“Back To The Future” – Matt Bellamy On The Cover Of Australian Guitar Magazine, 2010

[Kati]

 

If Haze can play it without any big problems, isn't that enough proof that it doesn't require some guitar virtuoso? (No offence Haze)

 

Okay, I promised to stop bitching so this is meant kindly:

There is a phenomenon about people singing in bath... They think themselves they sound gorgeous, but neighbours don't quite agree. I'm not saying that Haze wouldn't know whether he is playing MK Ultra correctly, since I don't know how he plays it (that's why I asked about his competence level), but Matt's definition of flawless might still be different than his (maybe that's how he got to the level of virtuosity - demanding himself always a better performance). And Muse knows their playing is being critically reviewed by professional musicians, too.

 

Like Matt said, they had problems with it during soundchecks, therefore it has nothing to do with being nervous when they play in from of thousands of people.

 

From everyday life: when doing, say a presentation, everything goes fine when rehearsing but things go wrong when audiense is there. So you keep checking, double checking and triple checking all details you can think of. So when practising for a public performance, things have to go perfectly well for several rehearsals, otherwise due to Murphy's law (and the nervousness) you screw up some of those things in the actual show. I would guess this was the problem for which they had to practise a lot, rather than Matt really never being able to play it properly. Well it's not really clear from the article.

 

I guess sometimes it is good to relax and allow yourself for some mistakes (usually mistakes happen regardless of your allowings ) But I don't think any average fan not in music business himself can advice Muse on suitable level of errors. They are the professionals here.

[Hat]

Okay, I promised to stop bitching so this is meant kindly:

There is a phenomenon about people singing in bath... They think themselves they sound gorgeous, but neighbours don't quite agree. I'm not saying that Haze wouldn't know whether he is playing MK Ultra correctly, since I don't know how he plays it (that's why I asked about his competence level), but Matt's definition of flawless might still be different than his (maybe that's how he got to the level of virtuosity - demanding himself always a better performance). And Muse knows their playing is being critically reviewed by professional musicians, too.

 

 

 

From everyday life: when doing, say a presentation, everything goes fine when rehearsing but things go wrong when audiense is there. So you keep checking, double checking and triple checking all details you can think of. So when practising for a public performance, things have to go perfectly well for several rehearsals, otherwise due to Murphy's law (and the nervousness) you screw up some of those things in the actual show. I would guess this was the problem for which they had to practise a lot, rather than Matt really never being able to play it properly. Well it's not really clear from the article.

 

I guess sometimes it is good to relax and allow yourself for some mistakes (usually mistakes happen regardless of your allowings ) But I don't think any average fan not in music business himself can advice Muse on suitable level of errors. They are the professionals here.

1. Haze posted videos

2. Matt said that he couldn't play it during soundchecks. Therefore it has nothing to do with the audience, okay?

 

Did you even read what I said?

[haze015]

Yes I agree. Of course he has confidence, but nothing is ever black and white. People on here do tend to talk about absolutes, but in reality that's rarely the case.

 

I think they do rehearse btw. Maybe they are a bit uncommitted re rehearsing, I don't know. I got the impression from what they said about making The Resistance that whereas Matt wants perfection, he hasn't actually got much patience when it comes to getting to that point - Dom was aiming at perfection and Matt was getting irritated and like "that will do" but, in the end they haven't done too bad.

 

PS I get the impression that Matt's not straightforward, he's complex so it's pointless taking everything he says as read. That certainly doesn't mean, however, that he lies.

 

Of course he lies or at least twists the truth, can't be totally 100% honest in interviews for all sorts of reasons, it's not a bad thing, just reality.

 

I seriously don't think it's anything to do with confidence at all, just the demands he's making of himself and maybe those around him are too much and getting wound up by it. If he had any issue with his piano playing or whatever it wouldn't be on stage in the first place! You're looking at it from far too basic an angle and without experience of playing to an audience.

 

Okay, I promised to stop bitching so this is meant kindly:

There is a phenomenon about people singing in bath... They think themselves they sound gorgeous, but neighbours don't quite agree. I'm not saying that Haze wouldn't know whether he is playing MK Ultra correctly, since I don't know how he plays it (that's why I asked about his competence level), but Matt's definition of flawless might still be different than his (maybe that's how he got to the level of virtuosity - demanding himself always a better performance). And Muse knows their playing is being critically reviewed by professional musicians, too.

 

Matt isn't a virtuoso or at least never displayed true virtuosity publicly.

 

Virtuosity is being able to play stuff like this purely by sight-reading:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUKHMR6xZtU

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAQ4trbsoFU

 

As random as it sounds, it's all scored

[spark_]

You can get away with mistakes easier on electric guitar compared to a piano. Genres like Delta Blues is all about being sloppy.

