For the Metallica/Mortal Kombat Fans.....

[Ummon]

Or you're completely wrong. 

Do you want to discuss this?

[TOK]

Or you're completely wrong. 

Do you want to discuss this?

Yes. Clue me in.

[Ummon]

    'Technical' is some word made up by electric guitarists to mean whatever they think is difficult and 'progressive'. It's pretty arbitrary. It has little to do with composition, which is independent of instrument or being able to play one. There's very little composition in pop culture music, and even less in metal. Mostly it's just rehashing what others have done in the ways they've done it. This wasn't always so - but even those examples (I've mentioned some) aren't special outside of metal. Changing your tuning doesn't make it new, even it hadn't been done before. Adding a bunch of synth strings isn't new, and isn't special even if it hadn't been done before. Because there's little compositional principle involved. That's what most people don't know about music, and hence don't really know music.

[TOK]

    'Technical' is some word made up by electric guitarists to mean whatever they think is difficult and 'progressive'. It's pretty arbitrary. It has little to do with composition, which is independent of instrument or being able to play one. There's very little composition in pop culture music, and even less in metal. Mostly it's just rehashing what others have done in the ways they've done it. This wasn't always so - but even those examples (I've mentioned some) aren't special outside of metal. Changing your tuning doesn't make it new, even it hadn't been done before. Adding a bunch of synth strings isn't new, and isn't special even if it hadn't been done before. Because there's little compositional principle involved. That's what most people don't know about music, and hence don't really know music.

 I've been joking about "read the Wiki" with you, because it aggravated me that you were doing that in forums where people were asking legitimate questions that I felt you couldn't answer.

Here is a link to the Wiki about a band I mentioned... Meshuggah.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshuggah

I don't actually even like a lot of this bands music, but I can appreciate the things they're doing. Down in the Musical Style section there are links to various things they've done in their compositions, things you gloss over in huge generalities like someone who learned everything they know about music from newspaper record reviews.

 

[Ginsu Victim]

    'Technical' is some word made up by electric guitarists to mean whatever they think is difficult and 'progressive'. It's pretty arbitrary. It has little to do with composition, which is independent of instrument or being able to play one. There's very little composition in pop culture music, and even less in metal. Mostly it's just rehashing what others have done in the ways they've done it. This wasn't always so - but even those examples (I've mentioned some) aren't special outside of metal. Changing your tuning doesn't make it new, even it hadn't been done before. Adding a bunch of synth strings isn't new, and isn't special even if it hadn't been done before. Because there's little compositional principle involved. That's what most people don't know about music, and hence don't really know music.

Wow, you're just coming off as pompous. Do you hear yourself?

My use of the term "progressive" was only in reference to the older style of what's called "progressive rock" (Yes, Gabriel-era Genesis, Emerson Lake and Palmer, older Rush, etc). Bands that love odd time signatures, and lean toward classical styles and jazz fusion.

As for "technical" guitarists, I hate bands like Dragonforce that are all technique, no substance.

No reason to treat me like an idiot. (TOK on the other hand...) Just kidding, though I agree that Iced Earth has always been a pretty crappy band. (I've given them TOO many chances to impress me and they've always failed.)

[TOK]

I used Iced Earth of an example of metal bands that were active in the 90's. I think their first album came out in the early 90's and they were active clear through, so it seemed a good choice.
They are about as straight-forward metal as you can get, something Ummon claimed didn't exist. Metallica may have been lost in the woods for 15 years, but many bands weren't. Slayer was active through the 90's, and bands like Corrosion of Conformity turned from punk influence to straightforward metal in the 90's. Even though Grunge and Alternative pushed metal to the background a bit in the 90's, there are still almost too many bands to mention.

My opinion is that he spoke before he thought, and now finds himself defending an idiotic statement instead of just saying he was mistaken. 

