the importance of analog sound in prog

 

This was the scary part ... and Tom Dowd even mentions it and discusses the metal master ... but the fact that was scary was that the Dark Side of the Moon and Sgt Peppers and many other albums, were quite different and clear, compared to the American versions. I still have the DSOTM album I think ... and it is exactly the same as the "remastered" version, where you can see where the instruments were OBVIOUSLY tempered with SINCE!

 

But it might suggest that the equipment in both countries was different and that a taped copy had to be made and brought over, from which Capitol (or whoever) messed things up ... but it was no secret, according to Frank Zappa that some of these companies did not spend any money on these things because they did not think it was important or that valuable, and all that ... which is now history.

 

The best recordings in America in the 50's and early 60's, were done for Classical Music ... and then the artists that were involved with the movie studios, which, in general, had the only, and best recording facilities of any one else out there ... it kinda explaines why a Bobby Darin, Elvis Presley and many others had a better chance at exposure than most jazz and rock/music artists. The "media" was already controlled by these studios (Citizen Kane!!!!!!!!!) and still IS!

 

This might not have been as important in Europe's history of music and the arts, but it is in America ... and it is why the "black" thing is so big in America in many ways ... and Tom Dowd's DVD can give you some really good perspective on this ... you can easily say that all those Blue Note recordings were done on the cheapest recorders you ever saw or heard ... and a remaster there makes sense, but many others do not!

 

Again, the fact, that these recordings were 2nd or 3rd generation ... doesn't bother me ... you don't need to put up huge shields, hide between the words, or paint your face black or blue, for me to know that you know your stuff, your music, and on top of it ... that you not only love it, that you also live it! ... see my parallel? The "truth" of the music still flies ... and the "remastering" only moves the 2nd violin 10 ft to the right or left (so to speak) and it gets a little reverb because of the wall (whatever!) ... and does not change the real thing behind it!

 

This was/is (also) the theme behind the other thread that someone does not want to see properly! The fact that it is "digital" today, has nothing to do with the person under it ... or whichever clothes he or she was wearing that day! It is no more important today, than yesterday ... and the only difference, might be ... that we have a better discussion and information for that time and place, than we do today's ... but even that might be our own preferences! (Even I admit that!)

Not sure what you are trying to show here Normon, or how this relates to the topic of this thread.

 

It was a good piece of research, poorly reported and unscrupulously cherry-picked, but we've come to expect that with "scientific" research now-a-days so no surprises there. The keyword in Bruford's quote was "popular music" since the research was looking to determine what qualities determined whether a Pop song would be a hit, it does not concern esoteric music genres such as classical, jazz, ambient, new age, avant garde or even progressive rock. One observation that has been drawn from the research is that the most creative period in popular music was the 1980s - and that seems to fly against conventional wisdom (around here).

 

Another useful observation from the research paper that Bruford didn't quote was that Pop music was simpler in the 60s and 70s (that doesn't stack-up with Progressive Rock so it is evident that this research doesn't really concern our favourite music genre) - how they measured this "simplicity" was pretty simple and makes sense - they looked at chord progressions and transitions, scaling them based upon a I-IV-V sequence being the simplest:

 

 

Curious no? Hit songs are getting more complex, even if "dancability" (I assume that's Bruford's more repetitive) has been pretty level since the 80s.

 

One comforting observation in the research is that while loudness has indeed been steadily increasing since the 60s, it has dropped off over the past year or so, hopefully a trend that will continue:

 

 

Bruford's credentials as a prog drummer does not qualify his relevance as a researcher, his academic record does that - what you are presenting there is the appeal to authority falacy.

 

His hi-hat comment was a flippant comment, not meant to be taken seriously. Really.

 

Bruford hasn't published (or even concluded) his research so it is impossible to decide whether it is relevant or not, or what conclusions it will confirm or deny.

 

The Bristol University research has been published and doesn't show anything of the sort (that: something has gone out of wack in music in general), but that was only concerned with songs that entered the UK top 40 ... they analysed the differences between hit songs (those in the top 5) against those songs that never went higher than #30 for a fixed period in time (6 months) and created an algorithm to predict the parameters that determined what would be a hit for that time period.

 

 

Only relevant in that a lot of today's "prog" music is very mechanical and not defined past the drum beat ... for inventiveness and such, and the parallel that Bill is making is almost the  same as the digital/analog discussion we are having ... with one issue ... instead of worrying about the beat ... and that damn 4th beat on the snare drum that 9 out of 10 drummers in "prog" do, they should concentrate more on the music itself ... and much less on the timing ... which btw ... is a massive waste of a musician ... since that is what a metronome exists for, and after you have it all recorded you can remove the metronome ... but I'm not sure when you spend your time listening to top ten, that you can gain a perspective on different music's in order to see/learn what more can be done with it.

That is not the subject of Bruford's research.

Surrealist wrote: I don't see any reason he would waste his time studying pop music and it's nuts and bolts.

Surrealist wrote: You don't take on a research project unless you sense something is not looking right... therefore the purpose is to get to the truth of the matter.

What?!

 

Surrealist doesn't answer direct questions nor does he provide links to the quotes he has mined from the interwebs.

 

I can provide some clues from the information I have trawled from the web following his first mention of this research.

 

The original Bruford quote posted by Surrealist refers to two different pieces of research. The source of the quote is a humorous spoof Psychiatrist’s interview on Bruford's website. The key words there are spoof and humorous.

 

The first piece of research mentioned is from Bristol University, which has been published (links in one of my posts) - I don't know whether Bruford read the academic paper from that research, but his sentence "confirms that popular music is getting louder and more repetitive" is not mentioned in the research paper, but is taken almost verbatim from the headline in the Independent newspaper that first reported it.

 

The second is Bill Bruford's own postgraduate research that he is currently doing at Surrey University for his doctorate, all we know of this is that it is on "research into notions of creativity and the drum kit", Bill has not given out any details on his planned thesis, anything that Surrealist says about it is pure speculation.

 

I agree with you, you don't undertake research (at doctorate level) on a subject when you already know the answer and when the topic is 'notions of creativity and the drum kit' that doesn't suggest (to me anyhow) that he thinks something "is not looking right" - just a quick look at the drumming styles and creativity in mathrock and djent answers that.

 

 

In the main I agree with Bill Bruford when he says a band is only as good as its drummer, though I would put a corollary on that - a good drummer is only as good as his rythmn guitarist because bands are only good when they work together and let's face it, there is more to a rythmn section than just the individual musicians. (there is sound logic in recording a drum track to a rythmn-guitar guide track). Somewhere in the dim distant past I made the claim that if you want to write a good guitar riff, listen to your drummer because he has an different perspective on rythmn and phrasing - all the guitarist has to do is supply the key, the notes and the chord progression.