Author Topic: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web  (Read 2227 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Setlist Scotty

  • Posts: 4472
question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« on: April 12, 2018, 04:39:31 PM »
Something I've been wondering about is how to describe the little 1.5 second snippet that the band added to the end of CiaW, after the brief pause. Is there a musical term that actually describes it?
As a basic rule, if you hate it, you must solely blame Portnoy. If it's good, then you must downplay MP's contribution to the band as not being important anyway, or claim he's just lying. It's the DTF way.

Online Adami

  • Moderator of awesomeness
  • *
  • Posts: 36084
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2018, 04:45:40 PM »
I believe the proper Italian term is sconosciuto.
fanticide.bandcamp.com

Offline Evai

  • Posts: 497
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2018, 05:08:23 PM »
For some reason, my mind hears it as the intro to Innocence Faded
Jordan took Moore's boring, pedestrian parts and elevated them considerably to take them from barely palatable to stellar.

Offline The Walrus

  • goo goo g'joob
  • DTF.org Alumni
  • ****
  • Posts: 17221
  • PSA: Stairway to Heaven is in 4/4
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2018, 05:41:01 PM »
Coda is the closest term I can think of but it's not really a coda. Or it could be? I dunno. I went to school for this and am puzzled by it.  :lol
From a Mega Man Legends island jamming power metal to a Walrus listening to black metal, I like your story arc.
"I don't worry about nothing, no, 'cause worrying's a waste of my time"

Offline Shooters1221

  • Posts: 377
  • Gender: Male
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2018, 08:34:33 AM »
Coda is the closest term I can think of but it's not really a coda. Or it could be? I dunno. I went to school for this and am puzzled by it.  :lol

Yes

Offline The Walrus

  • goo goo g'joob
  • DTF.org Alumni
  • ****
  • Posts: 17221
  • PSA: Stairway to Heaven is in 4/4
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2018, 10:27:59 AM »
Coda is the closest term I can think of but it's not really a coda. Or it could be? I dunno. I went to school for this and am puzzled by it.  :lol

Yes

I'm hung up on it though. Does it really count as a coda in this song? I'm probably overthinking it, since I'm envisioning classical music structure, but I suppose it's as valid as an extensive coda by Mozart, just much shorter and simply tacked on at the end.
From a Mega Man Legends island jamming power metal to a Walrus listening to black metal, I like your story arc.
"I don't worry about nothing, no, 'cause worrying's a waste of my time"

Offline pg1067

  • Posts: 12430
  • Gender: Male
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2018, 10:34:40 AM »
Coda is the closest term I can think of but it's not really a coda. Or it could be? I dunno. I went to school for this and am puzzled by it.  :lol

Yes

I'm hung up on it though. Does it really count as a coda in this song? I'm probably overthinking it, since I'm envisioning classical music structure, but I suppose it's as valid as an extensive coda by Mozart, just much shorter and simply tacked on at the end.

This is what I was thinking.  It is, technically, a coda, but there's likely a more specific term for it (assuming the OP is talking about the part at the very end).  I just don't know what that term is.
"There's a bass solo in a song called Metropolis where I do a bass solo."  John Myung

Offline Lethean

  • Posts: 4504
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2018, 10:36:55 AM »
"The last few seconds of the song, after a pause."

Oh, you were asking musicians... :)

Offline Evai

  • Posts: 497
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2018, 12:47:48 PM »
I'll bet DT had their own 'interesting' name for that section, back in the day. Maybe they still have the charts!
Jordan took Moore's boring, pedestrian parts and elevated them considerably to take them from barely palatable to stellar.

Offline romdrums

  • Posts: 4509
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2018, 02:18:58 PM »
Jazz musicians would likely call it a tag.
Though we live in trying times, we're the ones who have to try. -Neil Peart, 1952-2020.

There is a fundamental difference between filtered facts and firehosed opinions. -Stadler.

Offline Ninjabait

  • XBOX is a God to Me
  • PR permission
  • *
  • Posts: 696
  • Gender: Male
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2018, 10:15:42 AM »
Well, let's take a look under the hood to see what's going on here.

