Define "angular."

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That word gets thrown around so much, but I don't thinks there's a consensus on what it means.

― Nigel (Nigel), Monday, 13 June 2005 19:54 (twenty years ago)

The angular is a large bone in the lower jaw of amphibians, birds and reptiles, which is connected to all other lower jaw bones: the dentary (which is the entire lower jaw in mammals), the splenial, the suprangular, and the articular.

― Ian John50n (orion), Monday, 13 June 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

http://www.vrvis.at/vis/research/ang-brush/comp-angular-flipped-scatter.gif

― donut e-goo (donut), Monday, 13 June 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/images/amp1.gif

― donut e-goo (donut), Monday, 13 June 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

http://www.artzar.com/content/sagrada/graphics/angular.jpg

― donut e-goo (donut), Monday, 13 June 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

i prefer herky-jerky

― [that bastard] jaxon (jaxon), Monday, 13 June 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

Exactly.

― Nigel (Nigel), Monday, 13 June 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

a fine question...

it seems the usage is meant to describe sounds which are strung together or layer in a unparrallel manner (it implies a certain conflict). this could be a result of how a tone is sounded, and its relation to other tones.

but thats no answer now, is it?...and far too earnest to be correct

(as the fine post above, indicate)

― b b, Monday, 13 June 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

http://www.mic.gr/dbimages/1727_1.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 13 June 2005 20:00 (twenty years ago)

There's already a thread on this.

In jazz its used to refer to melodies that rely on intervals of a fourth.

― deej.., Monday, 13 June 2005 20:00 (twenty years ago)

http://rock-on-rock-on.com/images/galleries/angular-sausalitosm.jpg

― donut e-goo (donut), Monday, 13 June 2005 20:00 (twenty years ago)

Colloquially, in the 90s college rock context, it referred to.. well, I dunno.. approaching rock music at different angles?

― donut e-goo (donut), Monday, 13 June 2005 20:02 (twenty years ago)

as in the making thereof? I'm thinking about bands like Thinking Fellers or Trumans Water or Boredoms in this respect.

― donut e-goo (donut), Monday, 13 June 2005 20:02 (twenty years ago)

"rips off Fugazi"

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 13 June 2005 20:13 (twenty years ago)

the best angular discussion is on the texture thread, but there's also this and this.

― dan (dan), Monday, 13 June 2005 20:14 (twenty years ago)

i prefer herky-jerky

where's that from jaXon?

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Monday, 13 June 2005 21:20 (twenty years ago)

http://www.herkyjerky.com/graphics/productj-13_fullsize.jpg

― [that bastard] jaxon (jaxon), Monday, 13 June 2005 21:26 (twenty years ago)

http://www.herkyjerky.com

― [that bastard] jaxon (jaxon), Monday, 13 June 2005 21:26 (twenty years ago)

well maybe i'm hallucinating again but i kinda remember an angular argument with miccio where chuck e said herky jerky.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Monday, 13 June 2005 21:37 (twenty years ago)

here ya go, from the rate your musical knowledge thread:

small bit of musical knowledge everybody should know. Next time you want to say something sounds "angular," use the word staccato. Please.
-- CeCe Peniston (anthonymicci...), August 3rd, 2004.

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small bit of musical knowledge everybody should know
not that you're dumb if you don't know it, just that its something I'd like shared with the world.

-- CeCe Peniston (anthonymicci...), August 3rd, 2004.

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why would you want me to do that anthony? they mean different things.
-- gaz (mullygrubbe...), August 3rd, 2004.

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staccato's just another word for pasta
-- cinniblount (littlejohnnyjewe...), August 3rd, 2004.

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i thought that was spetzel?
-- Ian c=====8 (johni72...), August 3rd, 2004.

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>why would you want me to do that anthony? they mean different things.<
how does "herky-jerky" fit into the equation, then??

-- chuck (cedd...), August 3rd, 2004.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Monday, 13 June 2005 21:43 (twenty years ago)

It comes from fretboard patterns, I reckon, as opposed to piano. Although, there is probably a sort of angularity to playing simplistic riffs on a piano, too. I usually think of old powerchord speed metal or punk, as opposed to most other music that tends to be more fluid.

― Dudeo, Monday, 13 June 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

I think of it as something that makes you flail about in an uncoordinated manner, and is the opposite of what one might describe as "smooth".

― Crackity (Crackity Jones), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:04 (twenty years ago)

Herr Miccio was right, as in so much else. Angular = Stop/Start spikey rhythm, especially when played by a Post-Punk or Post-Post-Punk outfit. Angular does sound onomatopoeically true, but staccato is easier to spell in the long term.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:09 (twenty years ago)

Hahaha, "post-post-punk"! WTF?!

― Crackity (Crackity Jones), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

to me "angular" is just a more academic way of saying "'damaged' and 'arty'"... it also implies "geekiness", "spazziness", etc... none of those require "staccato".

― donut e-goo (donut), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

x-posts: Yeah, but I think that when most people use the term "angular," it doesn't necessarily JUST mean staccato. I'd imagine it's usually used when attacks are pretty hard and perhaps when there's some "syncopation." There's some discussion of melodic/harmonic qualities that might figure in, too, on the other thread that Dan linked to.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:15 (twenty years ago)

Post-post-punk = the New Wave of Ripping Off New Wave = Interpol/Franz/Killers = what's not obvious about that?

