'The thing that blew my mind first hearing the Strokes was that they were the closest I had heard rock come to classical,' she says. 'Their music is extraordinarily orderly and composed. It's almost

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Any comments?

― unnamedroffler (xave), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:10 (nineteen years ago)

who said that?

― grady (grady), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

Where does she get her acid from?

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

this is a quote from that russian gal, Spektor or something, right?

"almost"

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

I was hoping it was Nana Mouskouri.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:13 (nineteen years ago)

Regina Spektor comparing The Strokes to Mozart? Now that's the quote of the year.

― Torgeir Hansen (MRZBW), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

is she who i heard interviewed on NPR yesterday?

― grady (grady), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:20 (nineteen years ago)

this year's model makes remarkably naive comment shockah

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:24 (nineteen years ago)

honestly I am so sick of the annual music marketing scheme trotting out some young, mildly hot ingenue who's been classically trained and is now makign "brilliant" pop records - its all Kate Bush's fault I guess, except I like Kate Bush but fuck this annual ToriAmosJewelNorahJonesAliciaKeysNellieMcKay gravy train bullshit.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:26 (nineteen years ago)

You and DeRo should hook up.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:27 (nineteen years ago)

do not stain kate by association

― gear (gear), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

(please note I've probably heard one song apiece on average from all those lovely ladies, I'm not complaining about their musical abilities so much as I am about the laughably transparent machinery behind them - also add Alannis Morrissette how could I forget)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:29 (nineteen years ago)

Pharrell was on 5 Live this afternoon bigging up Jamie Cullum. Then I drank some gin and set fire to next door's fence.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:29 (nineteen years ago)

I just don't understand a marketing campaign that expects me to be surprised by the SAME THING every year. What? A young woman who writes smart, catchy pop tunes and can play really well?! You don't say! I've never heard of such a thing, that's incredible! Here, take my $16.99 (again)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:31 (nineteen years ago)

Pharrell's been on Cullum's sack for about three years now. And it's not even the normal "US musician turns up at British music awards, goes "Oh, yeah, back in Los Angeles we all love The Zutons"" stuff, he really does like his scuffed trainers and M&S suit smooth vocal jazz.

(xp)

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

"Classically Trained" = "Couldn't find a tune in a bag full of tunes with tune-detecting earphones on".

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Yeah, I know, I was more distressed at the fact he didn't shank Mayo in the neck while he had the chance.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:34 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.gnarf.org/~klaatu/urc/Emerson_Lake_And_palmer_-_Trilogy-front-small.jpg
http://learning.cc.hccs.edu/Members/cschweitzer/images/scanners.gif

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:39 (nineteen years ago)

A tune? Fuck a tune! What kind of quantum miracle do you think it would take for one of these types to find a BEAT?

― 100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude. (Austin, Still), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

why is it always so "surprising" that someone who plays an instrument actually took some lessons for it once upon a time?

― aimee semple mcmansion (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:00 (nineteen years ago)

YNGWIE MALMSTEEN

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:01 (nineteen years ago)

i bet alicia keys even knows how to play "für elise"!

― aimee semple mcmansion (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

She's lining up a 4-disc boxed set based on it.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

i believe you mean YNGWIE FUCKING MALMSTEEN

― David Richardson (drich), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:06 (nineteen years ago)

Protege in offering mealy-mouthed praise of patron shockah

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

comparing tori and nellie mckay and regina spektor to jewel is pretty damned low. honestly, comparing tori and nellie and regina is sort of stupid anyway. besides the fact that they're female and play piano, how are any of them even remotely similar to one another? or do we just see attractive piano playing female and write them off immediately?

― Emily B (Emily B), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:26 (nineteen years ago)

tori is not attractive

― micro machine (mattmc387), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:38 (nineteen years ago)

Geri Allen is SMOKING HOT!

But she also has a brilliant, original voice on piano, so doesn't really enter into this conversation.

― 100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude. (Austin, Still), Thursday, 29 June 2006 23:44 (nineteen years ago)

good point, Emily (xpost).

― sleeve (sleeve), Friday, 30 June 2006 00:09 (nineteen years ago)

Emily, I think your point would be more relevant if he were comparing their music rather than the "laughably transparent machine behind them."

