Technicality vs. Musicality

colorofmoney91 wrote: You should check out some prog-electronic. It's hard to show off on an analog synthesizer

Musicality.

IMO it's harder to write a Musically  focused song than a very technical one.

For me, 'technicality' isn't measured by the number of notes you can play per minute, but rather by being able to artistically express yourself on your instrument (thus becoming a very subjective matter, at least when it comes to producing original music). Therefore, I find 'musicality' subordinated to 'technicality', which prevents me from answering the thread question.

I listen to music to be impressed. I go to concerts to see improvised solos, jazz impresses me. And technicality does as well. It's very fun to listen to and if mixed with Musicality well you get acts like Animals as Leaders or Dream Theater. I feel like "Technicality" is what separates "Progressive Rock" from "AOR", Dream Theater from Creed or Metallica
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musicality

Edited by aginor - May 18 2011 at 02:23

From what I infer from these posts Musicality is about someone interpreting how involved they've become with a piece.

Technicality is just that, pure technique. What you have not how you use it. Everyone practices scales but then you pause on a note and... maybe something happens.

As for Imagine; that is all about his lyrics and based around his idea of  "Imagine there's no...".

If someone says something sucks I wish they'd say why. Back it up! 

Now most posts here are not so bad. Fair bit of technique, quality punctuation and spelling and I appreciate some Spanish in the posts. This way there's some character in the writing not just grammatically sound English. Hope I've not gone off topic here...

P.S. A chord sequence involving F major to G Major to A major will have something going for it. Try it. (It will probably sound awful, I know of a punk tune that went like that. Set my teeth on edge.) The logical chord is an A minor.

A similar example I vaguely recall is Sgt Pepper where the chord sequence first goes from F to Ab. Major, not the logical minor. It gives it that overly bright brass band feel McC was looking for. There isn't a minor chord in the whole thing. It's not even strictly cadential. As far as I recall... probably in some bits. Not easy though and Jimi had to learn it by ear in 3 days. He should have given a Day In The Life a spin. That melody is way more useful and fun on guitar - just ask Jeff Beck.

BTW the reason so many songs use V-IV-I is so the singer (they are usually singer's chords) cannot (really should not) go out of tune, so long as they are using the scale(s) determined by the chords. Of course you can get deceptive things like Season Of The Witch which seems like it's two chords (it is) but the last chord impiles the dominant V and it turns around on itself easily. Two chords eh, make that interesting. Now there's a challenge...

Stairway uses a lot of V-IV-I in it's verses but no one moans about that. (Yes I know there's more to it that just that!... Heh.

Back to listening to Masfel's Viperflat. This is so cool... oh, and technical!

rogerthat wrote: giselle wrote: Thoughtful post. I agree totally with the first part about having a solid grounding in technique, though I don't think composing carries anything like the same necessity. Some great songwriters were not necessarily great musicians or in some cases, weren't even musicians at all. Writing is a different skill to music, though they can be allied. In fact, I'd argue that some of the negative traits in writing come from people being musicians, being led by the technical rather than the aesthetic. Perhaps you point you make in the latter part should relate to arranging the music rather than the writing itself? That would totally fit in with what you say about having something technically challenging in the performance. I would say writing music is the most important skill for any musician to have and therefore great songwriters would have to be great musicians almost by default. Also, though there have been unschooled songwriting wizards, they generally knew their theory and knew what they were doing.  So, perhaps, by musician, you mean simply the performer here.  I think especially in rock, being good at writing music is crucial and I would totally consider Donald Fagen a better musician than Yngwie Malmsteen.

rogerthat wrote: giselle wrote: Thoughtful post. I agree totally with the first part about having a solid grounding in technique, though I don't think composing carries anything like the same necessity. Some great songwriters were not necessarily great musicians or in some cases, weren't even musicians at all. Writing is a different skill to music, though they can be allied. In fact, I'd argue that some of the negative traits in writing come from people being musicians, being led by the technical rather than the aesthetic. Perhaps you point you make in the latter part should relate to arranging the music rather than the writing itself? That would totally fit in with what you say about having something technically challenging in the performance. I would say writing music is the most important skill for any musician to have and therefore great songwriters would have to be great musicians almost by default. Also, though there have been unschooled songwriting wizards, they generally knew their theory and knew what they were doing.  So, perhaps, by musician, you mean simply the performer here.  I think especially in rock, being good at writing music is crucial and I would totally consider Donald Fagen a better musician than Yngwie Malmsteen.

