Delfín
Group: Members
Posts: 667
Joined: Nov. 2000 |
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Posted: Aug. 05 2007, 21:50 |
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About Incantations and that pattern, used all through the album, Mike just picked the simplest election to buil it: just every chord being a 4th down the one before, or, what is the same, first descending a 4th down, then ascending a 5th up, which is pretty the same as descending a 4th down but just an octave higher. I hope to have put it clear and simple enough.
For me it's admirable how just from such a simple and basic pattern Mike creates a whole oeuvre which is for me one of the masterpieces of instrumental music, and always will be. If you notice in more than 50% of the album you can find this pattern as a harmonic sequence, or just as well the opposite one (ascending 4ths, as in the beginning of side 2).
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The most precious thing I possess, is knowing the answer's yes
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Yes, you're perfectly right to say that the arpeggio is the founding or unifying theme of Incantations. In The Essential, Mike called it a chord, though strictly speaking it isn't a chord; he said that the whole of Inc. was built over it, and that it was featured also in Guilty (and indeed you can hear it also there). But, as a unifying theme, it doesn't necessarily have to be in every single part of the work. To quote another example, not all of Amarok is built on the "A" theme (the fast riff one), but that theme, nevertheless, repeats constantly through the whole thing. It unifies the work even if it's not present everywhere 
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