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wilmon91 
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: August 15 2009 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 698 |
 Posted: December 23 2012 at 08:10 |
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The ideal thing I think is a band whose members don't listen to exactly the same music and have varying musical backgrounds. The result can be something you couldn't have imagined beforehand (as gerinski pointed out). That's the only way new sounds and genres may appear.
A one man band works within his/her limitations. There may be a tendency that the instrument he/she plays will be represented more than other instruments, for example guitar. The guitars become the main instrument, the instrument that's most "alive" in the music. More musicians can add extra dimensions to the music that are outside ones own limitations. That's also a good way to evolve by learning other people's ways of thinking and evolve musically. And as some have pointed out, a solo band often have compromises, such as bad drum machine (with bad programming and sound). The solo artist may decide to sing on the album instead of collaborating with a singer, which may be a negative thing.
Many of Tony Banks albums have compromised sound...really stiff drum machines. And keyboard solos using some awful saxophone sound for example. Often when a member of a band releases a solo album, the result is compromised in some aspects.
And also, it's more time consuming since you have to do everything yourself. If you trust the band members, they can add musical parts and ideas, so a complex piece can be built in shorter time.
But of course, there may be disadvantages working in a group, and advantages working solo. I'm not playing in a group , I quit the previous group because I felt I needed to explore song writing myself, and try to find the kind of sounds I want to pursue. Right now I need a new computer, I can't use the current one for music production. When I have some material, ideally, I would want to continue in a band. But it can be hard finding the right band members.
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
Posted: December 23 2012 at 11:38 |
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Your opinion is interesting because if I'm not wrong you play both in band (Fungus) but also as a one-man project Zerothehero, correct?
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17511 |
Posted: December 23 2012 at 12:16 |
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Easy ... most folks get married to the time clock and do not know how to remove it later, so the music is free'r to attempt details that otherwise the timing does not allow ... the clock is rigid, and a limitation ... it has been so for 500 years, and is joked about in "Amadeus" with the fat old farts having a staff in their hands to count the 4/4 ... for example!
History since then, has been about breaking down that clock ... but rock music (not the REAL progressive music) is not capable, intelligent or smart enough to learn from music history ... it's way too dependant on the clock or the snare drum in the case of most prog these days ... which is a waste of a musician, when a metronome can do the drummer better, and you could color it with percussion instead of the snare every 4th beat! Of course, SD has to think that his heart is still beating, though, so maybe there is a need for that snare drum after all!
This is the main reason why too many bands today will like not be remembered as fondly as so many were that we still discuss ... they broke the rules ... and even Rick W talks about ... "the freedom" ... but today, most of these bands are just like Doris Lessing's famous line ... "the country and place with the most freedoms, uses them the least!" ... and that goes for music and the arts!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Tapfret
Special Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 12 2007 Location: Bryant, Wa Status: Offline Points: 8581 |
Posted: December 23 2012 at 12:20 |
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On a side note: can we put the term "musical masturbation" to rest? Its use is obnoxious and a form of self gratification in itself.
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17511 |
Posted: December 23 2012 at 12:23 |
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I doubt it ... and there are several stories about this, and music around it. Even in movies!
It wasn't about "composing" for an orchestra for most of them ... it was about illustrating what they saw or felt or wanted ... the only folks that "compose" for an orchestra are the professors in music schools that never made it in music as others did!
You write what you see.
You write what you feel.
And sometimes this bends the rules ... some or a lot. Please check out music history a bit ... it's been 500 years of breaking down barriers as to what "music" is ... and rock, jazz and folk, have added something (20th century) to it that was considered a composer's realm before, within their "story" ... now you do not have a go-between ... because you hear it first hand ... the attitude and the expression ... is from the originator, not from someone else ... and that makes a huge difference to the music itself ... and forces the music to help that singer/writer better ... this is the hard part of rock/jazz for most professors ... this is not considered discipline, and such ... which ... of course neither was Stravinsky and so many other creators that were boo'd when they first got on stage ... people were laughing at Beethoven when he said he wanted 20 violins ... no one used more than 2 or 3 up until then!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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docall27
Forum Newbie 
Joined: December 22 2012 Location: Lake Geneva, WI Status: Offline Points: 35 |
Posted: December 23 2012 at 12:32 |
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I'm glad you said most because I think a creative composer can beat the clock. If I understand you right, you are talking about feel, the minute changes in tempo make music sound alive. In the DAW, a creative composer can build that into a composition by automating tempo pretty much like a classical composer would use hairpins, rit and accel. A good composer should be able to write feel into DAW - this is a gift great musicians have. The rest do sound mechanical.
