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What's on your mind?


Apoc

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Lately, for the past week or two, I've really been trying to open my mind to enjoying music that sounds more "modern". There's a lot of excellent musicianship going on, but I've been missing out on it because the sound doesn't appeal to me. I'm trying to change that. I've found a couple of bands from the modern brutal/ tech death/deathcore subgenres that I really like, from a songwriting standpoint, once I get past the pristine sound, but there are still a boatload of them that I just don't like. What bothers me is that I can't put my finger on exactly why I don't enjoy them. Some combination of vocal approach, melody, and sonic perfectionism makes most of it sound like contrived garbage. My experience leads me to believe that most of the music being produced in any genre at any time will be garbage, so I suppose this is unsurprising. But I'm tired of listening to the same albums from twenty years ago and feeling like nothing good has happened since then. It's depressing being a curmudgeon.

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I'm considering giving piano lessons. I could definitely use the extra money. While I haven't played very much sheet music since I stopped taking lessons 6 years ago (took lessons for 11 years), I (as you may know) haven't been far from a keyboard that whole time. Giving beginner lessons for kids or adults wouldn't be too difficult, I think. Just need to get my piano tuned.

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That's a great idea! Very important to have a game plan. Start them with easy classics like "Mary Had A Little Orc", and move up to intermediate material like "Eine Kleine Orkmusik". And make sure to impress on all of your students that they risk execution and immediate consumption if they fail too frequently or don't pay on time.

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Lately' date=' for the past week or two, I've really been trying to open my mind to enjoying music that sounds more "modern". There's a lot of excellent musicianship going on, but I've been missing out on it because the sound doesn't appeal to me. I'm trying to change that. I've found a couple of bands from the modern brutal/ tech death/deathcore subgenres that I really like, from a songwriting standpoint, once I get past the pristine sound, but there are still a boatload of them that I just don't like. What bothers me is that I can't put my finger on exactly why I don't enjoy them. Some combination of vocal approach, melody, and sonic perfectionism makes most of it sound like contrived garbage. My experience leads me to believe that most of the music being produced in any genre at any time will be garbage, so I suppose this is unsurprising. But I'm tired of listening to the same albums from twenty years ago and feeling like nothing good has happened since then. It's depressing being a curmudgeon.[/quote'] It's pretty much a given that the highest concentration of quality recordings from any given genre will come from the nascent and developmental stages of said genre. It is erroneous to assume that quality will die of after these stages have concluded, but there is almost always a large shift toward compartmentalizing of sounds and derivation with less originality. However, there are usually still quality bands at work, they just seldom garner the same attention that they would have were they around in the beginning, or not surrounded by tons of knock off acts that get more press.
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The trouble is that once all the avenues in a particular style have been explored there is very little creative space in which to work. It's a sort of natural quality control gone wrong. All the worst bands rehashing previously concluded ideas garner all the attention and bands which put their own little spin on those ideas fall by the wayside.

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The trouble is that once all the avenues in a particular style have been explored there is very little creative space in which to work. It's a sort of natural quality control gone wrong. All the worst bands rehashing previously concluded ideas garner all the attention and bands which put their own little spin on those ideas fall by the wayside.
The real trouble is the assumption on the part of many bands that all avenues have explored, and they need to retread paths already walked on, and in most cases by bands that were meant to walk that way and do it better. I used to think that I had heard everything a genre was capable of when I had a decent grasp of it, and I've been proven wrong way too many times now to ever make that assumption again.
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@Father Alabaster concerning the Fuck the Facts/Fit for an Autopsy show... true on all accounts about how small venues bring out the best and worst in bands! I really dig Fuck the Facts and when we opened for them here in Salt Lake they put on a very intense performance. Must have been an off night. As for FfaA, I actually have been getting into them lately. Legit trem-picking patterns meets modern tech shit, but good songwriting and intensity. They're actually kinda unique now, the first full-length showed promise but I think they're starting to become something special. I would actually really like to see them live.

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@BAN, I hear you; like I say, I'm actively trying to appreciate a lot of newer, hopefully more forward-looking stuff. That involves listening past elements that would ordinarily turn me off, like sweep picking and AxeFx guitar tones and Melissa Cross-style "white rice" vocals. I rarely read reviews and I generally have no idea whether or not there is any "buzz" about an album (couldn't miss the hype about the Carcass album, though). I rely on friends' recommendations and lately I've been doing a lot of random clicking through on Youtube. I'll listen to anything once... I'm drawn to odd melodies and chord structures, counterpoint, and dynamic shifts. A lot of the bands that I don't care for just seem to tread similar melodic ground over and over - for example (from an earlier life) Naglfar's "Vittra" and Rapture's "Futile", man, they use the SAME fucking chord changes over and over. It makes the albums sound cohesive and gives them initial appeal, but I started learning theory when I was thirteen and root-to-minor-6th changes just feel like a cheap trick to me. So to my ears, they sound predictable and they've worn thin. That's just me. I can't say that they're categorically bad albums, I just know why they don't appeal to me. I'm trying to figure out what my opposition to a lot of this new-school shit is. If it's just that it sounds like "new-school shit", then I need to spend more time listening to it to break down those associations; but when that means subjecting myself to All Shall Perish, well, the mind balks. :D

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@Father Alabaster concerning the Fuck the Facts/Fit for an Autopsy show... true on all accounts about how small venues bring out the best and worst in bands! I really dig Fuck the Facts and when we opened for them here in Salt Lake they put on a very intense performance. Must have been an off night. As for FfaA' date=' I actually have been getting into them lately. Legit trem-picking patterns meets modern tech shit, but good songwriting and intensity. They're actually kinda unique now, the first full-length showed promise but I think they're starting to become something special. I would actually really like to see them live.[/quote'] Dude, they really killed it. Like I said I was standing right next to the stage, off to the side, so I was getting a lot more of the "stage sound" and less of the PA. There was no fakery going on. I was fully expecting to hate them and I'm actually getting into the "Hellbound" album now, the more I listen to it. Fuck The Facts didn't suck by any means, but they had a hard act to follow, and their natural sound on stage just wasn't as good. Plus they seemed a bit worn out. I hardly ever get to see shows but thankfully a lot of big names have been coming to smaller venues here. I'm really stoked to see Gorguts in December. And I've always been more comfortable playing basement clubs and bars, too - maybe there's less pressure, but something about being up in everybody's face instead of on some special platform really helps me have a better time.
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Aren't your issues generally "don't like modern production' date=' don't like tech flashiness, don't like stupid clean vocals where they don't belong" seems at least one of those would be easier to overcome then the others.[/quote'] Kinda, yeah, but I don't want to oversimplify too much. There are exceptions to all of that. And I find a lot of screamers and growlers just as cringeworthy as shitty clean vocalists. Vocals can really ruin a band for me... All I was really saying is that there's reams of stuff that I avoided listening to for a long time, and now I'm really trying to dive in a bit, and I honestly can't tell if I think some bands are shit because of my prejudices, or because they're actually just shit. Watch, before you know it I'll be a djentcore/dubstep fanboy.:D
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FA - That was a cool interview! The dude really knows what he likes in music.
Yeah, I like it when people tell it straight. It was funny, the guy basically said the breakdowns are there for the kids... made me laugh. They actually have some cool leads and atmospheric parts going through their breaks most of the time, which makes them more palatable for me. Metalsucks has a good interview up with Ihsahn, too.
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