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Most rock musicians have no idea how to read sheet music. He has a good sense of harmony, it doesn't often comeup in vocals but a buuuunch of pumpkins songs have wild guitar harmony layers.
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Feb 7, 2021 03:07
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| # ? May 31, 2024 04:11 |
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Reading sheet music, like legitimate sheet music, is almost entirely different from reading tabs, or a series of chord names. Fundamentally they're the same ("read this to learn how and what to play, and when"), but reading the notes on the staves is nothing like looking at guitar tabs. One is "play a G, but maybe it's a G# or Gb, depending on what key you're in, and you should have remembered that from when you started the piece", and the other is "play fret 9 here and here, then slide down to fret 7".
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Feb 7, 2021 03:28
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As I've said in other threads, tabs tell you how to play a song in a mechanical sense, sheet music explains why you should do that and what it means.
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Feb 7, 2021 03:49
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Reading sheet music, like legitimate sheet music, is almost entirely different from reading tabs, or a series of chord names. Fundamentally they're the same ("read this to learn how and what to play, and when"), but reading the notes on the staves is nothing like looking at guitar tabs. One is "play a G, but maybe it's a G# or Gb, depending on what key you're in, and you should have remembered that from when you started the piece", and the other is "play fret 9 here and here, then slide down to fret 7". You are almost completely wrong, and I'll let Adam Neely do the talking. https://youtu.be/4X7qgBVnMfY Also, the flats and sharps are noted at the start of every line in sheet music, so you're not going that far back if you forget what key you're in.
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Feb 7, 2021 18:34
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I know the difference between guitar tabs and sheet music but Billy isn't just a guitarist/bassist, the guy plays piano too which is why it all seems so impressive. Writing the songs and arrangements that he does and even going beyond that to production/mixing/mastering etc. and being so very involved with so much of the process, it just really impresses me. The closest comparison I can think of at this very moment is Trent Reznor but as far as I know he is very musically literate, so the idea of Billy being somewhat similar but self-taught and really not knowing much and having just felt it out all this time, especially with such constant output in the 90s, is really impressive. I think I'd probably throw Thom Yorke in there as well but I think that much like Reznor, he has the musical literacy and so much versatility (how he can take a complex electronic song such as Bloom and play such a beautiful piano rendition speaks volumes, I think, nevermind his deeper diving into more difficult methods such as syncopation). Also makes me wonder the "What if?" we ever actually saw any of these collaborate or work together on something. I think their methods would make that impossible by default (with the exception of Thom Yorke, who is used to collaborative efforts rather than doing almost everything himself) but I'd love to see the three of them in a studio work together and their different approaches. I think Trent & Billy in particular have a similar method of "Sit down. Play whatever and record it. Revisit it afterwards and see what's good" and I imagine Thom may be the same. Then you have guys like Nick Cave who have an office and treat songwriting as a 9-5 which obviously works for him but I do wonder how 
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Feb 7, 2021 20:58
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Cemetry Gator posted:You are almost completely wrong, and I'll let Adam Neely do the talking. https://youtu.be/4X7qgBVnMfY Fair enough.
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Feb 7, 2021 23:04
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Baron von Eevl posted:I think Tear was his first take at a Batman theme and Warner rejected it for not being rock enough. I hadn't heard that about Eye, but there were a bunch of things he did in 96 that at least got released well before Eye. I've heard The Last Song was cut in the first post-MCIS sessions, but I don't know when that was written vs Eye. I know there's a piano only demo for Eye recorded at sadlands but that was his living room so it could have been any time. That Sadlands demo really made me appreciate Eye so much more. The electronic elements in the studio version are really heavy handed and haven't aged well, IMO, but at its core it's a fantastic song.
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Feb 8, 2021 20:24
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I am extremely on board for three discs of Machina things.
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Feb 24, 2021 15:19
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Kerrang decided to do a top 20 Pumpkins songs and I can mostly understand the list, though I wouldn't have put Tarantula on there at all, but hey, opinions.
