Interesting melodic resolutions: A specific example. What's happening?

Question

Listen to the intro of the following MuteMath song, Break The Same:

These guys are stellar and well known their innovative songwriting and grandois shows. I really like how the introduction to this song begins with the guitar riff carrying the melody and then the bass + keytar resolve the line very nicely at the end of the bar.

I would like to know if there's anything interesting happening here theory-wise, specifically in the intro/chorus bars. I would love to be able to emulate this sort of melodic convergence.

Answer 1

Its an awesome track, i enjoyed it; but technically nothing unusual happens until the Avant-garde bit at the end.

The general idea seems to be a variation around a C# minor theme (from the 9th fret on the g'tar);

First Bit

Bass: is playing F# B C# then an open E string run E/F# E/Ab B/C (I think :))

Guitar: is alternate picking Ab its 5th(Eb) / Ab its 4th(C#) / Ab its flat 7(F#)

The rest is a variation on this at different velocity, if you figure out the first bit you'll have the rest no probs.

The picked notes by the guitar almost make up an Abmin7 chord, which I think i heard strummed as a chord in the quieter interludes and towards the end of the song.

And actually, the bass provides the B(flat 3rd), which is the missing tone from the guitar picking section.

Its ok to play C# Dorian over this Abmin7, since it shares the all the same notes as Ab minor; and all the notes of Abmin7 (Ab Eb F# B) appear in both Ab minor(C# Dorian) and C# Minor. (And in fact I think the last section; before the drum bit ends up in Ab minor)

Thats the only thing going on in this really; and its brilliant; its the kind of thing i like to do a lot.

Answer 2

Sounds all diatonic to me. Just arrangement. I don't here what you are hearing. The guitar is playing a simple riff(nothing special). The keyboard has it's melody(kinda strange sounding IMO). The bass plays a simple ascending bass line. The drums do start off with a rather unusual but good sounding drum beat.

Doesn't seem much "special" going on here. Such as complex harmonies, complex polyphony(there is polyphony due to the different instruments but they are "accidental"), etc...

What I'm getting at is that individually the different melodies that each instrument plays is rather bland. Like always, anytime you play them together there are new melodies and harmonies created. Did they sit down and just come up with random parts and throw them together? Of course not. Is there anything spectacular going on? Of course not. If you like it, it is because you have similar taste to those guys. If you don't then it's cause you don't.

Unfortunately no one has been able to beat Bach in his polyphony and he still is up there in some of the most complex harmonies(and virtually all of it was intentional). Just imagine what he could do today! This is not to knock everyone else. Bach, overall, just seems to have been light years above anyone else. It doesn't mean everyone else sucks or that they didn't do cool things. Even simple things can sound very cool and you can't compare different styles of music. Obviously Bach didn't rap so just about any rapper will be better than Bach. What we can say is that if Bach was a live and rapped he probably would be the best... and would still suck as a mechanic, or anything else non-musical.