The Quartal 90s vs. the Tertian Present

We live in an age of historical eclecticism in music.  In terms of production values and composition in our pop and alternative rock, stylistic influence from any decade is welcomed and celebrated.  That is...any decade except the 90s.

Just like when I was in middle school and the 80s were thought of as ridiculously uncool (the gated snare, the chorussed guitar, the vocals drenched in reverb...used to make us cringe, didn't it?), so now the 90s flavor causes the cringing.

As a music producer and songwriter, this is important for me because my most impressionable years were in the 90s.  My first dance with a girl was in 1998 so some of those songs and sounds have a very special place in my heart.  The problem is, the impressionable generation of today wants nothing to do with it so I had better keep that special place in my heart locked tight, right?

In the studio we have discussed:  How do we avoid the 90s?  What is the binding tie from that decade by which we can identify that dangerous flavor?

I won't attempt to provide a definitive answer, but let's see what we get just from looking at instrumentation and how it affects chord-writing.

The sound of 1980s pop is characterized by ubiquitous use of synthesizers, electronic drums, and heavy processing on guitars and vocals.  Because of the afore-mentioned disdain of the rising generation for the previous decade, in the early 90s there was a shift away from synthesizers and back to the acoustic guitar.

For those of you who play guitar and are near my age, you must remember these riffs here:

Two factors are strongly at work here:
1) Beginner guitarists will favor open strings in their songwriting because, well, it's easier.
2) The open strings of a guitar are tuned mostly in fourths

So, we ended up with a plethora of songs based on common tones/drones in fourths.  Strong examples include Matchbox Twenty's "3 AM" and Green Day's "Good Riddance."  Beginner guitarists loved this stuff because it was very easy to feel like you invented it.  "Hey!  If I keep these two fingers here and move the others around...Look how many new chords I've discovered!"  At the risk of overgeneralizing, I submit that the sound of 90s alternative is largely quartal in nature.

Now, let's jump forward to the 2000s.  Thanks to bands like Coldplay and also the natural tendency of young artists to shy away from whatever was happening ten years ago, songwriters predominantly moved back to the keyboard to write their riffs.  Here's "Clocks:"

Beginner pianists will favor triads, as triads are far more idiomatic than the chord progression of, say, "Wonderwall."  Thus, once again, I'm going to overgeneralize and submit that the 00s were predominantly tertian in terms of pop composition.

Jump forward to today.  We're still definitely riding the wave of synthesizer-heavy, piano-centric 80s revival that we were riding in the 00s.  But 1993 was twenty years ago, not ten.  Will acoustic guitar become the focus once again?  We're already seeing a folk revival in the success of bands like Mumford and Sons and the Lumineers.  It is true that folk guitar embraces triads and avoids the suspensions of 90s guitar-writing.  However, I think it quite probable that within the next ten years pop chord-writing may just become a little more quartal once again.

Top 9 Best Yeahs

I decided a while back that I wanted to compile a list of my favorite “yeahs” from various rock songs. You may wonder: why a top 9 list and not a top 10 list? Well, frankly, I could only think of 9 that I found truly worthy although I'm sure plenty more exist. Please respond with your favorites. I’d like to know what I’m missing. At any rate, I encourage all who aspire to sing killer lead rock vocals to study the following yeahs and include them in your repertoire. Some of them dive, some of them climb, some of them soar, some have melodies of their own, and some of them are just spat out. But they are all awesome.

9. 3 Doors Down - Kryptonite - End of the bridge.
This is a fun song but it got really overplayed way back when. I think the only thing that would keep me listening is the fact that I knew that at the end of their little bridge/breakdown mr. leadsingerman would split the airwaves with a cutting, precise laser-beam of a yeah.

8. Limp Bizkit - My Way - Right before chorus
I can’t say I ever liked this band but I'll admit that this yeah makes it onto my top 9. Percussive and swooping, it leads into a chorus like a drum fill.

7. Live – “I Alone” – End of the bridge.
It’s almost like he wanted to keep singing…the build-up was so intense…but there just weren’t any more words that fit so just… yeah!, etc.

6. Fictionist - Strangers in the Dark - Leading into the guitar solo.
I actually asked the bass player during the months this album was being recorded to make sure they got in a yeah worthy of my top ten list. He smiled and said something along the lines of, "We've got just the thing." And it is quite the thing.

5. Weezer - Say it Aint So - "The son is drowning in the flood! Yeah yeah!"
Epic and well placed, these successive yeahs are a perfect climax to this song.

4. Tenacious D - Wonder Boy - end of the first verse.
"Not much to say when you're high above the mucky muck." It would appear the thing to do high above the mucky muck is to unleash an epic yeah in all your Jack Black glory.

3. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Soul to Squeeze - right before the big bridge breakdown.
This yeah is similar to the Limp Bizkit one, but better executed and placed in a better song by a better band. The yeah falls like a bomb that explodes on the and of 2 in the bridge with a big hit on the china cymbal as the lead guitar sails up into the atmosphere. The descending yeah followed by the ascending guitar line is an awesome moment of tension and release.

2. Jet - Be My Girl - "With another man...yeah!"
This guy's voice is just hard core. This yeah is everything good about rock n' roll.

1. Pearl Jam - Even Flow - Right before the first guitar solo.
Ok. This takes the cake for me. The yeah rips up through the sonic space like a kitana blade. Kitana.  Blade.  Gritty and strained, yet perfectly controlled, this yeah rocks as hard as a guitar bend. Eddie Vedder wins.

