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speedy_m
= Frankofile =
Canada
3581 Posts |
 Posted - 08/18/2006 : 15:30:30
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My appreciation of Frank's music generally increases dramatically when I dissect and analyse it. "Ana" is a simple tune with a beautiful melody that, for no reason whatsoever, changes key for the second verse. Before learning to play it, I had no idea. Perhaps a better trained ear could spot it just giving it a cursory listen, but it was only upon learning to play it (in essence, dissecting it's musical structure) that I began to appreciate it. He does something similar on The Swimmer (this time with major/minor variations). This is a man whose music rewards intense scrutiny.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with Frank; saying the drums are too muddy is fair game. I can love a song and think the drums are not recorded in spectacular fashion. I can also love a song and be blown away by the drum sound. Does the former detract from my full experience and love of the song? I don't know: record the drums better and let me hear it.
he's back jack smoking crack find him if you want to get found
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tisasawath
= Cult of Ray =
Wallis and Futuna Islands
783 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2006 : 02:17:03
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quote:
Originally posted by darwin
I think natural systems and animal behavior becomes more amazing the more you know. I suppose the same applies to music. People with music knowledge can appreciate the uniqueness and cleverness of songs/compositions more than us (me) with no muscial knowledge.
I agree with the first part. I was totally in awe after learning what an unbeliavably complex system a human (or any other living) body or even just one of its organs is, it amazes me that it even works, and works so beautifully and efficiently. I am reminded of the fact from time to time and feel the sentiment again. Probably because seeing people or animals all around every day move and function just the way they usually do I forget to appreciate the intricacy and the beauty of their design.
Back to muddy drums (there's a name for a band); I can only make such comments when for instance I hear a live version of a song that is very different and better compared to the studio version.
For me it's the reverb. I sometimes catch myself being more sympathetic to a song on the radio just because it has the vocals more in the background and heavy on reverb.
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AAAAWWWWWRRRIIGGHHTTTTT !! ! |
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Bartholomew
= Cult of Ray =
USA
344 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2006 : 09:19:50
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quote:
Originally posted by ScottP
I must find out how he does it. I must find out what his creator and the engineers were thinking when they put him together, hypothesize an origin, and completely dismantle him in my garage.
The only problem with this type of thinking is when I put him back together, place him back in the yard, and switch him back on, the mystery is gone. He doesn't seem so remarkable anymore. He's just another dancing robot. I understand this is unhealthy, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. I simply must know how things work!
I argue that you can disect a song -- now, I'm talking about the great great songs -- all you want but you can never truly understand what makes it work so well. Take Debaser for example. Strip it down to its parts and study how they're put together. Okay, fine. Now, write me a song just as good.
I argue that great songs are more than the sum of their parts. It's not the chords you use, it's what you do with those chords. Look at the Ramones, look at Will Oldham. These songs transcend musical ability. I argue there is no formula to the great songs, it's beyond that, to a place that science thankfully cannot yet explain. What fun would the world be if everything was already figured out? |
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ScottP
= Cult of Ray =
USA
618 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2006 : 10:35:50
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Yay for the fact that great songs come from unexplainable places. Perhaps it's life experiences and a unique human interpretation of them- either way, Microsoft can't make software to write great songs. Gigantic record companies can't buy up all the best players and expect to have great songs. Otherwise, whoever had the most money would have the best songs.
"Hey, did you hear that new Texaco Oil Inc. song yet?" Uhg. |
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beckett trance
- FB Fan -
USA
170 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2006 : 14:54:29
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quote:
Originally posted by ScottP
Yay for the fact that great songs come from unexplainable places.
I once had a week to create and record some original music for an art opening (some really creepy airbrush art inspired by the artist who created the creature in Alien). My friend and I essentially locked ourselves in a room for the week and recorded what boiled down to about an hour of music.
Now, the gear we had was basically crap. I loved that gear, but it was light years behind what we would have used in even a semi-pro studio. We had no sampler at all, but improvised with the inconsistent A-B loop function on my old CD player. We would drop a needle on a record with a mic being held up near the speaker, hoping it would land on the right spot and at the right time on the cassette four-track. This was back when nobody was using a home PC for music.
Needless to say, the whole operation was shoddy. But my friend and I loved what came out of that crazy week (we might be the only two people on earth who did). The thing that we found the most interesting was that some of the parts we liked the best on the recording were directly the result of the overwhelming limitations. There was no way some of the things that happened musically would have been on there if we had real equipment to work with.
But it was a fun week and I learned a lot from it. I remember reading once that Hendrix remarked that he's been copied so well that people have memorized how to play his mistakes.
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** feeling deluxe for just a couple of bucks ** |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2006 : 22:06:38
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Great thread.
Frank's probably not the first to call the internet "the biggest bathroom wall in the universe" but it's the first time I heard it being called that and yet again shows how astute he is.
Now kittie, stop trashing my Moz.
I’m the only one who can say that this light is mine
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see you in tea
- FB Fan -
14 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2006 : 23:02:27
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| Morrissey sounds like Kermit the Frog. Also, he is a pompous dandy fop. I'm not sure about the Internet being the biggest bathroom wall in the Universe. The bathroom walls at my old place of work didn't have giant archives of Noam Chomsky's writings, and I have yet to see anyone write "pusy" 37 times on the Internet. |
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jimmy
= Cult of Ray =
USA
876 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2006 : 00:24:28
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Posted by darwin:
"...my job is understanding the behavior of animals and the ecological consequences of their behaviors."
