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Joined: January 11 2012
Location: Columbus&NYC
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Points: 3167
Topic: Two layers of counterpoint or a fugue Posted: March 05 2012 at 15:56
I love counterpoint. It is one of the things that makes progressive music progressive. The only more enjoyable thing than counterpoint is more counterpoint. The only enjoyable thing than more counterpoint is a fugue.
So, what bands write fugues? I can't find ANY as I search the net. It's depressing.
Also, what bands layer counterpoint so much that reviewers HATE them. I'm talking something like Bedlam and Goliath by The Mars Volta, but MORE notes and MORE noise. The Mars Volta is my favorite band, but I want find something more hectic, more complex, and just crazier in general.
Birds and Buildings sorta comes to mind on the compositional side of things, but they aren't quite heavy enough or confusing enough to fully satisfy my urge.
Jean-Louis does me right on crazy, complex, and whatnot, but I want there to be more layers of instruments. Maybe something RIO/Avant with so much going on that everyone you know complains about it. Henry Cow but heavy.
Kayo Dot but more confusing. Koenjihyakkei but even more crazy. Banco Del Mutuo and the other heavy crazy RPI bands like Cervello but I desire MORE.
Also, yes, I doubt that this sorta deal exists but that's why I ask you guys!
Joined: December 25 2011
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Posted: March 05 2012 at 16:21
ELP has a piece called "Fugue" on Trilogy, I'm not sure if it's technically a fugue in the classical sense but it definitely has a polyphonic style of composition.
Joined: August 11 2009
Location: Canada
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Points: 8443
Posted: March 05 2012 at 18:32
Well sir, you want it way out there...I don't know! I'm thinking maybe the heavier end of RIO/Avant or the avant end of metal might be up your alley. Check these guys out for some heavy complex avant:
Don't really know what else to recommend, everything else I thought of you seem to already have covered. Only other thing I could think of would be Ruins, but if you listen to Koenjihyakkei I imagine you already know them? If not, maybe search them out.
Joined: January 20 2010
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Points: 445
Posted: March 05 2012 at 19:49
Oh, I almost forgot, if you are looking for craaaazy avant-prog check out the Chilean group Akinetón Retard, their second album 'Akranania' is in my opinion the best avant-garde album ever created in South America:
If you love counterpoint I sincerely recommend Gentle Giant!
Yep, perhaps the counterpoint Daddy of them all but Gryphon weave some fiendishly intricate layers of melody on Red Queen to Gryphon Three and the twin guitars of Fripp and Belew negotiate some harrowing counterpoint on much of Crimson's output.
Joined: January 11 2012
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Points: 3167
Posted: March 06 2012 at 08:16
Hands, Yezda Urfa, Ritual (Sweden), Gryphon all I have never heard. Thanks so far everyone. This site makes me happy. If I asked any friends that I didn't jam with this question they would look at me dumbfounded.
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
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Points: 16145
Posted: March 06 2012 at 14:03
Hi,
Probably not "progressive" in the way we look at it ... but you really want to take a look at Keith Jarrett playing around jazz licks and other bits in a couple of places in Europe ... your fugue just got fugued and is now on fire!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
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Points: 16145
Posted: March 06 2012 at 14:17
someone_else wrote:
If you love counterpoint I sincerely recommend Gentle Giant!
Heck .. Amon Duul 2 was unreal in Yeti and Dance of the Lemmings when it comes to "counterpoint" ... you get Renate going left, the guitar going right and everyone going their own direction ... maybe even the folks in
But the academics in England also did a lot of work in the counter point "era" in rock music in the 70's ... I always thought that Art Bears and the like were about a lot of counterpoint, although it probably should be considered pure experimentation, rather than "counterpoint" that tends to suggest that music is actually involved -- and in some cases, in those days ... it was NOT about the music as much as actually trying it out! And this was certainly the case in many other arts around music ... music being the one art that thinks that no one else can do that with probably because of its limitations on the western scale design, and no one coming up with instruments that do not abide by those rules at all -- in the hope that some new sounds and works can be done.
I actually thought that synthesizers would do this, since it was a new sound ... but the commercial mentality has killed this instrument and made it replace the orchestra instead. And we (basically) lost another instrument that could provide a different counterpoint to any melody or piece out there ... sadly so!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
Joined: May 13 2007
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Posted: March 06 2012 at 19:08
^ counterpoint isn't determined by instrumentation or "new sounds" - that's not even close - counterpoint is harmonically related but melodically or rhythmically unrelated piece of composition, it is not a method of arrangement or orchestration or just improvising around a theme or rhythmic structure (which is where most ADII improvs begin at least), even avant pieces that are melodically and harmonically unrelated are not "counterpoint". Sure, whatever it is you're describing is different and experimental, but it isn't counterpoint or fugue.
Joined: January 11 2012
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Points: 3167
Posted: March 07 2012 at 07:51
My buddy Scott that couldn't really get theory compeltely describes it as turning a song from 2 dimensional to 3 dimensional. Or by saying, "Each part sounds weird by itself but together they fuse to create something pretty despite their huge difference in rhythm and melody."
Joined: January 11 2012
Location: Columbus&NYC
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Points: 3167
Posted: March 07 2012 at 08:01
"A melodic fragment, heard alone, makes a particular impression; but when the fragment is heard simultaneously with other melodic ideas, or combined in unexpected ways with itself (as in a canon or fugue), greater depths of affective meaning are revealed. Through development of a musical idea, the fragments become something greater than the sum of the parts, something conceptually more profound than a single pleasing melody"
That's probably the best explanation on wikipedia as to why counterpoint works.
And I like a lot of these bands but I still kinda want something heavier or crazier. I am wanting to be as gotdang adventurous as possible musically. I want to hear new worlds. (But not quite like Joel Meek)
A string quarter tribute to Gorguts Obscura or imagine if that album was played normally with the band, but they also had a saxophone player and keyboard player all doing something on top of that. I want to hear the Sebastian Bach of the future here. Maybe even straight new age maximalist composition.
I want to be confused by the end of each song that I am unable to continue on. I want the music to make me think so hard that I get a headache. I want to swirl into a deep ecstasy of complexity.
Listen to Beethoven's Grosse Fugue. More like that. haha
Joined: January 11 2012
Location: Columbus&NYC
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Points: 3167
Posted: March 07 2012 at 09:13
Oh yea Unexpect is on right now before you ever posted that. Ha- LOVE that band, as well as Cynic. Traced in Air is one of my favorite albums of all time.
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