 

Absolutely agreed with this.

[CarrieB]

Of course he lies or at least twists the truth, can't be totally 100% honest in interviews for all sorts of reasons, it's not a bad thing, just reality.

 

I seriously don't think it's anything to do with confidence at all, just the demands he's making of himself and maybe those around him are too much and getting wound up by it. If he had any issue with his piano playing or whatever it wouldn't be on stage in the first place! You're looking at it from far too basic an angle and without experience of playing to an audience.

 

 

 

Matt isn't a virtuoso or at least never displayed true virtuosity publicly.

 

I'm looking at it from the perspective of being human, but I do agree with much of what you have said. I think you underestimate others' understanding though. There are lots of versions of performance.

[Melania13]

Sheesh I understood the "making mistakes" comment as Matt saying he doesn't have to follow an exact mold every time, and that he can improvise and throw random stuff in or change it up

 

either that, or saying if he messes up, its not that big of a deal because it's just part of playing live and he knows he's not the "best" guitarist out there technically

[Olly.]

Remember when he fucked up collateral damage at teignmouth? He ran off after and hasnt played it since Just a perfectionist I guess.

[Kati]

1. Haze posted videos

 

yeah right, I was writing the previous post and checking spelling and didn't notice the new posts. Then I was fighting with the edit/delete button while you already replied my new one.

 

We obviously do not agree on the effect of audience on playing/mistakes/whatever, no point discussing it further.

[haze015]

yeah right, I was writing the previous post and checking spelling and didn't notice the new posts. Then I was fighting with the edit/delete button while you already replied my new one.

 

We obviously do not agree on the effect of audience on playing/mistakes/whatever, no point discussing it further.

 

You're talking about someone who does play to an audience every night and has done for years. It's nothing like your one presentation, that would have been Matt at his first gigs, not in his 30's hundreds of gigs later.

[Hat]

yeah right, I was writing the previous post and checking spelling and didn't notice the new posts. Then I was fighting with the edit/delete button while you already replied my new one.

 

We obviously do not agree on the effect of audience on playing/mistakes/whatever, no point discussing it further.

No, because I'm still talking about rehearsals without an audience, what are you not getting?

[spark_]

Sheesh I understood the "making mistakes" comment as Matt saying he doesn't have to follow an exact mold every time, and that he can improvise and throw random stuff in or change it up

 

either that, or saying if he messes up, its not that big of a deal because it's just part of playing live and he knows he's not the "best" guitarist out there technically

Even live - especially live - with piano you don't have luxury. A wrong note ruins the whole harmony and just sounds terrible.

 

@haze: Ferneyhough, lol... that's just insanity epitomised.

[Melania13]

Even live - especially live - with piano you don't have luxury. A wrong note ruins the whole harmony and just sounds terrible.

 

I agree with that of course, piano puts out such a pure sound and always seems so deliberate and precise (except the outro to SD live and piano as Matt played in the past- I havent watched every performance that Muse have ever done but Sunburn at BDO '04 always comes to mind)

 

But I guess its different with guitar because most of the time, people like me (who aren't musicians or have extensive knowledge of how guitars sound/are supposed to sound) barely recognize mistakes and are overall just in awe of anyone who can play (ok, maybe thats just me seriously, all you musicians, i bow down to you and am extremely jealous of your mad skills)

[spark_]

I agree with that of course, piano puts out such a pure sound and always seems so deliberate and precise (except the outro to SD live and piano as Matt played in the past- I havent watched every performance that Muse have ever done but Sunburn at BDO '04 always comes to mind)

 

I'm fairly sure the outtro to SD, apart from the bits which are Matt just hammering the bass notes trying to produce as much noise as possible, are just arpeggios going up and down in the key of the bass note (or in the main key, but played on the bass note - I'm not exactly sure without looking at the actual sheet music). They're not just random notes.

[Melania13]

I'm fairly sure the outtro to SD, apart from the bits which are Matt just hammering the bass notes trying to produce as much noise as possible, are just arpeggios going up and down in the key of the bass note (or in the main key, but played on the bass note - I'm not exactly sure without looking at the actual sheet music). They're not just random notes.

 

I meant live..... because he usually it just banging his hands on them to try to simulate the loudness and [planned] chaos that is present in the studio version. When watching live footage I can usually tell what is actually written and what part is Matt just going crazy

[spark_]

I meant live..... because he usually it just banging his hands on them to try to simulate the loudness and [planned] chaos that is present in the studio version. When watching live footage I can usually tell what is actually written and what part is Matt just going crazy

So did I. Bits of it are just him banging on the keyboard obviously but quite a lot of it is in key, which is why it actually works.

