Ok... MY musical rant...

[Michael Douchette]

You wanna know what bugs me? Do you? I'll tell you. (If, at this point, you could care less, please click your "back" button, and enjoy one of our other fine threads.)

I just finished charting six songs for sessions I'm leader on next week. The "progressions"... Remember when we were kids, and we picked up an acoustic guitar, and started playing things with open strings ringing, a couple notes just sustaining all the time, with two or three fingers moving around on a couple strings, and we thought this was so cool and ethereal?

I am so tired of the "ambigu-chord" with the bass moving around like a rabid raccoon, attempting to give some sense of tonality to a garbled mish mosh of constantly sustaining pitches, the "melody" always hanging around a "one" and a "five" note, everything slamming from the get-go...

I miss music; something with movement and structure and dynamics that piqued the interest and moved the heart...

I'm done ranting. Sorry, but thanks for having this place here, b0b. You're the best.

[Donny Hinson]

So...then, I guess there's little point in sending you that Frank Zappa album I found at a yard sale?

[Earnest Bovine]

I miss music; something with movement and structure and dynamics that piqued the interest and moved the heart...

You are ready now for the end of Tristan und Isolde.

[Edward Meisse]

I know what you're talking about, Michael. And I would also like to know whatever happened to color chords and passing chords. Everything seems to be either major chords or power chords (no third) these days. I really miss the likes of James Van Heusen et al.

[Jim Cohen]

This strikes me as a mere announcement of a subject suitable for ranting, but not the actual rant itself. Please feel free to dig into your subject and explore the matter in full! Compare and contrast. Show your work.

[Edward Meisse]

Just because it was brief, doesn't mean it's not a rant. I think short rants are the best kind.

[chas smith]

of constantly sustaining pitches, the "melody" always hanging around a "one" and a "five" note, everything slamming from the get-go...

that's what used to happen during the "neutral" sections of film scores, when the action on the screen was suspended.

I miss music; something with movement and structure and dynamics that piqued the interest and moved the heart...

A decade ago, I was playing in a '30s/'40s Americana band. Last January, I did 4 nights with a noise band. That was a new experience. One of the club owners told us before we went on, "If I hear anything that sounds like a melody or rhythm, you're out of here." And we had an audience of at least 50 people.

[Dom Franco]

I think what we are seeing is the general "dumbing down" of music.

I teach guitar classes and I often show a beginner an "E" chord and then have him slide it up five frets for "A" and then two more for "B"

But I hear many songs these days that aren't much more than this simple progression I teach my first day students!!

Modern music styles have lost a lot of beautiful chords and melodies, by droning open strings.

It's easier to play music dumbed down...

Dom

[Earnest Bovine]

I teach guitar classes and I often show a beginner an "E" chord and then have him slide it up five frets for "A" and then two more for "B"

But I hear many songs these days that aren't much more than this simple progression I teach my first day students!!

But Teacher, I couldn't go to the second lesson because I had a gig.

[Earnest Bovine]

One of the club owners told us before we went on, "If I hear anything that sounds like a melody or rhythm, you're out of here." And we had an audience of at least 50 people.

How many of the 50 were young ladies? and how did they comport themselves?

[Bob Hoffnar]

I sometimes feel there is a special place in hell waiting for me for playing that nothing music pop crap that Michael is talking about. The emphatic repetition melodic hook composition system really bugs me. If they want something to sound indie rock they use a decending major 3rd in the melody. The country/americana/pop hacks use that little 2 or 3 note dotted 8th note phrase off the 1. Its such a cheap shot. Like fast food developers cramming as much grease, salt and sugar as they can into everything.

Just this week I started turning down work because the music gives me ear worms. I'm trying to be nice about it because by next month I may need those gigs. I hope not though.

My musical salvation these days has been getting together with some buddys at a local bar playing old western swing/blues/ragtime tunes on a lap steel. That is fun and the lovable losers drinking at the bar love it.

[Alvin Blaine]

I teach guitar classes and I often show a beginner an "E" chord and then have him slide it up five frets for "A" and then two more for "B"

But I hear many songs these days that aren't much more than this simple progression I teach my first day students!!

But Teacher, I couldn't go to the second lesson because I had a gig.

He said he was teaching guitar not bass..

[Tony Prior]

I hear ya Michael..loud and clear !


Now I'm not pretending to be a music major or anything other than a Chuck Berry Schooled player .

Over the past 3 months I have done about a dozen sessions for a very famous Music company, supposedly simple tunes, I was recording Steel well after the tracks were done.

RANT:
first problem...NO room to add Steel, no holes. To my ears, very cluttered tracks with way too many moving notes underneath.Especially the left hand piano.

second problem

Piano and Guitars moving in and out of the track like LA traffic, Chords moving with Bass notes like a Pinball machine Ball.

The producer kept telling me, play pads in the holes.
By the way, the Producer was the Piano player with the moving left hand notes on all of the tracks.

I'm silently scratching my head saying " Where are the holes " and "over which chords, the roots or the moving bass lines " ?

They also wanted Country 'ish. Not really County, but Country'ish. I played them several phrases which I suspected they didn't want, thats how I started and got the reference, ruling out what they didn't want.

I played, they liked it , I got paid, but went home totally exhausted.

My wife told me that I started preparing for these sessions 30 years ago and it took everything I had in my pocket to give them what they wanted. I did tell her that my pocket had a hole in it and I suspect many things fell out !

Michael, here's my take Bro'

just do it, I've seen you work, this is a no brainer for you

A James Taylor type of Acoustic Guitar player writes these types of songs but they do not have Don Grolnick around to clean them up

Thats your job now !