― micro machine (mattmc387), Friday, 30 June 2006 00:15 (nineteen years ago)

meanwhile, what about this part:

"Spektor's also patriotic as only an immigrant can be, even sparring occasionally with U.S.-bashing Europeans. Recently a British merch manager drew her ire by responding to Regina's request for large T-shirts with a dry reference to large American men. "It brings out the 'don't fuck with me,' " she recalls, "considering that you have a huge neo-Nazi population here, and your banks are full of my grandparents' teeth, and you only gave women the vote in, like, 1989."

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 30 June 2006 00:30 (nineteen years ago)

eh, i see your point, but lumping them all together in any capacity is unfair as it is. considering nellie's next album (which is pretty fucking excellent, what tracks i've heard) is still unreleased approaching a year after completion because she left columbia/columbia booted her, i hardly think there's some media machine pushing her to be a pop star.

― Emily B (Emily B), Friday, 30 June 2006 00:32 (nineteen years ago)

but, back to regina making a dumb comment: yep, not the smartest thing anyone ever said.

― Emily B (Emily B), Friday, 30 June 2006 00:34 (nineteen years ago)

No one play her Close to the Edge or her head will explode.

― Sundar (sundar), Friday, 30 June 2006 01:55 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know about you, but the first time I heard "Last Night," the first thing I thought was, "What's this Longhair music doing on K-Roc?!" followed by, "What is that, a piano or a harpsichord?" All of a sudden, I noticed the trap drum set and the vocals and had a good laugh.

― John W. Smoke, Jr. (Uri Frendimein), Friday, 30 June 2006 02:15 (nineteen years ago)

i have no idea who this is but your banks are full of my grandparents' teeth is a terrific pissy thing to say

― geoff (gcannon), Friday, 30 June 2006 02:29 (nineteen years ago)

I thought that was a great line (the teeth thing).

But rock musicians talking about Mozart always makes me think of this:

Marty DiBergi: It's very pretty.

Nigel Tufnel: Yeah, I've been fooling around with it for a few months.

Marty DiBergi: It's a bit of a departure from what you normally play.

Nigel Tufnel: It's part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy I'm working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don't know why.

Marty DiBergi: It's very nice.

Nigel Tufnel: You know, just simple lines intertwining, you know, very much like - I'm really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it's sort of in between those, really. It's like a Mach piece, really. It's sort of...

Marty DiBergi: What do you call this?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, this piece is called "Lick My Love Pump".

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 30 June 2006 03:02 (nineteen years ago)

Recently a British merch manager drew her ire by responding to Regina's request for large T-shirts with a dry reference to large American men.

I wear a large T-shirt.

I'm 5'10" and only like 180 pounds! :(

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 30 June 2006 04:37 (nineteen years ago)

"considering nellie's next album (which is pretty fucking excellent, what tracks i've heard) is still unreleased approaching a year after completion because she left columbia/columbia booted her, i hardly think there's some media machine pushing her to be a pop star."

This only reinforces my point about this being a boring annual marketing phenomenon - each year some major label finds some young ingenue they can trot out as the "hot new thing"/"a girl that can write pop tunes!", who proceeds to maybe win a couple grammys, gets the press to rattle on about how refreshing it is to have a woman who's classically trained but loves the Beatles (or the Strokes or whoever), and then make an album that may/may not rocket to the top of the charts, only to be forgotten a year later and replaced with the next "hot new thing". Like I referenced in my original post - THIS YEAR'S MODEL = yawnsville, get a new fucking gimmick already.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 June 2006 05:28 (nineteen years ago)

(and again this is nothing against the particular women - they're just willing pawns in a painfully obvious game, hey maybe they enjoy playing the part for a year or two, who am I to blame them)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 June 2006 05:29 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the Strokes were very poor in Hyde Park, but this might be good, if you don't mind jumping through hoops...

http://gigs.t-mobile-campaign.co.uk/

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 30 June 2006 06:46 (nineteen years ago)

Shakey - I don't think it works that way. They probably know that the labels are using them, but they're also using the labels. They suddenly have mass distribution and marketing available for their music, which they no doubt believe in. The labels get their voices out into the world, people fawn over them on Amazon.com, and next thing you know they're surrounded by syncophants. By that point, being a disposable commodity is probably the last thing that occurs to them.