[Kati]

Apologies for hair-splitting below.. Don't read if you don't like such posts.

 

I never said he was a poor player, just answering a suggestion made by someone and you're making ridiculous assumptions from that.

 

What I said was that when someone (here board posts but that was actually what Bellamy has said in an interview) suggests playing the guitar part and singing simultaneously is tricky, your statement that the song is very simple and doing singing and playing cannot be the issue, implies that you think Bellamy is a poor player (actually poor player and singer if he can't do that simultaneously on a simple song). May I ask how, in your opinion, a skilled musician can fail to perform a simple song in a situation described here? Otherwise than being not skilled? If you can find a reply for that, fine, if not, please don't try to "get off the hook" (?) by saying that you didn't say anything.

 

Not difficult at all. What you're saying as a non-guitarist to one of 9 years, is that they don't know what they are talking about, when in fact they may know more of you.

 

Here's me playing guitar:

 

I've never learnt to play it, but it's on the beat, at a not too fast pace and not all over the fret board.

 

Er.. Know more of me? You meant they might know more than me? Well I agree you know more than me on playing a guitar, but knowing more than zero doesn't take much knowledge, so that doesn't really prove the validity of your statements.

 

You could have saved yourself the trouble of drawing the tab. I already told I can't play guitar. I also can't judge how good you are on the video (I presume you're the one who is singing and playing? Quite brave to publish your identity on the board, I don't quote the video link in case you reconsider and want to remove it from your post ).

 

I can say that nine years is less than what Bellamy has been playing, your band seemed to be in the phase before first album (and dead now - you've got a new band?), and I can say that it's somewhat suspicious to say playing a song is easy when you are not even trying to play it yourself.

 

Maybe time will show that you'll get to be a far more famous musician than Matt Bellamy and your posts here on Muse board will be regarded as the early wisdom of a genius. Before that happens I'm going to rely more on Muse interviews on whether their songs are difficult to play or not.

[Kati]

No I don't understand what your rant towards haze is all about. We were having a perfectly nice and civilised conversation about a point of the article until you came storming in out of nowhere attacking haze who had done nothing to directly provoke you and then mentioning setlist which had nothing to do with the conversation.

 

Yes, you were having your typical chat between friends whining about Guiding Light. Oh I was supposed to know that this time it was just whining about GL in general, not as being part of the setlists? My bad.

[haze015]

Apologies for hair-splitting below.. Don't read if you don't like such posts.

 

 

 

What I said was that when someone (here board posts but that was actually what Bellamy has said in an interview) suggests playing the guitar part and singing simultaneously is tricky, your statement that the song is very simple and doing singing and playing cannot be the issue, implies that you think Bellamy is a poor player (actually poor player and singer if he can't do that simultaneously on a simple song). May I ask how, in your opinion, a skilled musician can fail to perform a simple song in a situation described here? Otherwise than being not skilled? If you can find a reply for that, fine, if not, please don't try to "get off the hook" (?) by saying that you didn't say anything.

 

 

 

Er.. Know more of me? You meant they might know more than me? Well I agree you know more than me on playing a guitar, but knowing more than zero doesn't take much knowledge, so that doesn't really prove the validity of your statements.

 

You could have saved yourself the trouble of drawing the tab. I already told I can't play guitar. I also can't judge how good you are on the video (I presume you're the one who is singing and playing? Quite brave to publish your identity on the board, I don't quote the video link in case you reconsider and want to remove it from your post ).

 

I can say that nine years is less than what Bellamy has been playing, your band seemed to be in the phase before first album (and dead now - you've got a new band?), and I can say that it's somewhat suspicious to say playing a song is easy when you are not even trying to play it yourself.

 

Maybe time will show that you'll get to be a far more famous musician than Matt Bellamy and your posts here on Muse board will be regarded as the early wisdom of a genius. Before that happens I'm going to rely more on Muse interviews on whether their songs are difficult to play or not.

 

I'm not the singer as he's playing bass and we had been going for about 6 months or something when that was filmed and most likely completely wasted. It doesn't exist anymore and I'm in another, but I'm not playing guitar in this one.

 

I'm not suggesting anything as I don't know everything that goes on behind the scenes, but I'd imagine explaining the logistics of playing a song live on a tour on the scale of Muse's isn't too easy, which wouldn't make for interesting reading or be understood by the majority of people. Then again, he might just have been confident with it at that point in time to the standard he wants. But Matt is well known for talking bollocks in interviews and not being totally accurate (Apparently he has Ebows built into his guitars according to this interview, which is nonsense!). Also interviews are edited down for whatever reasons, usually length/column inches issues, which definitely happens, once was involved with a 20+ interview for a radio station, that went out as a 5 minute interview.

