Yes did it well, and so did John Lord with the concerto for group and orchestra. I’m not a Dream Theater fan but I think that stuff is more detailed and tied in than the Metallica example. I think there are more examples of music where the orchestra is not a “prop” than you may think. Surprised you did not bring up Zappa.
Ian Anderson playin jethro tull stuff with orchestra was quite enjoyable for me. Like the Aqualung arrangement there was nowhere close to its any other version. Even the live audience realized the song was Aqualung on the second minute or so.
It's gotta be the opening to Moody Blues' Days of Future Past. I know that it's not necessarily rock rock, but I'd say that The Day Begins is an example of a piece that respects classical music canon while serving as an excellent overture to the rest of the album despite the vastly different genre shift. If I remember correctly, that orchestration was commissioned from a classical composer which may be why I find it appropriate. In terms of mixed orchestration, MAYBE the cheese of ALW's Phantom of the Opera outweighs the clumsy orchestration, but I don't know if I enjoy the work unironically or not. Bernstein's West Side Story and Mass are better in that sense, but then we're deviating from rock bands with orchestra instead of vice versa.
@@GoldenScarab45 Yea, Zappa didn't really come to mind for me because his orchestral music is... legitimately great concert/classical/whatever-you-wanna-call it music. He didn't really do "orchestral rock," he was simply a phenomenal composer. His orchestral music is hardly even related to rock music, as far as I can tell. I respectfully disagree about the DT arrangements, but obviously this is a matter of taste, and I appreciate your suggestions! Gotta check out the John Lord, I've never heard it.
Idk if they are exactly rock and orchestra but Godspeed You! Black Emperor is truly amazing. Their album Lift your skinny fists like antennas to the heaven might be my favorite album.
Silverchair’s 2002 album Diorama features wonderful orchestral arrangements from Van Dyke Parks. Great, somewhat complex and odd strong structures from Daniel Johns, it’s a shift away from their earlier grungey sound however and is more like a alt rock or baroque pop record but retains some of their heavier sound. And the use of orchestra is much more than following the melody or doubling a guitar part, or sustained chords…. The parts are actually very interesting and make use of their talents
I think the key aspect to integrating any two very different sonic textures, such as orchestra and rock instrumentation, is a sincere interest in and appreciation of what each thing does well and attempting to integrate those things to a single end. To that end, I appreciate gonzo experiments like the merging of complex Late Romantic-inspired orchestral arrangements and brutal death metal on Fleshgod Apocalypse's album King, or the deeply peculiar marriage of raw black metal, slide guitars, gamelan ensemble and folk melodies on Book of Sand's Face of the Deep, each meant to convey really strange sonic ideas that don't quite make sense in any other context, over more "tasteful" combinations that essentially treat the orchestra as a flex rather than a key aspect of the greater sound. (This is ignoring ensembles where the orchestral instruments are part of the band, of course, but you of all people would know that. :P)
Wow, two albums I’ve never heard of and can’t wait to check out. (Also, Charlie Looker has done really incredible projects along the lines you’re describing.) I’m a fan of things like Orthrelm/Mick Barr, Sunn O))), or Beartoven (off the top of my head). These musicians are heavily influenced by and creating music in dialogue with contemporary classical music, but they don’t utilize instrumentation as a metaphor for sophistication. It’s just the music, the aesthetic, that communicates a genuine interest in both rock/metal & classical music.
@@BrianKrock Yes! :D Incidentally, I'm not familiar with Beartoven, so I'll have to check them out, but Orthrelm, Zs and Sunn 0)))'s later projects are very, very cool stuff. (Incidentally, speaking of Mick Barr, the guitar arrangements in Krallice's work have always struck me as having a kind of German Expressionist compositional quality to them, if that makes any sense.) Also, regarding Book of Sand, I think the noisier and more folk-oriented Mourning Star is perhaps an even better record than The Face of the Deep, although the eerie closing rendition of "All the Pretty Little Horses" on the latter is one of my all-time favourites, but in general that project is desperately underrated.
Yeah, really agree with you on the Orchestra + Rock thing. The only big exception for me was the Dream Theater performance with the Octavarium Orchestra, since the orchestra is present in a lot of songs from them ( real musicians or the keyboard ones by Rudess), so it was a really awesome experience for me, personally. Keep up with the great content!
