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Butterflies and Hurricanes


Davey25

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Posted

Its a music paper. So i'm looking at the influences mostly in the music. i.e. what makes the solo sound Romantic, where did Dom get the idea for his dance-like drum line from, who did matt hear crazy falsetto. The lyrics are of course a major part of it, but i reckon that's the easiest, and can fill up as much space as i need to reach the mere 3k word requirement.

Posted

I'm about to start teaching the IB in two days so its strange seeing it raise its head on here. Falsetto voice? Jeff Buckley was an influence I believe. Also Matt has "small vocal chords" apparently (if that's not a wind up) so if you can, then why not? Interesting choice of EE though!

Posted

You should mention the chromatic parts in the verse and the rather peculiar chord sequences which are obviously influenced more by romantic- style composers rather than modern day musicians, and the slight metal influence in the post- chorus riff.

Posted
The piano solo hasn't been quoted from any existing classical piece. It is influenced by the style of various romantic composers, but is an original work in itself, only a pastiche of that particular style.

 

Obv the piano solo is directly inspired from Rach III.

 

Please ignore this for the sake of your final grade ;)

 

There is no point within Rachmaninoff's 3rd which can be said to have directly inspired the solo in B&H. Like I said, the solo itself is a pastiche of the composition style which is associated with some late Classical / Romantic composers. You'd be safer writing that than suggesting Bellamy sat down and wrote that solo having listened to Rachmaninoff's 3rd (or any other piece) and decided to copy it. Even if he did, you'd be better staying on the safe side and spending more time discussing the meaning of the song and it's lyrics, as was said above.

 

Etc.

 

See this

 

It's Rach 2, Mvt. 3, not Rach 3, and no, it's not a direct quote but it's quite obvious where he got 90% of the music behind the cadenza section from ;)

Posted

I did IB. Great memories :) Good luck.

 

So, that pesky extended essay. The most important thing is just to write to the criteria, and dig deep. I went too shallow for my English essay, meh. Don't describe too much. If you need stuff to fill up your word limit, that's not a good sign :p Everyone cuts massive chunks out of their essays. Except possibly the science kids because so much science can be described in so few words.

 

Muse's influences seems kinda... descriptive, yeah. You can talk about Rach and Buckley and stuff, but looking at the actual chord progressions and things would be key, as you've said. :) So, focusing on what effects Muse's influences create and how they create said effects, rather than just identifying the influences.

 

Random thoughts: the solo sound romantic thanks to the rubato and sudden dynamic changes. And the chord progressions, but you'd know so much more about that than I do. Extensive use of chromatics throughout. The delay effect on the bass, which is mimicked by the piano, is probably just a general metal/rock/Muse thing.

 

On a tangent, it would be cool to look at the influence of the 'live' element on B&H. How the song changed from the studio version to the live version, and why those changes were made.

 

Oh, and contrary to one of the posters above, I'm willing to bet that the examiner will listen to Butterflies and Hurricanes. They take marking seriously. My English teacher was telling me how they had to get a ton of books to mark people's World Lit assignments, and they had to chase down the right editions and everything.

 

It's so cool that you're doing your EE on Muse. Good luck once again, and I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Posted
Etc.

 

See this

 

It's Rach 2, Mvt. 3, not Rach 3, and no, it's not a direct quote but it's quite obvious where he got 90% of the music behind the cadenza section from ;)

 

Did you put that together yourself? If so, I'm impressed with the effort you put in, haha

 

But once again, I'm going to have to say I can see how that could have perhaps inspired the movement of the solo in B&H, but I would still say that it would be far more likely and natural for Bellamy to have just come up with it himself! I'm sure many composers have done this (as have I) - when you come up with something, you can unwittingly include elements of pieces you have listened to. It's not as if I'm trying to defend him, I just think that it's far more likely that the solo in B&H came more out of a 'right, so, rising chromatic scale, bit of twinkling around, pause for dramatic effect, pose, thump, thump, epic arpeggios, vaguely romantic chord progression, yeah that'll do' thought process (perhaps, as I said, unconsciously influenced by 'Rach 2'), rather than a direct attempt to imitate the piece.

 

My two cents anyway.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Someone claimed the solo is ripped off from the middle of Rachmaninov's Prelude in G minor. So I took a listen to that piece and I could only detect a couple of chords that sounded similar(the ones that come near the end of the solo). However, I believe the solo is totally original.

Posted
Maybe they meant just when he was writing it? Cos Matt writes most songs on piano first apparently

 

What was amazing to me was to find a Sunburn from 2004 that he did that soaring guitar solo on the piano.

Posted
Someone claimed the solo is ripped off from the middle of Rachmaninov's Prelude in G minor.

That was the "Screenager" intro inthe halcyon days when it was played live.The "Butterflies&Hurricanes"issue...I think it´s more about the string section of the Allegro Scherzando of the Piano Concerto II.It has been discussed lots of times.Same happens with "Space Dementia".You know,the "...tear us apart,and makes us meaningless again" line matches with the string section of the Moderato.

Posted
That was the "Screenager" intro inthe halcyon days when it was played live.The "Butterflies&Hurricanes"issue...I think it´s more about the string section of the Allegro Scherzando of the Piano Concerto II.It has been discussed lots of times.Same happens with "Space Dementia".You know,the "...tear us apart,and makes us meaningless again" line matches with the string section of the Moderato.

 

Even so, it shows a pretty good knowledge of romantic music from Bellamy. Only classical music officianados would be able to detect. Honestly I don't have a problem with rock bands nicking off the classical/romantic composers, because it's hard to do. It's the riff copying off previous rock bands which is trouble.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Each has their upsides/downsides:

 

Album - the full piano solo, but lacks the guitar solo right before

Single - truncated piano solo, but love the extra guitar tracks and solo

 

Honestly I don't get the point of truncating the piano solo for the single release, so it would have been 20 seconds longer? I hate butchery of art.

Posted

There's:

- album version

- full length remix with additional guitars (used in the video and track 1 on the singles)

- radio edit (from the promos, piano solo removed with no extra guitars).

 

The live version they've played since around the single release is most similar to the remix with additional guitars.

Posted
There's:

- album version

- full length remix with additional guitars (used in the video and track 1 on the singles)

- radio edit (from the promos, piano solo removed with no extra guitars).

 

The live version they've played since around the single release is most similar to the remix with additional guitars.

 

The one on the video is NOT full length! Check the running time, it's about :50 shorter then the album version. It lacks the lengthy piano lead-in to the solo and a truncated piano solo.

  • 1 month later...
Posted

I could probably have found the answer with enough wiki-digging but...

 

Was B&H ever performed 100% on piano live (like the Absolution version)?

 

cheers. :LOL:

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