[FrizzleFried]

Metallica = Kill `em All to ...and Justice For All

The Beginning of the End = The Black Album

Selloutica (Bob Rockica) = Load (of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---) up to just before St. Anger

Nutallica (Tin Canica) = St. Anger (wouldn't have been so bad if Lars snare drum didn't sound like a tin can lid)

Re-Tryica = Death Magnetic

I actually,  for the first time in many years,  LIKE some of the songs on their new album.  I simply could not STAND Load or anything since then... Bob Rock can suck ---my bottom---...dude killed Metallica.  NOW,  this album has 4 or 5 good tunes...a couple of OK...and some ass.  I compare it to The Black Album...maybe even a hair better....at least it is listenable.

If you look on my juke I have EVERY Metallica Album...labeled as above (Metallica, Selloutica, Nutallica...but I did go back to Metallica for Death Magnetic).

[TOK]

You could even start to hear the cracks in And Justice For All... Lars was trying to be the Lead Drummer. Lots of ticking and other goofy stuff with the drums very up-front in the mix. Since he was also doing some interesting timing changes and stuff I didn't really notice until later stuff came out, then I went back to Justice. Great album, but definite signs of bad things to come.

I totally love one song during their era that I hate... Hero Of The Day is a great song, but Hetfield doesn't have the range to pull it off. He still sounds kind of corny on some of the Death Magnetic stuff too. He's trying something harder, but sounds kind of funny doing it.

[Ummon]

Ginsu, there are conditions of quality. If it's a TV or something, then people are okay with that. But if it's something like music, then nope that's not cool. They like it so it just must be good. As well, there are things that explain music and can explain all music in pop culture. Pop culture doesn't even have anything that can explain its own music, let alone determine quality.

No, those bands aren't leaning towards classical 'style', as I mentioned. Yes on jazz fusion, but jazz is essentially a pop culture music so big deal. There's all kinds of stuff in jazz with ridiculous names that weren't new when they came out in it and weren't really a big deal anyway.


TOK, I've read up on Meshuggah (though I have the tools to understand what they're doing just by listening). They're not doing anything remarkable. Decades ago, composers like Phillip Glass were doing monophonic or parallel voiced repetitive lines that changed - but it was all within the bar line, which makes for very harsh rhythmic changes. Beyond this, there is no polyphony, no harmony in Meshuggah. There's little polyphony/harmony in most metal - and parallel thirds, fourths, and fifths don't count. As well, there's little syncopation, most of the meters (not times Ginsu - time is tempo) are 4/4, and in any case the bar line is a draconian boundary in this music - in most music in pop culture.

The best you're going to find is Cynic's Focus ('94) - and maybe their new stuff, which hasn't been released yet.

Oh, wait....Watchtower actually had some polyphonic, contrapuntal stuff. Kinda weak, particularly metal-wise, but definitely thought-out. And Atheist had some brief stuff on Unquestionable Presence.

Slayer: lame after Seasons of the Abyss. This is not any comment about the absence of Lombardo. They just played out their gig.

CoC: for those who didn't like their earlier stuff, Blind was great, and then they wanked into mainstream.

After Metallica's black album, a lot of bands followed suit - Testament, Megadeth, Sacred Reich, Anthrax after Persistance of Time - through about '95. (Even Pantera's Far Beyond Driven was a mix.) Even death metal was reaching a peak by Carcass' Heartwork, and really the death knell was Suffocation's Pierced from Within. You couldn't get any heavier, and nobody did anything smarter. Still haven't. There is a recent band Alaska whose members can read music and they score their pieces - but they're not composers and their pieces are generally monophonic and simplistic.

On the wiki thing: I felt they were asking questions pretty basic questions. If you want to nursemaid them, fine. I was merely indicating they had a resource other than you.

[MK3FAN]

You could even start to hear the cracks in And Justice For All... Lars was trying to be the Lead Drummer. Lots of ticking and other goofy stuff with the drums very up-front in the mix. Since he was also doing some interesting timing changes and stuff I didn't really notice until later stuff came out, then I went back to Justice. Great album, but definite signs of bad things to come.

I totally love one song during their era that I hate... Hero Of The Day is a great song, but Hetfield doesn't have the range to pull it off. He still sounds kind of corny on some of the Death Magnetic stuff too. He's trying something harder, but sounds kind of funny doing it.

