Journal Guitarist Playing 'Velvet Ribbon'

sounds like a shitty Dream Theater song

Terrible

That is possibly the worst song I have ever heard.

hes obviously a good technician, but man... that was painful

you seem like someone that could make some really great music, but i guess if this is wut you like then keep doing wut your doing.

shit he's good but i think his hearing's off lol

The low quality doesn't do this kind of music justice. Otherwise, awesome.

It's Nintendo influenced music.. get it now? I love it, very original.

Reminds me a lot of Behold... The Arctopus, but with a more instantly recognizable structure and coherence.
There are some great grooves in there too, and it would be great if some of them strayed from the chromaticism and half-whole ideas. From half-way to three-quarters in was pretty great though.

All in all, it's very subjective, and this clip's probably going to receive a fair bit of flaming, but there are some fairly developed themes and concepts in this piece, in my opinion.

You guys oughta check out the professionally recorded version of this song: www.myspace.com/journalmusic

I know these guys. This recording is only supposed to be a demonstration of the technicality on one of the guitars being played. The actual recording is multi-layered with very rich and dense composition. Joe recorded this over the top of midi music to eliminate the idea that the notes and musical structure are random. What is being played is very intentional. The real song recording was not used to allow the listener to be able to tell the difference between what is guitar and what is background music, in case anyone got the idea that he was not actually playing.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion.

Lastly, this music is not for everyone, but frankly I'm a bit surprised by a lot of the negative comments. To each his own I suppose.

maybe i'm just a sucker for video games, technical fretwork, or abstract song structure, but i quite thoroughly enjoyed it

JimiAwesome wrote: sounds like a shitty Dream Theater song

This is nothing like Dream Theater.....
Nor are Dream Theater shitty, you might not like there music but they are certainly not shitty...

On another note the is what bowsers castle would sound like if it met F-zero

JimiAwesome wrote: sounds like a shitty Dream Theater song

In no way is this anything remotely like Dream Theater. However I do agree that this song is retarded.

Technical =/= Good

mishax92 wrote: JimiAwesome wrote: sounds like a shitty Dream Theater song In no way is this anything remotely like Dream Theater. However I do agree that this song is retarded. Technical =/= Good

Ha. I suspect Journal would accept "retarded" as a compliment from some folks posting in here.

i understand why a lot of people wouldnt like this, but i enjoyed it immensely.

This seems like it's random for the sake of being random. Not really all that interesting to me.

His ficial expression in the ending snap of this video expresses what I think about it

that ribbon definately isnt velvet.
Its very obvious the guys a good guitar player with a good knowledge of the fret board but its a shit song, there i said it.

JimiAwesome wrote: sounds like a shitty Dream Theater song

dream theater doesnt have any shitty songs. I think you mean 'sounds like a dream theater song, except shitty.'

Ouch you guys. There’s some pretty harsh feedback in here. I respect your opinions, but could you elaborate on why you hate the music so much? Is it the dissonance? The lack of verses or choruses? All of the time signature changes? When you say you hate something and can’t give a reason why, people could interpret that as you being inexperienced with the topic of discussion. Have you even heard music like this before? Well, perhaps you don’t want to. Though I must say that comparing it to a Dream Theatre song doesn’t show much of an understanding or that you can provide any valuable incite.
It seems that UG may be hosting primarily mainstream-type music, so I do understand if this is too progressive for you. My apologies for the headache that this video gave you.

Joe

I think it's the best guitar work since eddie van halen's Hot For Teacher. Yeah!

journalmusic wrote: Ouch you guys. There’s some pretty harsh feedback in here. I respect your opinions, but could you elaborate on why you hate the music so much? Is it the dissonance? The lack of verses or choruses? All of the time signature changes? When you say you hate something and can’t give a reason why, people could interpret that as you being inexperienced with the topic of discussion. Have you even heard music like this before? Well, perhaps you don’t want to. Though I must say that comparing it to a Dream Theatre song doesn’t show much of an understanding or that you can provide any valuable incite. It seems that UG may be hosting primarily mainstream-type music, so I do understand if this is too progressive for you. My apologies for the headache that this video gave you. Joe

i think you should of posted viela on here instead, it seems a little easier to grasp for first time listeners. (personally, loved it btw)

It's obvious that people here are not used to this kind of music, they will like some other shitty Dream Theater song instead. I wonder what the flamers will say about Psyopus songs.

Like the song or not, anyone who can't appreciate the amount of skill and practice it takes to write music like this is an idiot. Just because you can't sit and listen to something once and go "Oh, that makes sense" doesn't mean you should label it as "shit". This band is ridiculously talented and has their own sound, which is almost impossible to come across nowadays. Of course not everyone is going to like this, be there's no need to be *******s about it.

Also, none of you will ever write anything half as good as Unlorja. Ever.

I like it

Awesome theory bro

**** you guys. i would love to see any of you play that, or perhaps even write a song.

Journal is an ultra-technical, Nintendo influenced, Noisecore band, residing in Sacramento, California. The band uses conceptual ideas, such as battle and epic journeys, to convey their themes, musically.

That pretty much covers it... (taken from band's Myspace)

I liked it- Fucking impressive!

I feel like I should be playing shadow warrior to this music. It just seems like a video game midi that would only sound good in tuxguitar unless the instruments were changed up. Was this supposed to be a lesson? I don't know why i ****ing just watched it
but if all of you people weren't brain washed by nwohm and the beatles you'd agree that this was a pretty bad ass ragtime solo