Thank you for the encouragement. I don’t think I saw the Octavarium Orchestra, to be honest, but please know that I still root for DT and love what they do, even though it doesn’t really speak to me musically anymore. (I have autographed vinyl of Distance Over Time, though… that record rules.)
I watched the crap out of my Symphony & Metallica DVD when I was 15, but yeah I started to find that rock band + orchestra stuff really aneamic pretty quickly. I dig it when it's music written with orchestras in mind though, Communion by Septic Flesh and Death Came Through on a Phantom Ship by Carach Angren are two albums off the top of my head that I haven't listened to for a while but listened to a lot and remember them doing it really well. There's a bit in babels gate on communion that's just the drums and orchestra that's so freaking good and permanently stuck in my head
It's genuinely funny that each of us mentioned a different one of the two major weird Italian prog-death bands that are known for writing fairly involved orchestral parts in our respective comments. Which… I don't know why that's a thing? Italian progressive metal just seems to be Like That.
@@ConvincingPeople Carach Angren are Dutch and Septic Flesh are Greek. But, yeah lot's of cool symphonic metal bands popping up in the 90s and 2000s. That whole era of metal there was so much cool experimentation (and there still is) incorporating different instruments and ideas from other genres and/or cultures. I really like how Chthonic from Taiwan incorporated traditional Taiwanese instruments into a symphonic black metal style, Seediq Bale is an awesome album
Very happy to hear that there is more Big Heart Machine on the way! This video has also made me very jealous of the music education in the US, it looks much more methodical than what I received in the UK. Great to have another video Brian, they always give me something to think about. Finally is that an alternative version of Memphis I hear in the background?
Well… I can’t speak to the music education system in the US, only my personal experience. And, I think I’m an outlier- judging by conversations with peers- in that I really loved higher education. And, yes, that’s the original electronic demo of “Memphis!” Good ears. (It’s on Patreon- as are pretty much all the demos I make- if anyone reading this wants to download it.)
Strange thing in the guitarist grimoire... On the title page of each scale (eg Major, melodic minor etc) , in the Keyboard Pattern Diagram and Quick Mode Generator on the top left, with the Roman numerals for each mode of each scale, as the Roman numerals ascend left to right the letter notes descend and seem to not relate to the Keyboard Pattern Diagram beside it. The rest is more or less fine but I found that really weird, emailed the website and never heard back. =/
Great video as always, and don't worry we will be looking forward to your videos forever! (Cheesy on purpose) Next time I will be more concrete with my question, lol...
Oh man, I love Devin, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t get through Empath. I remember putting it on in the tour van with my band the day it came out, and we were all so overwhelmed, we turned it off in the middle of the first track. I’ve tried again and keep having the same experience. As a side note, I remember hearing him claim that he was writing a symphony, and I think that never actually happened! I want to hear that!
@@BrianKrock Fair enough man, can't say I really blame you as I also had trouble enjoying it at first! What really helped me get into it was watching Devin's breakdown/summary of the album here on TH-cam. Hearing him explain the relationship between the lyrical narrative and the music contextualized the quazi-schizophrenic jumps in intensity and styles and it's now definitely one of my all time favourites alongside Alien and Deconstruction! Ps. I remember him mentioning the symphony in one of his clinics and I would also absolutely love to hear that!
Okay, but when the composition has been thought to be played by the band and the orchestra at the same time, or when it's fully part of the style like the symphonic metal, what do you think about it ? It seems that you took the worst exemples of that
Haggard and SepticFlesh I'd say are exceptions, Haggard's "Eppur Si Move" being one of my all time favourite albums, but I'm with you. Most uses of orchestra in rock and metal are annoyingly superficial and a waste of talent and time.
One exception to the cringe of orchestral rock to me is Yes' Magnification album (and the subsequent live album Symphonic Yes, to a lesser extent). Magnification was made after they fired their keyboard player for sexually assaulting women and they were like fuck it no keyboardist we'll have an orchestral arranger instead. I think its one of their best albums post 1977 and the orchestra is usually weaved in really well. They wrote the songs w/ an appropriate amount of space for an arranger to make use of. The Symphonic Yes tour slides a little bit into the tropes of symphonic rock, as a lot of the set is new arrangements for old songs, and their keyboard parts are mostly played by a new keyboardist. But a lot of it is actually pretty neat arrangement wise, especially on some of their more exploratory material like the Gates of Delirium. And in the live DVD its very fun to see some of the young orchestra getting really into it.
