Bone to pick with rock guys re; the 'power chord'

[joman50]

[Django Johnson]

What are "chords"?

[EllenGtrGrl]

What are "chords"?

Polyphonic notes - be they played on one instrument (using multiple strings) or different notes played on multiple instruments (like we did, when I played valve trombone in the college jazz band, or euphonium in the symphonic band in college).

As for "power chords" - for a long time I wasn't sure if they were two note (root & 5th) chords, or Barre Chords (3 note - root, 5th, and octave). When I started to develop some chops, I always felt that 2-note chords were a wimp-out way to get a sound kind of like a Barre Chord, because they were easier to play. BTW, if you're into more than just strumming or comping, Barre Chord forms can sound pretty cool, if you're doing alternate picking on them, combined with other strings not a part of the chord form. Ditto for the 2-note "power chord".

[James W]

The riff in 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' sounds even better than it might have done because, while it is mostly power chords, Kurt Cobain would use his ring finger to bar the fifth and octave though if you listen closely you can hear either the added fourth above that or an added major third if the chord is built from the fifth string. It's rough and inconsistent which I find adds to the charm.

[supersoul]

The riff in 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' sounds even better than it might have done because, while it is mostly power chords, Kurt Cobain would use his ring finger to bar the fifth and octave though if you listen closely you can hear either the added fourth above that or an added major third if the chord is built from the fifth string. It's rough and inconsistent which I find adds to the charm.

There is a youtube video (maybe Rick Beato) where he's talking about Kurt Cobain's "harmonic sophistication," because he's playing a barre chord low down but has the E and B strings ringing out in the background. Which he contends makes it a complicated chord with extensions.
Which is kinda hilarious, and I doubt Mr. Cobain was thinking anything other than it sounded good. His slacker sloppiness was by design. But it made me wonder what he would have come up with if he had ever explored open tunings (aside from drop D).

[Christian Miller]

There is a youtube video (maybe Rick Beato) where he's talking about Kurt Cobain's "harmonic sophistication," because he's playing a barre chord low down but has the E and B strings ringing out in the background. Which he contends makes it a complicated chord with extensions.
Which is kinda hilarious, and I doubt Mr. Cobain was thinking anything other than it sounded good. His slacker sloppiness was by design. But it made me wonder what he would have come up with if he had ever explored open tunings (aside from drop D).

IKR? It’s so stupid it’d be funny if not for the fact that I think he knows it’s stupid.

The Beato grift - telling old dudes that the music they like is ‘advanced’ and that they have the Big Brain for liking the Stone Temple Pilots. Gen X accumulating cringe daily I’m sad to say.

And yet he sleeps on this

Charles Cornell doesn’t sleep on this. He even says ‘Zed X Spectrum’. I will not hear a word against him.

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[supersoul]

IKR? It’s so stupid it’d be funny if not for the fact that I think he knows it’s stupid.

The Beato grift - telling old dudes that the music they like is ‘advanced’ and that they have the Big Brain for liking the Stone Temple Pilots. Gen X accumulating cringe daily I’m sad to say.

And yet he sleeps on this

Charles Cornell doesn’t sleep on this. He even says ‘Zed X Spectrum’. I will not hear a word against him.

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Being of American origin I've never heard of the ZX Spectrum before. We had the Commodore 64, Amiga and some others. All those early home computers were cool, and they're still being used because they often do things that modern computers can't. Of course modern computers can probably emulate 100 Comodore 64s at once!
In a way we've come full circle from 80s 1-bit music, since that's basically what a Class-D amplifier is doing, just at a much higher sample rate and with really good anti-aliasing filtering.
That track is great, btw. What is it about lo-fi, crunchy digital sounds that makes them sound so good (to me, admittedly not to everyone)? The pioneers of early digital synthesis were quite ingenious in how far they pushed those chips. I have a book on early videogame sound design that is quite interesting.

ADDENDUM: Evidently the Spectrum and the Atari used the same chip for sound synthesis, the AY-3-8910.
There is an emulation in SuperCollider
AY | SuperCollider 3.12.2 Help

[James W]

But it made me wonder what he would have come up with if he had ever explored open tunings (aside from drop D).

Indeed. Like Sonic Youth.

[Christian Miller]

Being of American origin I've never heard of the ZX Spectrum before. We had the Commodore 64, Amiga and some others. All those early home computers were cool, and they're still being used because they often do things that modern computers can't. Of course modern computers can probably emulate 100 Comodore 64s at once!
In a way we've come full circle from 80s 1-bit music, since that's basically what a Class-D amplifier is doing, just at a much higher sample rate and with really good anti-aliasing filtering.
That track is great, btw. What is it about lo-fi, crunchy digital sounds that makes them sound so good (to me, admittedly not to everyone)? The pioneers of early digital synthesis were quite ingenious in how far they pushed those chips. I have a book on early videogame sound design that is quite interesting.

ADDENDUM: Evidently the Spectrum and the Atari used the same chip for sound synthesis, the AY-3-8910.
There is an emulation in SuperCollider
AY | SuperCollider 3.12.2 Help

This was the upgraded Spectrum 128k. The original 48k model used a 1 bit beeper, single channel. It was the most terrible sound on any home computer of the era. The C64 was wildly more advanced let alone the Amiga.

So, understand that this utter madlad somehow managed to find a way to hack the unit to play multivoice music.

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[Django Johnson]

Speaking from experience playing in punk rock bands in the early 80's I used the power chord a lot. My first love is blues and jazz which I listened to as a teenager in the 70's because my uncle (WW2 vet) was a huge fan of Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and just jazz in general. He introduced me to jazz guitar and even though it sounded way too complex for my 14 year old brain it just got to me. I was more into Chicago and Texas blues guys. Once I started to take the guitar seriously I picked up a copy of Chord Chemistry by Ted Greene. I'd suggest every guitarist get a copy.