Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!jeff From: jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: Instrumental vs. vocal popular music Message-ID: <1695@dciem.UUCP> Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 11:11:06 EDT Article-I.D.: dciem.1695 Posted: Thu Sep 26 11:11:06 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 26-Sep-85 13:22:21 EDT References: <1477@brl-tgr.ARPA> <607@grkermi.UUCP> <361@harvard.ARPA> Reply-To: jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) Distribution: net Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 34 Summary: I don't think there are very many people that all vocals should be removed from popular music. I certainly wouldn't, but the pros and cons of vocals make an interesting topic for discussion. I like vocals, but one thing I don't like about them is that a lot of popular recording artists seem to use vocals to cover up repetitiveness in their music, though probably not deliberately. You can repeat the same music over and over again for five minutes, but as long as you change the lyrics, it won't sound too repetitive. On the other hand, if you're going to do a five-minute instrumental piece, you don't have any vocals to break up the monotony, so you have to make the music much more interesting and non-repetitive than what you can get away with in a vocal song. I find that a lot of times when I buy a new album, if I look at the lyric sheet before playing the album, I feel pleased if I find that there are a lot of instrumentals and disappointed if there are none or only one (depending on the artist). I'm sure it's because I figure it's much more likely that I'll like an instrumental, since they have to put a few interesting twists in instrumen- tals but they don't necessarily have to do that with the music in a vocal song. Many artists who use little or no vocals, such as Mike Oldfield (whom I like almost as much as Doug Alan likes Kate Bush) and Jean-Michel Jarre, have often been criticised for being too repetitive. I admit that both of them have done some pieces that I think are too repetitive, but overall I think their music is much less repetitive than most of the vocal stuff that's around. But because vocals are so effective at diverting the listener's attention from the repetitiveness of the music, a little bit of repetition in an instrumental piece is much more noticeable than a lot of repetition in a vocal piece. As always, comments are welcome. -- Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto (416) 635-2073 {linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsri!dciem!jeff {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!dciem!jeff Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com