yuck! Give me the original!

Some of the good bands out there nowadays, in my eyes, are bands like Audioslave and Staind. Creed, when they were together were an excellent band.

Then there are bands that put out some hits, but you don't like the rest of the CD all that much. It is so disappointing to buy a CD for a song, then while listening to the rest of the CD you wish you just had the single. Or the 1st debut CD was awesome, but the second CD, you wish you hadn't paid for it.

But again, yeah, some of the music nowadays is wierd. It sounds good, but you don't really want to listen to it because it sounds prepackaged, it lacks the originality that makes it special.

Troy

Originally posted by toeragpunk
up untill the point where you mention slipknot and slayer i aggree with you whole heartedly popular music today sucks, its a talentless plastic waste land no arguemnets there

once you get past the singing and u can listen to each instrument individualy most bands like slipknot and slaying are actualy VERY telented at there given instrument

basicly what you are saying is that heavy music sucks....that maybe your opion but im going to attempt to show you that the people behind the instruments in these bands can infact be very talented ill attempt to show you this instrument by instrument (the instruments of your adverage heavy or alternative band)

Drums:
flo mounier of the band cryptopsy, an inhumanly fast drummer first trained in jazz drumming (theres abit of the end of a song at the begining before the solo)

pete sandoval of mobid angel here doing a drum check before a show(unfortunately only audio)

Guitar:

michael angelo batio probly the fastest guitar player out there was in a metalband called nitro in the late 80's early 90's and can play both left and right handed, and even 2 guitars at once as seenhere(sorry about the terrable quality video)

then theres yngwie melmsteenplaying part of beethovens 5th

Bass:

danny growl of dark elf playing a random solo for the cammera

while you may not like the sound of some of these you cant go past the fact they all have huge amounts of talent

thanks for reading my gramaticly lacking and poorly spelt babble

This is where my attention was caught. First off, Slipknot is horrible, and the fact that people try and pass them off as true metal these days makes me want to rape someone with a brick. Joey Jordison is a talented drummer, and Mick and Jim need to go play their guitars to their fullest potential in another band.

Slayer is hardly any good IMO, and I'm a firm lover of Thrash Metal. But I ALSO love Melody in my Metal(No, not that gothenburg bull#, and that symphonic wannabe power metal). Anyone telling me ALL Metal is non-musical and talentless does not know anything. Go explore it before you apply negative comments to it. Thrash Metal has lots of good musicians, it's just that Slayer really aren't them. Slayer has had some good riffs..but as a band, they're not that great IMO, and are only the tip of the iceberg as far that style of Metal goes. Anyone who wants to hear something very riff based. THRASH METAL..you just gotta know the right bands to check out.... Now, I like all kinds of Metal, not just Thrash and Speed Metal. I like REAL Power Metal, and also Power/Progressive Metal bands like Eidolon, Symphony X and some others.

I could go on all day defending Heavy Metal, and closed minded morons who don't know anything about music would try and fight me on it. The thing is I've explored this music, you haven't. I hate all this Metalcore and Hardcore bullcrap and Nu-Metal and that filth trying to pass off as true Metal. It gives people the wrong idea, and quite frankly it makes me sick.....

Oh yeah, and Michael Angelo isn't that impressive. I'd take Joe Satriani or eric Johnson over that man any day of the week.
[edit on 24-7-2006 by UnstoppableForce]

[edit on 24-7-2006 by UnstoppableForce]

[edit on 24-7-2006 by UnstoppableForce]

Ok, this thread is turning into a bit of an insult free for all, something I was worried about, so lets try and change the direction to more of a friendly BTS thing and everyone can just list their favourite intruments, and the instrumentalists who play them....

Music is supposed to bring people together, not seperate with arguments, although I'm willing to admit, I stooped to a semi trolling level with my last post!

Anyway....

Trombone -
Bob Brookmeyer, Bill Watrous, Carl Fontana, Rob McConnell, Steve Turre, Christian Lindberg,
Trumpet -
Clark Terry, Wynton Marsalis, James Morrisson (I'm opening for him in October!) Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie
Reeds (Clarinet, Saxophones, Flute etc) -
Acker Bilk, Sidney Bechet, Benny Goodman, Herbie Mann, Michael Brecker, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Al Cohn, Coltrane, Colman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Wayne Shorter,
Piano/Keyboard -Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Roger Woodward, Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk,
Guitar - Herb Ellis, Peter Zogrivarius, George Benson, Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, John Scofield,
Violin - Stephane Grappelli
Vocal - Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tourme, Tony Bennet,
Bass - Jaco Pastorius, Ron Carter, Christian McBride, Charles Mingus,
Drums - Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Max Lewis, Mel Roach, Chick Webb

There are many many more that I like, even outside the fields of Classical or Jazz, but I think that will do for now....

List your favourite albums as well if you want

Hey man. I wasn't referring to you as a moron. I was generalizing with my post at who it applied to


Anyway..