Lars admits in the 1992 issue of Modern Drummer he was in, that he recorded "Justice" in sections because most of the songs were too hard to play all the way through. You can actually hear where the reels were spliced together from the different sections he recorded while listening to the album. There's a great example on "to live is to die".

[brandon]

I used to really love Metallica but Load killed it for me.. I've seen them live during the St Anger tour and was not impressed.   Recently I saw Megadeth in ATL for the Gigantour.. HOLY HELL.. They rocked ass!  What's crazy is that Mustaine is the only original member but they sounded PERFECT..  I was really sceptical about the new guitarist but he nailed all of Marty's solos from Rust in Peace.  Truely amazing.

Chris Broderick

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jBJUUogVyU[/youtube]

[Ginsu Victim]

Nice vid. He nailed Marty's solo. Rust in Peace is still one of my favorite metal albums ever.

[brandon]

Nice vid. He nailed Marty's solo. Rust in Peace is still one of my favorite metal albums ever.

look up Chris Broderick on youtube.. The guy is ridiculous!  I love Marty Friedman but from what I hear he was the "Lars" of Megadeth..  He was partly to blame for the more pop sounding Megadeth stuff after Cryptic Writtings... Thank God Dave went back to his roots of System has Failed and United Abominations... I really would like to see Metallica do that but I don't think it will ever happen.  My Hetfield should do like Mustaine and just fire everybody

[TOK]

I've seen Megadeth twice... They're kind of funny in that they actually seem to play even faster live. Its very noticeable in a (relatively) slower song like Holy Wars. They fly through the intro live.

[TOK]

Lars admits in the 1992 issue of Modern Drummer he was in, that he recorded "Justice" in sections because most of the songs were too hard to play all the way through. You can actually hear where the reels were spliced together from the different sections he recorded while listening to the album. There's a great example on "to live is to die".

Richard Christy, the ex-drummer of Iced Earth is on the Howard Stern show. They were talking about Death Magnetic today, and Richard mentioned Justice being the pinnacle of Lars' drumming and about how he probably couldn't do it now that he's a bit older. Richard said he couldn't do some of the things he used to either. He mentioned Dyers Eve, but I wonder if he knows about the splicing for To Live Is To Die... I'd imagine so.

[Ummon]

All bands play faster live, though the Megadeth above is only slightly faster.

And I think Broderick was off at some points. For example, right at :46 he goes slightly too high. And of course there are some very slight rhythmic differences which vary over the solo. Which is fine, no reason he should do it exactly the same. Marty didn't.

Lars was never a great drummer, something I could tell as a teenager before I played any music, but he had some good stuff. Hell, there are guitar riffs on songs of both Lightning and Puppets that I thought were weak at the time. They seem to be little Hetfield signatures, and in later years I've thought of various alternatives.

Neil Pert can do still do his stuff. Gene Hoglan was ALWAYS a mountain of fat and yet he could do incredible paradidles (not sure that's spelled right) with his kick drums alone. Sean Reinert of Cynic is in his early 40s and he was easily up there with just about anyone in metal (except maybe in outright kick drum speed as compared to maybe Hoglan and especially that dude who was in Morbid Angel through the 90s who was a MACHINE) back on Death's Human.

Some samples of Reinert:

Lack of Comprehension from Human (unfortunately, the lack of fidelity of Youtube precludes hearing all of Reinert's tasty cymbal work) :



(Chuck was a neat guy, but a problem he had was he only knew one scale - the double harmonic - and nearly always ended on the 'tonic' of it, which gets old real quick.)


And, a few years later in Cynic (takes a bit to come in) :




And, for something really different (for guitar, even, though originally classical guitar) :

[Ginsu Victim]

Neil Peart and Gene Hoglan FTW! Admittedly, I'm only familiar with Gene's Dethklok work. I'd love to hear more from him.

Lars has never impressed me, despite being a huge fan of Metallica in the 80s.

I've got one word for Lars:

Lombardo.

[brandon]

Lombardo.