― cosmo vitelli (cosmo vitelli), Friday, 30 June 2006 06:58 (nineteen years ago)

i quite like her new single, IN A WAY. scary fucking teeth though.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:54 (nineteen years ago)

-- Shakey Mo Collier (audiobo...), June 30th, 2006.

bravo young man, you have discovered capitalism.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:18 (nineteen years ago)

Sexism too.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:21 (nineteen years ago)

i think shakey's being the sexist though -- why pick out female pop stars? the same process happens with everything.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:22 (nineteen years ago)

That's what I meant, innit?

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:28 (nineteen years ago)

oic

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:33 (nineteen years ago)

His whole argument is like "girls are stupid na na na".

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:34 (nineteen years ago)

i think what he's really saying is that girls are actually gay.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:35 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 121 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

It sounds like Tim means basically just the sound of any given moment. Whether it's a sample of jet engine or a thump on a snare drum.

Ok, but the term for the tone or sonic quality of an instrument is timbre. The term for the arrangement or layering of sounds is texture. I'm just saying that tossing out inappropriate buzzwords like "vertical composition" is obfuscatory, and is only good for getting agreement from people who don't really have the background to give meaningful input to begin with.

If I said: "The liberal usage of anacrusic rhythms, upper-neighbor modulations, and melodic appogiaturas in The Strokes songs is reminiscent of Mozart's piano sonatas," would people say "Hmm, interesting, good point?" Because that's just a bunch of random crap that I made up.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 22:56 (nineteen years ago)

I agree that talking about it that way stems from a lack of understanding. Hence my own post...

― McE'er, M. (mattmc387), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

That's cool McE'er, I wasn't trying to rag on you.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 23:05 (nineteen years ago)

I think Owen was talking about contrasts in register as "vertical contrasts" (and compositional segments with contrasting orchestration through which notable registral contrasts occur). I guess he's talking about a way of composing where these sectional contrasts of instrumentation and register are significant in and of themselves, not just related to larger scale matters of horizontal development over time.

And I haven't listened to the Strokes all that much, but from what I've heard, I can see that being a significant thing in their early songs. What it has to do with Mozart in particular, I'm not sure (Owen refers to string quartets, but I don't know).

x-post: yeah, I don't know how valuable the term "vertical composition" is either! And yes, it's confusing because, as you say, *thinking vertically* usually has more to do with harmony. Sorry for any confusion.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

I'm trying to find a picture of Biz Markie in a powdered wig seated at a piano, pretending to be a combination of Beethoven and Monk in the Just A Friend video, without success.

― The Player In The Redd Cap (Two-Headed Doge) (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 23:09 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

That's ok, Tim. I think if anyone is going to clear up Owen's position, it will probably be Owen.

And I hope I'm not coming across too obnoxiously here - as someone who studies composition and writes pop music, I am very interested in the intersections and parallels between the two.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 23:11 (nineteen years ago)

(That is, the intersections between "classical" composition/music and pop music)

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 23:12 (nineteen years ago)

http://imstars.aufeminin.com/stars/fan/D20051024/2271_155326485_10a_20biz_20markie_H164443_L.jpg

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, that one I found.

― The Player In The Redd Cap (Two-Headed Doge) (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 23:27 (nineteen years ago)

if there's one thing that is a hallmark across the many genres that are commonly described as "classical music", it's rubato, PARTICULARLY with someone like Mozart (check any of his operas, for example).

But is Mozart really known for rubato? My cursory knowledge of him, based on an opera or two and my daughters's toy Mozart Cube (an excellent gift to new parents, by the way) is that his rubato ratio is low compared to, say, Puccini.

― The Player In The Redd Cap (Two-Headed Doge) (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 00:11 (nineteen years ago)

Biz's expression seems to more accurately represent the tenor of this thread there.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 00:12 (nineteen years ago)

Just w/r/t "vertical composition" I'd assume that most people talking about it on this board would have gotten the expression (either 1st or 2nd hand) from this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306806495/002-8012783-3903221?v=glance&n=283155

It's not the greatest book in the world...

― dlp9001 (dlp9001), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 00:44 (nineteen years ago)

Steve, I don't know. I thought my drive-by explanation of vertical composition was brief and clear enough for casual message board discussion. Wolfgang Rihm has given lectures on the subject, so it's not just a Canadian thing, you sexy, sanctimonious Brit.

What can I say to defend myself that won't make me sound even more over-academic and boring? Nothing.

But serious! Listen to any Mozart quartet or divertimento, even Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. You must agree, at least, that it sounds more like The Strokes than The Beach Boys or The Cars or The Zombies.

