Quote:
Originally Posted by HomerMcvie
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I got in an argument years ago with someone claiming that Nicks was playing the piano on this
master reel rendition of Bella Donna.
I tried explaining for a million very detailed reasons that, no, that wasn't her.
Now
this is Stevie at the piano. Can y'all hear the obvious differences? Stevie's playing isn't primarily chordal, it's unitone (I think I made that word up). I don't know what to call it - sounds like a musically illiterate notion of an Alberti bass figure that never modulates, but just keeps plinky-plonking on the exact same note, over and over. The passing tones (where the bass walks up the scale) are all wrong, and there are weird second and third inversions everywhere that compromise the song's tonic integrity. The whole accompaniment is repetitive - no variation anywhere. No dynamic range, no arpeggios, no development - nothing that the song developed into instrumentally. Vocally, of course, she gives it plenty, but that was usually true of her demos. She
writes her songs . . . by
singing them. That's how they get cemented. And please don't cite her piano work on
Rhiannon. She isn't doing anything even mildly interesting or skilled. She is plonking two-note chords (the clinical term is dyad) ascending and then descending in the right hand, alternating with plonk-plonk bass on A and F in the left. I've taught a million children piano, and they all do that. Her contribution to that great track was a vocal and lyrical one.
On the piano, she has (and had) absolutely no skill. In fact, I think she's a mildly better guitarist, based on the guitar on her Enchanted demo of
Twisted.