SUCKS!

j/k:P

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtdWi_UdHZs[/youtube]

[Xiaou2]

Nice vid. He nailed Marty's solo. Rust in Peace is still one of my favorite metal albums ever.

look up Chris Broderick on youtube.. The guy is ridiculous!  I love Marty Friedman but from what I hear he was the "Lars" of Megadeth..  He was partly to blame for the more pop sounding Megadeth stuff after Cryptic Writtings... Thank God Dave went back to his roots of System has Failed and United Abominations... I really would like to see Metallica do that but I don't think it will ever happen.  My Hetfield should do like Mustaine and just fire everybody

 That doesnt make any sense at all.

 Lars was never anything special as fas as drumming goes.   Justice was just about the
only decent work... and that was pieced together.

 As for Marty, his stuff is top notch.   Ive even heard some of his Solo career stuff,
and its still amazing.  Not many are in his league.   

 Chris may have let out some decent playing... however...  How good is he at making
ORIGINAL Material???   That is what scares me.   There are a ton of talented PLAYERS,
but they suck bigtime when they try to create their own material.

 Martys solos were always excellent.   Where as others Ive heard, are good at one part
of the solo,  then the next part is like   "ehh" .

 
 Glen Drover had some nice stuff... however, he kept getting the older material all
wrong when playing live.   Ugg.

 
 
 And Actually,   Hetfield should be thrown out.   His voice Stinks now.   If you take out
him in the new stuff,  it might actually be bearable.


 As for the Death Metal... you can have it.   I cant stand the singers who merely
Scream monotone roars.   Lyrics?  If there was any,  you would never be able to
make them out.   Ruins the sound of the entire band.

[brandon]

Nice vid. He nailed Marty's solo. Rust in Peace is still one of my favorite metal albums ever.

look up Chris Broderick on youtube.. The guy is ridiculous!  I love Marty Friedman but from what I hear he was the "Lars" of Megadeth..  He was partly to blame for the more pop sounding Megadeth stuff after Cryptic Writtings... Thank God Dave went back to his roots of System has Failed and United Abominations... I really would like to see Metallica do that but I don't think it will ever happen.  My Hetfield should do like Mustaine and just fire everybody

 That doesnt make any sense at all.

 Lars was never anything special as fas as drumming goes.   Justice was just about the
only decent work... and that was pieced together.

 As for Marty, his stuff is top notch.   Ive even heard some of his Solo career stuff,
and its still amazing.  Not many are in his league.   

 Chris may have let out some decent playing... however...  How good is he at making
ORIGINAL Material???   That is what scares me.   There are a ton of talented PLAYERS,
but they suck bigtime when they try to create their own material.

 Martys solos were always excellent.   Where as others Ive heard, are good at one part
of the solo,  then the next part is like   "ehh" .

 
 Glen Drover had some nice stuff... however, he kept getting the older material all
wrong when playing live.   Ugg.

Marty is excellent.. both technically and creatively.. I have some of his solo stuff as well.. both the "neo-classical" and the departures from that like "Scenes"   When I say he was the "Lars" of the band I mean as far as his influence on trying to change the way Megadeth sounded.  I heard that he was partly to blame for trying to push Megadeth in a different direction because he was "tired of playing metal".  This may or may not be true...BUT

They began their world tour in support of Risk in September 1999, playing alongside Iron Maiden during the European leg. Three months into the tour, longtime guitarist Marty Friedman announced that he would be leaving the band,[5] citing musical differences. As Mustaine later explained: "I told (Marty) after Risk that we had to go back to our roots and play metal, and he quit".[

  BTW, Risk sucked donkey nuts.. as a Megadeth fan I just pretend it never happened... Sort of like Indiana Jones 4 and Transformers... but that's a WHOLE other can of worms there


As far as Chris Broderick goes.. I know what you mean.  Technically he is capable but will his style fit?  I've listen to some of his stuff from Nevermore and its nothing like Megadeth but I think Broderick is capable of adapting to different styles he seems very well rounds. 

Metal.. Jazz.. Classical.. or this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl3g8seYy74[/youtube]

(you'll have to cut and paste it.. It wouldn't embed..)

watch?v=zl3g8seYy74

[Ummon]

As for the Death Metal... you can have it.   I cant stand the singers who merely
Scream monotone roars.   Lyrics?  If there was any,  you would never be able to
make them out.   Ruins the sound of the entire band.

