Opeth - Hessian Peel: The Mysterious Wrong Note

There's more of that acoustic guitar to kick off Hessian Peel , which seems to reference a number of famous songs - Icarus Dream Suite is the first that springs to mind Come on ... just from the first three notes that the acoustic guitar plays, and because it's a twelve string with reverb? , followed soon after by Voodoo Child (Slight Return) , I'm not getting that at all - it's simply a blues lick which ventures from minor to major ... I fail to see how this could remind one of that particular Hendrix tune but without the emotion of either Hendrix or Malmsteen .

But what's happening next? A clear wrong note - but played deliberately. Hmm. Without resolution or precedent, that note stands out like a sore thumb, and to my relatively untutored ears at least, suggests poor musicianship in a way that the rest of the album has only hinted at. The problem is, it sounds played for - to me, it sounds like a failed experiment that should have been edited out.

I guess you're talking about the G#.

However, it sits right on the crest of a cadence, in a passage that has a decidedly traditional feel, so such a non-traditional note really has no place at that point being as far out of the harmony as it is - unless the cadence was artfully modified to cope with it. 51 seconds is the exact point, according to my media player - yours may vary. The cadence is re-approached, or repeated, to be exact, and the offending note corrected - but then, mysteriously, the wrong-note version is also repeated, as if somehow repeating it is going to make it sound right.

It's actually a very simple thing: The electric guitar plays a simple, one bar long lick which alternatingly plays G and G# at that point. The accompanying acoustic guitar alternates between E minor and D major, which doesn't indicate a particular mode (could be E aeolian or E dorian), the lick indicates E aeolian (natural minor). Now, the G# in that context doesn't offend me at all. It could be seen as E melodic minor, however in conjunction with the D major chord played by the acoustic guitar it could be seen as Dmajor with an diminished 5th (Dmajb5), which is a really dissonant chord but in the lick the G# is two octaves above the chord. I see nothing wrong with that, and if you're a Hendrix fan you shouldn't either, considering the famous "Hendrix Chord" (E7#9).

I've heard Opeth (and other metal bands) do this - repeat something bad often enough and it begins to sound right - intent being stronger than the basic underlying rules.

All of which is gibberish, of course.

No insult intended, but to me it's your reasoning about this note which sounds like gibberish. It certainly doesn't prove to me that this note is "officially" wrong.