My favorite guitar players are:

Lee Altus, Marty Friedman, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Bernie Versailles, Glen Drover, Alex Skolnick....and a bunch of other guys...haha

Favorite vocalists:

David Godfrey(White), John Cyriis, Bruce Hall, Nils K. Rue, Chuck Billy, Flemming Rönsdorf, James Rivera...and more..yeah haha

my list could go on for other musicians..but I'm far too tired to continue with that...


My favorite album of all time is:

Heathen-Victims Of Deception

Originally posted by DrBones666


List your favourite albums as well if you want

Beyond the shadow of any doubt, here are my top 5:

5. In Rock - Deep Purple
4. Physical Graffitti - Led Zeppelin
3. Demons And Wizards - Uriah Heep
2. Paranoid - Black Sabbath
1. Abbey Road - Beatles

Well Ive got to stick up for the electronic music corner....

One of my friends here in the UK is a celebrated worldwide Trance music producer and before he began producing Trance music he had already been playing classical piano for 15 years, he also played the violin. He knows more about music theory than I care to imagine. He begun using a computer for production purely for the extreme creativity it allowed him. Nowadays any instrument can be almost perfectly replicated on a computer and this allows one person in his bedroom the ability to produce a symphony of instruments and listen to how the finished piece sounds and edit it on the fly... if one desires!

Trance music can be full of extremely complex chord progressions and aprregios, can be extremely emotional and many tracks usually involve an element of string arrangement.

"Nobody listens to genuine virtuoso instrumentalists anymore, this is very sad, electronic music has killed the industry, and I don't mean electric guitar and bass etc, but music that is made purely by computer."

You talk of killing the industry but electronic music has created its own industry with many dedicated fans of its many sub-genres. Unfortuntely this is called progress, people listen to the sort of music that reflects their lives and emotions. With talk of out of tune music etc. people like to be challenged and thats where experimentation comes into its own. Many great composers didnt stick to music theory because thats what it is theory. Its a guide not a strict set of rules on how to make music!

"Nobody seems to listen to any kind of music with depth in any popular setting, instead we have this awful techno and hardcore rubbish that makes my ears want to bleed. To me, music should be considered an artform, not the degrading popularity image contest it has become."

Again I go back to electronic music, people go to clubs to experience wonderful music together, to be taken somewhere special by the music. Take for example a DJ called Tiesto from the netherlands. He has countless fans who follow him around the globe for "the musical journey" he takes them on when he plays. It brings communities of people together worldwide which is truly special.

All music taste is subjective but at the end of the day it reflects the people of the time. Im lucky I have an electic taste that spans rock,classical,electronic and yes at one time I did like the odd bit of Jazz, Bluenote is a prollific label and has had many good releases which Ive purchased over the years.


[edit on 26-7-2006 by Bez]

Hi,
when listening to music I wouldn't pay so much attention on the technical skills of the artist but on in how far he is able to express his feelings and thoughts musically. The musical skills can give you an extra kick sometimes but music doesn't have to be complex or anything just to be good. I really got into music when I started listening to the Beatles at the age of six (what was 11 years ago) and have been hooked ever since. I listened to the Beatles, Beach Boys, Kinks, Chuck Berry, Little Richard , etc. (rock'n'roll and "60s pop") and about three years ago really got into the blues and although it's much simpler than a lot of the late Beatles stuff (or progresive rock or whatever) I can get the same (and sometimes even better) "kicks" out of it. A very good example are Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, two Piedmont Blues (is that the way you spell it?) artists. Only one guitar, one harmonica and their voices and it's perfect. There is no way playing their music better than they did. Here are three videos of them
www.youtube.com... (This is one of my all time favorites)
www.youtube.com...
www.youtube.com...

By the way: This is my first post on this forum and I want to say hello to all of you !!!

"I know this is a conspiracy site, so I'll get to my conspiracy and say that the destruction of intelligent music is probably designed not only to maximise corporate profits, but also because if people were interested in musical genius, and put them on a podium, these virtuoso players would probably have something to say about the state of our world and whats wrong with it, by putting them into the stagelight (another pun) people would not only listen to their music, but also listen to what they had to say, and think about it.

Lets not forget that thinking is dangerous, so instead they flood our senses with American Idol, MTV and various other propaganda that not only subtley influences the way you think but is designed to distract you from focusing on real issues and banding together to do something about it.

Its called Television Programming for a reason."

I did decide to read your post more carefully. I think that there is a destruction of the education system that has been going on for some years now. This might not seem to be related, but really it is. People come out of high school and college not knowing some of the things they studied. I don't even know if there is any focus on dictionaries in school these days. This carries over to music and everything you study.

So, yes this will affect musical understanding. But fortunately with art forms, like music and painting, it's not allways necessary for a formal education in it. You remember the kid in your class who drew pictures really well, yet he never took any real classes in art.

However, I think musical understanding is important, because maybe you want to play your favorite bands tune. Being able to read music would help a lot in knowing what notes to play, etc. Knowing how to read music helps you put what is in your mind into the physical universe. The artist lies within, reading music facilitates creating music.