The entire section from 5:14 (from the guitar slide) to the end would be considered the Coda. It's very short, only six measures long, but here's the play by play (note that the Chorus just before it is in G-major/C-Lydian, and that the song starts and ends in c#-minor/phrygian):

First four measures: the guitar and bass hammer away at C# to emphasize the new key center. There are other notes here (they hit the occasional Bs, and end the first/third measure with an E and the second/fourth measure with a D), but all of the C# notes are accented and its clearly the basis for the whole passage. The keyboards play a counterline which (to me at least) sounds like it's just alternating between C#5 and D5 twice on the second half of the riff. This riff also shows up a few times in the song (usually to transition from the chorus to some instrumental section), so there's already an expectation of what role this riff will play, which they kind of play off of here. The main thing to note is that the band ends this riff on a D, which sounds dissonant and needs resolution.

Fifth measure: a brief rest in 2/4, as opposed to the 4/4 that dominates the section. It lets the melodic dissonance "sit" in your head just long enough that the song doesn't feel totally unresolved at the end and leaves a bunch of tension (basically, without this pause you'd probably think "that's it?" at the end), but not long enough that you start feeling uncomfortable or the last measure feels like it comes out of nowhere. If you want a technical term for this measure, I've never seen one but "dramatic pause" seems to do quite nicely.

Final measure: back to the primary meter of 4/4, the band plays around a D5 for the first half, then ends on a C#5. This, to me at least, seems like some sort of melodic/modal cadence to resolve that dissonant D (that's what she said) back down to C#. It's a very metal thing to do.

Why tag this on at the end? Well, ending a song in a different key than you started in is...well, it's generally not a good idea. All art is based around this principle of "there and back again", where you start at home, go somewhere else and do the things, and then come back home again a little different at the end of your adventure. Without that last bit, the song would feel like it ended on a cliff hanger, with no sense of resolution. What will happen to our hero next? Will he ever make it back home to c# from the magical land of G-major/C-lydian? Tune in next time on-whoops the show's been cancelled. It's a little clunky, but it kind of sort of gets the job done.

So, tl;dr: it's a melodic/modal cadence following a dramatic pause in a brief coda section to return us to the original key center of c# so that the song doesn't end on a cliff-hanger.

There's no specific term for that brief measure at the end, which you'll sometimes come across in music theory. Sometimes the only thing you can do is to describe what's going on and venture a guess as to why it's happening. But, if you want a simple (if slightly less accurate) one-word definition it would be a Coda.

I'm hung up on it though. Does it really count as a coda in this song? I'm probably overthinking it, since I'm envisioning classical music structure, but I suppose it's as valid as an extensive coda by Mozart, just much shorter and simply tacked on at the end.

In classical music, codas can vary in length from "literally nothing" or "like two to four measures of V - I" (more common in Classical and Baroque music) to "this is literally as long as the rest of the piece combined" (more common in Romantic music and late Beethoven). So, yes, it would still count as a Coda.

Offline Elite

  • The 'other' Rich
  • DTF.org Alumni
  • ****
  • Posts: 17544
  • Gender: Male
  • also, a tin teardrop
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #11 on: April 15, 2018, 10:46:48 AM »
Coda.
Hey dude slow the fuck down so we can finish together at the same time.  :biggrin:
Squ
scRa are the resultaten of sound nog bring propey

Offline The Walrus

  • goo goo g'joob
  • DTF.org Alumni
  • ****
  • Posts: 17221
  • PSA: Stairway to Heaven is in 4/4
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #12 on: April 15, 2018, 04:14:46 PM »
Excellent post, Ninjabait. :)
From a Mega Man Legends island jamming power metal to a Walrus listening to black metal, I like your story arc.
"I don't worry about nothing, no, 'cause worrying's a waste of my time"

Offline Setlist Scotty

  • Posts: 4472
Re: question for musicians regarding Caught in a Web
« Reply #13 on: April 18, 2018, 11:13:16 AM »
Wow! Didn't expect my question to generate that much discussion, but I'm glad it did. Thanks for all the thoughts, and especially the detailed explanation Ninjabait. So I guess the answer is "Coda" then. Thanks again!  :)
As a basic rule, if you hate it, you must solely blame Portnoy. If it's good, then you must downplay MP's contribution to the band as not being important anyway, or claim he's just lying. It's the DTF way.