5 ms·

That song is terrible (and I love Devin Townsend, the singer).

• ThomPete 16y ago
  Of course it's terrible it's using the xavian scale which you are not used to.
  • te_chris 16y ago
    no, it's terrible because it sounds like a bad technical exercise (music graduate here)
    • ThomPete 16y ago
      So does Jazz to a virgin ear. That doesn't mean it is.
      • AndyKelley 16y ago
        Jazz sounds awful. There's a reason pop music sticks to the four chords of victory - they sound great!
        • te_chris 16y ago
          1. "Not sure if serious" 2. Jazz is barely a genre anymore there's so many different sub-genre's and movements within it that actually using the term how you did is disingenuous. 3. You did the same as above with about the same effect for "pop music". Seeing as you addressed harmony, you'll actually find that there are lots of common harmonic (chord) progressions that are shared between the two idioms. They reflect each other more than they are different to each other. If you really wanted to make the point you were trying to make I'd suggest looking for some form of obscure ethnic music (Pakistani throat singing or Indonesian Gamelan perhaps) that has not really had much chance to mix with western music and absorb its paradigms.
        • ThomPete 16y ago
          To the virgin ear, yes.
          • AndyKelley 16y ago
            Virgin? http://www.last.fm/user/superjoe30 http://www.last.fm/user/superjoe30 According to this website I listen to 60 tracks every day.
            • ThomPete 16y ago
              60 Jazz tracks? That's what I mean with virgin ear. You are not used to listen to Jazz so it's more likely to sound horrible to you since it's often rather complex. Why do you think that parents of the 68' generation hated Beatles despite it being what we consider pop culture today. You need to understand this in context rather than in absolute terms.
              • AndyKelley 16y ago
                Makes sense except for one point: Why would a person purposefully subject themselves to a musical genre that sounds bad? You said yourself, to the virgin ear, jazz sounds bad. That means that everyone who likes jazz music at one point thought that it was terrible music yet listened to it anyway.
                • ThomPete 16y ago
                  That is up to the individual. Many people as they start playing instruments they start developing a more and more sophisticated sense of harmony. It's not different than code looking like nonsense to the noob. This is where culture comes in. Jazz used to be pop-music, people grew up with it. Context history culture sophistication at any given subject.
        • davidmathers 16y ago
          Jazz sounds awful. I can understand styles of music sounding awful, but what does it mean for a whole genre of music to sound awful? How does that even make sense? Just to be clear, do you think this (Desafinado) sounds awful?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So718wk426c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So718wk426c Crazy talk.
          • AndyKelley 16y ago
            This song isn't actively bad. I wouldn't mind it in the background. But as far as I can tell, it doesn't really utilize "jazzy" chords either. It's just kind of gentle and peaceful and doesn't ask for too much attention. I wouldn't use this as a good example of Jazz music. What I'm referring to as what sounds awful are songs that try to use "creative" chords that are really just dissonant or don't belong together and "advanced" notes that are really just out of key. As far as I can tell this song isn't doing that.