Yea I know, Rippoff thread.

BUT HEY! Why not!

So pretty much I can't play with straight up metal drummers anymore. Groove is where it's at.

Pretty melodys and Chill rhythms are great.

Dev has also inspired me to purchase a bunch of EWQL Software, which I absolutely love to use. Symphonic orchestra, choirs and stormdrum. Time to re-write some modest mussorgsky Piano arrangements into my own orchestra arrangements.

Anyone else in the same position as me? I'll post some examples when I get the chance.

But dev has really opened up an entire new area of music for me to explore, and it's great! I got into SYL a long time ago, then I gave the DTB a whirl and I've been hooked for a year or two. It's a lot to take in but I seriously love the way Devin just writes music to be music, not to fit some genre or style or clique or anything of that sort.

For that I would have to say thank you!

I used to write a lot of death metal riffs and lyrics, in a band that consequently went nowhere and separated. It's just hard trying to force something that doesn't really come from you.

I've just gone through a pretty harsh couple of months, listening to Dev's stuff pretty much 24/7 (makes a great emotional crutch, try walking down a sunkissed street in a downtrodden part of town listening to Deep Peace: amazing) and gotten back into writing again, but this time I'm doing it for me. Sure, some of its metal, but then again there's a lot more sentimental stuff in there too. And of course, I take a huge deal of inspiration from the man himself!

Yea I know, Rippoff thread.

BUT HEY! Why not!

So pretty much I can't play with straight up metal drummers anymore. Groove is where it's at.

Pretty melodys and Chill rhythms are great.

Who says Metal players can't groove and write nice melodies? Mikael Akerfeldt may have something to say about that....

There's a time and a place for all things heavy, metal, and intense. But it's nice to do other stuff to - kinda seems like that's Devin's outlook on things as well, wouldn't you say?

Groove is quite important; speed and technicality are impressive, but melodic, sometimes simple grooves can really resonate with a wide audience as well.


Ha you know, there's one Porcupine Tree song called .3 which has the simplest, repetitive bass line - but it's a favorite of mine, personally. It grooves like hell and it's the perfect part for the song. Don't know if any of this helps, but you're not alone!

Yea I know, Rippoff thread.

BUT HEY! Why not!

So pretty much I can't play with straight up metal drummers anymore. Groove is where it's at.

Pretty melodys and Chill rhythms are great.

Who says Metal players can't groove and write nice melodies? Mikael Akerfeldt may have something to say about that....

I'm more talking about metal/death metal/black metal. I love progressive and I've been a fan of Opeth for years. I just don't think it clicked with them. The groove, the melodys. I think it was because that is what Opeth was supposed to do. You know what I mean? That WAS Opeth.

Then you hear SYL and then hear the DTB and you realize how constricting and hard it is to evolve when you keep your musical writings to one genre.

basically what i'm saying

I discovered it was Ok to play other styles of music when Dream Theater started getting big. I got into them in about '93. I pretended to hate them at first....being a devout death metal fan. I was young and dumb. We all were at one point.

Fast Forward to 1997, when I saw SYL for the first time. Man....from that moment, I knew my life would never be the same. there was a distinct tone to Devin's voice, making me crave hearing him sing more melodically. Then my buddy ordered Ocean Machine for me.....and my prayers were answered. It was like I knew what every melody was going to be before it came, yet it sounded so new. Anyway, this is when my writing style totally changed.

Now I compose most of my music myself (barring my vicious grindcore band) with software, and one of my fave things to do is just play massively effected guitar and create ambience with my keyboard player.

I have made sure that I keep my "grindcore" drummer exclusively for that band, and if I want to do another style, I will find a suitable drummer. Nothing worse than trying to make someone who only plays fast rock a solid groove. I am with you there. Devin gives us alot to learn from, eh? I don't know where I would be without him. I wonder if he has any idea how much his music has affected his fans.....

Great topic btw....

Dan

Genre-ising gets really annoying for me now. I mean, a general genre-giving is fine, because it at least gives you somewhere to go from and to when you want to find new bands...