Many people have a hard time with timbres that aren't specifically pitched or pitched in a familiar way. Gutteral vocal styles are actually so harmonically rich - which white noise is ultimately harmonically rich and why it seems unintelligible - they easily fit in this category. You can't discern the lyrics, but others can. Hell, there are still rock lyrics from the 70s and 80s I can't totally make out due to their enunciation.


Drummers are almost totally dependent on the music of the other instruments - in this case guitar, though occasionally the bass can be a factor (the latter much more so in rock and such). The simpler the rhythm, the easier they have it, but that also can mean less interesting textures.

Lombardo and Hoglan have chops and they've put in some good stuff in some of the situations they've played, but they're pretty straight-forward players. 4/4 with accents and pretty predictable changes. I was actually pretty impressed with Lombardo on Seasons because you could tell he was expanding. Some good syncopations and unexpected accents. (Hell, Slayer impressed me in general with a sort of 'artsy' style for them and for metal. And then they lost it or something.)

Lars is in this category and he did some good stuff back in the day. Justice was actually boring. His attempts at odd fills and accompaniments just floundered, and then he tried to make up for it with double-kick stuff. Plus his toms sounded weak.

In came Pantera (Cowboys and Vulgar Display) and Sepultura (Arise), especially production-wise. Both of them had killer drum timbres, the toms in particular sounding tough as hell, crisp and defined, and not just like a wooden tom. On that note, Obituary's drummer's snare on World Demise was like a deep marching snare, just blowing your head off without at all clouding the mix. Anyways, both Vinnie and Igor brought new stuff to metal. Especially Igor in Arise. That album wouldn't be epic without the stuff he put on there.

[Ginsu Victim]

As for Marty, his stuff is top notch.   Ive even heard some of his Solo career stuff,
and its still amazing.  Not many are in his league.

 Martys solos were always excellent.

Marty and Jason Becker get me through my work day.

If you've never heard Marty's album Dragon's Kiss, you must! One of my favorite guitar albums and Jason's all over it.


Oh, and Ummon, Vinnie's drums make the drive home from work much better. Nice way to get that aggression out. I'm always drumming along on the steering wheel.

And for Lombardo, yeah, Seasons is my favorite Slayer album because of him.

[Ginsu Victim]

Speaking of drummers, how about some Mike Portnoy?

[brandon]

That was bad ass!  That "By Demons Be Driven" part was sweet!  I wonder if that was a tribute to Vinnie Paul or trying to one-up him? lol btw, They arent metal drummers but I always loved Sean Kinney,Chad Smith and Danny Carey of course...

[Ginsu Victim]

That was bad ass!  That "By Demons Be Driven" part was sweet!  I wonder if that was a tribute to Vinnie Paul or trying to one-up him?

Dream Theater do a LOT of covers live, including full albums. I have a bootleg of them doing the complete Master of Puppets. They've also done Number of the Beast, Dark Side of the Moon, and several others.

[Ummon]

Dream Theatre has nothing of interest to me, in any way. Lots of chops, little compositional ability, and rock-oriented. No.

Incidentally, notice at about 2:04 Portnoy sorta stutters on his kick blast. Another thing: take that scene just after 2:04 - people think that's bad or something. Everyone's playing the same thing. Besides being boring, and what they're playing is boring as well, he's not doing anything that is musically interesting. But it's sorta quick so that means it's bad.

Here's some real percussion music and expertise. By the way, all of this is strictly scored. If I remember correctly, the various parts have different meters...and perhaps tempi...simultaneously, throughout the piece.




Or, for something a bit different but still in the realm of percussion:

[Ginsu Victim]

I never said that the Portnoy video was the be-all, end-all of drumming vids. He has several that are better, and he isn't one of the greatest, but he is damn good at what he does.

Also, I'm not a huge Dream Theater fan. I like some of their work, but they mostly bore me. I prefer Symphony X over them.

[Ummon]

I prefer Symphony X over them.