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docall27
Forum Newbie
Joined: December 22 2012 Location: Lake Geneva, WI Status: Offline Points: 35 |
Posted: December 23 2012 at 12:42 |
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Huh? Many of the greatest composers were prolific and gifted orchestrators. Most of them were also gifted musicians. Paul Hindemith was not only a great composer and orchestrator, but he could also play EVERY instrument in the orchestra at a professional level. Did I misunderstand you?
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17511 |
Posted: December 23 2012 at 13:25 |
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Not sure, but probably not.
My comment was more about the rock/jazz music design, as opposed to a classical music design ... honestly I would like to see bands in "progressive" do 17/32 instead of 3/4 or 4/4 or some of the easier things in music ... which kinda suggests the ability to COLOR one's imagination, is limited ... to what one knows ... not to what one perceives! The day that we here a rock band do the Firebird Suite, is the day that some rock musicians will open up ... that there is more music without the "beat", than there is with the "beat". At least, I admit that is so in my imagination ... the beat brings it down to the industrial level ... and I prefer the non-industrial levels all around! Less mechanical!
The perception can help create a lot of things ... the limitations of music and notation, tend to cut things down, and take the intangibles out.
I don't think many folks can understand this, until you get used to hearing musics from 1000 countries ... and I don't mean a 30 second sample! By the time, you get to the really evolved and different ones out there, it is so far and differet from rock and jazz and classical ... that too many folks automatically dismiss it ... Ex: When I say that Terje Rypdal and David Darling's album EOS is Chamber Music for Electric Guitar and Bass ... I am not sure that most folks here can even conceive what it is ... and what those two accomplished with a couple of effects ... skip the first cut ... you have been warned. And in the end, it is some of the prettiest things ever recorded with an electric guitar and the biggest and highest compliment to Jimi Hendrix I have ever heard. Only one other guitarist, ahs ever shown that much shine and care to his playing, specially in the early days, and it was Toni McPhee with The Groundhogs, before he became a blues and this and that guitarist ... put on Crosscut Saw and Black Diamond. It is rock music, but ... it also is more than just rock music ... and it is a one man's vision for the most part ... and this was the guy that taught Jimi to do the American Anthem, when Jimi saw him do Amazing Grace!
These things "expand" the realm of perception and experience ... and yes, a "one-man" band has to stand up for it ... but it can also be done by any composer ... and no one here, including myself, can really say outright that the "one-man" band IS ... what the history of music is all about! And eventually the credit goes back to the originators of the music, not the kissers! Edited by moshkito - December 23 2012 at 13:27 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Tom Ozric
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2005 Location: Olympus Mons Status: Offline Points: 15916 |
Posted: December 23 2012 at 23:35 |
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 - really wouldn't like to be on something and watching this snippet...........
.........I just found myself staring at that Floyd sequence and it took me a while to get the order correct
 - I don't even take anything anymore  ......... |
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zerothehero76
Forum Newbie
Joined: November 01 2009 Location: italy Status: Offline Points: 32 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 04:59 |
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Yes, I do! Zerothehero started to evolve the day I realized some of the material was not suitable for fungus. But if we had time and money to record an album every year, well... you'd hear everything played by a "real" band, recorded in a "real" studio. By now, that's the best I can do (but I'm quite satisfied, even because to satisfy one's mind and ears is easier than a five people's!) My guitarist also writes with his computer, but his compositions are so articulated he usually leaves everything in MIDI or sheet music, until the band "takes care" of it. And that's a pity, because we put aside so many good pieces of music...
