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topofsm 
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 Topic: Recurring themes in prog
Posted: March 01 2009 at 21:34 |
One of the things I love about symphonically based music is the reocurrence of important themes and motifs in a piece of music. As a percussionist in my local symphony orchestra, I have to say I'm quite familiar with the usage of this by the masters.
However, I also like rock and metal bands that utilize reocurring and familiar themes. This aspect of music is one that I find is consistently pulled off well by Dream Theater. As much as I don't see the greatness in their critically acclaimed album "Scenes from a Memory", they dabble familiar melodies in well all throughout it. They especially make great use of it in "Home", where they reuse chord progressions and drumkit rhythms from "Metropolis Pt. 1".
Another artist that I feel does this well is Nine Inch Nails. Anybody who has heard "The Downward Spiral" or "The Fragile" knows that several songs on each of those albums share a couple familiar melodies. Not only that, but Trent Reznor also writes in some great reocurring lyrics. If you've heard a fair amount of NIN material, chances are you've heard the phrase "Nothing can Stop Me Now" more than once, and not even just in one album.
Anyways, what are some artists that you feel use this technique well?
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DamoXt7942
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 02:49 |
The Beach Boys' "Smile" might be able to use a lot of reocurring phrases as you said...if the album could be made completely...I think.  (I found the possibility in their box set...several songs far from completion of SMILE.)
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Toaster Mantis
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 04:10 |
When I saw the title, I thought this thread would be more about themes in the sense of "what the music is about" and a lot of progressive rock being about similar subject matter, rather than in the Wagnerian leitmotif sense. 
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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progkidjoel
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 05:10 |
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Yes lyrics often feature the "Eyes Of Child" as a lyric, not sure what it means. Nature and the magic of life is also a common theme or so it would seem.
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BaldFriede
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 06:38 |
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Peter Hammill uses this technique a lot in his opera "The Fall of the House of Usher"; there are several themes which will occur again later. He uses a lot of other highly advanced composing techniques in it too, by the way, like true polyphony and counterpoint.
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 BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue.
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Captain Capricorn
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 06:45 |
The Theusz Hamtaahk Trilogy is a great example...also, The Mothers' We're Only In It For The Money has several reoccuring themes.
edit: Come to think of it, Zappa's entire catalogue features reoccuring themes!
Edited by Captain Capricorn - March 02 2009 at 06:47
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npjnpj
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 07:22 |
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Frank Zappa: Poodles (aka Phronobulax)
Edited by npjnpj - March 02 2009 at 07:23
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Epignosis
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 08:15 |
Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans makes a great use of two main themes presented after the introduction of "The Revealing Science of God." You hear the second one throughout the album, chiefly toward the end of "The Remembering" and again at the end of "Ritual" (although in a minor key). The first one is also prominent in "Ritual."
In addition, you can hear snippets of previous works, like "Close to the Edge." In "Ritual," Howe plays the guitar theme (just before the words) from "Close to the Edge" during one atmospheric section. In "The Ancient," he plays a snippet of the very first guitar notes from "Close to the Edge" on classical guitar, and prior to that, hearkens back to his repetitive guitar theme from "Siberian Khatru" on electric.
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Endless Wire
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 15:50 |
Good topic, recurring musical ideas is one of my absolute favorite things in music. Perhaps nobody does it better than Pain of Salvation, though. Just listen to BE, where practically every other melody can be heard somewhere else in the album but performed in a different way. These type of things add a lot of lasting value to an album for me.
I'm actually experiementing a lot with the concept to a great extent in my own music.
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topofsm
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 18:12 |
 Epignosis wrote:
Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans makes a great use of two main themes presented after the introduction of "The Revealing Science of God." You hear the second one throughout the album, chiefly toward the end of "The Remembering" and again at the end of "Ritual" (although in a minor key). The first one is also prominent in "Ritual."
In addition, you can hear snippets of previous works, like "Close to the Edge." In "Ritual," Howe plays the guitar theme (just before the words) from "Close to the Edge" during one atmospheric section. In "The Ancient," he plays a snippet of the very first guitar notes from "Close to the Edge" on classical guitar, and prior to that, hearkens back to his repetitive guitar theme from "Siberian Khatru" on electric.
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I've only listened to TFTO a couple times, but I thought I was the only one who noticed that. I also think I heard a couple classical motifs thrown in on Time and a Word. I like the way Yes does that too.
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The Quiet One
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 18:14 |
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^ah, I thought I was the only one too, lol
I'll have to think of one, now I don't remember any from the top my head...
