Interactive Playlist: Songwriting-Piano vs Guitar

Sorry it taking a while to get down to this -- been very involved in other things as well as trying some things of my own at PA (and started work on making an arts platform which I hope to become a full-time thing eventually).

I do tend to go with my gut, and von Hausswolff and Holter were the first two artists to come to mind. I decided for whatever I choose to go with live performances, which is limiting. In both cases I went with songs that I have not covered before let alone the performances. I know variety was asked for and these artists share similar ground, but I find these sufficiently different (and I like certain cohesiveness when pairing TBH). And yes, both are keyboards, but one is a piano and the other is a pipe organ.

The first is Anna von Hausswolff performaing on a grand pipe organ in New York.

Anna von Hausswolff - Funeral for My Future Children (live at Christ Church, NY)



Anna von Hausswolff is a singer-songwriter organist (pipe and otherwise), piano player, and keyboardist generally.

The second is the singer-songwriter Julia Holter on grand piano.

Julia Holter - Betsy on the Roof (live)




Edited by Logan - September 16 2023 at 10:01

mathman0806 wrote: ^I nominated that song a few years ago in an early interactive poll. https://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=123331 I didn't want to repeat a song and preferred the keyboards in the one I suggested. Though for the sake of keeping the nominees in a YouTube playlist, then it's fine.

Edited by Mila-13 - September 13 2023 at 13:06

^I nominated that song a few years ago in an early interactive poll.

https://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=123331

I didn't want to repeat a song and preferred the keyboards in the one I suggested. Though for the sake of keeping the nominees in a YouTube playlist, then it's fine.

This may not compare songwriting but does compare songs by essentially the same artists where keyboards is the prominent instrument in one group and guitar is in the other. I like the pairing since I had been listening to these two albums lately.

Valdez is a crossover prog band formed by singer/guitarist Simon Godfrey (Tinyfish, Shineback) and bassist Tom Hyatt (Echolyn) with drummer Scott Miller and keyboardist Joe Cardillo. Their debut album This came out in 2015. The music heavily featured the keyboards of Joe Cardillo though Simon Godfrey is the principal songwriter.

A few years later, the band begins work on a second album but Joe Cardillo leaves. This results in a lineup change and new guitarist Karl Eisenhart (Pinnacle) takes the lead role (rather than replace Joe Cardillo with another keyboardist) with songs being reworked.

Without Joe, the band felt they were no longer Valdez, so they became Tribe of Names. There's a different feel as the keyboard centric Valdez was perhaps more 'delicate' compared to the electric guitar driven sound of Tribe of Names. The Tribe of Names album Evolver came out in 2022 as the band spent 18 months recording through the pandemic and lockdown.

I want to pair two particular songs but neither have videos on YouTube so here are links/embeds to Bandcamp.

(EDIT: Still no video but decided to replace the Valdez song I originally posted.)

Valdez - Thirteen



Tribe of Names - Mayfly



EDIT: After writing this up, I did find a YouTube video of a live streaming performance of Mayfly.




Edited by mathman0806 - September 10 2023 at 06:34

Interesting idea. I don't think there is a "best" for songwriting, but I do have a pairing in mind involving a band on Prog Archives. I will think about this a bit.