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mono
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 12 2005 Location: Paris, France Status: Offline Points: 652 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 09:28 |
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as a 'one-man band' who also plays in a group, I understand the initial statement, but find it a bit prohibitive.
these two 'formations' are quite different in terms of methods, but can be quite similar when it comes to the final production in general. a one-man band works most of the time like a film music composer would, and most of them work alone (at least for composing). Not talking about the 'requirements', but simply the methods used to put down ideas that were thought of. In a 'proper' band (not a band where one person writes everything), a musician composer will expect feedback to his idea in order to take it to the next level, and thus leaves a bigger deal of unkonwn in his suggestions, in order to fully benefit from the rest of the members' creativity. I don't think these two types of 'bands' can be separated in terms of quality. Many one-man bands produce 'group-like' compositions and vice-versa... In my case, I tend to improvise a lot with the band in order to get something rich. When I work alone, the creative process is more 'offline' and 'sound-based'. The music coming from these two projects is very different.
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https://soundcloud.com/why-music Prog trio, from ambiant to violence
https://soundcloud.com/m0n0-film Film music and production projects https://soundcloud.com/fadisaliba (almost) everything else |
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progbethyname
Forum Senior Member
Joined: July 30 2012 Location: HiFi Headmania Status: Offline Points: 7849 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 12:38 |
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Well for me. I look at the classics first. That being said, one of the greatest one-man army of sound goes to MIKE OLDFIELD. His TUBULAR BELLS album is sensational. He did all the recording, mixing and instrumentation on that album. Nothing short of brilliant, especially since he did the recording and some editing all on a little crummy A-TRACK player. Hands down a huge achievement.
Now as we move into modernity, I feel that KEVIN MOORE has impressed me the most with his solo project, CHROMA KEY. Sensational work that was all composed, written by the gritty genius of MOORE's mind. Another point. Being a solo artist is like owning your own business. You call the shots and have to answer to no one, except the record companies themselves for dead lines and such. Anyway, long story short this is a dream come true scenario for most musicians cause their is no second guessing with anyone else other than your self. Creates less conflict and stress. If I could pull it off I would!!! |
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Gimmie my headphones now!!! 🎧🤣
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HackettFan
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 20 2012 Location: Oklahoma Status: Offline Points: 7951 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 13:52 |
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That's not the only way genres appear. A single person can get a varied musical background simply by having a varied musical background. I was working to very disparate musical forms just last night - on my own, by myself. The point about instruments is just wrong nowadays. My guitar can sound like a guitar, an organ, a piano, a synthesizer, a bouzouki, a violin, a steel drum, chimes, or something entirely crazy. I also have a very good drum machine, an Alesis SR-18. I don't doubt that there is creative stimulation one can get from a band, but the question is whether something is lacking in a one man band. Well, maybe, but not necessarily. It's analogous to alternate tunings. Yes, one can get creative stimulation from an alternate tuning, but one can also get the same stimulation with standard tuning by hearing an unusual chord or waking up on a different side of the bed. Edited by HackettFan - December 24 2012 at 13:58 |
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BrufordFreak
Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: January 25 2008 Location: Wisconsin Status: Offline Points: 8192 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 16:51 |
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I agree with Finnforest whole-heartedly: there are good things to come out of BOTH approaches (band jamming and solo composition). I have been lucky to have been part of both and I think that there is a different kind of magic that comes from both: those fleeting or sometimes sustained moments of entrained grooving with a live band, and the satisfaction of being pleased with layer upon layer of multi-track solo composition and performance. The feelings are different, the end result is different, but both can produce "good" music.