Yeah!! I totally agree! Just here to say that the "orchestra" that plays in the "Score" concert by Dream Theater is reeeeally awful!!!😂😂😂 I even think they are just a bunch of random musicians who met one hour before that gig. And I love Dream Theater but...😅😅😅🙏🙏
Ya, I do think most of these orchestras are pickup gigs, pay shittily (the Union is always warning ppl not to take the Trans-Siberian gig, for example, when winter rolls around), and that’s why I say “0% of the orchestra is into it.” They can’t even hear themselves playing, probably! Just a gig!
@@BrianKrock do you think as highly of the London Session Orchestra / London Philharmonic Orchestra and Metro Voices Choir who took part in the latest many Nightwish albums, clearly adding depth and color to otherwise quite straightforward metal?
![He's great. ["Mad Rush" analysis (with legos)]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tizP7IFyWig/mqdefault.jpg)
Not my thing, but, maybe orchestral rock is *your* thing! Tell me about the albums you like featuring a rock band combined with an orchestra.
Yes did it well, and so did John Lord with the concerto for group and orchestra. I’m not a Dream Theater fan but I think that stuff is more detailed and tied in than the Metallica example. I think there are more examples of music where the orchestra is not a “prop” than you may think. Surprised you did not bring up Zappa.
Ian Anderson playin jethro tull stuff with orchestra was quite enjoyable for me. Like the Aqualung arrangement there was nowhere close to its any other version. Even the live audience realized the song was Aqualung on the second minute or so.
It's gotta be the opening to Moody Blues' Days of Future Past. I know that it's not necessarily rock rock, but I'd say that The Day Begins is an example of a piece that respects classical music canon while serving as an excellent overture to the rest of the album despite the vastly different genre shift. If I remember correctly, that orchestration was commissioned from a classical composer which may be why I find it appropriate.
In terms of mixed orchestration, MAYBE the cheese of ALW's Phantom of the Opera outweighs the clumsy orchestration, but I don't know if I enjoy the work unironically or not. Bernstein's West Side Story and Mass are better in that sense, but then we're deviating from rock bands with orchestra instead of vice versa.
@@GoldenScarab45 Yea, Zappa didn't really come to mind for me because his orchestral music is... legitimately great concert/classical/whatever-you-wanna-call it music. He didn't really do "orchestral rock," he was simply a phenomenal composer. His orchestral music is hardly even related to rock music, as far as I can tell.
I respectfully disagree about the DT arrangements, but obviously this is a matter of taste, and I appreciate your suggestions! Gotta check out the John Lord, I've never heard it.
@@mustafacankutsal583 that sounds cool! I will have to check it out.
Idk if they are exactly rock and orchestra but Godspeed You! Black Emperor is truly amazing. Their album Lift your skinny fists like antennas to the heaven might be my favorite album.
Very happy to see you back Brian
Glad you're back Brian🎶💙
Thanks, Parsa :)
Silverchair’s 2002 album Diorama features wonderful orchestral arrangements from Van Dyke Parks. Great, somewhat complex and odd strong structures from Daniel Johns, it’s a shift away from their earlier grungey sound however and is more like a alt rock or baroque pop record but retains some of their heavier sound. And the use of orchestra is much more than following the melody or doubling a guitar part, or sustained chords…. The parts are actually very interesting and make use of their talents
Gotta check this out. Love Van Dyke Parks. Haven’t heard the name Silverchair in so long! Thank you
Maybe I'll get vibed for this, but I think the Weezer baroque pop album OK Human is pretty good! Entirely orchestrated and sounds great.
No one vibe Alex! (I haven’t heard this album, though- thanks for the rec.)