Hm. Chops, but I don't hear much if anything really new in there. Vocalist kinda reminds me of Dio. Some of the guitar stuff is older metal-like.

Here's a Texas band, sort of nu rock/metal, that is pretty tasty (well, their first album; their new stuff blows) :




Lame video, though. I hate videos.


Here's another one. Total one-hit wonder, but very tasty, especially the vocalist. This is what Creed should've sounded like :

[Ginsu Victim]

I prefer Symphony X over them.

Hm. Chops, but I don't hear much if anything really new in there.

Jeez. Does everything HAVE to be the most musically superior thing out there in order to like it? Again, never said they were the greatest, just that I like them more than Dream Theater.

No reason for you over-analyze everything we say about music.

I like Michael Romeo's guitar playing.

[Ummon]

Heh. Short answer: pretty much.


Long answer: For me to like it, it has to have certain things at least within the genre, or something that out-grows it. Always has beenthis way for me. Let's say a contemporary composer wants to compose a work in a 'classical' style. Well, that's fine and good - except for two things: that era was covered very thoroughly (not just by the historical greats, but many amateur composers as well); and given it's relatively contained harmonic language and all, combined with the aspiring composer not having lived through the era, it will be difficult to create something unique and remarkable.

I hardly ever listen to Beethoven or Mozart, but arguably there's enough there to keep one entertained without need for more of the same.  There was a neo-classical movement in the early twentieth that had some novelty. Actually, much of John Williams' music is a sort of hack off this 'style', though more constrained because it's incidental music for movies, whereas the original neo-classical music was 'solo'.

Sure, when I started playing and 'writing' for electric guitar, it was your basic derivative metal. But after learning some things about music, while wanting to keep (at least some aspects of) the timbre I had, I started using those things I learned to go beyond metal. I'll see if I can work up some examples if you're interested.

[TOK]

I'm interested, mainly because I didn't find anything distinctive or interesting about that Eyes Wired Shut song. Definitely not in a way that they'd compare favorably to Dream Theater. Seemed like another forgettable 3 Days Grace/Chevelle/3 Doors Down/Fuel snoozer (the other video said No Longer Available when I tried to play it).

[Ummon]

No no, Edgewater isn't comparable to Dream Theater. The Cynic vid I posted is, about as much as one can, cos DT is in that silly power metal genre that's all the same. Edgewater's first album is somewhat like some radio stuff. The thing is they did it better. I especially like the drumming because it's busier than radio stuff, but not claiming or trying to claim attention.

Incidentally, I don't really enjoy percussion music. The durations of the timbers are too short so it just seems like a bunch of successive sounds. Even that xylophone or whatever clip I posted above I'm not that hot on because, though it is pitched and it has a damper pedal, the 'keys' can't be held down like with a piano, so counterpoint is difficult to bring out. Not that the resonance of the timbre helps any, either. I enjoy percussion a lot if it's used in balance in an ensemble work of mainly pitched instruments, or drumming in a band.

Oh, I forgot to mention that synth sounds, while sounding gay in general, don't mix with high gain guitar, and I think are best used in contrasting sections rather than at the same time.

I'd post something, but I can't find a service that just STREAMS files. Do you know of one?

[Ummon]

Hey, TOK, if you're still interested here's an old one. NOT a professional recording, but I did it all myself, direct to the board. (Also, you'll have to download it as I couldn't find a way to stream it.)


http://www.mediafire.com/?tomumnrovfg

[TOK]

Pretty cool. Is that the same guitar for both tracks?

[Ummon]

Thanks. Yeah, although the middle guitar in those brief spots was using the neck pickup, I think. All of them were eq'd a little differently to stand out from each other but I was/am really ignorant about how to really do that. Plus I have this issue with high gain fizzle so I put a big high end cut on each track, which is why it sounds muffled. Lots of mids, but not enough definition. Also, I didn't use a metronome or click track. I did once and just couldn't get with it. I do better with my own timing and my tracks sync better that way, though they could be better still.

Here's another one from around the same time:

http://www.mediafire.com/?bjmztydzczi