― Owen Pallett (Owen Pallett), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 04:10 (nineteen years ago)

Well, yes. Puccini was also composing 100 years after Mozart was. Also, this doesn't mean Mozart never uses rubato (check, for example, "Vedrai carino" from "Don Giovanni" or "Ach, ich fuehl's" from "The Magic Flute"). Mozart was not a rigid metronome the way that someone like Bach was.

― Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 11:19 (nineteen years ago)

It also occurs to me, given Spektor's frame of reference and the way she's talking here, that she might be using the word "rock" in a way that wouldn't include things like "God Only Knows" and "Strawberry Fields Forever." (Haha: and where does metal fit here?)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 13:35 (nineteen years ago)

Show me any real metal that you (and most non-fan listeners) would describe as "elegant," "understated," "restrained" and "delightful," and we'll see where metal fits in here...

― fuckfuckingfuckedfucker (fuckfuckingfuckedfucker), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 14:44 (nineteen years ago)

anthrax!

― M@tt He1geson, Rendolent Ding-Dong (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 15:24 (nineteen years ago)

Anthrax is more swellegant

― Rev. PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie 2), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 15:27 (nineteen years ago)

Good point.

― fuckfuckingfuckedfucker (fuckfuckingfuckedfucker), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 15:27 (nineteen years ago)

weird that Geir hasn't popped up on this thread yet.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

Um, I meant metal in terms of formal similarities to classical music. I mean, metal can be pretty explicit about obvious top-level connections to classical, down to the point of quoting and such.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

He did, Shakey. Check it:

Interesting quote. Makes me wonder what she has been smoking.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), June 30th, 2006. (later)

perhaps marijuana ;-)

-- gear (speed.to.roa...), June 30th, 2006. (later)

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 15:36 (nineteen years ago)

debunking the classically trained scam: http://www.slate.com/id/2122512

she should've sighted some super obscure composer, not the most famous one in the world. i doubt she's really classically trained - she's not even good at being pretentious.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

When I first heard The Strokes, I thought, this is the closest I've heard rock music come to Luigi Nono!

― CDDB (Dan Deluca), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 16:36 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the most common meaning of rock music "sounding like Bach" was those kind of scalar but melodic basslines and even, um, melodies, that McCartney liked, as in "Hello Goodbye."

― The Player In The Redd Cap (Two-Headed Doge) (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 16:39 (nineteen years ago)

Also, lots of quarter notes.

― The Player In The Redd Cap (Two-Headed Doge) (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 16:40 (nineteen years ago)

I believe Paul has said that the chord progression of Black Bird was swiped from a Bach piece that he used to play. I couldn't tell you what piece, though.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

beatles always be ripping off sebastian bach

― Rev. PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie 2), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

That Slate article is a bit bizarre, though -- or at least it's attacking something that doesn't seem to really exist. I can't think of many instances in which I've seen someone's "classical training" held up as proof that they're a "better" musician. In most of the instances I see, it's just used as a descriptive/informative thing. Like saying that Nathan Michel studied composition isn't a claim that his music is "better" -- but if you're wondering what his music is like, that information does a good deal to explain some of the things he's interested in, and some of the ways that he approaches writing.

All the Slate piece points out is that (a) lots of people are "classically trained," and that (b) "classical trained" does not imply mastery, just study; you can study in that mold and be lousy at it. But I don't know that people are necessarily often saying it that way -- I think usually they're trying to point out that someone's frame of reference is coming from a more classical mold, whether or not there's mastery or virtuosity attached to it.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

Actually, well, I take that back a little bit -- I've seen plenty of instances in which fans will trot out "classically trained" as an example of why their beloved artist is the awesomest thing ever. But, you know, that's just being fannish. I'd like to think that when critics and writers say it, they're just trying to provide relevant background. (Haha: along the same lines as specifying that someone went to Berklee -- kind of an attempt to explain what particular music-world and frame-of-reference and way-of-thinking a person might be coming from, or at least have instilled in them.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

Nabisco, you're being way more even-handed about the "classically-trained"/"went to Berklee" tag than about 98% of humanity.

― Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 17:40 (nineteen years ago)

one of the main points of the slate article is that alicia keys (et al) taking piano lessons when she was a kid doesn't count as classical training.

it's like saying a harvard phd and a semester at a community college is the same thing. those educations may contain some of the same elements and maybe generalizing that someone went to college might even provide some insight - but it's pretty sloppy and often employed deceptively.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 19:06 (nineteen years ago)

I was classically trained to rock.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 19:08 (nineteen years ago)

I was baroquely trained to save no monies.