I think the key aspect to integrating any two very different sonic textures, such as orchestra and rock instrumentation, is a sincere interest in and appreciation of what each thing does well and attempting to integrate those things to a single end. To that end, I appreciate gonzo experiments like the merging of complex Late Romantic-inspired orchestral arrangements and brutal death metal on Fleshgod Apocalypse's album King, or the deeply peculiar marriage of raw black metal, slide guitars, gamelan ensemble and folk melodies on Book of Sand's Face of the Deep, each meant to convey really strange sonic ideas that don't quite make sense in any other context, over more "tasteful" combinations that essentially treat the orchestra as a flex rather than a key aspect of the greater sound. (This is ignoring ensembles where the orchestral instruments are part of the band, of course, but you of all people would know that. :P)
Wow, two albums I’ve never heard of and can’t wait to check out. (Also, Charlie Looker has done really incredible projects along the lines you’re describing.)
I’m a fan of things like Orthrelm/Mick Barr, Sunn O))), or Beartoven (off the top of my head). These musicians are heavily influenced by and creating music in dialogue with contemporary classical music, but they don’t utilize instrumentation as a metaphor for sophistication. It’s just the music, the aesthetic, that communicates a genuine interest in both rock/metal & classical music.
@@BrianKrock Yes! :D Incidentally, I'm not familiar with Beartoven, so I'll have to check them out, but Orthrelm, Zs and Sunn 0)))'s later projects are very, very cool stuff. (Incidentally, speaking of Mick Barr, the guitar arrangements in Krallice's work have always struck me as having a kind of German Expressionist compositional quality to them, if that makes any sense.)
Also, regarding Book of Sand, I think the noisier and more folk-oriented Mourning Star is perhaps an even better record than The Face of the Deep, although the eerie closing rendition of "All the Pretty Little Horses" on the latter is one of my all-time favourites, but in general that project is desperately underrated.
honestly the Mason Bates example at 1:40 is kinda sick. I'm a sucker for electronic drums like that.
Yeah, really agree with you on the Orchestra + Rock thing. The only big exception for me was the Dream Theater performance with the Octavarium Orchestra, since the orchestra is present in a lot of songs from them ( real musicians or the keyboard ones by Rudess), so it was a really awesome experience for me, personally.
Keep up with the great content!
Thank you for the encouragement. I don’t think I saw the Octavarium Orchestra, to be honest, but please know that I still root for DT and love what they do, even though it doesn’t really speak to me musically anymore. (I have autographed vinyl of Distance Over Time, though… that record rules.)
@@BrianKrock yes you did. He’s talking about the Score DVD and the concert at Radio City Music Hall in 2006
I watched the crap out of my Symphony & Metallica DVD when I was 15, but yeah I started to find that rock band + orchestra stuff really aneamic pretty quickly.
I dig it when it's music written with orchestras in mind though, Communion by Septic Flesh and Death Came Through on a Phantom Ship by Carach Angren are two albums off the top of my head that I haven't listened to for a while but listened to a lot and remember them doing it really well. There's a bit in babels gate on communion that's just the drums and orchestra that's so freaking good and permanently stuck in my head
Man, thanks for the recommendations! I will check out Babel’s Gate immediately, sounds super cool.
It's genuinely funny that each of us mentioned a different one of the two major weird Italian prog-death bands that are known for writing fairly involved orchestral parts in our respective comments. Which… I don't know why that's a thing? Italian progressive metal just seems to be Like That.
@@ConvincingPeople Carach Angren are Dutch and Septic Flesh are Greek. But, yeah lot's of cool symphonic metal bands popping up in the 90s and 2000s.
That whole era of metal there was so much cool experimentation (and there still is) incorporating different instruments and ideas from other genres and/or cultures. I really like how Chthonic from Taiwan incorporated traditional Taiwanese instruments into a symphonic black metal style, Seediq Bale is an awesome album
Very happy to hear that there is more Big Heart Machine on the way!
This video has also made me very jealous of the music education in the US, it looks much more methodical than what I received in the UK.
Great to have another video Brian, they always give me something to think about.
Finally is that an alternative version of Memphis I hear in the background?
Well… I can’t speak to the music education system in the US, only my personal experience. And, I think I’m an outlier- judging by conversations with peers- in that I really loved higher education.
And, yes, that’s the original electronic demo of “Memphis!” Good ears. (It’s on Patreon- as are pretty much all the demos I make- if anyone reading this wants to download it.)
