Howdy prog rockers, jazz fusionists, and whoever else is an instrumental badass. Here’s something to chew on. Through all those complex arrangements, time signature changes, key changes, tempo changes, elaborate drum fills, etc, what is tying your song together? You can have all the instrumental wankery in the world, but it really doesn’t mean a thing unless you have a digestible song out of it. Is there melody? In EVERY section? Does the melody remain stagnant throughout the entire 20 minute opus while the drummer is switching between 4/4, 2/4, 7/4, and 9/8 every few measures? This has always intrigued me. Bands like Rush always held my interest throughout all of 2112, and Hemispheres, and even The Fountain of Lamneth. That being said, I cannot listen to an entire Peter Gabriel era Genesis album. I understand they’re amazing, and the musicianship is second to none, but I’ve tried “Selling England” and “The Lamb Lies Down”. There’s songs I like, but overall it just seems melodically lacking. Like ambition took over for strong songwriting, that the pieces don’t quite gel together as well as they should. It’s certainly impressive, but I just can’t listen to them, or Jethro Tull. Maybe it’s just the flute… And to people that aren’t musicians, how do they listen if they’re completely unaware at the badassery they’re hearing?
Discuss, how do you keep the average listener’s attention throughout a 40 space epic about demigods?
its funny, my songs sort of have 2 tendencies.
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there are fairly short. Pretty rare for me to ever get to 4 minutes
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they are complex to a degree. A lot of my songs have all 12 notes at some point in the song and almost always have interesting chord changes considering they are just straight rock songs
I think it comes from 2 basic reasons. 1) I dont want to bore anyone. 2) Probably the first progression I learned from an Arlen Roth book was probably E,A,B7. Then of course A,D,E7 and G,C,D7. So guess what? I hardly ever use those chords even though they are the basis for some great rock songs etc. I think there is something in me that says “if u learned that your first week, dont you think you should play something a little more advanced?”
but if u think of Bob Segar, Tom Petty etc, its always just the same few basic chord progressions over and over. But so far I cant force myself to write any songs like that. I always have to throw in a monkey wrench somewhere. of course u can get away with some crazy chords if u weave a basic melody over them
This song here, IIRC, i was like ‘alright dummy, just make u a nice basic plain jane Whitesnake chord progression and sing some nice melody over it and build up some harmonies etc’ Well, that worked until I got to the bridge at 1:38 and I took a little detour. That bridge (1:38 to 1:58)…whats it sound like? Its almost sounds like its going to be heavy neoclassical but then it goes into two 7th chords (IIRC) which sounds like the Beatles. My songs ALWAYS take a detour in the bridge.
Then there is a little breakdown and it comes right back to the conventional chords. Yeah, but thats not good enough, I HAVE to have my fun in the outro (3:32) so we have to throw in another twist. Sounds like a flat2 chord to me and I throw in one little hiccup in the time signature just for fun.
It was almost guaranteed, with the song starting off conventional, it would HAVE to have a few twists in the plot
Dont lie no more 93.mp3 (10.3 MB)
If u think back to the late 80s u had the whole era of all those 'hollywood ballads" (every rose, patience, ballad of Jayne, I remember you etc) where it would start of strummed in G (or sometimes emin) and its like clockwork. G,Csus,D and then the big dramatic moment when it went to emin lol. I dont have ONE song in my catalog like that AFAIK. Im not saying thats a good or bad thing, it just is what it is
Another HUGE overriding trend for me is that I have always written on guitar and did that for like 26 or 27 years before I started singing lol. So basically I was writing instrumental jams. So there ya go…when u write like that its going to be more complicated because that one part is everything. Its SO hard for me to lay down simple parts because I forget that there will be umpteen overdubs.
This song catches the balance about perfectly to my ears. One of my fave bands. Starts off on a super classic chord progression that weve all heard a million times. Nice and comfortable. But then it stays on the same chord (IIRC) and goes to minor for the verse. So thats a nice twist. Then it goes to that nice Beatlesque dreamy hypnotic descending chord prechorus. love it. But then back to the super comfy chorus
This is another great blend of odd and familiar. Exotic feel in the intro and verse and then essentially a nice hooky 3 chord chorus. very strong IMO
This is the hardest thing for me to accept in my own songs. if I wrote a chorus that just said “its hard to start things over”…id feel like thats simply not enough. But here it is in a song and its super powerful
ok, u r talking about jazzy instrumental stuff etc.
