reversing guitar

[furiousgeorge]

has anyone even noticed the guitar in forty-six & 2 reverses from the beginning part to the end part? My frined read this in guitar world or something so i checked it out. the change is so sublte but its there. Listen to the first 10 seconds and use winamp or something to skip to the end. tool never ceases to amaze me...

[DisgracedEffigy]

Yes, I had noticed that. Its a strange quality found in rock musicians, but it is done frequently in electronic music. Tool's opening doors again.

[paraflux]

Stepping through the shadow...

Also of interest concerning mirrored effects, the two verses in H. The first verse is the bass with the lead and the guitar has the background, the second verse switches the two, the guitar takes the lead riff and the bass takes the background.

[neveragain]

Yes, also in JIMMY

[nickknocker]

wait, explain this...i dont relly understand quite what youre saying
first off, the first 10 seconds is only bass
then, do you mean it is backwards, or that the guitar and bass switch off (like others said about H and jimmy)?
What im really wondering is if it's just an electronic effect or that you mean it is literally backwards, cuz i can play it (guitar) and it doesnt do that...
ummm, set me straight here

[paraflux]

I was talking about H. There are several ways to pull off a mirror, most common I guess either switching parts between the bass and guitar or simply reversing a riff like the others say 46 & 2 is like. What I was saying is that for the first verse of H., the bass has the lead riff and the guitar does background stuff. The second verse, the guitar has the lead riff that the bass had in the first verse, and the bass has the background stuff. Considering H. has mirrors as a focal point in the lyrical context it makes complete sense.

[nickknocker]

oh, yeah i know you were talking about H (and it's absolutely true), but i was referring back to it as a comparison to what furiousgeorge said in the first post, about the guitar being backwards....is that what he meant?
hmm...

[benson]

i believe he means how the actual notes/power chords are being played...in the beginning (also during the chorus), the lower D (for the guitar players out there...) is being played and the main 'melody' is delayed...(for lack of better words)
anyway, at the end (also after the first chorus and during the following verse), the notes/power chords (main melody) are being played on the downbeat instead of the lower D.
it's just a matter of rhythm i guess...hope that made sense

[neveragain]

I've been thinking this over, and it didn't make much sense to me. Now it does, 46&2 was one of the first TooL songs I learned how to play, I now understand what the thread starter is so fascinated with, I just never thought of it as being some spectacular guitar trick, but then again, I haven't heard too many other songs quite like 46&2. There's alot of good stuff in that song, I love the drumming.

[nickknocker]

yeah i guess learning this song a long time ago, i didnt know what you were talking about(thanks to benson for the explanation)
Amazingly complex drum solo, i dont know any drummers who can do it. It sounds like he's using every piece of his set all at once.

[Eversor]

Yes the drumming is awesome. Danny wil hopefully be compared with the ranks of Neil Peart someday. My boss is a drummer and said that he plays some of the hardest beats to follow due to some of them not being a standard 4, 8, etc. count. Danny uses odd counts and makes them kick ass. And if you don't know who Neail Peart is you should be ashamed to call yourself a music fan (j/k).

[syzygy]

If we take the song only as the music I can say that this song is perfection.It gradually grows up til the last chords.The music just raises the tension it grabs you and twists you and leaves you tired and fast breathing...
And adding the lyrycs to that all-you can see where i`m going.

[philosophomore]

One cool thing I always liked is at almost the beginning of the song. After the first four measures of bass, Danny begins a series of seemingly random (they're not) cymbal pings. After four measures of those, he begins pinging the cymbals on the counts of 1, 3, and 5 of a 7/8 time signature while the bass continues to play in 4/4. After four measures of this, he begins a single-stroke roll on a cymbal while Adam and Justin play the same beats he was playing in 7/8 for four measures. If you weren't a band geek, just listen to the beginning intently and you'll probably hear what I'm talking about.
Incidently, that awesome-ass solo at the end of the bridge that people were talking about earlier is entirely in 7/8 (an odd [read: HARD] time signature) which just adds to how truly pimpin' he is.