Concert vs Popular Music

I've had people asking me if I expect my concert music (symphonies, string quartets, etc.) to be as popular as my Rock stuff for Lyraka and the answer is "of course not!". My symphonies, for instance, are by nature not going to be especially popular even by the broadest definitions of the term. I knew that when I began writing them. However, due to this capitalistic, MTV-led society we live in I feel I should expand upon my otherwise succinct answer.

Concert music is a way of taking what I sometimes consider the handcuffs of Rock forms off and taking flight with a vision that is entirely Andy-made and Andy-led. With Popular music (to clarify, by Popular music I include Rock, Metal, Country-Western, Hip Hop, MTV...you get the picture), you're typically given so many bars to make an impact, otherwise you start making the composition into something that isn't Popular music (i.e., not particularly liked by the majority of folks). Popular music requires adherence to a set of rules (I know, sounds like the philosophical opposite of what many people define as Rock music). Film scores are often the same way, aligning strictly with what's on the screen (though film composers like Goldsmith and Herrmann have in their scores pushed the envelope into art music with highly sophisticated and creative composition, harmonic deviltry, and idiosyncratic orchestration).

With concert music (I'll include the avante garde genre along with the abovementioned symphonies, REAL concerti, Kammermusik, etc.) one has the opportunity to make one's own rules according to inner experience (witness how my symphony writing rarely if ever conforms to the Classic/Romantic rules of structure, as my creative spirit won't settle for that kind of outer imposition...and yeah, I'm aware and couldn't care less how pretentious that sounds).

Some would read the above and wonder why I would share these non-Rock compositions with others if they were deeply personal and not necessarily adherent to forms that people know and deeply love. Well, I do want people to hear this music, for one my concert music is some of my most potentially enduring. Lyraka was written with sophisticated composition only peripherally in mind (I had to exorcise the rock guitar muse that was a big part of my getting into music in the first place), and I'm quite proud of many of the compositions there. However, that music was ultimately all about Jasmine's story and in no small part a gift to her and the magic she's brought to my life (thus, not necessarily compositionally advanced, though there are portents of future concert work there). My symphonies, etc. are for the far future, or however long humanity has before we either blow each other up or the climate finishes the job itself. I must also point out that my Composer's Sketchpad series was designed for both music students and fans to have insight into what Martin Popoff referred to (in his review of Lyraka Volume 1) as the "partaking in the thought process of a great songwriter".

Anyhow, after this burst of hot air, I hope everyone who didn't fall asleep gets the point 😝.

Here's a ten year old photo of me to lighten things up😏:

                                                                                   

Beyond the Palace

Errandia

Sturm und Drang alternating with Meerfraulied, culminating in a most Macabre Minuet. When you listen patiently, you can hear how the simple opening motif goes through literally dozens of transformations: punctuating cellos and double bass during the first, Tristan und Isolde-esque orchestral section; highlighting the orchestra in the woodwinds during the second; set into multiple times, and keys; ultimately exploding into free form fantasies...

                                                                           

A Fond Look Back: Working With Graham Bonnet

Sometimes things take a while to become completely clear. On the one hand, memories can get that (oft necessarily) photoshopped blur: outward quite pleasant, interiorly frosty. On the other hand, sudden revelations can be gleaned (even when that manufactured veneer suspiciously remains).

I was thinking this morning about a conversation I had a couple of weeks before Xmas 2012 with the main vocalist for my opera, Graham Bonnet. We had wrapped up Graham's vocal work for my "Fidei Defensor", and I was very happy talking to him, thrilled with his vocal performances... but please allow me to digress momentarily: Graham and I had some rough spots over the years we worked together, and things came to an angry head more than once. But I learned so much of value from him, very much like a rock 'n roll father to son, and I told him that. After his modest thanks, I thanked him profusely and...well, basically said goodbye. Graham wrote back minutes later: "That's far too final, I mean, I was hoping we can do more again soon."

Imagine how it felt when it really, finally hit me...to have heard something like that from a man whom I rate up there with Ronnie Dio and Rob Halford as my favorite Rock/Metal singers. And we're going to do more, I always have music for him, I love his voice and I love the way he sings my music.

I can tell anyone curious about Graham's current musical output: unlike many of his vocal contemporaries Graham has lost none of his original tone, and is still putting out high quality Classic Metal to this very day...and that's about as high praise as I can think of. Take it from an at least minimally accomplished musician and composer: there's no replacing Graham Bonnet.

Solitude Aeturnus "Alone"

Doom Metal masters Solitude Aeturnus were in their early years disciples of bands as disparate as Candlemass and Fates Warning. Over the years they lost the influences and by the time of their album before this, "Adagio", seemed to have come up with what seemed an often entirely different sound (one that needed at least another album to anti-bug). In a surprising turn that ultimately produced the Doom Metal album of the 21st century, the band decided to reincorporate the classic Candlemass and Sabbath influences for "Alone", but this time integrating them with the most distinctive aspects of their own, established sound.

Alone is an album that is striking from beginning to finish, but I want to briefly touch on what might be the centerpiece, opener "Scent of Death". This track, leading us past Mesopotamian Gates made of Sabbath Stones, over Charon and into the land of the wizard's own, hazardous stone tower, is carried by a sound and flow that is most indicative of the album as a whole. Mesmerizing vocals, refreshingly imaginative in their note-choices, range of delivery, and arrangements; even offering impassioned, dramatic homage to the Adhanic (one can cross-reference Robert's Middle Eastern-sounding vocal excursions with the Arabic-sounding singing behind, say, the first scene of the Exorcist). The way the vocals work with the engaging verse/pre-chorus/chorus arrangements is just addicting and perfectly a propos to the song. And yes, you get plenty of guitar, fellow players, more than a bit in the classic Uli Roth/Iommi/Blackmore mode.

As mentioned, many of the above strengths apply to a great deal of the rest of the album. There are so many great riffs, woven together so maturely that it's hard to abstract them from the songs as a whole; yet rest assured there are plenty of riffs that reverberate very strongly within the psyche, and Robert Lowe's entrancing Arabiscisms will occupy that same space as well.

I won't go into detail regarding Robert Lowe's lyrics, as they are best experienced with the music playing, but I must point out that they are understated/underblown for a reason. The degree of self-immersion these lyrics are portraying is best delineated as succinctly as possible, the music handles the details.

My impression of this album remains one of gratitude. I think Robert's lyrics, vocals, and John's music just aligned somewhere in the sphere of Black Metallic Rainbow on this CD to make a work of masterfully Epic Metal proportions; the most involving, rewarding, memorable Doom Metal album since the untouchable Nightfall, and even a notch above the often terrific music Fr. Lowe made during his tenure with Candlemass. I paid the high import price for the bonus track version of the cd, to be without that track would definitely take away from the experience, so please be sure to track it down so you don't cheat yourself.