Home Artists Posts Import Register

Content

First up for our Behind the Score series in 2023 is The House, The Street, The Room from Gentle Giant. This song is from their second album, Acquiring the Taste. 

I found this song to be closer to a composition I might see performed on a concert stage by a modern ensemble than one I might see performed at a rock show. It's melodic contours, harmonic twists, and mathematical layering are all quite sophisticated, and I had a great time breaking this one down. I hope you enjoy!

Files

(No title)

Comments

Peter Tutak

This goes right into my top 5 of your analyses, Doctor. Thanks for all the effort in analyzing such a *great* piece of music, and for providing a magnifier into the uniqueness of GG's compositional style. (BTW, 6x12=72. ... it's still divisible by 4, though.) ;)

Eduardo Alejandro del Corral Lira

What an absolute treat, I laughed, I rocked out, and I learned a ton. I know I'll be coming back to this room. I wonder, could it be that maybe once that protagonist is in his "room" (head, subject matter, a literal room, who knows) then maybe he's free to let loose (that strange and remarkably fun pastiche), and in complete command (that face melting solo, god I love that solo). Anyway, what a delight. While I could easily say oh wouldn't it be great to do X, Y or Z, I think a better thing to do is say, thank you so very much for deep diving into this wonderful wonderful piece.

Einaras Sipavičius

Yeah, Doug said himself at the very end what I wanted to say: that middle section really reminds of King Crimson approach, especially Discipline era. That's why I wanted to call that middle section almost minimal music, but maybe it's a stretch, there are some harmonic shifts that aren't expressed in typical minimal music. So layering of musical themes is really similar to King Crimson, but KC introduces much more rhythmic complexity and GG brings in more harmonic complexity. And I wondered, why both GG and KC are in my top3 favorite bands – maybe there's a missing link. :)

Peter Tutak

I always thought that the middle section was Kerry playing 'hot potato' with a melodic phrase, i.e. having fun by giving it to one instrument, then passing it to another, and another while the other instruments provided a rhythmic accompaniment.

Anonymous

I "discovered " GG a few years ago after hearing them mentioned a few times. Power and the Glory is in my opinion their best work but their musicianship is astonishing throughout Thanks for this Doug

David Marshall

Interesting 'fractal' quality of diminished triads within diminished triads.

Jeff Norman

re that "bipolar" major/minor interval thing—I'd never noticed the diminished vs. augmented thing before...probably because the two work together well because neither of them has a perfect fifth...so that lack unifies the sonic world of each one.