Book Review: The Darkest Lie

From what others have told me, and of course from my own experience, I have learned that everyone, without exception, has a hard time in middle school. And for many, high school is not much better. As the years go by, you look back at those years of insecurity, terrifying change, and seemingly relentless unkindness from others and for a moment you feel so grateful that you are not in that situation anymore. But there is another truth that I'll bet we all share. When you got out of that emotionally turbulent state, and learned that there was kindness in the world, and a sense of belonging, and a lot of fun to be had, you owed it all to one person, didn't you? It started with one friend that saw and loved you for who you were, regardless of all those parts of your soul and body you were sure made you a loser. One friend saved you first. At least I know that's what happened to me.

As I read the first act of Angela Day's debut novel The Darkest Lie, I saw a bit of my young self in Thane Whitaker, a high schooler in the fictionalized town of Payson. Thane's one rule for himself, his personal Magna Carta, is to never draw attention to himself, to move as silently and invisibly as possible between his abusive home and his clique-centered high school. This all changes when Remi, the pretty and infectiously spunky new girl in town, befriends him. And her timing couldn't be better because Thane, in a freak accident, discovers he possesses magical abilities he cannot control. Before long he is awakened to the existence of elves and dragons and fairies in the world and he is soon whisked off to a military unit in charge of magical control and peace-keeping called Sanctum.

The Darkest Lie is an engaging, fun, and action-packed read that holds its own in the stylistic and structural ballpark of many popular young adult franchises of recent years. The novel alternates between witty dialogue and fast-paced action as Thane is hurled from his dismal adolescence into a hurricane of new information. Day paints a vivid picture of Sanctum as a sort of mix between Rowling's Diagon Alley and Charles Xavier's school for the gifted, full of strange mythic creatures but also commandos, hackers, and spies. Not all of the characters we meet get a lot of paperback real estate, but I think we can safely assume that many of them will be developed later in the trilogy. A lot of the fun of the book springs from the diversity of races (real and imaginary), dialects, character ticks, and backstories. It is a rich and highly detailed world that Thane stumbles into.

The sincere and entertaining friendship between Thane and Remi is the glue of this story, much in the same way that the Harry/Ron/Hermione dynamic was the anchor of the Harry Potter universe. But lest you think there's too much Harry Potter comparison going on here, I should mention that Thane and Remi are unique and individual creations and make for relatable and interesting protagonists very much in their own right. Remi, in particular, immediately won my love as she stirred up memories in my heart of old school friends who never thought themselves too cool or too pretty to hang out with me.

At the core of this fantasy is Thane's coming-of-age story, and I think it's a timely variation on the classic hero's journey. Rather than proving himself to others, or defeating an Evil Something, Thane becomes a hero as he learns to accept the light as well as the darkness within himself, thereby learning to accept the good in the world around him.

I imagine that young readers who come from difficult homes will identify acutely with this book and find solace and encouragement in its pages. Day does not shy away from the heaviness of what a rough family life can be like, but doesn't make it hard to read either. The central message of the novel is one of hope, and it is conveyed in a very uplifting way. Highly recommended.

The Darkest Lie is available at Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Darkest-Lie-Angela-D-Day/dp/0615724957/ref=la_B00A3AOW2O_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362971414&sr=1-1

Theater Review: Fontanelle

According to Wikipedia, fontanelles are "soft spots on a baby's head which, during birth, enable the bony plates of the skull to flex, allowing the child's head to pass through the birth canal." That this fact provides the basis for the emotional arc of a play which is neither about babies or skulls is one of the many impressive features of Ted Bushman's Fontanelle, a new play directed by Scott Eckern and produced by Andrew Joy.

The setting is Pittsburgh, 2008. April Wellington is on spring break during her first year of college and she decides to bring her boyfriend Kyle home with her to meet her mother. As April shows Kyle her childhood home, they look through old family photographs and we, the audience, watch the family backstory unfold onstage around them. At the outset of their marriage, April's mother Caroline and father Patrick were a happy young couple and Patrick had a promising career ahead of him in architecture. When Patrick received a handsome employment offer in Paris, he was thrilled, but Caroline wanted to stay in the city where she grew up. Their decision has great importance for their baby daughter April, and the family photos give us snapshots from various moments in her life as she grows up.

The play deals with themes of emotional safety and the capacity of the human body and spirit to move through times of hardship. It largely takes place in a family kitchen and gives us a realistic and moving glimpse into the lives of a family struggling with fear and uncertainty.

One life event of particular moment to the family takes place in 2001, and the play gives deft allusions to popular songs and films of the time. I felt transported back to that year, as if I were watching a period piece, particularly in a scene involving two family members watching TV on Sept. 11th. "The buildings just keep falling and falling," the daughter says. It was very evocative of my experience that week as the TV was dominated for days by endless replays of the towers collapsing. The significance of that day and its use as a symbol for the fear and loss we all experience are woven into the writing of Fontanelle in a gripping way.

The acting in this production was admirable on all fronts, but the truly majestic performance of the evening was given by Becca Ingram as April's mother Caroline. She was mesmerizingly believable and conveyed a mother at different ages in various circumstances with great skill. She was the emotional anchor of the production and was absolutely captivating. Each member of the small cast contributed greatly and I loved each performance.

The writing shows remarkable depth and insight into the lives of others. I happen to know the play-write personally and knowing that he was eighteen years old when he wrote this piece makes his brilliance doubly impressive. And while the mood of the play is often somber, it is tempered with just the right amount of good humor and kindness. The play's conclusion was very uplifting. It was a gift to feel so moved.

When the play was over and I turned to chat with my fellow audience goers, I felt that there was more love in the room for this play having been performed, and that is the highest compliment that I can give it.

Fontanelle runs through Saturday March 8th at the Covey Center in Provo.