the most technically impressive song?

^Yeah, I've been a long time fan of Steve.

Edited by Slartibartfast - October 15 2007 at 05:12

Sorry for sounding confrontational, I had a bad night. Anyway, have you looked at the Master List? Rypdal should be there, marked in red.

Depend. More songs are very technically. In more genres, not only in Prog field. For example also "Black Sabbath" or "N.I.B." are very technical songs.

Edited by Mandrakeroot - October 15 2007 at 05:44

Slartibartfast wrote: Dick Heath wrote: Terj Rypdal's Chaser - a guitar tour de force, ranging from Hendrix to Marvin, plus his own specilities. Dave Fiuczinski and Wayne Krantz's separate  and startlingly dfferent interpretations of Tomorrow Never Knows which bookend the Beatles' tribute: Come Together Volume 2 (NYC Records) By the way why the hell isn't Rypdal here anyway, yet?  I haven't even heard that one, but I have several of his albums: Rypdal,  Terje    Waves    1977    Sep.    879        6/1/03 Rypdal,  Terje    Undisonus    1990        880        8/5/03 Rypdal,  Terje    Skywards    1997        881        6/1/03 Rypdal, Terje    Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away    1974                12/5/06 Rypdal, Terje    After the Rain    1976    Aug.    678        2/8/01 Rypdal, Terje    Descendre    1979    Mar.    981        1/5/04 Rypdal, Terje    If Mountains Could Sing    1995        679        1/8/01 Rypdal, Terje    Lux Aeterna    2000    Jul.    1189        12/23/05 Rypdal, Terje    Vossabrygg    2006                3/24/07 Rypday, Terje    Singles Collection, The    1988    Aug.    178    Superb Jazz-Rock/Fusion

We can't talk about technicality as just playing fast. A technically impressive song has to have a technically challenging song structure, based around a strange scale, if any scale, and should be a piece so abstract that any listener of the song will feel a strange emotion when listening to it. For me that's Fracture and FraKctured. They're not songs in 4/4 with fast guitar solos, and they're not even songs in 13/8 with fast guitar solos. They're pieces of music written in varying time signatures (including 5/4, 7/4, 13/8, and one part that's something like 4.5/4), including very fast and very syncopated instrumentality, and not to mention they're both roughly 12 minutes long, so you need stamina to play that.

There aren't many songs like that, period. Technical in composition as well as in execution.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ ok, Iron Maiden are impressive ... but IMO not primarily because of their technicality. As a matter of fact Steve Morse runs circles around them.

The Whistler wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ ok, Iron Maiden are impressive ... but IMO not primarily because of their technicality. As a matter of fact Steve Morse runs circles around them.   Well, perhaps...I don't have too many recent Deep Purple records, so I can't really comment...but the true strength of the Maiden is another Steve (Harris), who is really one of the greatest metallic bassists I've ever heard. I'll be willing to take a hit right here and say he's actually quite as good as Squire.   Well, maybe ALMOST as good, but still really, really, really, really good. Not Jeffrey though.

Do yourself a favor and listen to Purpendicular ... or Rapture of the Deep.

You don't have to convince me that Iron Maiden are a good band ... they're easily in my top 10 list of all 80s metal bands. I just don't think that they specialize in technicality.

Oh and I forgot about behold ...the arctopus, their new album is killer tech, was released today I think.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: The Whistler wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ ok, Iron Maiden are impressive ... but IMO not primarily because of their technicality. As a matter of fact Steve Morse runs circles around them.   Well, perhaps...I don't have too many recent Deep Purple records, so I can't really comment...but the true strength of the Maiden is another Steve (Harris), who is really one of the greatest metallic bassists I've ever heard. I'll be willing to take a hit right here and say he's actually quite as good as Squire.   Well, maybe ALMOST as good, but still really, really, really, really good. Not Jeffrey though. Do yourself a favor and listen to Purpendicular ... or Rapture of the Deep. You don't have to convince me that Iron Maiden are a good band ... they're easily in my top 10 list of all 80s metal bands. I just don't think that they specialize in technicality.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: puma wrote: We can't talk about technicality as just playing fast. A technically impressive song has to have a technically challenging song structure, based around a strange scale, if any scale, and should be a piece so abstract that any listener of the song will feel a strange emotion when listening to it. For me that's Fracture and FraKctured. They're not songs in 4/4 with fast guitar solos, and they're not even songs in 13/8 with fast guitar solos. They're pieces of music written in varying time signatures (including 5/4, 7/4, 13/8, and one part that's something like 4.5/4), including very fast and very syncopated instrumentality, and not to mention they're both roughly 12 minutes long, so you need stamina to play that. There aren't many songs like that, period. Technical in composition as well as in execution. Sometimes even an odd time signature like 15/16 can sound quite natural and not very complex ... I already mentioned that Ivanhoe track. Sometimes the complexity comes from some instruments playing different rhythms/signatures than others simultaneously (polyrhythms) ... Meshuggah are a good example of that. Many of their songs are in standard 4/4 ... but if you're not used to polyrhythms you'll have a hard time figuring that out. BTW: 4.5/4 is probably better noted as 9/8.

Meshuggah is a very good example. In many of their songs, the drummer plays in 4/4 with his hands,  but does something completely different with his feet, which makes the song sound odd, but it still has a natural feel to it.