Riff Analysis 004-Animals as Leaders "Weightless"
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- Опубликовано: 7 окт 2020
- Everyone knows about optical illusions, but what about aural illusions? I dive into a rhythmic illusion, where it seems like guitar patterns change, but they don't, in the beginning of Animals As Leaders's "Weightless."
For something I wrote about a similar situation in Car Bomb's music:
metalintheory.com/car-bomb-lig...
And, for the very interested, I'll have my virtual paper from the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory 2020 up on here (if I'm allowed) in the next few months, where I go into a lot more depth about some of the ideas here. 
Видеоклипы
weightless is their least popular album, and it’s still a masterpiece
Yeah I feel the mixing, the overall sonic signature and the complexity of the songs make it their less "friendly" album. When I listen to it, it's like I'm lost in a post apocalyptic USSR, but in year 2700 when we've all been abducted by an ancient, shapeless alien life form that feeds from our dream and there is no hope of waking up. And it's freaking cold.
@@chassegardee7694 also no matt :(
I haven't seen them play anything from it live except for when they were touring in support of it in '11 and 12. No cuts from it on their live album either. What's that about?
@@ObeseChess i saw them a few times in recent years, they often play An Infinite Regression and Do Not Go Gently :)
RUclips needs a stronger emotive reaction than "like". Excellent
Bruh!
How is this channel this underrated!?!
You're stellar, keep it up
With an "Uneven Structure" T-shirt... You're my hero :-)
Love them! Will do a video about them one day
I do not have any prior music knowledge and yet I still feel I understand what you teach quite well, amazing work brother.
I love the way you are standing all the time in all videos 🤪🤪🤪🤪☺️☺️☺️☺️
Haha it's so people can see all my favorite shirts
Weightless such an underrated masterpiece.
Gotta love these videos, your descriptions are so accurate, but mostly they're objective, I like how you make clear the feels just like an objective element of the song, everything is straight to the point, no unnecesary fills or so, great content!
Ah, video editing, it gets us all in the end! Neat video!
Thank you! And yes, so time consuming for so little reward (for me so far), but it sure is fun.
@@metalmusictheory5401 these videos are much better than my earliest ones, just keep at it and your channel will keep growing. Even if some videos aren't super popular you can keep making content you enjoy and make a small number of music nerds really happy 🤘
@Daniel Crawford Haha thanks! Just trying to make the types of videos I wish I had seen ten years ago.
I really love your videos! So interesting and they make me think about this amazing songs in a bran new way! Thank you so much, keep on with this amazing work!
This is the best metal theory channel I have came across. Thank you dude! Understanding Tactus is changing my approach to writing music 👏🏼
after the release of their most recent album, and listening to every album in reverse order, i am 100% sure that weightless is their best album by far.
I remember very well when this album was released, I was expecting something different, but I got an incredible obscure heavy misunderstood masterpiece
So cool you have Uneven Structure tee - I know guys personally, we've made awesome guitar for them in Skervesen Guitars and their live performance in Materia Fest was for me sssso incredible like listening to playing CD record through stage audio system - it was just so perfect!
These videos are amazing man...u gona get big soon!
You are absolutely amazing!!!!! so informative and well explained, super great man, you rule!
Thank you!
I'm learning so much thank you!
Huh, it almost sounded like Matt was flubbing the backbeat on that live recording. I wonder if that’s a problem in the mix. My first thought was “hey look, Matt is playing one of Navene’s tracks” then it didn’t sound right.. Anyway awesome videos
TIL of "tactus", great video!
Thank you!
Me: Dude, that's some tactus-worthy shit!
My mate: Wut?
this is fantastic, awesome video dog
It would be awesome to hear your comments about Pagan II - Vitalism.
Thank you.
Just amazing
thanks you for this video
Dude this channel is awesome . I don’t necessarily love all the wording but it’s not like I could come up with anything better or more logical.
Woah. Thanks for looking at the comment!!!