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Mar 11, 2021 23:39
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Any list without Home is like. . . fuckin bullshit
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Mar 12, 2021 04:22
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I understand most of those choices but saying Zero is their best song is batshit insane. Also I woulda kept Ava Adore off there in addition to Tarantula. edit Home is good but I've got a real soft spot for Slow Dawn
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Mar 12, 2021 04:23
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I've always wondered what/how when it comes to the solo in Zero. I like the song and think the solo is what really makes it, especially how it transitions back into that build-up which climaxes with the high-pitched squeal before the chorus, but I could never figure out that solo at all. It mostly sounds like a guitar but there's something in there and I've no idea how they did it but it sounds awesome. I'm guessing Billy was doing some Siamese Dream-esque studio craziness and layering things until they sounded like that?
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Mar 13, 2021 02:32
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It's James and there are many many different parts overdubbed on top of each other. It's possible that some of those parts also involve a harmonizer tuned at a fifth but that could just be dubbing too.
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Mar 13, 2021 15:49
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Baron von Eevl posted:It's James and there are many many different parts overdubbed on top of each other. It's possible that some of those parts also involve a harmonizer tuned at a fifth but that could just be dubbing too. I don't know about how many overdubs there are but it sounds like James rocking the foot pedal on the Whammy harmonizing so it's constantly going back and forth between two intervals, but I wouldn't be able to tell you what those intervals are.
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Mar 13, 2021 18:48
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Yeah whammy pedal sounds likely, I know he started using one a lot starting with the Adore sessions (his whammy's also all over Machina 2). There's some real high sizzle on there that sounds to me like a harmonizer but could just be the whammy up an octave or it could be some kind of "exciter" or something pushing the upper harmonics. It gives me vibes of like Tony Iommi's Paranoid solo. Then again there's a loving lot going on with guitars in that track. Per Billy: "Zero has six rhythm guitars, with two line-in 12-string acoustics." I think some of the guitars are also run through a synthesizer filter, particularly on the harmonics in the main riff but it's buried pretty deep in the mix for the album version.
Baron von Eevl fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Mar 13, 2021 |
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Mar 13, 2021 21:16
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So that's not Billy at all? That's James being absolutely awesome on guitar? I'm starting to wonder now what other things James has done that I'm unaware of. I know the main thing people point to is Mayonnaise but I remember watching a live performance of Glass and the Ghost Children (I love the intro of that song) and while Jimmy is doing his thing on drums, the intro guitar work is played by James while Billy steps away from center-stage and just extends his arms in a "Look at James!" kind of way that makes me wonder if that was all him on the start of that track as well? Could Billy even play these things?! Speaking of Adore I assume all the EBow stuff was James as well? It was used really tastefully on that album, particularly Daphne Descends, imo. It provided some wonderful atmospherics to tracks that just wouldn't be the same without it.
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Mar 21, 2021 04:10
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Starting around Adore most of the atmospheric stuff was James, and then later Jeff. James has always been the less technically proficient between him and Billy, but tended to make up for it with playing weirder stuff. All the high squealy stuff on Machina 2 is James I think.
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Mar 21, 2021 05:07
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Yeah, I remember at the reunion show I went to, I was kind of surprised that the parts I thought were James in a lot of songs was actually Billy (or Jeff). I wanna hear James do more weird stuff. EBows are cool and super underrated.
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Mar 21, 2021 15:10
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Apparently now they're all old and tired enough to not have to out-ego everyone else (and Jeff knows he's just a glorified employee) so they just sit together and go like "ok do you want the solo on this one or like should I do it? Who's gonna do the high fiddly bits in the second verse?"
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Mar 21, 2021 15:18
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James, Jimmy, Jeff... It's kinda like that thing with female bass players, Billy seems to only wanna deal with guys whose name begins with a J. Anyways yeah, that Glass and the Ghost Children live performance really surprised me, I thought that was going to be Billy showing off but he steps away and James starts the guitar part but something seems to go wrong and it's basically improv and noise while Jimmy just goes with it and extends the intro drumming before James hits those first notes and nails the whole thing, it sounds album perfect and it's really impressive. His eyes are glued to his effects board though and I'm not surprised, that intro has some interesting things going on. I saw a really good live performance of The Beginning is the End is the Beginning and I wish that I could find it again because Jeff plays an incredible atmospheric solo that fits the song so well despite being heavily electronic and I've found so many other live performances where he doesn't do it, but this one time he seemed to just be doing his own thing on guitar throughout the whole song and it was incredible, not in a showoff way but it complimented the song perfectly. I wonder about D'Arcy as well since she's long gone, but she sang on Gish and was actually classically trained as a musician. I wonder if she handled the strings and arrangements for Disarm back in the day?