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TheCaptain
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 18:38 |
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The Flower Kings do this quite a bit. "Unfold the Future" has the theme from The Truth Will Set You Free that shows up plenty. "Stardust We Are" also has quite a bit of this.
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Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.
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Endless Wire
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 19:50 |
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Another band that I just thought of that does it a bit is Coheed and Cambria (and now begins the are they prog debate...). Though they don't do it extremely often, when they do choose to do it the effect is very striking. Anybody else notice the C&C motifs?
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30761760
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Posted: March 03 2009 at 11:07 |
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I can think of two themes i loved. One is the 'brick in the wall' song used to gel the whole albam. It allows the work to be veiwed as a story of life rather than seperate songs (although as the many 'best of' albams and radio airings have shown, they are great songs in their own right. Also, Tulls 'Wandering Aloud' theme, which runs through many of their albams. These are examples of great use of repertition. There is, in my opinon, a bad use of themes. It can often show a lack of thought and origionality. If used sparingly it can tie pieces together. Too much of the same thing can often cheapen it (a bit of simple economic philosophy there. Yeah.).
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When music becomes a commodity, music dies.
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crimson87
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Posted: March 03 2009 at 11:59 |
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Trasatnlantic's " Bridge across forever" has loads of recurring themes
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el böthy
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Posted: March 03 2009 at 13:04 |
topofsm wrote:
If you've heard a fair amount of NIN material, chances are you've heard the phrase "Nothing can Stop Me Now" more than once, and not even just in one album.
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jajajajaja so true, never thought about it though...
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"You want me to play what, Robert?"
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AlexUC
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Posted: March 03 2009 at 13:11 |
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Well, I know about some bands with recurring themes, recurring music, recurring albums and recurring members... Don't like it very much
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This is not my beautiful house...
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moshkito
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Posted: March 03 2009 at 15:01 |
Hi,
Gotta love it ... all we need is a professor here ... we're discussing musical history and there are names for everyone of those concepts ... from Symphony, to Concerto, to Lieder, to Etude ... to .... a miriad of names for them and composers.
All in all, the most common tradition to work with is the most obvious, and the one that is taught in schools, and many Prog'rs are not immune to its influence, and folks like Keith Emerson used to love to rip whole passages for a lot of their material ... some for additional musical passages and some for new songs.
Music theory is what you're discussing here ... we just have to give some of these folks better credit for doing work that is way more than just a pop song!
There are some rock musicians that do not work in music theory and I often think that in their process is a "let's just do this" ... sort of a la Miles Davis (surprise .. he's not one of my favorites for some odd ball reason ... but his compositional methods were very "anty-music" as it became known later -- and defined a lot of jazz too!) ... and often the one thing that ties it all together is one theme that eventually a drummer, or bass player or guitarist or keyboard player will throw in, and it's a hint ... time for us to meet up again ... and that is interesting in a compositional sense ... and sometimes very good.
Pink Floyd is actually a good example. You can easily play Echoes, Atom Heart Mother, Dark Side of the Moon, and Obscured by Clouds ... and you will find a couple of notes on Richard's piano that seem to repeat ... and I think these were the "joining points" for the jams to stop and all to come together that separated the old days (quite clear in the bootlegs) and later Pink Floyd. In all cases, this theme ... brings about a change in the music ... into a new area.
Is this a symphony? A concert (a la bach, beethoven, etc) ?
We can't really find any difference in the compositional nature of "Dark Side of the Moon" ... than any of us can in Beethoven's 5th, or Mahler's 15th!
I have to tell you that I have a preference for musicians and creativity that is ... not structured per se ... and this is one reason why I tend to enjoy folks like Peter Hammill (not thrilled with the new Van Der Graaf stuff for some reason ... seems re-hashed to my ear? ... who is very good at ... just expressing what he feels, and does not usually worry about "composition" per se ... although I had ... for the 1st time ever listening to Peter the feeling that ... it has become a song ... I think he needs a break, but can't take that break ... and the opportunity to show and see him or VDG is almost gone ... the desire to be "there" ... still a bit of the rock'n'roll mistique perhaps?
In the early days, in the really experimental stuff on their 2nd, 3rd album and 4th album, I really like the "sound sphere" that Djam Karet creates ... unffortunately after that, they sort of fell into ... create a theme, add the 4 beats and ...we got a song! To me, I still love the band ... but the exciting visuals that the cascade of sounds created ... was far out ... and for it to just become a song ... the visual collectiveness dwindled a lot ... a heck of a lot ... still a nice band ... but not have as good as some of the far out stuff they did then.
