Genesis and Melody

anyone who says Genesis in their Peter Gabriel era had no melody only needs to listen to the flute theme of "Firth of Fifth", which also appears thrice in the guitar solo of that track. one of the best melodic lines ever invented in prog. case dismissed

Edited by BaldJean - April 27 2019 at 08:43

Most of what everyone is saying here is correct.  Of course, Genesis has "melody" in that there are distinctive notes, but that melody doesn't follow a traditional thematic pattern.  It's not broken down into repetitive patterns as much what traditional rock and pop music is, and the lyrical content doesn't always follow the typical verse/chorus pattern.  Genesis' melodies are complex and not very repetitive, at least during the Gabriel era.  Also, as someone else mentioned, Gabriel's embellishments even made it harder to pick out patterns in the various melodies.  With Collins in charge however, the music slowly moved towards a standard structure, at first incorporating more than one thematic pattern in a song, and eventually digressing to a more standard structure.  Sorry if that's confusing, but that's the best way I can explain it.  It's better to just listen and enjoy than to think about it too much.

Edited by TCat - April 27 2019 at 11:02

BaldJean wrote: anyone who says Genesis in their Peter Gabriel era had no melody only needs to listen to the flute theme of "Firth of Fifth", which also appears thrice in the guitar solo of that track. one of the best melodic lines ever invented in prog. case dismissed

Quite agree. Also, somebody else mentioned the melody inherent within the vocal passage of Dancing With The Moonlit Knight.

What about Time Table from Foxtrot. Lovely melody. My personal favourite, Musical Box, has some beautiful melodies.

Case, indeed, dismissed

Genesis very melodic to my ears. I picked up on memorable melodies as I played with my lego and my elder brother played the vinyl in the early 70's...Then in 1976...I realised that selling England by the pound and Foxtrot were genius...I didn't get into yes until 1979....ELP a bit later....who the fook has to mention the killers? Hackett and Banks are far superior composers than that bunch of septics...

This demonstrates a misunderstanding of the difference between having melody and being melodic.   Frankly there is almost nothing about Genesis' work, even most of their later pop stylings, that is melodic.  

Peter Gabriel's 'Salsbury Hill', however, is highly melodic:  it sticks with the listener's ear/brain conduit and is aurally & easily reproducible by even non-singers.   But there are almost zero examples of this in the material of Genesis.   I'm sorry that bothers so many, it shouldn't, and was one of the things that made the band so special.

M27Barney wrote: Genesis very melodic to my ears. I picked up on memorable melodies as I played with my lego and my elder brother played the vinyl in the early 70's...Then in 1976...I realised that selling England by the pound and Foxtrot were genius...I didn't get into yes until 1979....ELP a bit later....who the fook has to mention the killers? Hackett and Banks are far superior composers than that bunch of septics...

ForestFriend wrote: AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: [non melodic in traditional sense]                                                 [melodic in traditional sense] King Crimson Van der Graaf Generator Genesis(PG era)  Jethro Tull  ELP  Yes  Pink Floyd  later Genesis(PC era) King Crimson is an odd example in terms of being non-melodic. For some of the material, that's quite true; Larks Tongues, Fracture, Red... A lot of riffing in weird scales rather than melodies. But when those guys wrote a song; they wrote a song. Not necessarily poppy songs (although I think my Killers example earlier on proves that poppy and melodic are completely different things). Songs as in chord progression + melody. Embellish it with some Mellotron, some saxophone, a bit of guitar to make it interesting, maybe add a strange interlude to create some drama, but the underlying song is strong. I would argue that songs like Epitaph, Moonchild, Cadence and Cascade, Prince Rupert Awakes (first movement of Lizard), Formentera Lady, Exiles, Fallen Angel and Starless are melodic in quite a traditional sense. And it's not like these are one or two cherry picked songs from each album that have nothing to do with the rest of their music (like if you picked Lucky Man to demonstrate ELP as a melodic band).

Howard Goodall splits music into four integral parts.

1) Rythem - the pulse and most indipendent part of a song structure.
2) Melody - the relation between notes and how it makes us remember the song.
3) Harmony - the celestial part of the song.
and
4) Bass - ...

Edited by Icarium - April 28 2019 at 00:11

Atavachron wrote: This demonstrates a misunderstanding of the difference between having melody and being melodic.   Frankly there is almost nothing about Genesis' work, even most of their later pop stylings, that is melodic.   Peter Gabriel's 'Salsbury Hill', however, is highly melodic:  it sticks with the listener's ear/brain conduit and is aurally & easily reproducible by even non-singers.   But there are almost zero examples of this in the material of Genesis.   I'm sorry that bothers so many, it shouldn't, and was one of the things that made the band so special.

Yes I can understand. I'd say most of From Genesis to Revelation is conventionally melodic and "pretty" in a Salsbury Hill... or a Moody Blues kind of way - only rarely as special or memorable. This straight forward "melodicness" rarely occurs on later albums. And when it does, its often on their dullest tunes such as Visions of Angels. But Misenum's friend actually said "Genesis just doesn't have any melody in their music" - which is completely absurd. Because that means you fail to hear the basic melodic themes which exist in every Genesis tune - not unlike recognizing a jazz standard being "played with" by a Bill Evans or Ahmad Jamal. Its never "Let it Be" or "Yesterday"-singalong melodic but these pianists surely "had melody" in a way that Cecil Taylor hadn't. You could easily recognize those Beatles-tunes if it was the basis for some composition of theirs.

Saperlipopette! wrote: Atavachron wrote: This demonstrates a misunderstanding of the difference between having melody and being melodic.   Frankly there is almost nothing about Genesis' work, even most of their later pop stylings, that is melodic.   Peter Gabriel's 'Salsbury Hill', however, is highly melodic:  it sticks with the listener's ear/brain conduit and is aurally & easily reproducible by even non-singers.   But there are almost zero examples of this in the material of Genesis.   I'm sorry that bothers so many, it shouldn't, and was one of the things that made the band so special. Yes I can understand. I'd say most of From Genesis to Revelation is conventionally melodic and "pretty" in a Salsbury Hill... or a Moody Blues kind of way - only rarely as special or memorable. This straight forward "melodicness" rarely occurs on later albums. And when it does, its often on their dullest tunes such as Visions of Angels. But Misenum's friend actually said "Genesis just doesn't have any melody in their music" - which is completely absurd. Because that means you fail to hear the basic melodic themes which exist in every Genesis tune - not unlike recognizing a jazz standard being "played with" by a Bill Evans or Ahmad Jamal. Its never "Let it Be" or "Yesterday"-singalong melodic but these pianists surely "had melody" in a way that Cecil Taylor hadn't. You could easily recognize those Beatles-tunes if it was the basis for some composition of theirs. But even Invisible Touch, Mama or That's All isn't melodic in the way Owner of a Lonely Heart or You Can't Hurry Love is.