The Official Blog of Pro Guitarist Allen ROBOT Van Wert

The band Breakin Benjamin started out local to me, I even shared the same practice space as a few of their members years ago. I talked with some of them at one point but I forget which members.

I like to study music and I am able to find formulas in the music of most bands. I thought it would be interesting to share my studies with you guys and let you see how I see things from a compositional analysis standpoint.

Firstly I will take a few songs that are big radio hits and within a few passes of the songs I discover and plot out the bands “formula”. This is a good way to learn about composition and how things fit together in a song. I would not suggest directly ripping off the formula of a band because you will end up sounding a lot like them in most cases. No one likes a copycat. (Ex: How Saving Abel is 100% copying Three Doors Down’s formula…listen to “18 days” from saving abel and then just about any recent Three Doors Down song.)

Here is how I do it:
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There has been some buzz about the all star band named “ChickenFoot” The members are:
Joe Satriani – guitar
Chad Smith – Drums (He was in RHCP)
Michael Anthony – Bass (He was in Van Halen)
Sammy Hagar – Vocal

Before I start in on the sound of their sample tracks I really need to get something off my chest. There seems to be a LOT of borrowing going on lately. The borrowing of ideas and quirky gimmicks. Being one of the few odd ball guitarists who sound like a nintendo or “insert non guitar type sound here”, I happen to be a little more sensitive to the little rip offs here and there.
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The new Metallica album is due out soon! I have my worries about it and miss 90s metal. I know most people are into the earlier albums from Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax but my favorites were “The black album”, “Countdown to extinction” and “The sound of white noise” respectively. I was never into the straight out thrash metal with thin guitar tone and lack of melody. I admire the power of those three albums. They had strong composition, melody, harmony, and lyrics. After that point things all seemed to go downhill. Metallica came out of a five year tour with haircuts and a new sound that was quite disappointing. Megadeth had another set of good albums but then released “Risk” a little too close to pop and lost one of my favorite musicians “Marty Friedman”. Then they sort of fell off the map. Anthrax had a decent album that (if I remember correctly) was performed by their drummer “Charlie” on all instruments. It was still that same good melodic metal but at that point they were off the map as well.
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I just gave a listen to the first single from the new Extreme album “Saudades de Rock”. I had been a big fan of their music. They had great space in the music. Funk feel with classical composition and transpositions. It just sounded awesome. Now I go to their myspace and listen to the new single entitled “Star”.

The song consists of a harmony singing.. your a star.. yes you are..bigger than venus and mars. That line on the same stagnant sounding root note while the guitar plays a chord voicing for the vocal line making it even more annoyingly present.. then sounds like it goes to a b7th then a natural 6th to create a dissonant resolve back to the chorus part again. It sounds like the vocals are about 2db too loud in the mix and panned to far to the right. Then we go into the straight 4/4 driving drum and bass part with a non interesting guitar part that is at least allowing some space in the section to make it sound like a verse. Gary’s voice sounds quite pushed and lacking (think Gary with Van Halen). Then back into the same annoying part they are attempting to make a chorus by repeating it a bunch of times.. STAR STAR.. fucking STAR. The only redeeming factor in this song is the Nuno solo. There is a nice breakdown right before it and the solo itself has some creative phrasing. I did get the feeling he was attempting to play faster than he is able to in parts because it got a little sloppy. His usual creative phrasing saved it though. It could of had a little more space and rhythm. Then we go back to it saying star over and over again. End song.

On the mixing and sound side of things. I feel some parts are washed out a little. Nuno should NOT be the recording engineer on this.

I was expecting something very nice… perhaps another pornograffiti album. This was a big letdown for me. I can say this.. the old extreme stuff.. if you were listening to it in your car loud people would think it was cool. If you cranked this and people seeing you drive heard the blasting STAR STAR STAR gayness they would most likely think you were retarded. Perhaps I am angry because I feel let down. Maybe the other songs will be better than this. I really hope so.

These are some guitar picks made by Jim Dunlop. One of them is my favorite!