But i hate it when bands start out saying something like "Lets make a Folk-Metal band with influence from the middle-east, with some essence of thrash in there too!!" - because almost eeevery song from then on, will HAVE to stick to that, otherwise its wrong.

I write music for myself also. When i get round to recording it, i'm going to program everything except my own guitar. I want to do my own vocals, because the idea of somebody else speaking MY PERSONAL LYRICS... it just seems weird

I write anything that comes out. I write heavy when im in a rough mood. I write soft when im in a delicate mood. I write fun when im in a jolly mood. I write ambient when im in a nothing-state. Or i write a bit anything at any time... I don't restrict myself or follow any rules i've set myself. Its so much nicer to just put out whatever comes out.

And yeah, this mainly kicked off when i got into Dev. Before, i would start bands with mates, setting out to be a certain genre because it was something we were all into at that time...

Listening to Dev, i realised how much he can just let go. He can do whatever he wants and people will love it. He doesn't have a genre that fans specify him as, so he doesn't have to follow any particular sound, and nobody will be shocked when he throws in a Polka version of the following song in the middle of an album - and not even class it as a "Random Bonus Track"

It awesome. I learned a lot from him.

^^ Good points. Why doesn't someone just make a CORE-core band and be done with it. How many "core" genres/subgenres can there be?! Enough already!


I think there's something called Nerd-core as well. *shudder* Some people....

I agree with pretty much everything Aden said. I just write music, so whatever comes out is whatever comes out; sometimes the music is able to be "massaged" across genres depending on how I'm feeling or whether I want the music to have a specific mood or not... but sometimes the emotional framework of the song itself imposes its own set of rules, and this may or may not be restrictive, depending on one's ideas about transcending genres between particular projects. One thing I picked up from Dev is the idea that certain commonly themed songs can be grouped together... in Dev's case he's said before that they seem to just come out ten or eleven at a time, and all seem to have common thematic elements. Certainly songwriting in that sense is more like channelling - the music moves through you rather than you being consciously in control of it. Things don't always work quite that smoothly for me personally - some common groups of songs may take months or years to resolve themselves into full albums, other times albums can come together in weeks or days.

I wouldn't call myself a "metal" guy, per se - but in 2007 I wrote two albums that are decidedly non-metal. Being a guitar player, I've generally always played lots of guitar on my music. I wanted to write an album where although much of the music was composed on guitar, there would actually be no guitar physically played at all (and also because of time and volume restrictions placed on me by twin babies arriving in Nov 2006, forcing me to work in bursts late at night and in-between feeds). I was inspired by Dev's Project EKO and The Hummer, but also by the long-form hour-long trance jazz pieces by The Necks (particularly Hanging Gardens, Drive By, Sex, Aquatic and Silent Night), as well as bands like The Cinematic Orchestra, Fragile State, The Lithium Project and Ulrich Schnauss, and Meshuggah's Catch 33. Most of the songs on these 2 albums are 12-15 minutes in length, and two are 30 minutes long each.

I tend to just write music for myself. I'm over the delusion that I'm going to become rich and famous playing guitar or writing music for a living, thus I am free to do whatever it is I want musically, whether it's angry buzzsaw techno, pop-rock songs about ex-girlfriends, jazz, nihilist folk-metal, or whatever. I like my music, but I'm not bothered if anybody else does or not. Right now I'm writing a very angry metal themed double album, and after that I'm doing a rock instrumental record (with guitar this time), then a comedy album with two singers and one acoustic guitar.

That's probably what I've learned most from Dev - that musically I can do whatever I want. Fuck all genres.

Ro

I've never been a big metal kind of guy. Well, okay, not the more hardcore stuff. The most I really can get into is SYL and some other ismilar stuff. I LOVE clean lyrics, so when I can't hear it, it irks me. I mean, fair enough if you like it. Anyway.

Speaking from that, when I write music, I always have to have some more melodic elements to it. One or two songs with jsut big, chainsaw guitars is okay, but then I'll get bored of it and want to throw in some subtle chords and then some big in your faces ones that ring with beauty.

I think it was the whole "Brought up on Beethoven" thing