On Apr 6, 2010, at 3:57 PM, Mike Dickson wrote:
Interesting, yes. My major gripe with RW though is that he has only one chop. It's all so bleeding monotonous.
In looking at it again, I see what you mean. I never went in for his solo things, and now that I think about it, that's probably the reason. He is very adept at arpeggios and scale passages, but in listening to some of his other works, they rely on the same things to a great extent. It's too bad he doesn't have someone who has his respect who could challenge him to dig a little deeper, because it's obvious that he is really musical. Makes me wish I'd spent more time with scales and arpeggios!
The scales, arpeggios and the endless trilling bother me a lot. I also reckon you could take any one fifteen second snapshot of that particular piece and it would be instantly recognisable as Wakeman. There is no space, no let-up, no room for breathing in it at all. I'm sure prog-heads the world over think that's great as the more notes it has then the better it must be but to me it's like listening to a squalling kid who won't shut up so he gets the attention he demands. It's all so needy.