But, I still like things like Rap, modern Rock, and Electronic music. I think it would be a great thing if more modern musicians learned to read music more. I think it can open more doors for creativity. There was an interesting album by a group called Mi Phi Mi (not sure if that was the way it was spelled) that blended things like string guitars and rap. I'm not sure if they really played the instruments, but it was a pretty cool album.

Things like rap may be spoken, but we've spoken poetry for years without singing, that didn't stop people from liking it. Like him or not there aren't too many people who can flow like Eminem. It does take skill to rap. If you can't flow with the music, then you are going to sound bad. If the music is unappealing then it's not going to sound good. Even if it's electronic, you still need to have the skill to know how to put your music together so it sounds good.

Troy

Here's a little thought to munch on. How many good artist are there out right now? How many can you name and how many from this time period will you be able to name in 10, 15, 20, 30, 50 years? The point is that there is a lot of crap out there to every person with some talent. Now, how many Baroque composers can you name? I can name 5 off the top of my head: Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Correlli, and Pachelbel. Now, you keep getting more recent and you get more names, more people with talent that got remembered.

By the way, I'm a musician. A cellist to be exact so I've got some credibility to back anything I say about classical music.

Modern music is directly derived by the push of technology and the advance and globalization of culture. Ever generation claims that morals are degrading and the music is getting worse. This has happened since the beginning of time. Boundaries tend to get pushed out. I'll chart the progress of music and what followed from what below. People always get tired with what is and want to try new things.

It started way back when with Gregorian chants. They used the Church Modes, the predecessor to modern scales. This was eventually written down allowing it to be shared and read by more than the monks and nuns who learned the chants. These monks wanted more "ornamentation" in order to praise God even better than the chants were already meant to. So they created multitone music, they had two or more layers of singers going at once. They eventually got bored with this and started adding more. At the same time, music was coming to the people and what else did they sing about but love, sex, beer, life, etc. It got to the point where they had French songs about "questionable" women going under the Gregorian chant. The Catholic church put a stop to that right damn quick.

Through the Rennaissance, music continued to change and went into people's homes. What did they sing about? Life, love, sex, drinking... see a pattern emerging? At any rate, the tunes of the time continued to grow and get more complex. Church music continued to evolve, but the Gregorian chant was dead for the most part. Renaissance wasn't very interesting, Baroque on the other hand, very interesting. Everybody is like "Oh the subwoofers, they're so loud and annoying". That started way back then with the Basso Continuo. It was some of all of the low strings playing beats for the rest of the orchestra. Mideval subwoofer ahoy. This was also the time of the invention of opera. Opera started harmless enough, but eventually you get the comedic operas and dealing with sex (Don Giovanni and the Catalogue Aria anyone?). The Baroque period was the beginning of all your problems. You can draw a line to all modern music problems through that.

The Classical was a very formal time period. There was meter, but things changed more. More was accepted as musical and you got more dissonance (but not much at all). Style and format were somewhat regulated, but people were getting more freedom. Beethoven kinda said "Screw Y'all" and redid everything from that period. He departed and was considered a rebel for his time. Well his music is widely accepted now, but then... not necessarily so much. His fifth symphony was described as "Noise". He started using dissonance heavily and as a tool. This lead to the Romantic Period where I think just about everything went to hell. Dissonance was frequent, form when to hell, and things became wide open. It was a great time for opera.

After 1900 is when things start to break down. Atonality, new tone systems, the failure of tone, rhythm, sound, everything formally considered music fades away. The impressionist did away with melody, but kept tone and rhythm. The expressionist said # it all. They went with atonal (including the twelve tone system) and did away with a lot of the normal rhythm stuff. Opera, and anything sung starts to become much less tonal and almost drunk.

To continue (stupid character limit) the expressionist threw everything out. People started to experiment with what sounds things could make. Modernism tried to make repeative sounds into music. This spawned a lot of modern music because the baseline is often short and repeating. It's more akin to post modernism, but that's not important.

The vocal stuff, it's all in 4/4 time in basic keys of limited range. I can only think of 1 example that is not in 4/4 time and that is Queen's "Somebody to Love." Music has been simplfied for the masses, so we can honestly only blame ourselves for it. People wanted music and wanted to play it, so we made it stupid so people could. But no quest for knowledge spurred them further so they would really learn what they were doing and get to the point of being good at their music. Have you ever heard classical guitar? Not a damn thing like any modern guitar guy save a few. There are a few who are ancient that have real skills (Santana off the top of my head). Don't blame the industry big wigs, blame education. And don't blame people of this generation for that education, blame them more like 50-60 years ago for it. It started then and has simply continued and advanced. You'd have to forcibly snap someone out of it. But guess what, who is interested in the more interesting and deep music? Old people, it's downright depressing if you go to a classical concert, 80% of the audience is over 50 and I'm probably being nice. The kids like the simple stuff.