― Rev. PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie 2), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 19:14 (nineteen years ago)

That Slate article seemed to make a fair point with regard to the vauge usage of "classically trained," although it seemed to focus a lot on technique rather than theory, which is I think what tends to be more lacking in a musician who isn't classically-trained. It's one thing to write a catchy tune, but lots of songwriters have to turn things over to someone else when it comes to arranging the string parts, etc. It's also, in my experience, much easier/quicker to teach and flesh out parts with someone who has a good grounding in theory.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 19:18 (nineteen years ago)

er, vague.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Wednesday, 5 July 2006 19:18 (nineteen years ago)

That article manages to be somewhat correct and completely lame at the same time.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:09 (nineteen years ago)

like this thread, excepting the "somewhat correct" bit

― gear (gear), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:11 (nineteen years ago)

Hehe.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Thursday, 6 July 2006 00:12 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I suppose most people interpret "classically trained" as implying some formal course of study, as distinct from just "taking lessons" -- you say that and people tend to imagine the musician either studied at a conservatory or at least went for an undergraduate major in music. (Though there's slippage there, too: I assume you could take a degree in another aspect of music without ever spending much time on classical music or common practice in particular.)

Ha, the funny part is that there are plenty of places where someone would say "hey, I have a college education" and mean community college (wasn't that on the Matos stepdad thread?) -- situations where someone's presuming that kind of education to be a rare thing in general. That might be another problem with the way "classically trained" gets used. There's this idea that formal training is a rare thing in rock (which it doesn't actually seem to be, but whatever) -- but when you're talking about Tori Amos or something, I'm not sure there's any context that should lead anyone to be surprised or impressed by training. I can't really think of any style of music right now where people should be surprised to find training.

P.S. Steve, yes, OTM on arrangements -- I've always assumed the thing is that the average brain can pretty easily hold a melody and chord structure and see all that at once, whereas the more complex an arrangement gets, the more you need an actual musical language to codify and symbolize it all in your head. (Maybe there's the odd untutored genius who can hear and conceptualize that kind of thing just as raw information, but most people surely need tools to keep it under control.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 6 July 2006 01:16 (nineteen years ago)

Indeed. Although it has to be said that Brian Wilson, one of pop music's greatest arrangers, had no formal music training. Though this was said to have made things difficult for him in the studio, as I imagine it would; he had to laboriously explain each part of his compositions to the other Beach Boys and the various session musicians by singing it to them or repeatedly demonstrating on the piano.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Thursday, 6 July 2006 01:49 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.akrue.privat.t-online.de/strokes.jpg
http://www.kb.nl/dossiers/mozart/mozart_edlinger.jpg
http://members.aol.com/sneiracs/asshole.jpg

― trees (treesessplode), Thursday, 6 July 2006 02:59 (nineteen years ago)

trees wins.

― Marmot 4-Tay: forth-coming, my child. forth-coming most righteous champion (mar, Thursday, 6 July 2006 03:04 (nineteen years ago)

marmot, this is not about winning. jeez!

― trees (treesessplode), Thursday, 6 July 2006 03:15 (nineteen years ago)

oops, my bad.

― Marmot 4-Tay: forth-coming, my child. forth-coming most righteous champion (mar, Thursday, 6 July 2006 03:48 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

the strokes should do some ken russell "lizstomania" style mozart biopic to really fuck with regina spektor.
this thread is balls

― velko, Sunday, 27 July 2008 04:52 (seventeen years ago)

Yes, I am indeed being patronizing and complaining about everyone's attitude, because I think people's attitudes in here are stupid and sucky and bullshit.
-- nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, July 1, 2006 7:48 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

lol i love this fucken post

when nabisco stops bein polite and starts gettin REAL~

― cankles, Sunday, 27 July 2008 08:03 (seventeen years ago)

is that guy an aspie? who makes numbered lists?

― bug, Sunday, 27 July 2008 09:59 (seventeen years ago)

ha nabisco got really mad on this thread!

― max, Sunday, 27 July 2008 14:04 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

Apparently this thread inspired Owen P.'s cover of "Hard to Explain" for Stereogum.

― jaymc, Tuesday, 26 July 2011 17:01 (fourteen years ago)

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