Yes, a fair point about the musician as performer and recording artist too, presumably. But I don't personally think the two go together too well, though I agree with the part about knowing your theory, that would certainly help. I think most good writers know a lot about songs, song structure, and tradition,  rather than just music itself, whereas most musicians tend to construct artifacts and riffs rather than real songs. One of the downsides of the success of The Beatles was to make it almost obligatory to write your own music as well as play it. That's led to a lot of very poor songwriting. I wouldn't for instance consider Donald Fagen a good songwriter for the body of work he's produced, though he's obviously a terrific musician. More songs like "Reeling in the Years" might have changed my mind, but there wasn't enough of that, so I have to consider it a flash in the pan (IMO!). He does compose interesting and complex music, but that's not the same thing as songs, and that's my point.

giselle wrote: Yes, a fair point about the musician as performer and recording artist too, presumably. But I don't personally think the two go together too well, though I agree with the part about knowing your theory, that would certainly help. I think most good writers know a lot about songs, song structure, and tradition,  rather than just music itself, whereas most musicians tend to construct artifacts and riffs rather than real songs.

Disagree with this. Possibly, good composers know the full vertical well and especially also what they can get out of singers and musicians. So, they would have to know about music.  Many of these composers made their way into the industry by first playing gigs at a small level to sustain themselves. It could get very difficult, practically, to operate as a composer and get the performers to play your songs if you don't know about music.  People have done that too, but many composers are generally equipped and 'educated'.

giselle wrote: One of the downsides of the success of The Beatles was to make it almost obligatory to write your own music as well as play it. That's led to a lot of very poor songwriting.

I don't think that is per se a problem. As I said earlier, I'd expect a musician per se to able to write songs and they would have done well anyway.  What distorted the direction of rock critique and the things that get appreciated more in rock was probably Woodstock. It has over the years caused critics and audiences to place far too much importance on the live act of the band, and then on the spectacle of it  rather the substance.

When Beatles set rock free from the clutches of the labels, they did it with top class songwriting, not virtuoso playing.  But that legacy got drowned somewhere and people who could play very well but did not necessarily have such a great compositional vision were encouraged more and more. Why were ELP the most popular prog rock band of the 70s and not Genesis (not in the Gabriel years, that is)?  Because they had the most popular live act. Critics did not seem to realize that the more important thing is to produce quality albums and not to load bands with terrific performers (who weren't necessarily always the best at writing songs).

 

giselle wrote: I wouldn't for instance consider Donald Fagen a good songwriter for the body of work he's produced, though he's obviously a terrific musician. More songs like "Reeling in the Years" might have changed my mind, but there wasn't enough of that, so I have to consider it a flash in the pan (IMO!). He does compose interesting and complex music, but that's not the same thing as songs, and that's my point.

I don't know, I call anything with vocal melody in a cyclical verse/chorus as songs and Steely Dan wrote some of the best of those in the 70s, behind only a few like Stevie Wonder and ahead of more illustrious forces in rock like Led Zeppelin who mainly put together rambling rifferama that, for me, goes nowhere at the end of the day. LZ is again a good example of the above para I wrote.  More live flamboyance than songwriting brilliance (not to say they had none of the latter). 

And most of SD's songs are not half formed or mere riff excursions at all (which would become a pattern in the 80s) and they are generally tightly linked to lyrical themes.  Their post modern decadence is not for everyone, but well, that is their choice and nothing that takes away from the merit of their work. Oh, and by the way, Donald Fagen's solo album from 1981 The Nightfly has excellent songs, with very different moods from SD, though essentially in the style used on Gaucho.

In any case, this defence of SD is beside the point which was simply that Fagen is great at writing music while Malmsteen is only great at playing it on guitar.

I recall this quote (not verbatim... by Elton John. He (apparently) felt sorry for guitar players who get too concerned with a  great riff (and presumably nothing more than that). Unlike pianists one supposes. Anyway the more oriented toward an instrument a muso is the more he writes for that instrument. e.g. Mark King (Level 42), Stanley Clarke ( lthought the suspect standard of  alot od earlier solo out put makes me think he gets confused... Herman Rarebell, Cozy Powell (oh good, drummers writing melodies on their kits...) ;),

A good example of a muso who was pretty good at what he did but always happy to let a "specialist" do the necessary is (IMHO) the somewhat overlooked and underrated George Harrison. I know, I kknow... underrated Beatle? Yer what?! But yes. A song writer (who could sing) who could do some nice guitar work and made more outstanding tunes in later Beatle years than those others whatever their names were. viz All Things Must Pass.

One example I have of technique vs musicality (I interpet this as songman ship) is a Jeff Beck gig I amnaged to get o. Along with Tony Hymas and Terry Bozzio they proceeed to play Guitar Shop material. Shame I don't like it. But that I put down to no bass player. Anyway it struck me and my date that it was not exactly the most generous of music. Lots of amazing stuff for an analyst to appreciate but not a listener to like...  (that was the only time I did wonder about Beck's approach.)

On the other hand he had White Stripes along. Jack White led on some Yardbird numbers and did great with Beck and his excellent band accompanying. Big fail is White's drummer. No song smith, no drummer either this (IMHO) was dreadul and clearly a gimmick. No technique nor songs. Jeeznis, I might as well be listening to techno... (which could be really good if someone paid attention to detail...

Rant over (for the moment... )