| Announcing the Gentle Giant online store: Giant Gear!Wall Street Journal honors Gentle Giant with Top Small Workplace award!Gentle GiantTM has won numerous awards for our customer service and company practices.Boston Magazine's Best of Boston Award.TV series Make Your Move, which aired on the Discovery Home Network.Gentle Giant Moving Company, Inc.Click here to read more...Gentle Giant Moving Company, Inc.Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.Gentle Giant were a British progressive rock band, one of the most experimental of the 1970s.Rabelais, the group's compositional purpose was to "expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular."Unusual Chords and Melodies
2.Renaissance
4 Musical attributes
5 Personnel
5.The brothers joined with Gary Green, Kerry Minnear, and a succession of drummers to produce a series of twelve albums throughout the 1970s, finally dissolving quietly in 1980.Their earlier albums were more eclectic and experimental than their later ones.By 1974, as they started to gather an American following, they simplified their songs (which, compared to other rock artists at the time, were still very complex) to gain a wider audience.By 1977, as cultural trends saw the mainstream of music shifting towards punk and New Wave, the band developed a much more commercial sound.In 1979, they relocated to America to record their twelfth and most mainstream album, Civilian, after which the group disbanded.Phil Shulman wrote the lyrics for the first four albums; when he left the group Derek Shulman took over the lyrics.John Weathers and Gary Green contributed a few pieces to the last few albums.Within the music, counterpoint is one of the most common stylistic devices.Furthermore, polyphony, polymetrics, hocketing, and the technique of using patterns is widely common in the ensemble's repertoire.This can be heard when the instruments come in after the vocal introduction to Knots.Unusual Chords and Melodies
However unusual the music of Gentle Giant might sound, a closer look reveals relatively few intricate chords, especially compared with contemporary classical music.Proclamation and So Sincere utilise modern and more complicated harmonics, but mostly the unusualness lies in the sudden and unexpected twists and turns.Changing Key
Melodies and instruments, as in the case of Gentle Giant, do have a compositional meaning while nearly in every piece from the start they are put contrapuntally against other lines and melodies.Another changing method in Gentle Giants pieces is the clever handling of transitions between sections: in just a few bars, a hard rock guitar riff moves for a medieval choral in Why not?.Stating Themes
Gentle Giant consciously used the classical composition technique of stating themes.For example, one theme used on one instrument in the beginning was later reused simultaneously or in counterpoint on another instrument, or against other chords or instruments than in the tunes beginning.Complexity
Now and then song lines could stay in the wrong place for shorter or longer times, the most obvious example being Prologue , where the line itself is simple, but an eighth note behind the down beat and thus going between the bass 4th notes continually.Renaissance
There has been renewed interest in Gentle Giant since 1990 , with new fan clubs, new releases of live concerts and previously unreleased material, several tribute albums and a failed 1997 attempt by fans to convince the members to perform a reunion concert.Several recent progressive rock bands claim to have been greatly influenced by the music of Gentle Giant, including Spock's Beard and Echolyn.Many of these albums (most notably, In a Glass House) were previously difficult to purchase in North America without resorting to imports.In particular, the first four albums have yet to receive definitive CD releases.For example, the title track on Acquiring the Taste begins with an obvious defect, possibly due to a damaged master tape, on all current CD and vinyl releases.The 1996 compilation Edge of Twilight includes a corrected version of the song.Extensive use of instrumental and vocal counterpoint
Complex lyrics
Concept albums (on the occasion)
One Gentle Giant album listed a total of 46 instruments in the musician credits.Derek Victor Shulman, on 11 February 1947 in Glasgow, Scotland.Philip Arthur Shulman, on 27 August 1937 in Glasgow Scotland.Support the GG web site:
Check out our GG merchandise!Welcome to the
official
Gentle Giant web site.Gentle Giant created some of the greatest music of
the 1970s progressive rock era.If you are unfamiliar with Gentle Giant,
I hope this web site will encourage you to sample their unique music.To old fans and friends: step inside and share some memories of old days.Who is Gentle Giant?What is the band doing today?Its history and creator.All the songs in alphabetical order.Which albums are the best?Where to buy Gentle Giant CD's?The very occasional Gentle Giant magazine.Tribute album created by fans.Chain of other sites devoted to GG.Original music by Gentle Giant
fans on the Internet.Gentle Giant on screen.Jack Skelly's excellent list of all known Gentle Giant concerts.My more limited list of Gentle Giant concerts.Jack Skelly's is better.Gentle Giant played live.Fans' stories about Gentle Giant concerts.Ticket stubs, giveaways, and other items
from concerts.Rolf Thalmann's memorabilia site.Transcriptions of
Gentle Giant music.Progressive rock albums ratings and reviews.I've written books on a variety of computer topics, and
bunches of magazine articles.CREDITS:
This web site is maintained by
Dan Barrett who welcomes your suggestions.COPYRIGHTS:
The Gentle Giant "giant head" logo, album covers, lyrics,
transcriptions,
and audio samples are
reproduced
with the kind permission of
Derek Shulman of DRT Entertainment (USA), and
Kerry and Lesley Minnear of Alucard Publishing, Ltd (UK).If you believe any material on this web site violates a copyright,
please email me and I
will be happy to work things out.Gentle Giant is owned and operated by Doug and Stacey Canant.Take a look at our photo gallery here.IF SO, GET IN TOUCH WITH ME!Gentle Giant concert audio
recordings found so far.If you
are a collector, or even if you are simply curious, you may wish to take a
look.Simon Dupree and the Big Sound.By the end of 1969, the Shulmans
disbanded Simon Dupree and set their eyes on the growing market for a more creative,
intelligent type of music that eventually came to be called progressive
rock.He has been gracious enough to share
information from his archives with me and allow me to include it here for all
Gentle Giant fans to enjoy.This
is most definitely a work in progress.There are no doubt cavernous gaps and countless inaccuracies in the
information.Please feel free to contact
me with corrections, additions, deletions, etc.Hello Gentle Giant Collectors,With 2008 already 9 days in and holiday trimm...Star Wars, The Matrix, Harry Potter, The Simpsons, Hellboy Animated, Disney Dragonkind, Animated Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Red Star, Terminator, Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride.Ups, action figures, 12" figures and models.Gentle Giant digitally captures the likenesses of actors, props, and scenery to accurately recreate these images for fans and collectors everywhere.Copyright 2008, Gentle Giant Studios, Inc.Gentle Giant Software, Inc.Gentle Giant Software, Inc.Depression and Modern Meditation: Going within.Our website design helped her to win the Small Publishers Assocation of North America (SPAN) Innovation Award.Not only can you order her books, but you can watch a video interview, listen to audio meditations, subscribe to a free newsletter and see a list of upcoming appearances and classes.The Minnesota Association of Community Theatres was founded in 1973 for the purpose of encouraging excellence in amateur theatre.Twin Cities as well as greater Minnesota.Gentle Giant Software Inc. |
