Have you ever wondered what type of process is required to create your favorite progressive metal tunes? An epic song such as the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 2112, The Odyssey, and other such lengthy movements are understandably intricate and even to the casual listener their complexity is discernable. Their music, story and scope are immense.
However, it is not just these epic wonder pieces that require precision and nuance. As Will mentioned in the last article, The Storytelling XONE, we have developed a great deal of interest in storytelling and often piano-driven progressive metal works such as “Closure” and “Words Mean Nothing” by Evergrey, “Space-Dye Vest” by Dream Theater, and others.
For XONE, our method is an array of soul searching procedures to evoke strong feelings in our music. From these rough concepts, we work tirelessly until we have taken a very vague idea, a mere concept and woven it into a complex tale that we feel captures the spirit of the feelings we wish to invoke.
For the song “Regret”, I’ve taken a small portion of dialogue that roughly portrays an element of this process:
“Man, what chord are you playing there?” I ask.
“Looks like a C#,” comes Will’s reply.
“O.k,” I say. “Let’s try it.” I pound out a C# major and Will play’s his C# derivative. It sounds like cats scratching a chalkboard.
“What the #*&$ type of C# is that?” I ask.
“Dude, it’s a C#. Here, listen.” he plays the chord again.
“So what notes are you playing in that chord?” I ask impatiently this time.
“Let’s see.” Will starts studying his fretboard. “C#, G, C#, E,” he states confidently.
I study my C# major chord on the piano. It looks similar but is not same as Will’s. My C# major chord consists of C#, G, C#, and F#. Changing the F# to an E makes the chord progression I-IV-V-I to I-III-V making it a diminished chord.
After several minutes of thought I pronounce, “Ah, so you’re playing an E not an F#, that makes the chord diminished.”
“If you say so,” Will replies. “Let’s play it.” We both strike the chord this time and it sounds better, but not perfect.
“Crap, I’m really having trouble with this fingering position,” I exclaim in frustration. “Hey, what can I say – I ain’t no Jordan Rudess. Let me try it with a different fingering.”
After several frustrating moments and several takes, I feel I’ve learned this part enough to begin the bridge transition from the 1st chorus into the 2nd verse. In this part I take a stripped down version of the original verse for the right hand melody and instead of hitting root chords I hit only root notes.
Moving into this part, my left hand slips down half a step and instead of hitting an F#, I hit an F, “#*&$!, I just can’t play this part right.” I curse.
I look up and Will is staring right at me, “No, that was awesome. Do it again.”
“Really? It sounded like shite to me.” I play the sequence again. Will’s right. It works. It’s wrong technically – it’s totally dissonant but it works.
“Do you hear that?” Will says excitedly. “Dude, you do sound like Jordan Rudess. That’s freakin’ awesome.”
Of course the irony of all this is that the first part that I had worked so hard on, to make sure our chords worked together, was eventually cut from the song entirely. But my screw up, a dissonant root note, is now a crucial part of the song.
And that brings me back to my original statement about XONE’s utilization of complex methods of song writing. In essence, their complexity is due not to some structurized artificial hierarchy, but rather a natural evolution. Writing a song is thus much more like making a new friend, writing a novel or experiencing life. It is unorganized, messy, and sometimes we wonder if we’ll ever finish it. The good news is that with a few brilliant mistakes, and a lot of hard work and passion great song writing is achievable. And ultimately we believe that is the true secret to writing memorable music.
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