The Tony Banks Sound?

I think that Genesis' compositional approach can usually be considered modal, as opposed to chord-based. The difference is, modal tunes tend to center around a single tonal center, and the sense of melodic movement comes from the relation between the chords played on top to the droning, tonal center note.

For example, Turn it on Again, the drone is on a B, then on top are the major chords C#, D, E, A, D, etc...When the C# major is played over the B, there is a Lydian feel due to the #5 (tritone) relationship between C#'s major third (F) and the root note, B. When it moves up to D, it is the relative major of B minor, and all of the notes in the chord have strong harmonic relationships to B, which is still being played in the bass.

One of the basic composition rules you could look at (I learned this from William Russo's Composing Music: A New Approach), is that chords should either:

- Move diatonically, with all notes in every chord belonging to a scale
- All chords are major, but the root notes of each all belong to the same scale.
- All chords are minor, but the root notes of each all belong to the same scale.

In the last two examples, you will see something happen that is initially confusing when you first learn composition theory -- you will have notes in some of the chords which do not belong to the scale! So, if you play major chords starting from C:

CDEFGABC

As you play these chords, you will see several notes that initially seem to be out of key: B major contains D# and F#, which do not belong in the key of C! And A major contains a C#, which is as dissonant to the root, C, as you can get! But because of the parallel movement of the chords, it sounds consonant and makes harmonic sense to someone accustomed to Western music.

I think that Tony Banks/Genesis use the above two approaches quite a bit, sometimes even mixing them in the same song, but there are tons of other compositional approaches they use as well...


Edited by jplanet - September 30 2008 at 04:35

Cool! When can we hear some samples of what you're working on?

I'm not as familiar with Shotakovich and Mahler as I would like to be, although I know that Keith Emerson is also heavily influenced by Shotakovich -- He's even performed some of his pieces and quoted bits of his work - I hear more Shotakovich in ELP than Genesis...I can certainly hear Debussy references in Genesis, especially in their moments of elegant simplicity, but I wonder if that is more Steve Hackett's contribution. Perhaps Ravel in some of the more dramatic Genesis tunes...

You may find these two videos interesting....

Tony Banks on writing Supper's Ready

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIqreXrAWTo

Writing Firth of Fifth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITbQyCtJVN4&feature=related


Edited by Jozef - October 02 2008 at 18:45

The keyboardist from "Simply Autumn" (is that right?  Sorry, I don't know them) states on the "Genesis:  The Gabriel Era Book and 2 DVD Set" (London:  Art House Classics Ltd) that Tony Banks uses very complex chord patterns in the introductions to many songs on NC, Foxtrot, SEBTP, and TLLDOB.  He definitely had commanding knowledge of complex chord patterns that only added to the "prog" quality of the songs that he composed for Genesis at that time...