It really is you! You've gotta be over a hundred years old. I thought you were dead. |
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darwin
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
USA
5454 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2006 : 00:44:17
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| Yes jimmy, it's me. Put down the pipe. |
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Billy Radcliffe
- FB Fan -
USA
145 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2006 : 09:27:02
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On a different side of the same subject, i think Frank is really lucky to have a bunch of real good literate people like all of you who will tear apart his music bit by bit. This is Frank. Real good literate people. Because of the little 10 cent words he uses, he has a more literate following than most. Can't you all see... this was HIS trait originally.
For those of us who don't play music... He has given you alot of intelligence. good music to appreciate, ALOT of good music to appreciate. For those of us who do play, it doesn't end there. there are little things in the formation of his music that say "See, that's how THIS fits together" I am a smarter musician now, and I owe that directly not to Frank, but to Frank's mind.
I met frank once in a little toilet of a club called the Beachland Ballroom, he pushed his own equipment in. He put on a fantastic show as usual and then he took the time to talk to all of us for an hour and a half. He gave me a big bear hug. He appreciates us for appreciating him. He appreciates us for wanting to know how things work. Literate people want to know how things work. Frank wants to know how things work.
IMO this is just what happens when you get a bunch of good literate people together to discuss something. Frank might get a little weird on how we may disassemble his music... but he still appreciates it.
At the end of the day we are all real people. Except Marilyn Manson, of course, who has built his career out of being fake. I wonder how MM's fans and Frank's fans might get along btogether, because listen to MM's music. he is in NO WAY as literate as Frank, or us for that matter. And you know what. The bass may indeed be a little muddy, but apart from re recording and re releasing it, it's what we're stuck with. If it stands the test of time, in 20 years nobody will even care how muddy it sounds, it will just be assumed that that's how it was meant to sound
I could talk myself to death, but I believe I would only waste my breath. |
Edited by - Billy Radcliffe on 08/20/2006 09:43:42 |
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tisasawath
= Cult of Ray =
Wallis and Futuna Islands
783 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 00:40:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Billy Radcliffe
IMO this is just what happens when you get a bunch of good literate people together to discuss something. Frank might get a little weird on how we may disassemble his music... but he still appreciates it.
it can also get annoying, with interviewers asking questions like "How do you come up with these songs? What is your writing process like?"... kinda makes me understand more the Church's position towards science trying to explain the big bang right down to time/space zero. though I can see the difference between scientific and just annoying
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starmekitten
-= Forum Pistolera =-
United Kingdom
6370 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 01:02:07
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| Science is never annoying. Science is fun. |
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Broken Face
-= Forum Pistolero =-
USA
5155 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 04:49:12
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'Cep when lecherous men in lab coats grab your friends' ass during chem experiments. Then its just creepy.
-Brian - http://bvsrant.blogspot.com |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 04:50:01
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quote:
starmekitten Posted - 08/21/2006 : 01:02:07
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Science is never annoying. Science is fun.
depends on who´s doing the sciencing, just as with any other language.
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Gravy boat! Stay in the now! |
Edited by - Newo on 08/21/2006 04:51:54 |
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ScottP
= Cult of Ray =
USA
618 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 11:18:54
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| Lab coats are great boner hiders. |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 11:32:21
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LOL indeed.
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anazgnos
= Cult of Ray =
USA
383 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 12:38:49
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| I don't know...certainly the internet encourages that kind of hyper-anlytical stuff, but I think some people just are that way. Frank's just saying he doesn't really relate to it, I think, which is cool. I certainly think people were that analytical in the '60's...it brings to mind that legendary Bob Dylan press conference from '65, where this super-intense young guy stands up and asks Bob about his reasons for wearing a Triumph Motorcycle shirt on the cover of Highway 61 Revisisted...Bob just kind of laughs and says he hadn't really thought about it...the guy, eyes practically bulging out of his head says "I've thought about it a lot.". He's like, convinced that there's this vast sociopolitical treatise on the death of the American dream embedded in the shirt Bob wore on this album cover, and he's desperate for validation on it...it's funny. That kinda stuff bugs me, the hyper-fannish need for validation, but then, I do it to. It's rock music...of course people are gonna overanalyze. |
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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Ireland
11546 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 16:17:44
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Frank is an alien. I thought everyone knew that by now!
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vilainde
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
Niue
7441 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2006 : 01:54:35
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quote:
Originally posted by speedy_m
My appreciation of Frank's music generally increases dramatically when I dissect and analyse it. "Ana" is a simple tune with a beautiful melody that, for no reason whatsoever, changes key for the second verse. Before learning to play it, I had no idea. Perhaps a better trained ear could spot it just giving it a cursory listen, but it was only upon learning to play it (in essence, dissecting it's musical structure) that I began to appreciate it. He does something similar on The Swimmer (this time with major/minor variations). This is a man whose music rewards intense scrutiny.
Same thing with Don't Cry That Way. You think it's a basic verse-chorus-verse song, but the chords in the 3 verses are slightly different. Add an Fm here, put an F instead of a C there. I'd never have noticed from listening to the song, just like the chord change in Ana. I'm no expert in guitar playing but there are a bunch of FB songs I've started to love by trying to play them (Valentine + Garuda for instance).
Denis
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Frank Black Is A Person Too
