koganbot: (Default)
Frank Kogan ([personal profile] koganbot) wrote 2010-09-14 01:38 pm (UTC)

Very not easy! For example, in what I wrote upthread about the "Celebrity Skin" and "Surrender" riffs, I use a quasi-technical term, "power chord," which actually means something pretty specific (several full chords strummed on the guitar in quick succession but with enough sustain and distortion that the chords blare out, as invented by the Who, e.g. "I Can See For Miles"); but owing to the word "power," the term communicates something of what I mean to a reader who doesn't know its specific application, hence I'll use it in my reviewing. Whereas naming the chords, as I do in that comment, is something I wouldn't do in a review, since what those chord names mean would be mud to the reader. In fact it's pretty much mud to me too, despite my knowing the sounds those chord names signify. The term "power chord" at least gives the reader an inkling of what such strumming does for the song, whereas my simply naming the chords conveys nothing about the role of those chords in the song's musical story.

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