BOC and Arpeggio

Listening to that Philip Glass NPR interview last week reminded me of something that BOC said about their own music that left me puzzled. I forgot about that remark until just now. As many people have already noted, "Tomorrow's Harvest" featured the use of arpeggios in a few tracks. I was pleasantly surprised by this, because I quite liked the sound, and thought it worked well with the theme of the album. In the De:Bug interview around the promotional period for TH, BOC said this:

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We didn’t consciously go back into early territory with this record, but I think we might have used instruments and tools on this record that are familiar from our very early material, especially with the synths and arpeggios and so on.

But that made me wonder, what other BOC tracks involve arpeggios? I couldn't think of any. Does the "Poppy Seed (Reprise)" remix count? Are they referring to the "Old Tunes" stuff? I don't really listen to those too much, since I'm still waiting for a proper boxset release. Is this just a reference to "very early material" that predates the official Skam/Warp catalogue?

I don't know shit from Shinola when it comes to music theory, but the first thing that came to mind when thinking about arpeggios were these:

Thanks for the input on those, Herr Jan. I also don't know music theory beyond just a bit of what I pick up here and there. According to standard explanations I've heard, an arpeggio is when you play the notes of a chord each in succession, instead of all at once. Bach was fond of this, and used it a lot. Glass explained in that NPR interview that he thought of arpeggios as delivering the biggest bang for the buck, since it encompasses all three of the elements of music at once: melody, harmony and rhythm. "White Cyclosa" is definitely a candidate, I would have thought, but that's on "Tomorrow's Harvest", which has a few clear instances of arpeggio. I'm a little less clear on the other two examples. Are those notes in "nlogax" harmonious if played simultaneously?

  On 4/12/2015 at 8:31 PM, apriorion said:

Thanks for the input on those, Herr Jan. I also don't know music theory beyond just a bit of what I pick up here and there. According to standard explanations I've heard, an arpeggio is when you play the notes of a chord each in succession, instead of all at once. Bach was fond of this, and used it a lot. Glass explained in that NPR interview that he thought of arpeggios as delivering the biggest bang for the buck, since it encompasses all three of the elements of music at once: melody, harmony and rhythm. "White Cyclosa" is definitely a candidate, I would have thought, but that's on "Tomorrow's Harvest", which has a few clear instances of arpeggio. I'm a little less clear on the other two examples. Are those notes in "nlogax" harmonious if played simultaneously?

arps in the context of electronic music, especially where sequencers are concerned, are a bit more loosely defined.

it'd probably be more accurate to call them 'sequences' when comparing to traditional music theory nomenclature.

Sorry, I don't think there are any arpeggios in "Forest Moon".

  On 4/14/2015 at 5:03 PM, apriorion said:

Sorry, I don't think there are any arpeggios in "Forest Moon".

by the loose usage of the term in electronic music, yes there is.

My knowledge of what an arpeggio is in terms of electronic music is 95% based on Legowelt tracks / experiments like these:

I'd also agree that those Forest Moon things aren't really close to being an arpeggio because it's just the same single note repeated for 10+ times before another note comes in. I do agree with what osc said about it being more loosely determined in electronic music, not sure if they'd always sound harmoniously when played together.

How loose does it get, then? Any sequence of notes becomes an arpeggio? Give me a break. With regard to "forest moon", I can hear some dissonance in the reverb of those notes, so that's not harmonious.

I'd say that harmony between the notes in the sequence is a necessary condition for an arpeggio, regardless of how loose we get on the other conditions. Otherwise, again, any sequence of notes in a repeating pattern becomes an arpeggio? The term looses all meaning, then.

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:25 PM, apriorion said:

How loose does it get, then? Any sequence of notes becomes an arpeggio? Give me a break. With regard to "forest moon", I can hear some dissonance in the reverb of those notes, so that's not harmonious.

I'd say that harmony between the notes in the sequence is a necessary condition for an arpeggio, regardless of how loose we get on the other conditions. Otherwise, again, any sequence of notes in a repeating pattern becomes an arpeggio? The term looses all meaning, then.

I suggest you actually use an arpeggiator on a synthesizer, and then shut up.

does hi-scores (original) count?

Telling people to shut up on a forum is amusing. What a dickhead.

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:35 PM, oscillik said:

 

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:25 PM, apriorion said:

How loose does it get, then? Any sequence of notes becomes an arpeggio? Give me a break. With regard to "forest moon", I can hear some dissonance in the reverb of those notes, so that's not harmonious.

I'd say that harmony between the notes in the sequence is a necessary condition for an arpeggio, regardless of how loose we get on the other conditions. Otherwise, again, any sequence of notes in a repeating pattern becomes an arpeggio? The term looses all meaning, then.

I suggest you actually use an arpeggiator on a synthesizer, and then shut up.

 

Now why that kind of reaction, man? He's asking a genuinely interesting question, and is disagreeing based on what he's hearing - the better response would be to explain why he's not hearing what you are, or why he might be mistaken.