Also, excellent point about the 'classical' music composers who (can) (seemingly) leave very little room for individual interpretation from their texts/scores. 'Classical' composers, in my opinion, follow a kind of mathematical, mental formula for constructing their pieces. Many progressive rockers have kind of taken that experience of 'classical' training and experimented with the more improvisational side or 'jazz' of music play--especially in the live and recording phase. Others seek a rigid adherence to the original compositions and studio recorded versions (to please fans/audiences). Wasn't the Canterbury 'movement' kind of a combination of both? (Plus, throw in a few mind-altering substances . . . ) Anyway, I do not think that the solo/mostly solo album recordings coming out are any less valuable, or are producing music that is any less creative, less accomplished, or less magical--and certainly not any worse qualitatively--than the full bands. The listener, in the end, is the decision-maker. It's all rather subjective, of course, isn't it? |
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Drew Fisher
https://progisaliveandwell.blogspot.com/ |
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Evolver
Special Collaborator
Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams Joined: October 22 2005 Location: The Idiocracy Status: Offline Points: 5482 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 18:16 |
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I'm with Gerinski on this.
As someone who has played in bands as well as recorded on my own (nothing released this way, however), and also evaluated and reviewed a number of artists who record on their own, I understand the limitations that can come from that process.
While it is not inevitable, as I have heard some artists that have managed to avoid most of the pitfalls, problems with recording alone usually are evident.
First, as Gerinski pointed out, is that the artist's first vision of the song is what we hear. That may be nice, but In my experience, the first vision of the song is rarely the best. By actually playing the song over and over, musicians, once they get comfortable with the piece, begin to add embellishments, or eyebrows as Frank Zappa called them. By playing a song repeatedly the musicians get a feel for which embellishments work and which do not.
And speaking of Mr. Zappa, with his now vast catalog of live releases, you can hear many of his pieces evolve from relatively simplistic pieces into something really special.
Second, and I believe this has been mentioned previously, a single artist is rarely an expert in every instrument on his album. In most cases the drums are the weak point. As a non-drummer who has tried to create realistic drum beats on a synth, I understand just how difficult it is (I eventually broke down and just let a drummer friend create the drum tracks using trigger pads).
With one man recordings, I usually notice which instruments the artist specializes in, and which he is not as competent playing. As a bass player, it irritates me when a great prog piece is brought down by a mundane bass line (often I hear keyboardists of guitarists lay down a bass track that finds a home at the root and stays there).
Luckily, some artists can produce wonderful music that way, and I applaud them (if I'm writing a review, I acknowledge how impressive I find the ones who prevail). But alas, in my experience, most do not prevail.
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Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 22:02 |
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Well I guess most of JT's output was really that of one man? Did Steve Hackett really fare far worse than Genesis in the late 70s? I think even some Genesis fans would disagree there. Donald Fagen sounds revitalised and vibrant on Nightfly, following on the heels of the brilliant but downbeat and pessimistic Gaucho. You are correct that it takes a gifted composer to compose an album full of great prog all by himself but it also takes an extraordinary band to get the most out of jamming as a means of composition and frankly most of them don't. The musicians might find the experience very satisfying but whether it really makes such a telling difference to the listener is another matter. I felt the influence of collaboration was positive in KC but they also relied much more on improvisation than many other of their contemporaries. Even in democratic bands, there are one or two dominant composers who call the shots and that is what lends coherence to their work. If every track was entirely everybody's baby and every band member had widely divergent tastes, would it make much sense as an album experience? Coming to performance, it can have a detrimental impact IF one man plays all the instruments and the music revolves around traditional rock/blues/jazz instruments (and that too is contingent on his skills...if he is as good as Stevie Wonder, then why not). I don't find any remarkable difference in creativity between Bjork and Radiohead, who got more and more collaborative by the time of Kid A. So if the music revolves around electronic elements, it is the creativity - individually or collectively - of an artist or band that would matter. A friend of mine makes some sort of prog rock/metal and in the early days, his approach was more like a dictator. His ideas, his compositions and the band's job being to only play them. His last track however was more collaborative and he was thrilled with the results. But as a listener (and as someone who knows a lot about his musical influences), I still hear his own voice in the music and if I hadn't been told it was collaborative, I would never know. It did reflect an improvement over previous tracks but that could be down to his own improvement as a composer, the band gelling well at this point and performing the music better and improvement in recording. I wouldn't have thought it would be impossible for him to compose that track all by himself because I thought he did when I heard it the first time.