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Mar 21, 2021 18:57
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SUNKOS posted:
Doubtful, but possible. I guess it's just as likely, to me, that she would have arranged the strings for Tonight, Tonight.
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Mar 21, 2021 21:35
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D'arcy wasn't involved with the string arrangements AFAIK. I think Disarm was handled by Eric the rock cello guy featured in a bunch of the SD era shows. I think for Tonight Tonight Billy was writing the overall lines the strings were playing and it was being arranged by someone else, I forget who. D'arcy didn't really contribute at all to the band on-record until MCIS, outside of signing Daydream last-minute I don't think she played on either Gish of Siamese Dream at all.
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Mar 22, 2021 05:01
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I knew Billy essentially did most of SD but I didn't know he was taking the reigns from the very start, I wonder why D'Arcy didn't leave the band sooner in that case. Presumably enjoying the fame and an easy ride? Since you seem to know a lot about the Pumpkins in the studio, do you know any details about the Matt Walker versions of tracks on the Adore reissue? It says 2014 which seems like they were specifically made for the reissue which seems kinda odd, I don't think Billy had anyone else provide alternate versions of a bunch of tracks for any of the prior reissues? I was just wondering if maybe they were alternate versions that were floating around from the time of recording Adore and Billy decided to go in the direction that he did instead? There's these heavier alternate versions of tracks from Adore but also other tracks that didn't make the album (Cash Car Star & Saturnine spring to mind first) that would have gone well alongside tracks like Ava Adore and I wonder how the album would have been received at the time if these songs were included along with the alternate versions of other tracks? It definitely would have given the album a lot more bite and maybe satisfied fans more at the time? I don't think that it would have aged as well as the final version of Adore did however, that's for sure. What was released still sounds timeless to me whereas the Matt Walker versions of songs sound very 90s, but I do wonder about what that version of the album might have sounded like and how it would have been received, since it was very focused on electronica while still keeping the guitars woven in that might not have alienated so many people? Definitely would have been in keeping with trends at the time and maybe expanded their fanbase as well. Still really enjoy Adore though and as much as I like Radiohead, they got so much praise for Kid A when Billy did the same thing with Adore years beforehand but wasn't acknowledged for it. His arrogance probably did him no favors but he definitely deserved more credit than he received for that album.
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Mar 25, 2021 22:55
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SUNKOS posted:I knew Billy essentially did most of SD but I didn't know he was taking the reigns from the very start, I wonder why D'Arcy didn't leave the band sooner in that case. Presumably enjoying the fame and an easy ride? Those Matt Walker tracks are "reimagined" versions, basically a remix but not specifically a dance remix. They're contemporary to the re-release and not original. There are similar reimagined versions of songs like Cherry and Cupid de Locke Bjorn did for the MCIS box. I think Adore didn't do as well because the expectations between SP and Radiohead were very different. Radiohead was already kind of going for a more arthouse experimental vibe, and I don't think Kid A strays nearly as far from OK Computer as Adore did from MCIS. After MCIS the Pumpkins were maybe the biggest band in the world, they were known for driving hard rock like BwBW and catchy pop tunes like 1979. Adore is sadbrains part acoustic/piano, part gothic industrial, part wall of sound album about feeling so absolutely lovely because your close friend died, your "musical soul mate" almost died and you fired him, your mom died, and your marriage died. I love Adore but I get why it wasn't a huge success. And yeah, I'm sure D'arcy stuck around because what else is she gonna do? What has she done since (other than drugs and getting in public pissing matches)?