 

And don't be so patronising, someone's ability to play an instrument has absolutely fuck all to do with success. Best guitarist (Definitely better than Matt and the majority of guitarists) I know is happy enough playing his local pub and nothing more, a lot of technically brilliant guitarists will be session musicians rather than fronting bands.

[Kati]

2. Matt said that he couldn't play it during soundchecks. Therefore it has nothing to do with the audience, okay?

 

Did you even read what I said?

 

No, because I'm still talking about rehearsals without an audience, what are you not getting?

 

Ok Sippe, here is the quote from him:

 

“Fans have been requesting it on message boards, but we weren’t physically capable of playing it earlier in the tour as the guitar part is pretty tricky for me to pull off when I’m singing,” admits Bellamy later. “We’ve been practicing and practicing in soundchecks to pull it off.”

 

Where does he say they could not play it in the rehearsals? He says they kept practising it.

 

You're talking about someone who does play to an audience every night and has done for years. It's nothing like your one presentation, that would have been Matt at his first gigs, not in his 30's hundreds of gigs later.

 

Yup. He has said in interviews he is still nervous before gigs. That is btw what I've read from most live performing artists - actors in theater etc. He only mentioned he does not get sick anymore because of the adrenaline - I've never felt sick because of such pre-performance stress, have you?

 

Whatever, I've spent most of the night writing these stupid posts and I need to get some sleep.

[Melania13]

I'm not the singer as he's playing bass and we had been going for about 6 months or something when that was filmed and most likely completely wasted. It doesn't exist anymore and I'm in another, but I'm not playing guitar in this one.

 

I was confused too I was like "the singer looks like he's playing bass, buuuuuut..." because I'm used to people barely moving their fingers when playing bass. (I'm obviously very uneducated about these things )

 

ps your singer looks like Andy Samberg when he sings and I'm jealous of your skills

[spark_]

Ok Sippe, here is the quote from him:

 

“Fans have been requesting it on message boards, but we weren’t physically capable of playing it earlier in the tour as the guitar part is pretty tricky for me to pull off when I’m singing,” admits Bellamy later. “We’ve been practicing and practicing in soundchecks to pull it off.”

 

Where does he say they could not play it in the rehearsals? He says they kept practising it.

Yes, they kept practicing because they weren't physically capable of doing it. Which I would say is rather irrespective of setting.

 

@haze: I note you mentioned Screenager. Probably not the best example though, since he doesn't actually play it on the guitar live?

[Pistol Star]

I heard some people mentioning that Matt played Collateral Damage at the soundcheck on LA#2. Obviously, there's no audio proof so however reliable that is.

 

Did anyone else get the impression that Matt is trying to build a guitar so he can play Muscle Museum again? I don't know how the pedal he supposedly lost could relate to this 'rhythmic arpeggiator', but hope this is the case.

[L.]

Yes, you were having your typical chat between friends whining about Guiding Light. Oh I was supposed to know that this time it was just whining about GL in general, not as being part of the setlists? My bad.

 

You are kidding, right? I think there was 1 post when GL was mentioned... Okay just to recap for you one last time: someone mentioned a point in the article about not having issue making mistakes, someone mentioned they didn't agree and posted an example of when he messed up on stage and as a result hasn't played that song since, other people then added other examples to add to the discussion and haze joined in with his argumentation and his opinion as a musician about MK... so there was no conversation about "whining about GL"... I hope that is clear now for you.

 

Yes, they kept practicing because they weren't physically capable of doing it. Which I would say is rather irrespective of setting.

 

@haze: I note you mentioned Screenager. Probably not the best example though, since he doesn't actually play it on the guitar live?

 

Actually he has played it on the guitar before (there is a video somewhere on youtube) not sure though if it is was a one off performance on the guitar... I think it's a bit like Sunburn: live it has mainly been played on the piano but there are a few performances on the guitar.

[CarrieB]

Sheesh I understood the "making mistakes" comment as Matt saying he doesn't have to follow an exact mold every time, and that he can improvise and throw random stuff in or change it up

 

either that, or saying if he messes up, its not that big of a deal because it's just part of playing live

 

This is along the lines of what I was thinking. I don't know why I got involved in the conversation really, because I didn't think it significant when I read it.

[Minimal]

PPS So you guys managed to turn even this innocent guitar tech thread into setlist moaning. Sigh.

 

 

Way to throw this thread off-track with your post.