  On 4/14/2015 at 10:36 PM, Joyrex said:

 

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:35 PM, oscillik said:

 

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:25 PM, apriorion said:

How loose does it get, then? Any sequence of notes becomes an arpeggio? Give me a break. With regard to "forest moon", I can hear some dissonance in the reverb of those notes, so that's not harmonious.

I'd say that harmony between the notes in the sequence is a necessary condition for an arpeggio, regardless of how loose we get on the other conditions. Otherwise, again, any sequence of notes in a repeating pattern becomes an arpeggio? The term looses all meaning, then.

I suggest you actually use an arpeggiator on a synthesizer, and then shut up.

 

Now why that kind of reaction, man? He's asking a genuinely interesting question, and is disagreeing based on what he's hearing - the better response would be to explain why he's not hearing what you are, or why he might be mistaken.

 

this is why the BOC fans retreat to twoism - because it's a more pleasant environment to discuss their music.

Thanks, Joyrex. Those are the kinds of answers I was hoping to get. Simply because something is called an X-iator doesn't mean that it always delivers an X as the output. Blindly following something on the grounds that it's got that label doesn't seem very well thought-out to me.

Also, thanks Herr Jan, for the additional examples from other artists.

  On 4/14/2015 at 10:36 PM, Joyrex said:

 

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:35 PM, oscillik said:

 

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:25 PM, apriorion said:

How loose does it get, then? Any sequence of notes becomes an arpeggio? Give me a break. With regard to "forest moon", I can hear some dissonance in the reverb of those notes, so that's not harmonious.

I'd say that harmony between the notes in the sequence is a necessary condition for an arpeggio, regardless of how loose we get on the other conditions. Otherwise, again, any sequence of notes in a repeating pattern becomes an arpeggio? The term looses all meaning, then.

I suggest you actually use an arpeggiator on a synthesizer, and then shut up.

 

Now why that kind of reaction, man? He's asking a genuinely interesting question, and is disagreeing based on what he's hearing - the better response would be to explain why he's not hearing what you are, or why he might be mistaken.

 

kinda already explained it, but whatev.

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:35 PM, oscillik said:

 

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:25 PM, apriorion said:

How loose does it get, then? Any sequence of notes becomes an arpeggio? Give me a break. With regard to "forest moon", I can hear some dissonance in the reverb of those notes, so that's not harmonious.

I'd say that harmony between the notes in the sequence is a necessary condition for an arpeggio, regardless of how loose we get on the other conditions. Otherwise, again, any sequence of notes in a repeating pattern becomes an arpeggio? The term looses all meaning, then.

I suggest you actually use an arpeggiator on a synthesizer, and then shut up.

 

Looking up the definition yields this:

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An arpeggio is a type of broken chord. Other types of broken chords play chord notes out of sequence or more than one note but less than the full chord simultaneously. Arpeggios can rise or fall for more than one octave.

  On 4/14/2015 at 6:56 PM, oscillik said:

 

  On 4/14/2015 at 5:03 PM, apriorion said:

 

Sorry, I don't think there are any arpeggios in "Forest Moon".

by the loose usage of the term in electronic music, yes there is.

Sorry Osc, there are no arpeggios in Forest Moon. The term doesn't get any looser because "electronic music". Forest Moon would be an example of an ostinato.

Bocuma and Roygbiv would be examples where arpeggios are used.

  On 4/14/2015 at 9:25 PM, apriorion said:

How loose does it get, then? Any sequence of notes becomes an arpeggio? Give me a break. With regard to "forest moon", I can hear some dissonance in the reverb of those notes, so that's not harmonious.

I'd say that harmony between the notes in the sequence is a necessary condition for an arpeggio, regardless of how loose we get on the other conditions. Otherwise, again, any sequence of notes in a repeating pattern becomes an arpeggio? The term looses all meaning, then.

The opposite of dissonance is consonance, not harmonious.

You can have dissonant chords, thus it would be entirely possible to have a dissonant arpeggio (how "good" it would sound depends on the skill of the performer/composer, and the receptiveness of the listener to dissonance. I always cite Thelonious Monk as one of the masters of dissonance).

What I think you're describing as dissonance in "Forest Moon" is most likely the out of tune harmonic overtones that occur on older analogue synths (I'm sure newer analogue synths go out of tune as well, but I would hazard not as quickly - I haven't used any newer analogue synths though, so I might be talking out of my ass on that one).

I'm not really patient enough to explain chords and so on, I'll assume you know what the notes of the twelve-tone western scale are. If you play CEG together you get a C major chord. If you play C then E then G one after the other in succession, you get an arpeggio.

Maybe google basic theory when you're sitting in front of a piano/keyboard one day - easy way to learn some of the basic stuff. Or ask in EKT - there are lots of people in there who can do a better job of explaining it than me.

Hope that helps!

Sorry mesh but forest moon is definitely not an arpeggio. An arpeggio has to have a chord. It doesn't have to be major, minor, diminished, altered 5th, consonant, or dissonant. But it does have to be a chord.