In this sense King Crimson did some nice things ... but they, also were tied to the sonata element/format .... and still are these days ... and I am positive that Robert Fripp is always looking to break those barriers ... and you can see it in his Fripp and Eno stuff and what not ... see?
Edited by moshkito - March 03 2009 at 15:30
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zappaholic
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Posted: March 03 2009 at 19:44 |
Captain Capricorn wrote:
The Theusz Hamtaahk Trilogy is a great example...also, The Mothers' We're Only In It For The Money has several reoccuring themes.
edit: Come to think of it, Zappa's entire catalogue features reoccuring themes! |
Yup. He considered ALL of his work to be one huge piece. He even came up with terms to describe it - Project/Object and Conceptual Continuity.
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"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -- H.L. Mencken
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topofsm
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Posted: March 03 2009 at 20:13 |
el böthy wrote:
topofsm wrote:
If you've heard a fair amount of NIN material, chances are you've heard the phrase "Nothing can Stop Me Now" more than once, and not even just in one album.
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jajajajaja so true, never thought about it though...
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Yeah. You won't even hear it in the English if you listen to "Le Mer" from the NIN album "The Fragile"
moshkito wrote:
Hi,
Gotta love it ... all we need is a professor here ... we're discussing musical history and there are names for everyone of those concepts ... from Symphony, to Concerto, to Lieder, to Etude ... to .... a miriad of names for them and composers.
All in all, the most common tradition to work with is the most obvious, and the one that is taught in schools, and many Prog'rs are not immune to its influence, and folks like Keith Emerson used to love to rip whole passages for a lot of their material ... some for additional musical passages and some for new songs.
Music theory is what you're discussing here ... we just have to give some of these folks better credit for doing work that is way more than just a pop song!
There are some rock musicians that do not work in music theory and I often think that in their process is a "let's just do this" ... sort of a la Miles Davis (surprise .. he's not one of my favorites for some odd ball reason ... but his compositional methods were very "anty-music" as it became known later -- and defined a lot of jazz too!) ... and often the one thing that ties it all together is one theme that eventually a drummer, or bass player or guitarist or keyboard player will throw in, and it's a hint ... time for us to meet up again ... and that is interesting in a compositional sense ... and sometimes very good.
Pink Floyd is actually a good example. You can easily play Echoes, Atom Heart Mother, Dark Side of the Moon, and Obscured by Clouds ... and you will find a couple of notes on Richard's piano that seem to repeat ... and I think these were the "joining points" for the jams to stop and all to come together that separated the old days (quite clear in the bootlegs) and later Pink Floyd. In all cases, this theme ... brings about a change in the music ... into a new area.
Is this a symphony? A concert (a la bach, beethoven, etc) ?
We can't really find any difference in the compositional nature of "Dark Side of the Moon" ... than any of us can in Beethoven's 5th, or Mahler's 15th!
I have to tell you that I have a preference for musicians and creativity that is ... not structured per se ... and this is one reason why I tend to enjoy folks like Peter Hammill (not thrilled with the new Van Der Graaf stuff for some reason ... seems re-hashed to my ear? ... who is very good at ... just expressing what he feels, and does not usually worry about "composition" per se ... although I had ... for the 1st time ever listening to Peter the feeling that ... it has become a song ... I think he needs a break, but can't take that break ... and the opportunity to show and see him or VDG is almost gone ... the desire to be "there" ... still a bit of the rock'n'roll mistique perhaps?
In the early days, in the really experimental stuff on their 2nd, 3rd album and 4th album, I really like the "sound sphere" that Djam Karet creates ... unffortunately after that, they sort of fell into ... create a theme, add the 4 beats and ...we got a song! To me, I still love the band ... but the exciting visuals that the cascade of sounds created ... was far out ... and for it to just become a song ... the visual collectiveness dwindled a lot ... a heck of a lot ... still a nice band ... but not have as good as some of the far out stuff they did then.
In this sense King Crimson did some nice things ... but they, also were tied to the sonata element/format .... and still are these days ... and I am positive that Robert Fripp is always looking to break those barriers ... and you can see it in his Fripp and Eno stuff and what not ... see?
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Nice opinions, but this isn't a thread about what bands focus on their music theory or not. Perhaps this would be suited better for a different thread?
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Recurring themes in prog
