Cant count to 4
A different kind of rock
Josue Martinez Pineda
I think a lot of people are just attracted to something they haven’t heard before
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s sat in my film class, I felt a tug on my sleeve. I turned to look at my friend who was sitting next to me. He handed me his headphones saying, “check this out, it’s called Math Rock.” I put the headphones on and he pressed play. It started off with a generic “one, two, three” drum stick count then it became a burst vibrant guitar chords in unison with the hits of the drums. Each chord from the guitar was like a different color of paint being splashed into your ears. Each pluck and strum from the guitar were erratic, but were in harmony with the, also unpredictable, play of the drum, forming this incredible sound. Hearing it was like listening to a psychedelic art piece from the
60s. With various pitches and volumes, when you think you figured out the shape to it, it then changes to something else. It was a real trip. A question then came into my mind. Why isn’t this played for everyone to hear? In “Science Proves: Pop Music Has Actually Gotten Worse,” Rose Eveleth states that timbral in music has gone down, and “that means that songs are becoming more and more homogeneous.” In other words, there isn’t a set way to make music. There is no certain format that a musician has to conform to, so it’s sad to hear music that is generally popular to be so alike. Math rock is different from the general type of music and other forms of rock – more
specifically, something that is a must and almost a need in our modern music industry. The fact of the matter is that popular musicians are unwilling to take risks in their music for the fear of losing popularity and support from their fans (Bloomberg. com). With this, music can begin to feel like it’s losing its expressive qualities. A type of music that didn’t really gain much steam at the time, this genre of rock known as “math rock,” came as a result of the progressive rock era of the 60s and 70s, a very interesting time where weed, acid, and music time signatures were being messed around with (Clay). When first hearing the term, you may think that actual math equations formulas may 3
be involved, but that is not the case. As Felix Clay, a writer for Cracked.com explains, the term Math Rock “was slapped onto the genre due to how many numbers are involved in the writing process. It was considered a big joke to bands, seeing that one would need a calculator to determine if a song was good or not.” Though the question still remains: What is math rock, exactly? Kevin Murray, a drummer for several music groups based in the Bay Area, describes math rock as “an extremely rhythmically complex music based on the tone of the guitar which is very bright, the fast melodic lines played on the guitar and the really close interplay between the drums and the guitar.” Murray also mentions that Math Rock is played in different time signatures versus. Now one would need to have a little bit of background in music to understand what this means, but Shane HuntDusse, AKA Shoeless Shane, a bass player from the Bay Area explains this in more detail.
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He says, “Time is a really easy concept that people blow out of proportion. Four-four or a conventional time signature is just a predictable beat. Most music has a four-four backbeat to it. With unconventional music it adds extra rhythms to that and around that. Instead of that predictable 4-4 you get time signatures like 7-8 or 13-8” (Hunt-Dusse). You can see it as if you’re walking down the street, you wouldn’t walk with a skip in the middle of your steps, that would be weird. That’s basically what an unconventional time signature is. Hunt-Dusse then simply
describes math rock: “In a nutshell, it’s just complicated rock & roll. Rock & roll that’s not in a conventional time signature, and that’s it.” Unlike the popular music we hear being played on the radio, math rock is difficult to find due to its lack of popularity – actually, extremely difficult if you don’t know where to look. Hunt-Dusse sheds some insight on how Math Rock had been making it’s way more locally in the Bay Area: So, awhile ago there was this music, there was a lot of weird music coming out of the Mountain View, Los Altos
Hills area. The Investors, Floral, those were some of those bands. They were very much like a collection of friends that were experimenting with weird music. They didn’t really have many outlets for that. You can’t just walk down the street and find a place that’s willing to let you perform your music. So everyone just did it just in their garages and in their basements, experimenting with weird amps, weird sounds, weird guitar tunings, anything that was unconventional. (Hunt-Dusse) With such little exposure, how exactly does this the genre “Math Rock” hold up against
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other genres of music? Murray explains how math rock, being different, might make people simply dislike the sound or feeling of it. He states, “I don’t think math rock is ever going to really reach a critical or mainstream acclaim because it’s just, it doesn’t have the groove that I think most people are looking for in music. It’s not, it’s not danceable by any means”(Murray). Ty Mayer, the drummer for the Math Rock group Floral, also gives his thought on the popularity of Math Rock explaining how the genre now is probably at it’s high point in terms of its esteem: “This is probably as big as it will get. I mean it’s pretty- it’s like you know..most people seem to know what it is where as maybe three years ago less people would know the phrase ‘math rock’. But yeah, I think these things-genres like that come in fads, but it probably won’t be making it into the top 40 charts, you know what I mean?” If Math Rock will not become popular how is it relevant to the broader spectrum of today’s music industry and the future of it? This question is the most prominent I encountered when pursuing the topic of math rock. As Hunt-Dusse puts it, “The reason I think math rock is still a thing we’re talking about is because of how vague the term ‘math rock’ is.” He explains how it can sound very light and pretty, but also very “dissonant and gross.” This could possibly be a reason to why it won’t be popular. People will most likely not be able to understand the music on a more in depth level, leaning more towards music that is simple and easy to follow, easier to understand. As a result Math Rock is underappreciated and will be forgotten. Hunt-Dusse explains how the people who listen to Math Rock are in search of a deeper 6
connotation in music that will resonate with them as an individual, something that popular, generic music today cannot provide for them. HuntDusse sums up the value of Math Rock: It fills a really important need because it’s not only beautiful and a lot of the times thought provoking, but it’s also unpredictable and a little edgy, you know? So Math Rock is very much for those alternative people, people who feel like they’re outcasts in the tastes that they have. A lot of the time they’re are cultivated, they are intellectual, and they are very out spoken; A lot of people with a lot of emotions who don’t know how to express them, I feel like Math Rock is for a lot of those people, people who know exactly how they feel, but no one around them knows how they feel and they don’t know how to get that across. I think that a lot of people don’t use music to express those really complicated emotions, a lot people, you know, listen to music to get out their feelings of sadness or to validate their feeling of love. A lot of pop music is about love. Me. I like the unpredictable. I like Math Rock.
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Works Cited
Clay, Felix. “Math Rock.” cracked.com. www.cracked.com/funny-8395-mathrock/. Accessed 28 March 2017. Eveleth, Rose. “Science Proves: Pop Music Has Actually Gotten Worse”. Smithsonianmag.com 27 July 2012. www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-proves-popmusic-has-actually-gotten-worse-8173368/. Accessed 28 March 2017. Hunt-Dusse, Shane. Personal Interview. 22 March 2017. Hunt-Dusse, Shane. Follow up Personal Interview. 20 April 2017. Leonid Bershidsky. “Why Music Is Dying”. Bloomberg.com. 8 July 2014. www. bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-07-08/why-music-is-dying. Accessed 28 Mar 2017.
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Author Bio
Josue Martinez Pineda is a junior who attends Freestyle Academy and Los Altos High School. He lives with his younger brother, his mother, and his two dogs, Lucy and Boxy. He has quite the collection of interests that range from photography, sport, to even singing, although he doesn’t think he’s good at it. Josue has several passions. One of them is film production. He wants to pursue film production in college and strives to be a director or an editor for films. Another Passion of his is fighting or more specifically MMA. MMA has played a rather big role in shaping Josue into the individual he is today. It has helped him get through some difficult times. He still enjoys it as much as when he first started seven years ago at the age of ten. He wants to become a professional fighter, but is mindful that th will be something he will have to pursue while he is young.
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