As much as i love shred, i cant follow this for my life
Thats one reason i sort of love Malmsteen. at least dude has SOME pop sensibilities etc. Even at that, when i first heard Yngwie it went straight over my head. Since it didnt sound like VanHalen i couldnt relate to it but now I love it
I recognize that this is great, but i cant follow it lol
this is about as proggy as I can go. This song was in a magazine so I bought the cassette back in like 89. Definitely wore it out though it was waaaaayyyy over my ability to play since I just had started out on guitar
I’m talking about anything duder. Feel free to talk about how you can make your songs complex, without being hard to listen to in one sitting.
look into “pitch axis”. which is sort of staying in one key center but venturing all over the place modally in that key. Pretty sure Satriani was one of the first to play with it much, like in the infamous Satch Boogie bridge
another real basic thing is to do sort of a pseudo modulation. Like in the song Sun King, they are doing basic A minor chords. A,C,D…A,G, etc then for the prechorus the go to the C chord and change the feel a bit. So what right? they were already hitting that chord anyway right? Whats the big deal? Because where they were going A to C…now they go C to Eflat. So just for that moment it feels like a modulation, but then they go like D to E so it leads right back to the A minor key.
Black haired missy, big brown eyes
I do that a lot in my stuff. usually I do it in the bridge or solo. like, song might be in Eminor. So its doing its thing but in the bridge or solo I find a way to go to Bflat, which is the flat 5 of the key so its going to sound exotic. But then u can simply come up a half step to the B (V chord) which will lead right back into E
or say you are in the key of E…there will always be some sort of way to throw in an F chord without being too offensive lol. this is one im working on, f chord sneaks in (:43 :51 etc) (tuned down a whole step I think though)
Set Your Mind 128 scr.mp3 (5.9 MB)
Gives it a slightly exotic feel and some flavor without really going away from the basic sound too much
Another fave. same thing. going alone plain jane in the key of a minor. on the prechorus again they switch it up with sort of a pseudo modulation. They go to the D chord but they make it like a modulation by going D,C,Bflat back and forth so it sounds like it went to the key of D minor but then it drops right back to A minor. they are only using that one borrowed Bb chord so it gives that nice change but then it falls right back into the original key easily. love it
So many times, i , call your name
hey, this thing is cool lol https://play.riffstation.com/chords-tabs/the-cult-soul-asylum-studio-version/Btbf76dHYnI
This seems to have eluded some of the best in the business… and I’m not always sure why one thing works and another just doesn’t hold my attention. A fine example for me has been Dream Theater. For some reason I think that a song like ‘Take the Time’ just works beautifully. It’s full of time changes and melodic shifts and yet the whole thing flows. On a lot of their later material I sometimes find that the song just doesn’t ‘grab’ me … and I often wonder exactly why that is? Still trying to figure it out. 
I mean, I love ‘instrumental wankery’ but sometimes it just doesn’t serve the song.
Yeah I feel that pain as well. I can appreciate Allan Holdsworth for his amazing technical skill but in general the ‘music’ just doesn’t connect with me. I went to see him perform back in the mid 80’s and he was amazing to watch… but by the end of the night I was way more than ready to have the show be over. I had a similar experience going to see King Crimson! hehahaha, Rough night.
I think of this guy Jorn Lande. one of the most respected metal singers and also Russell Allen, another top tier metal singer. They did several albums together and youd think it would be metal song heaven but so far none of it grabs me,
Dunno, I guess its all on “10” the whole time and it just sort of blends together. Its like “is this the chorus or verse or what?”
maybe I just dont like “progressive” rock that much? dunno. I want to hear DYNAMICS somewhere in the song. Im dumb, so make the chorus have a build lol
I picked a song at random. Strong intro etc but it loses me
A lot of Jorne’s songs are like that unfortunately. Sort of strong intro but weak chorus
this one is an exception. it has an actual build or at least dynamics to a point and the chorus is very singable to me anyway
Im assuming similar values apply to instrumental music but its actually harder because you have LESS variety because u r just wanking a guitar usually. This is where Satriani somehow rose above the crowd. He knew to change tones and tonalities or feel several times in the song