God you’re the sweetest and inspiring
Strange thing in the guitarist grimoire...
On the title page of each scale (eg Major, melodic minor etc) , in the Keyboard Pattern Diagram and Quick Mode Generator on the top left, with the Roman numerals for each mode of each scale, as the Roman numerals ascend left to right the letter notes descend and seem to not relate to the Keyboard Pattern Diagram beside it.
The rest is more or less fine but I found that really weird, emailed the website and never heard back. =/
I don’t know if they even publish that book anymore. I definitely no longer have my copy!
Great video as always, and don't worry we will be looking forward to your videos forever! (Cheesy on purpose)
Next time I will be more concrete with my question, lol...
What do you think of Empath by Devin Townsend? I personally love the orchestral arrangements in that particular album :)
Oh man, I love Devin, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t get through Empath. I remember putting it on in the tour van with my band the day it came out, and we were all so overwhelmed, we turned it off in the middle of the first track. I’ve tried again and keep having the same experience. As a side note, I remember hearing him claim that he was writing a symphony, and I think that never actually happened! I want to hear that!
@@BrianKrock Fair enough man, can't say I really blame you as I also had trouble enjoying it at first! What really helped me get into it was watching Devin's breakdown/summary of the album here on TH-cam. Hearing him explain the relationship between the lyrical narrative and the music contextualized the quazi-schizophrenic jumps in intensity and styles and it's now definitely one of my all time favourites alongside Alien and Deconstruction!
Ps. I remember him mentioning the symphony in one of his clinics and I would also absolutely love to hear that!
I also used that Gary Lindsay book in grad school. Loved it; easy and succinct. Not an ounce of fluff, fuh sho.
Great Video!
Thanks!
Okay, but when the composition has been thought to be played by the band and the orchestra at the same time, or when it's fully part of the style like the symphonic metal, what do you think about it ? It seems that you took the worst exemples of that
Haggard and SepticFlesh I'd say are exceptions, Haggard's "Eppur Si Move" being one of my all time favourite albums, but I'm with you. Most uses of orchestra in rock and metal are annoyingly superficial and a waste of talent and time.
One exception to the cringe of orchestral rock to me is Yes' Magnification album (and the subsequent live album Symphonic Yes, to a lesser extent). Magnification was made after they fired their keyboard player for sexually assaulting women and they were like fuck it no keyboardist we'll have an orchestral arranger instead. I think its one of their best albums post 1977 and the orchestra is usually weaved in really well. They wrote the songs w/ an appropriate amount of space for an arranger to make use of. The Symphonic Yes tour slides a little bit into the tropes of symphonic rock, as a lot of the set is new arrangements for old songs, and their keyboard parts are mostly played by a new keyboardist. But a lot of it is actually pretty neat arrangement wise, especially on some of their more exploratory material like the Gates of Delirium. And in the live DVD its very fun to see some of the young orchestra getting really into it.
Whoa, I did not know this Yes story. I gotta learn more about them… such an awesome band. “Magnification” is on my listening list!!
Japanese anime/video game soundtracks: Am I a joke to you
Metallica and Michael Kamen struck gold with SM. It couldn't even be replicated on SM2.
Septicflesh is the exception to this i'd say
Thanks for telling me, they sound amazing.. and a few other people have mentioned them here.
Even that one Neil young tune that has timpani rubs the wrong way
Lol
Yeah!! I totally agree!
Just here to say that the "orchestra" that plays in the "Score" concert by Dream Theater is reeeeally awful!!!😂😂😂 I even think they are just a bunch of random musicians who met one hour before that gig. And I love Dream Theater but...😅😅😅🙏🙏
Ya, I do think most of these orchestras are pickup gigs, pay shittily (the Union is always warning ppl not to take the Trans-Siberian gig, for example, when winter rolls around), and that’s why I say “0% of the orchestra is into it.” They can’t even hear themselves playing, probably! Just a gig!
@@BrianKrock do you think as highly of the London Session Orchestra / London Philharmonic Orchestra and Metro Voices Choir who took part in the latest many Nightwish albums, clearly adding depth and color to otherwise quite straightforward metal?
Eleanor Rigby? A day in the life?
7
p̴r̴o̴m̴o̴s̴m̴ 😒