Proggy song I've been working on

[Naren]

I previously posted a song in the SAW Offseason thread that I wrote and recorded in 2 days, but this song was one I actually started writing before that one and ended up taking me close to 3 months to write. The vocals and lyrics were written in 1 day, but the music took the rest of the time. Mainly because I just kept deleting riffs and sections, then rewriting, then deleting, then rewriting. I'm not really much of a lead guitarist, so the solos are more placeholders than anything else. Kind of like "This is where the solo is supposed to go."

I had a ton of doubts about this and was unsure whether I should even post it online, but the 2 people I've had listen to it so far (the drummer in my old band and the keyboardist/other singer in my main band) said that they really liked it, so I thought I'd post it. Originally it was even longer with more odd time signatures, a polyrhythm section, and keyboards, but they weren't working for me, so I deleted them. All guitars are my Ibanez RG752FX-GK in drop A (with BKP Ragnarok pickups).

[desertdweller]

You wrote a prog song called Fragile and didn't quote any motifs from Roundabout

The riffing you're doing at 0:35 is great but it sounds off from the drums. Could be on purpose as a polyrhythm - I think it might sound better if you get the drums and guitars to line up a bit more, but that's just me. The vocals actually really fit the song well. Drums could use some compression and room reverb. The guitar sound is nice and tight, throaty. I'm loving the riff and chord progression at 1:30. The R/L separation in the riff at 1:50 is tight too. Guitars sound a little dark, but I feel like I can hear the tone of the guitar come through here and it's really tight and heavy. Vocals in the chorus are really good too. Chords at 3:50 or so after the guitar solo are the highlight of the song IMO. That's a wicked progression. The tremolo picking at the end fits the song perfectly - maybe put some more of that in the guitar solo in the middle? The middle guitar solo feels like you can do more with it - either add complexity to the lines or a harmony behind it, thickening it up.

Overall this is really good Eric! I'm really digging the guitar tone and I like that you're making some complex arrangements here. I'm not sure if you're using Reaper, but if you are and need any help setting up odd time signatures or anything let me know, I've been doing quite a bit of that sort of thing lately and Reaper actually makes it easy.

[Megametal7]

Really cool riffs in this song, first lead work could be improved a bit I think maybe with some string bends? my favourite part is fro 5;08 mark really cool vibe... guitar tone is good too.

For me it would be very hard to remember all the sections if i were to play it live but its just me lol

Good work man,

[Naren]

You wrote a prog song called Fragile and didn't quote any motifs from Roundabout

Wouldn't really fit the atmosphere. Great album, though.

The riffing you're doing at 0:35 is great but it sounds off from the drums. Could be on purpose as a polyrhythm - I think it might sound better if you get the drums and guitars to line up a bit more, but that's just me.

Although there are polyrhythms in my songs and there have been songs I've written where the drummer purposefully played to sound off from the guitars, that right there is partially laziness. I really hate writing and programming drums. For example, I absolutely love it when a bass drum is playing 100% in sync with muted power chords and I would do that all the time if I didn't hate drum programming so much, but you'll only occasionally hear that in songs I programmed the drums for because that kind of programming is such a hassle. My mindset is usually "when I get a real drummer to play live, he can do all of that stuff."

The tremolo picking at the end fits the song perfectly - maybe put some more of that in the guitar solo in the middle? The middle guitar solo feels like you can do more with it - either add complexity to the lines or a harmony behind it, thickening it up.

That solo is just a placeholder of mostly generic improvisation so that anyone who listens to it at this point knows "This is where the solo goes." In my head, I imagine a much flashier and more impressive solo. Although I don't consider myself a lead guitarist by any means, it's not that I don't ever play any solos. Just not very many. In my previous band, Exsanguination, I played maybe 20-25% of the solos and the other guitarist played 75-80% of the solos. So yeah, I definitely agree that a lot more can be done with that middle solo. If this song were to be done in a band and I were to play a solo, it'd be the one over the clean guitar and not the middle one. But even that one over the clean guitar, I'd probably want to polish up some more.

I always feel like if I leave a solo out of a place where I want a solo, it just feels empty and the listener won't be able to envision (at least to some extent) the kind of image I'm going for. I've done both, though. Like giving the other guitarist the recording with no lead guitar in the solo section. And other times where I give him both a version with a rough idea (like in this song) and a version with no lead guitar there.

Overall this is really good Eric! I'm really digging the guitar tone and I like that you're making some complex arrangements here. I'm not sure if you're using Reaper, but if you are and need any help setting up odd time signatures or anything let me know, I've been doing quite a bit of that sort of thing lately and Reaper actually makes it easy.

Thanks. I've been using Reaper for about 13 years now. There are tons of things I don't know, but I've been setting up odd time signatures since the beginning (such as a 4 minute song I wrote in 2009 or so that changes time signatures 16 times, starting in 11/8 or another one where it changed time signatures each time a single measure ended, going 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, 8/4, 9/4, 10/4, 11/4).

Did you think any of the odd time signatures in this song sounded wrong? I know you thought the drums in the 5/4 part sounded off from the drums (and I was lazy there), but I thought the 9/8 part was really smooth.

It is kind of odd, though, that I see this arrangement as not being complex, partially just because of the stuff I previously did where it was like Riff A, Riff B, Riff C, Riff D, Riff E, Riff C, Riff F, Riff G, Riff A, Riff B, Riff H, Riff I, Riff J, Riff K, Riff H (but in a different time signature), Riff J (but clean), Riff L, Riff M. I made a conscious decision last year to try to make music a bit more accessible, but then I ended up heading in this direction all over again.




EDIT: If I end up using this song for my main band instead of for a new side-band with an as-of-yet-nonexistent other guitarist, the other guitarist would DEFINITELY be the one to write and play the solo here since he has seriously amazing technique, a great sense of melody and style, and just is far far more proficient than me when it comes to that kind of stuff. Thinking about it, though, if I wanted to be the one to play the solo in the middle section, then it is certainly possible, but my approach would probably not be anything like how I've been envisioning it, but would instead be to make the lead guitar more of a hummable melody (maybe with a second guitar harmony in there). Generally, in all of my bands so far, the main difference between my solos and the other guitarist's were that the other guitarist did the shreddy stuff I could never play with sweep picking and super fast runs, while I did the slower more melodic-based stuff. The current placeholder solo has a few elements of that there, but mostly just at the beginning and the end (starts out in A harmonic minor and ends in A phrygian dominant, but the vast majority is just in generic A minor pentatonic). Anyway, appreciate the feedback.

3:40 to 4:00 in this song is an example of a solo I'm proud of (this is originally a song I wrote for my old band in 2011 and performed live in 2011 and 2012, and right where my solo ends at 4:00, the other guitarists blazing shreddy solo came in and went to 4:12):

[Naren]

Really cool riffs in this song, first lead work could be improved a bit I think maybe with some string bends? my favourite part is fro 5;08 mark really cool vibe... guitar tone is good too.

For me it would be very hard to remember all the sections if i were to play it live but its just me lol

Good work man,

Thanks. If I were really pushed into a corner and had to play the solo there, I could spend some time to come up with something better, but I'd just prefer to get a better guitarist to write and play the lead guitar there.

For me, remembering the sections is easy, but I can imagine the timing of going from the clean part into the second 9/8 part to potentially be a little tricky. And the tap dancing of changing from clean to distorted rhythm and to lead, etc.