Dervish_D
Group: Members
Posts: 53
Joined: Feb. 2001 |
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Posted: July 19 2001, 11:19 |
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One aim in writing music can be to try and find out a CLEAR picture of what you felt, experienced, like or dislike.
Under circumstances it is important for the composer himself that he can identify with every happening that occurs in his music. He is absolutely aware of why there is this snare drum at exactly this place or why there is this climax at exactly that moment!
If you listen closely to both versions of Hergest Ridge you will notice that one version is a lot more "quite", "sensitive", "straight" and "clearer". The one that has more instruments and more complexity (as many call it) in it is also the one which leaves me surprised at times and at parts makes me feel disturbed by what happens.
The beginning of Part one leads me to a "beautiful and soothing landscape" and I begin to "explore my surrounding" as the bass guitar begins to play its arpeggios.
One version now has an surprising and loud outbreak as if I would have discovered a beautiful lake or a meddow full of flowers.
Then suddenly the music leaves this super-beautiful discovery behind as if it was nothing special (=when the trumpet starts playing). Again we have this soothing landscape and then we have a climax again?!?! Why? Another discovery? The first one was not "beautiful enough" to "capture my attention", how could this second. More over, it is IMO(!!!) just a loud sound, it lacks contrasts and a certain move...
I regard it as more interesting, as the other version does, to keep me "wandering around", "watching the birds" (=the guitar that forms a countermelody) or makes me feel more familiar with the new world I just entered. Then the climax happens but at the same time it marks the beginning of a completely new episode of my way through this countryside. (=new instruments, sometimes the music "paints" darker pictures, "Something might be wrong in this world?")
This is only one example why Hergest Ridge (vinyl) is often indirect and uncertain with what happens. Some instrument parts are meaningless they make it harder for to notice what the point is. They are merely added to create a more "bombastic" sound.
Even the "thunderstorm" in Part two has a different influence on my feelings without the singing and the guitar improvisation. The repitions make the message clear and direct - anxiousness, stress, madness - when will this end?!
One super-advantageous aspect about music is that everyone can have his own associations with it. Nothing is predistined. And thus of course do I understand every other opinion about the two Hergest Ridge mixes. I know that many dislike the CD version.
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But he said that the reason why he did it is that he didn't like the way the original mix turned out, and I tend to believe him. My preference goes to the remix, though, because it is richer in instruments. I don't heard them 'muddled' (as LivingForever says in another topic) at all.