Thanks for making this! I'm learning music theory and I would like to see a "deconstruction" of some metal songs, like making them from the ground up to see how they're built with each instrument.
An interesting idea, that I might get to eventually (and I guess my next video will kind of have that because I'll be playing more than just guitar, so you can maybe kind of see what goes into it)! A few bands (Periphery comes to mind) have released producer packs where you can hear every single track (as in vocals, guitars, bass, etc) in a song separately which would be a place to start looking at it too
Thank you
Hey man, I love your videos. Could you maybe do some videos about Tesseract's songs?
You're genius, appreciated
The awesome uneven structures t shirt
One tactus. Two Tactii. Hell yeah.
Nice! It would be great to dig into some their more complex parts
Eventually! What parts do you have in mind? This is one of the trickiest of their sections (from a music theory perspective, not from a playing perspective) that I can think of.
@@metalmusictheory5401 really the trickiest? Just 3/5 4/5 polyrythms? I thought that they have some more compliceted rythms, but had nothing particular in mind
@@jacobsss5827 But they're not really polyrhythms, or not just polyrhythms, they're also kind of tempo modulations is why it's so complicated. Relatively easy to play (although getting the tactus modulation down with just a metronome is a fun challenge), but hard to explain. Lots of polyrhythms and polymeter and changing meter and asymmetrical meter etc. in their music, and syncopated stuff, but I think of those as virtuosic and hard to play, but not that complicated to say what's going on from a theory perspective. Tons of really cool music, of course, but off the top of my head I don't think they do this particular tactus-changing game anywhere else... Could be wrong, and would love to hear what types of parts you're thinking about!
@@metalmusictheory5401 They do a similar thing in Nephele in the outro riff where the symbol hits alternate between hitting on the 3rd and 4th triplets. Really fun to try to play the guitar riff at 120bpm and 80bpm, similarly to what you were doing in the video!
5:19 sheeeeeeet
Love AAL, they're so far beyond any other prog group in the modern scene, there's nobody else that sounds remotely like them. Also what guitar is that? It's sick
Thanks! Strandberg Boden Metal 8!
@@metalmusictheory5401 yeah, I looked them up. Such good looking guitars, must have cost you a pretty penny though. Does it feel good to play? the strings look really close together which is cool
@@beanzthumbz Yeah they're not cheap (though I got like the cheapest version possible). Definitely about as easy to play as an eight string can be though
Nice shirt
Please do TesseracT
What live video if AAL you use ??
5:34
really funny;)
thats batmans motorcycle engine noise from dark night
Editing is excellent. Go deeper.
Oral allusions
Ok, I just hear the guitar part as two sections of 8 beats, and that remains constant through the first three sections. I’m tapping my foot the same the whole time.
Love your vids tho!
Yeah there are a lot of ways to move to it, I'm just talking about what the drums are telling me to do (which is how I tend to hear things)
Ok, yeah, when I shift my focus to the 16th notes or whatever they are I totally see that. Plus that chugging part is another layer. There’s a lot of ways to hear this song. I think you said something in another vid about how polyrhythms don’t exist because we just focus on one beat and this is a perfect example.
I think the most fascinating thing about music like this is how do they come up with it, write it, hear it, and play it? We can break it down but I think most (but not all) musicians aren’t sitting around with their calculators out creating ideas. Your Meshuggah vid gave some good insight to it.
Short answer is I think they’re just on another level.
Hey, another great video keep it up man! Try to relax a little bit in front of the camera and give some personal twist to introduce your personality. I know it's music geeks instructional videos but I think it will help your channel!
Bro, that IS his personality. The incredibly dry humor is one of the best things about this channel.
Man, if you want to max your subscribers, you need to work on your catch phrases. "Pulse preserving tactus modulation" doesn't have the same curb appeal as "repetition legitimizes" or "BASS".
lol unfortunately it does have academic appeal and that's where I'm really cashing in with it, but you're right!