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Evolver
Special Collaborator
Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams Joined: October 22 2005 Location: The Idiocracy Status: Offline Points: 5482 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 23:14 |
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I believe you are mistaking a musician/songwriter leading a band with a single musician playing all the instruments on his album.
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Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: December 24 2012 at 23:19 |
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Check out the discussion between Dean and Gerinski on the first page of this thread. It suggests that Gerinski extends his notion of a one man band to that of a one man composer and believes that even a one man composer is hampered in terms of creativity compared to a band with a few composers. I think that is highly debatable and can only be observed on a case-by-case basis. It is highly unlikely that the sum total of the output of a democratic, mediocre band would match the creativity of a genius. Further, as I mentioned in the second para of my previous post, you cannot compare music with traditional rock/blues instruments with electronic music. A one man band concept is not at all unusual in electronic music, so it's not hard and fast that something would necessarily always be lost in a one man band set up, unless you start out with the (possibly biased) notion that no electronic or electronic-influenced music can be as inspired as out and out rock music.
Edited by rogerthat - December 24 2012 at 23:22 |
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010 Location: Barcelona Spain Status: Offline Points: 5154 |
Posted: December 25 2012 at 02:15 |
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JT, Hackett or Radiohead are not one-man bands.
The discussion got twisted towards the compositional aspect as if I was just saying that good compositions can only arise from collaborative effort, which was not the intended meaning. My fault because I did indeed made a comment in that direction but that was not the whole point. The title should have made clear that I wanted to raise discussion about the growing trend for one-man albums. I never had a problem with bands led by a single composer, these are not part of the discussion. Even in bands led by a composer what we hear is still a band, and we can never know how tightly the instrumentalists played according to a score written by the composer or how much they introduced their own lines or details. At the very least even if they followed tightly a score they played it with their own style and flavour and this produces a wider richness in the overall sound than if all the instruments are played by one-man (let alone the fact that in many cases each individual instrumentalist may be more skilled in his particular instrument). Freddie Mercury might be the composer of Killer Queen or Death On Two Legs but they would not sound as they did without May, Taylor and Deacon. No, these or JT or Hackett are for me band products, not one-man products! There are two sides to the discussion one-man vs band, the composition and the interpretation. In my opinion interpretation by other band members is enough to introduce that additional richness I was referring to. Sorry if I created confusion but my point was just about one-man projects.
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006 Location: . Status: Offline Points: 9869 |
Posted: December 25 2012 at 02:28 |
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^^^ I don't know very much about modern one man bands and I would hazard a guess that they may be simply facing a problem of constraints. My aforementioned friend has found it difficult to keep the flock together for any length of time and has been the only constant in his band since he first put it together just two years back. Maybe this is a side effect of the emerging independence of artists, operating in a cottage industry-like model without label interference. In the 60s and the 70s, bands would have had contracts and therefore some foreseeable income and incentive to stay together. A fair few artists from that time have said later in interviews that commercial success was one of their most important goals. Which artist making prog rock today realistically has commercial success as a goal? We can see that many of the successful bands went through a lot of churning that way BEFORE they broke through. Instead of trying to somehow grit it out with a band, maybe musicians simply prefer to put it together by themselves and try to find some audience.
If, however, the said one man army actually was a very skilled multi instrumentalist, I don't think the lack of external influences on his work would pose a great impediment to him. I come back to Wonder....of the 9 tracks on Innervisions, no less than 3 are credited entirely to him and at least two of them - Living for the city and Higher ground - are among his evergreen favourites. The only reason we may not find such examples in prog of that time could be that the live act, specifically involving a band rather than guest musicians (esp ELP), was more important to their success than it was for Wonder, who enjoyed a lot more support in the radio and depended much more on album sales. Edited by rogerthat - December 25 2012 at 02:35 |
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Abundance of one-man "bands" in modern prog
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zerothehero76 wrote:
) , but band work in arrangement has been so deep that they are two different songs.