Music Appreciation-FM
 

So, I am taking a music appreciation course online and one of the tasks is to write a 600-1000 word review of a musical experience(it could be one song or an album). The Prof is liberal enough to allow what we chose, so Bach or Beethoven is definitely out for me.

So why not write about what I know, the greatest band ever!:nod: However, I am torn between the tried and true Rumours vs. Tusk. I think I could cover more with Tusk, but I would love to write about The Chain and YMLF, even GDW.

My big Q's are:
1) I think the Chain offers some great variations in elements, but I am just guessing. Maybe someone skillful in this area has a better song choice by Mac?
2) I love Chris' arrangements on Over and Over and Think About Me, perhaps this may be a better album to pursue.
3) LB has a much more diverse selection on Tusk. Is a lot of his material on this album repetitive, in terms of elements?
4) Other thoughts, I think I should tackle something of Green's era, but this is further away from what I already know.


Also, the fact that I need to include arrangements, technical elements, music terminology, etc has me a little nerves. I am not great a deciphering chords and terms such as drone, polyphonic, arpeggio, grand staff and the like. Given that I am tone deaf, I am much more at ease at interpreting lyrics.

I have about 4-6 weeks to decide what to do, and then write and revise. Please Ledgies, I know that there are some very talented muscians in this group. Your immense talent iand guidence is desperatly sought and greatly appreciated.

Gold Dust Woman would be a cool choice for this, the Green Manalishi is a crazy song if you're looking for something from the PG era.

So many talented people here and only one reply?

Thanks for your input Cantgoback

With only 600-1000 words, I would choose a song. The Chain would work well in terms of the mixing of elements and the components each member contributed- Stevie's lyrics, parts of Christine's "Keep Me There," (and John's bass at the end), Lindsey's guitar riffs at the beginning and interspersed throughout the song.

I agree with blueletter that The Chain would be an interesting choice, especially the way it got 'put together' from disparate parts. Caillat's book may give you some help with that too. He has amazingly detailed info, given that it was so long ago. As far as doing a whole album, for such a short essay, I think Rumours has a better, more cohesive story lyrically. Tusk, to me, even though I love it for various reasons, has always seemed not cohesive - the voices of each writer were just so different - harder to find the 'glue.' Good luck!

thank you blueletter and juniper for the suggestions

No problem! Good luck with your essay- show it to us if it turns out well!

will do, I think I will write about the song (or songs) first and then add in the technical elements later as I revise. Going to request Ken Caillet's book now! thx

i was hoping someone might help you out from several people who actually really know how to analyze music around here (David comes to mind but i guess he's not around much anymore).

i'd say The Chain or maybe Tusk songs might be your best ones to analyze (Tusk is very interesting and and kinda off-song - lets talk about Tusk! :]). maybe Chain especially, since you now really have the whole anatomy of the song with those early cuts just released on Rumours deluxe?:nod:

well, my theory was to go with opening night tix $60+ and possibly a trip to NOLA at around $500+, so no, it never crossed my mind to buy a $90+ recording of what I have already bought 4x over. Although I would love the live CD, I think I already have what I need on CD to analyze the work, I hope...

:confused: why would you need to buy $90 recording?

both live CD as well as demos/outtakes CD are a part of the $15 3CD set.

(btw i completely agree with you, although i didn't even own Rumours before, i would never even dream of paying >$70 for a vinyl (i don't even have a record player where i live) and a Rosebud DVD. but 3CDs for $15 i though was a pretty good deal.)

also, i believe you can listen to both live and demos/outtakes CD on spotify, but not completely sure.

Thx for the help, elle. You are right, I can get the 3CD fairly cheap on Amazon. $15 isn't bad for the live CD w/ extras.

I read that there is a vocal demo of Keep Me There and a duet of NGBA. Is this really much different than the 2004 reissue, anyone?

I thought so.

There's a vocal demo of Keep Me There, Stevie's version of 'The Chain' before it became The Chain, a duet of NGBA (actually, I think Christine sings on this too..) that also features more/different instrumentation, a duet version of Doesn't Anything Last, a GYOW demo, a Lindsey solo version of IDWTK, a NEW piano demo of POTU (although I think the one we already had was better musically, although not as good of quality sonically), an instrumental version of Songbird, and a few other things that I think I'm missing...

Overall I enjoyed it and thought it was worth getting.

Like Elle said, you can listen to it on Spotify to see if you are interested enough in what is there to buy it.

Thx for the clarification, I just went out and bought it and have only listened to 1/2 of it.