Thinking Plague-Decline and Fall Part 2b

English version:



Mike's reply about my analisys of "A Virtuous Man":

Not 4/4 but 12/16, onkly for a second. No whole tone scale that *I* was *aware* of!

I think so, yes. Actually several tracks of the finger-picked guitar part.



My analysis of "A Virtuous Man": A Virtuous Man:



It starts in 4/4 rhythm, and like other songs of TP it gives me the impression, at least the first seconds of the whole tone scale. Maybe I am wrong. Elaine's voice enter in a kind of vals 3/4, like a nurse "avant" song. Beautiful riff of the guitar, with touches of the piano and clarinet or sax... Percussion like maraccas also sounds. Rapid passages of guitar, piano and clarinet. Echoes in the voice of Elaine. Some words sung "loud" with a little touch of "pop".



The guitar is in acoustic mode, probably Mike used his Ovation in this one. Good work of the drums and the bass that go inside and out of the rhythm. Piano chords, with tritones and other dissonant intervals around 4:30....to give the mistery-tension ambient typical of TP while Elaine sings about this and the other life. Around 5:15 Mike's guitar changed into distortion mode...with some fast notes before a part without drums, full of clusters(closed keys) in the piano, bass notes of a wind instrument(Bass Clarinet)...to give Kimara a showcase to show his skills which are awesome. With a solo which is between jazzy and contemporary. Also the wind instrument seems to show some extended techniques...



Around 7:11, that wind instrument which gives a jazzy feel with the cymbals preceed the Elaine's voice and the organ sound which seems to anounce a kind of disaster...after all, it is a decline and fall, isn't it?.Around 8:20 some of the most energetic and vigurous drums of the track...After that...an "opressive" atmosphere of "Strings" in the keyboards... 9:32 I love that melody at unison with the guitar and wind instrument....and also how they change into counterpoint.



I can say about this track that apart from the typical "avant" rock ambient, I can emphasize the word rock, I think it rocks than many other avant rock groups. This track has for me that feeling.

After all the answered questions Mike Johnson gave us about his influences and musical tastes I can say that I hear in this track clearly most of them, the complexity of Gentle Giant, the symphonic textures of some prog rock groups but also some of his Shostakovich and Schuman and some acoustic parts. Even some jazz rock textures. The song finished not in a bombastic way, but like if the sax and the keyboard are absorbed into a black hole.



Rhytmically it seems like other songs of the album and in TP style that they change quite a lot the time signature, but somehow I notice some parts in 4/4 or 3/4, and more sense of flow and less stop-stare-continue in this track.