Over the past few years, I've noticed a lot of connexions between learning different instruments and learning foreign languages. In general, each instrument or language is the same; they produce particular notes or particular meanings. But each instrument and language does so in a particular way.
I'm sort of interested to see if immersion in particular music styles will have the same effect as immersion in a particular foreign language. I've experienced this in more haphazard ways; during the past two summers, I went on a skiffle kick and ended up writing a skiffle song for 50/90. But I haven't done it in a consistent way.
I've been listening to two albums every week this year - the Zombies'
Odessey and Oracle and the Moody Blues'
Days of Future Passed. But I think I'm going to add more in the same sort of style and have an album (or an album's equivalent) for each day of the week. And since one of my musical projects for 2013 is to increase the complexity of my arrangements, that's the central element I'm going to focus on.
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Sunday - Brian Wilson's SMiLE
I was really behind the crowd in discovering
SMiLE. Rumours about it have abounded since recording started on it in 1966; I didn't hear about it until the box set of those recordings was released in 2011. I found the 2004 version at Half Price Books back in January, and I think I've listened to it every week or every other week since then. I sort of think that
SMiLE has unfairly eclipsed
Pet Sounds for me just because I've listened to it so much more. Brian Wilson's productions are always interesting because they have complex instrumentation and complex vocal parts.
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Monday - The Zombies' Odessey and Oracle
Naturally, I'm biased for this one. The Zombies have been my favourite band since the end of 2008. I heard their version of "You've Really Got a Hold on Me/Bring It on Home to Me" back to back with the Beatles' version of "You Really Got a Hold on Me," and there was no contest. Before I looked at the artist, I thought the Zombies' version was a live recording of the Beatles because their version is just so much more energetic than the Beatles' plodding.
Then I started going through their back catalogue, which consists basically of two albums. And since
Odessey and Oracle is the one that they had the most control over, it's the better of the two. They have a lot of interesting harmonies and a fair amount of mellotron overdubs.
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Tuesday - The Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed
I had the idea to listen to this every Tuesday just because it's set on a Tuesday ("Tuesday Afternoon") and 2013 started on a Tuesday. But shortly before the year began, I decided to add
Odessey and Oracle, and the two complement each other well, mostly because they both have a lot of mellotron parts.
Days of Future Passed is also significant in that it combines more traditionally symphonic elements with the rock band paradigm, which - granted - the Moody Blues are probably not the best example of, since they included keyboard instruments and flute.
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Wednesday - Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery
ELP are usually pretty broad in their scope, and I had to decide between this and
Tarkus. I think I like some of the individual songs on
Tarkus better, but the songs on
Brain Salad Surgery seem more consistent. Also, the total running time of the different impressions of Karn Evil 9 is longer than the Tarkus medley. Not that length is a definitive indicator of quality, but since my goal is elaborate and consistent production, it's a useful metric in this instance.
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Thursday - Delicious Pastries' Pretty Please and Will Dixon's This Upward Curve
Both of these are different from the other albums on the list because A) they're both shorter and B) they're indie releases.
Pretty Please has some clear influence from the sort of baroque pop that I'm fond of, and it includes string arrangements along with electric guitar. And that bending of traditional instrumental corpora is a thing that I'm interested in.
This Upward Curve also has that to some degree; the songs are more folky, but the instrumentation is more rock-based. It's like Simon & Garfunkel's electrified version of "The Sound of Silence" turned up a few degrees.
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Friday - Argent's Nexus
Argent is becoming my new favourite band. It's the same kind of direction that the Zombies had (both were bands with Rod Argent, so that similarity is not a surprise), but the themes are beyond simple love songs and the musical scope is larger. On
All Together Now, there's about six minutes of just Rod Argent's organ playing.
I had to choose between
Ring of Hands and
Nexus (those two are my favourites), and I chose
Nexus mostly because of the instrumental songs based on Kohoutek ("The Coming of Kohoutek," "Once around the Sun," and "Infinite Wander"). Lately, all of the songs I've been writing have been instrumental, and for the time being, I don't see that changing much (I have an-other post about this in the works), so I felt that listening to instrumental rock songs would have a greater influence.
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Saturday - The Alan Parsons Project's Eye in the Sky
The only reason I started listening to the Alan Parsons Project is that Colin Blunstone from the Zombies sang on a few of their tracks, including "Old and Wise" from
Eye in the Sky. The production on
Eye in the Sky is perhaps less aggressive than that on
Brain Salad Surgery or
Nexus, but it's still complex - the instrumental part in "Silence and I" in particular.
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So I'm going to listen to these eight albums on these seven days of the week starting this week and continuing until the end of the year. Hopefully some of the complexity of the arrangements and/or the production will rub off on me.
If you'd like, you can see exactly what I'm listening to by following
my music journal blog.
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