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Mar 26, 2021 02:09
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So this is a thing someone did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qDC2GiojlY
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Apr 1, 2021 23:52
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If you didn't see it, you should also check out Neil C's "Mullet With Butterfly Wings" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRdSoZO-5mM
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Apr 2, 2021 16:28
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Bump for Gish turning 30. I heard this album in my college dorm in either late '91 or early '92 and from Chamberlain's intro to "I Am One" I was hooked. They became my defacto number one band of the 90's, and Siamese Dream just turned into my soundtrack for the decade. Live "rhinoceros" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgdQoKG1OeI "slunk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5OVHgpZr-0 OK. Back to sleep thread. hatelull fucked around with this message at 19:03 on May 28, 2021 |
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May 28, 2021 17:18
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Happy birthday Gish! I came here to share this Siamese Dream promo screensaver I just stumbled across ... I remember downloading it from a BBS originally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNdOs1txSmg
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May 28, 2021 18:05
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Billy's got a new archival series coming out. First release is Smashing Pumpkins Live in Japan 1992 available here: https://madamezuzus.com/products/pre-order-live-in-japan-lp-1992?variant=40086413213890 On 180g swirly violet 2LP either with ($170) or without ($70) Billy and Jimmy's autographs.
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May 30, 2021 03:48
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Chamberlain and Schroeder do the Amoeba "What's in my Bag (Home Edition)" .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trOxYyaGMS0 Nothing too crazy. Chamberlain pulls a lot of jazz. Full embarrassing disclosure: I have Another Green World. Have listened to it often. No loving clue Phil Collins drummed on that thing.
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Jun 1, 2021 19:04
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Mary Halvorson is loving amazing
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Jun 2, 2021 03:33
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Halvorson is ambrosia to the ears.
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Jun 3, 2021 03:48
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According to Jeff, they're about halfway done their 33-track thematic follow up to MCIS and Machina. Here's hoping we'll all enjoy it even half as much as those two albums.
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Jul 29, 2021 20:34
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machina remaster when
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Jul 29, 2021 21:47
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I've learned to just never expect anything anymore. At this point I can only be surprised.
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Jul 29, 2021 22:09
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Baron von Eevl posted:If you didn't see it, you should also check out Neil C's "Mullet With Butterfly Wings" This is really fun. teethgrinder posted:Happy birthday Gish! I too remember this, from ye olde days. Pop that bad boy on the family Gateway PC
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Jul 29, 2021 22:39
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hatelull posted:Chamberlain and Schroeder do the Amoeba "What's in my Bag (Home Edition)" .... Jimmy needs to come join us in the vinyl records thread. The other guy can too I guess.
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Jul 30, 2021 06:01
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Ballz posted:Jimmy needs to come join us in the vinyl records thread. The other guy can too I guess. I should get back there myself. I let the number run up to the 2000's  I don't have the dedication to post all the purchases on a daily basis, and it's all just stoner doom and bleepity bloops anyway. CONTEXT: Did anyone pick up or even try to order those live LP's? I think a live set from the Viper Room is up for pre-order soon? https://www.spin.com/2021/07/smashi...q34XllW9sLiYndY 1998 line up would be /[Adore]/ era yeah? Aranoff on drums and maybe Mike loving Garson on piano!! Tempting as hell, if only for the monster "Transmission" jam that might be included.
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Jul 30, 2021 14:54
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Apparently it's from a January 98 set, which is I believe before they hired Kenny and apparently it was an acoustic set, maybe just as a trio. Here's the setlist: ‘To Sheila’ ‘Perfect’ ‘Let Me Give The World To You’ ‘Jupiter’s Lament’ ‘Once Upon A Time’ ‘Daphne Descends’ ‘Ava Adore’ ‘Crestfallen’ ‘Set The Ray To Jerry’ ‘Shame’ ‘Tear’ ‘Blissed And Gone’ ‘1979’
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Jul 30, 2021 15:22
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| # ? May 31, 2024 04:11 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTFwyc54qS4 Rock Opera Adore would have probably been the best Pumpkins album tbh Ratios and Tendency fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 23:13
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