[Michael Douchette]

Tony, I have such a level of respect for you, you don't know...

Don't worry. I'll do it, and I'm ok with it. As I said in another thread, "I refuse to be the old fuddy duddy standing in the corner griping about 'how much better it was in the old days.'" This is today's music, it's where I live and where I play. I'm cool with it. But there are things I miss...

[Andy Volk]

Interesting topic, Michael. Ambiguous harmony is all over pop music. Often, I like it but too much of anything isn't a good thing. I pulled out some Jerry Byrd lap steel arrangments yesterday I hadn't touched in years. Besides the fact that they are brilliantly arranged, I was reminded how he tended to telegraph every chord changes with lots of passing chords that related to the given melody note happening at the moment. Rather than finding this a boon, I felt totally hemmed in and when I entered the chords into BIAB, just used the simple chords without all the passing chords. So here's a vote for a little bit of ambiguity. It's your call where the line is.

[David Mason]

There's no point in writing with melodic development, because the audiences have the attention spell of a gnat - what good is a melody, when no one can remember the first note ten seconds after it happened? Some musicians may get it, but the rest of America has been addled by the MTV-modified television patterns of shock and awe - then some more shock, then some more awe, etc.

Besides musicians playing for other musicians like OHM, and Oz Noy, it's kinda scary out there. Bob Dylan rewrote the available song forms in popular music, just in time for everybody to get too stupid to understand them. Oh well, we'll always have rap.

(You have heard OHM, and Oz Noy? Holy Cow!)

[Dom Franco]

On a positive note, There are some young musicians out there reclaiming the standards. Michael Buble, Jane Monheit, Nora Jones, Diana Krull.
Even some old musician-baby boomers are re-discovering jazz and swing era compositions. Barbara Streisand and even Rod Stewart are doing some great arrangements.

ONE INTERESTING NOTE: These performers have to go back to the 1940's and 1950's songwriting greats like Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmachel and the like to find good songs. I don't know of any new composers that are turning out comparable music today.

Dom

[Barry Blackwood]

It appears these days to be all shock and no awe ....

[Steinar Gregertsen]

ONE INTERESTING NOTE: These performers have to go back to the 1940's and 1950's songwriting greats like Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmachel and the like to find good songs. I don't know of any new composers that are turning out comparable music today.

I've been thinking about all this lately, and I wonder if it may have something to do with the fact that earlier on you had more of a separation between the composers/songwriters and the performers. So the songwriters studied the craft of songwriting and the performers studied the craft of performing.

Enter Dylan and Beatles, and suddenly "everybody" who can play an instrument believe they can write good songs (not meant as a critique of Dylan and Beatles)..

I have no idea if this theory is valid or not, just something that popped up in my head the other day...

Steinar

[Tony Prior]

Enter Dylan and Beatles, and suddenly "everybody" who can play an instrument believe they can write good songs (not meant as a critique of Dylan and Beatles)..


Steinar

Hey..I resemble that remark !

tp

[Bill Hatcher]

I am raBidly approaching 60. All I have ever done is play music for a living. All kinds and with everything from bar bands to symphony orchestras.

I always liked pop music.....until recently. Seems that all the great elements of the pop music that I am accustomed to such as the great melodies of the Beatles to the great bass lines and groove of Motown to everything in between is just not understood these days. The only new music I hear that that still has great elements of what we know to be worth appreciating is when I play a recently produced Broadway show. I can be assured that there will be things in there that are worth playing and listening to.

The only aspect of newish pop/country/whatever music that I would like to comment about are todays bass lines and bass sounds that are used. Most of it is just this low bumbling roar with no defination and very little movement and interplay with the kick drum. I can't tell you how many sessions I go to where the producers/artists shy away from much going on between the kick and bass. They just want these looooonnnnggg bass notes holding across all sorts of stuff and the lowest most upper freq devoid type of sound.

I just play a little stupid and they seem to like it the less I try to interject.

I catagorize this as "linear" sound. The groove, the melody the concept seems to just hover around a straight line on a graph and never get much above or below it.

[Edward Meisse]

I think Steinar was onto something with his talk about the earlier separation of labor. The writers wrote, the players played and the singers sang (or is that sung?). Separation of labor seems to be the best way to do things almost everywhere else. Why not here, too?

[Earnest Bovine]

They just want these looooonnnnggg bass notes holding across all sorts of stuff and the lowest most upper freq devoid type of sound.

There is a good reason to filter out all the highs in the bass sound: otherwise you could detect that the bass notes are unrelated to the chords and key of the song.

[Dave Mudgett]

Although I'm sure we both agree that there are plenty of people out there who can both play and write well, I basically agree with Steinar, and take this a bit further.

Have you ever noticed that musicians or bands that play material written by other people - no matter how great the songs are or musicianship is - are called "cover bands", while bands who play music they write - no matter how terrible the songs are or how poor the musicianship is - are called "original music bands", with the general implication, often stated directly, that the former is a bunch of "copycat musical losers" and the latter are "innovative musical pioneers"?

That's my rant, and I think it's closely related to Michael's rant. I remember 10-12 years ago sitting with a college newspaper reporter making the careful distinction between playing "classic" tunes - for example classic, old blues, country, or rockabilly tunes, and a "cover band" bangin' out "covers" of the latest hits. The result is in this old college newspaper article on this quandary (about 2/3 of the way down): http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/19 ... 05-001.htm

[Steinar Gregertsen]

"Would you say a classical symphony is covering Beethoven?"

Good one, Dave! "The London Philharmonic Cover Orchestra"?