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:15 (twenty years ago)

STACCATO GRRRTAR IN YOUR EYE

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

The other additions we could make to the definition angular would include "wearing a tie/using Brylcreem/not rocking out/owning a copy of "I Am A Camera" but that would be a ball-ache to type out.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:24 (twenty years ago)

mullygrubber. i used herky-jerky in a "review" of Gang of Four in 2001

― [that bastard] jaxon (jaxon), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

i was at the recording of "at home he's a tourist" and remember saying to jon herky jerky, dude.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Monday, 13 June 2005 22:55 (twenty years ago)

I was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band. I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make it that way."

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Monday, 13 June 2005 23:10 (twenty years ago)

http://fs5.deviantart.com/i/2004/338/5/1/Herky_Jerky_dancer_by_ChaosTheater.jpg

― Ian Riese-Moraine: exposing ambitious careerists as charlatans since 1986. (East, Monday, 13 June 2005 23:18 (twenty years ago)

IAN!! You beat me to it by 30 seconds!

"Angular"...Well, I'm sure I'm getting it wrong (always wish I had more accurate technical knowledge than I pretend to), but I've always understood it to mean (and used it myself to describe) tunes or riffs that seemingly "leave out" key notes, resulting in a melody that's more implied, as opposed to explicitly stated. But I probably have it totally backwards, sorry. Forget I said anything.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Monday, 13 June 2005 23:24 (twenty years ago)

it's when embarrased guitar players try desperately to hide the fact that they're using the same chord progression in every song.

usually this means lots of funny inversions and arpeggios, and yeah, leaving out notes, like myonga said. (but usually leaving IN the "key" notes, i bet!)

so i think in rocking it refers more to melody than to rhythm or texture, although the staccato comparison makes sense(is that "rhythm"? or "texture"?).

maybe the basic strategy could be thought of as:

"play the least likely note"

and the most obviously "random" note is the one that's really really far away on the fretboard from the one you've just played. but since a lot of the rock bands that get called "angular" have pretty conservative harmonic aims - they stick to the pentatonic scale - they're randomness is never very random. and this crushes them.

hence the flailing evasiveness.

wait, now that i think about it.. syncopation might matter most of all.

― gabe (gabe), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 00:47 (twenty years ago)

or its when skinny rockers try to sound skinny too.

― gabe (gabe), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 00:50 (twenty years ago)

The Angle by Josef K. Though the Missionary is more angular.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 00:53 (twenty years ago)

bartok

― you will be shot (you will be shot), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 01:04 (twenty years ago)

Syncopation, odd note choices, unexpected or fractured chord progressions, yep. Also crucial is a rigid beat -- it can be 4/4, 3/4, 5/7, whatever, but it must not swing. Swing produces curves, not angles.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 01:15 (twenty years ago)

ANGULAR = SOUNDS LIKE GANG OF FOUR

― Sasha (sgh), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 01:29 (twenty years ago)

kool hercy jerky is what I say. Isn't this one of those lazy music-writer words when you want to say the guitarist is using a dry tone, or playing against the beat, or starting/stopping his phrases at odd places, or pinching the notes? Or using lots of seventh chords? Like Ornette Coleman's stuff with Bern Nix on "Body Meta"? The way James Blood Ulmer plays on "Free Lancing"?

Jazz players play "angularly" too, when they phrase all stiff against the beat. Coltrane did that a lot, Toni Braxton does so when she plays her mathematical-diagram soulful horn, I mean Tony Braxton. Does this come from describing people as angular or lanky or something like that? Economy of means and elegance? Anyway, it's not a word I want to use; I'd rather at least try to describe what was happening in some more precise way; herky-jerky doesn't get it because there are plenty of angular things that are biting, terse, etc., but which aren't, you know, spastic...like the Gang o' Four (who took lots from another "angular" group, Chic)...

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 01:33 (twenty years ago)

Hmm, but Chic violates my "can't swing" rule. Mebbe you can swing after all...

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 01:38 (twenty years ago)

Are there a lot of swing beats in Chic? Swing beat is a triplet division of the main beat. "Le Freak," for example, is not a swing beat.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 01:39 (twenty years ago)

There's a difference between a swing beat and swinging. "Le Freak" does not have a swing beat, but it definitely swings. Has to do with how on the beat the song is, whether the beat drags a little behind or moves a little ahead. Funk, for all the emphasis on the One, has very rubbery beats. What I'm thinking of re: angular is things that are precisely on the beat, crisp and cleanly.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 04:01 (twenty years ago)

OK, I'm not familiar with that definition of swing.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 04:09 (twenty years ago)

http://www.tubafrenzy.org/weblog/archives/MIA_Arular.jpg?

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 04:12 (twenty years ago)

angular = Slinty, or something orbiting what Television did.

― kingfish maximum overdrunk (Kingfish), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 04:13 (twenty years ago)

some Chic things swing--in fact if you define swing as forward-moving directionality then most of it does. anyway, stuff like "Open Up" and "So Fine" are Chic at their jazziest, I swing to it.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 13:42 (twenty years ago)

Until we come to some sort of consensus here, I think we should refrain from using the term.

― Nigel (Nigel), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

nine months pass...

Angular ban-jos/sound good to meeeeee

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 23 March 2006 16:11 (twenty years ago)

"Slinty" is good.

― js (honestengine), Thursday, 23 March 2006 17:08 (twenty years ago)

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