Post by ashcatlt on Jan 24, 2011 13:50:39 GMT -5
I honestly don't remember anything about the recording of this piece. It was some late night session a few years back and I have no notes or anything. It was recorded to my Fostex D2424LV hard disk recorder, so there aren't even any track names to help sort things.
From listening and playing along, it seems this is based on what I'd have to call the Ascending Melodic Minor scale.
In D that's: D E F G A B C# It's very much like the D Major scale with a flatted (minor) third. If you look at it, though, more than half of the scale (from C# to G) is the same as the Half/Whole scale, and the main "verse" theme leans on that aspect pretty heavily.
The "chorus" line seems to resolve back to A. From the perspective of A as the tonic, this scale is basically Natural Minor with a sharped (major) third. I don't know of a name for that, but this line only uses five of those notes: A B C# D and G. These all fit nicely into the D Major scale, which can be called A Mixolydian (?), and maybe comes across more like A Major with a minor 7th.
I really like every aspect of this piece. The minimalism, the semi-random and sometimes very close harmonization which comes from the meanderings of the three guitars. The "chorus" and chordal "bridge" sections come across as sort of passive-aggressive. There are maybe some performance issues in there, but I'm glad I recorded it when I did and managed to get some half-way decent sounds. If I was to try to recreate it, I'm pretty sure it would lose something.
The title is somewhat a play on a semi-clean exclamation. Try saying it with an exclamation on the end. It's also an allusion to the Scandinavian culture and sub-arctic desolation of this part of northern Wisconsin/Minnesota where it was created. It's named after two of the goddess from the Norse pantheon. I like to tell people that it translates loosely to "Drunk and Depressed (and a little p
d off)".
Frig 'n' Hel
From listening and playing along, it seems this is based on what I'd have to call the Ascending Melodic Minor scale.
In D that's: D E F G A B C# It's very much like the D Major scale with a flatted (minor) third. If you look at it, though, more than half of the scale (from C# to G) is the same as the Half/Whole scale, and the main "verse" theme leans on that aspect pretty heavily.
The "chorus" line seems to resolve back to A. From the perspective of A as the tonic, this scale is basically Natural Minor with a sharped (major) third. I don't know of a name for that, but this line only uses five of those notes: A B C# D and G. These all fit nicely into the D Major scale, which can be called A Mixolydian (?), and maybe comes across more like A Major with a minor 7th.
I really like every aspect of this piece. The minimalism, the semi-random and sometimes very close harmonization which comes from the meanderings of the three guitars. The "chorus" and chordal "bridge" sections come across as sort of passive-aggressive. There are maybe some performance issues in there, but I'm glad I recorded it when I did and managed to get some half-way decent sounds. If I was to try to recreate it, I'm pretty sure it would lose something.
The title is somewhat a play on a semi-clean exclamation. Try saying it with an exclamation on the end. It's also an allusion to the Scandinavian culture and sub-arctic desolation of this part of northern Wisconsin/Minnesota where it was created. It's named after two of the goddess from the Norse pantheon. I like to tell people that it translates loosely to "Drunk and Depressed (and a little p
d off)". Frig 'n' Hel
