The Smiley Smile Message Board

I know this a very difficult question (atleast I think it is since there is so many songs) but for those who know about this sort of thing (I certainly am no expert, I'm just a beginner at piano - which I only started after I got into the Beach Boys) what are some of the most complex Brian Wilson compositions? It's a totally subjective thing and I know there is lots of criteria but I spose I'll leave it up to you to decide that.

Most of his songs are more complex than they seem...as for the most complex, I would nominate Wonderful (since it shifts between at least 3 different keys), Til' I Die, and God Only Knows...oh and Warmth of the Sun too. 

As a beginner at piano, I definitely recommend trying to learn as many Brian Wilson songs as possible...you will constantly find yourself awed once you start to see how he fit things together in such neat ways.  The ones I listed above might not be the best places to start, but you can work your way up to those.  Like I said, most of his songs have some complexity in them, with cool chord changes and such, so you pretty much can't go wrong no matter which songs you choose to learn.  Good luck!

Thanks for that Chris. When I say beginner I mean I've been learning by myself for about 3 or 4 months now whenever I get the chance and I have already learnt a few songs such as Til I Die, She Knows Me Too Well, The Night Was So Young, L & M, Winter Symphony, Country Air plus parts (to varying degrees) of heaps of other songs. I learnt the first two verses + chorus of warmth of the sun but when that key change comes up I just find it hard to make it work. I just get stuck on some songs. Plus there is parts of other songs (such as She Knows Me Too Well) where I'm not 100% sure if it's right. I guess that's part of the learning process but its hard when your a beginner and you don't know exactly which inversion to play or which octave (or whatever) to play it in.

I've learnt non-Beach Boy songs too but I just don't find them as rewarding. As you say when you learn the songs it just leaves you in awe at how great these songs really are. Im enjoying myself so much figuring out these songs. I, like a lot of Beach Boys fans, have been using Francis Greene's chord's which are unbelievably helpful. So wherever he is thanks a million because there is no way I would be able to figure out some of these songs.

I think one of Brian's most complex is Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder). Some pretty complex tihngs going on in there.

I LOVE playing "She Knows Me Too Well"...where on earth did he come up with those changes?  It sounds like such a simple pop song, but learning it really gives you a better appreciation.  The tough part about Brian's songs is that you can technically have the right chord, but he uses lots of coloring (like an odd bass note creating a 6th or 7th chord), which makes it hard to get it exactly.  Plus like you said the inversions and such can be a bit out there.  "Surf's Up" is a great example of Brian's odd sense for inversions and slash chords with cool bass notes.

I can't believe I forgot that one!  The chords Brian used are so cool, very jazzy in a sense...he was really starting to like those diminished chords around that time.  And that string arrangment blows me away every time.

Yeah I've learnt most of Surf's Up but like you say that one seems particularly hard because of the different inversions etc.. In regards to She Knows Me To Well, I'm not 100% sure how it goes. If you could off the top of your head can you remember what inversions the first four chords are (G#, E, G#, E). I just want to make sure that Ive got it right. I've always loved the song. In fact I find it hard to listen to at times.

Cabinessence seems like a pretty complex arrangement to me. Some of his late 70s songs like Its Over Now, The Night Was So Young and Still I Dream were kind of tough chord changes for me on the piano. Of course, I'm not a great piano player by any means, but many songs are fairly easy to play.

I'm not sure if my inversions are totally right relative to the record (I don't learn songs from the record), but just from a voice leading perspective I usually play the G# in second inversion, and the E7 without inverting.

Agreed about the Surf's Up inversions. It seems like the left hand doesn't play the root note of the chord at any point during the song...

My nomination is "This Whole World". People have mentioned before the fact that every line of this song seems to be in a different key to every other line. And they're right. The chord sequence is completely mad & illogical, and yet it sounds like the smoothest most natural progression ever. How does he do it? I dunno, but that's what makes Brian who he is.

Actually he plays the root (F) on "..a children's song" just before the C section. The maybe a root C minor chord in there he plays in the B section somewhere. :D

Don't Talk is definitely a complex one.  Playing that on the piano is SO much fun.  I Just Wasn't Made For These Times is up there too... both of those songs leave me completely dumbfounded on how the heck Brian made all those crazy chords fit together so wonderfully.

In The Back of My Mind is another great one.  The chords are a bit simpler that some of the Pet Sounds stuff, but the arrangement of the instrumental track is just absolutely out there in the atmosphere somewhere.  That descending guitar line at the very end of the song and all the note clusters around it from the other instruments makes absolutely no sense musically... in the most beautiful kind of way.   ;D

For those who don't know about it, Francis Greene's fabulous job of figuring out the chords to the majority of the BB catalog is available here:

http://www.cabinessence.net/tabs.shtml

That site is GOD. It's ridiculously on point and has helped me not only learn the tunes perfectly, but has improved my piano skills incredible.
Frances Greene, YOU HAVE INCREDIBLE EARS!

Praise aside, I've always felt the most complex BW/BB songs are on Pet Sounds (minus the super-simple  "Sloop John B.")
Those songs all utilize Brian's "slash chord" progressions (especially on I'm Waiting For The Day and Wouldn't It Be Nice.)
"Slash chords" meaning F#m/B or G/A. The B and A would be the bass notes and the F#m or G would be the dominant chord. Pet Sounds is incredibly deep and definitely Brian's most complex musical work (next to Smile of course) Simple things like the lack of slash chords in the non-BW Beach Boys material really show the difference between BW and the rest of em'.

As for later material, the majority of Love You is surprisingly complex, Our Sweet Love (which to me, is the sister song to God Only Knows) is very difficult, Busy Doing Nothin' has some really dense chords that I found hard to figure out, and even There's So Many (from BW 88).

Brian's compositions are unmistakable and once you learn to play them correctly, they add so much more appreciation for his chord choices and arrangement skills. How he wrote everything in such a rudimentary piano style (as we hear when he's banging away on the keys in the demos) is amazing.

Oh, and everyone needs to learn Solar System asap, even though Greene's site has an error in the chorus which SHOULD be a Cmaj7 instead of what he wrote (maybe a C or Cm?)

Thanks Chris. I actually play it a little differently than that, but I spose as long as it sounds similar and as long as you enjoy it then it's all good, but I'll try out your way when I get home.

I usually play by ear but when I started playing the piano about 10 years ago I bought a Beach Boys songbook as I knew some of them were a bit tricky. I learnt Surfs up, God Only knows and Don't talk and was really pleased, the slashchord technique greatly influenced my songwriting. I would put those three as some of the most complex Brian songs.

Surf's Up gets my vote.

I'd personally go with "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times."  "Surf's Up" is complicated but if I was having to work it out on the piano, the chords make sense to me.  There's a major 7, there's a 2 in the bass, etc.  I've seen people play IJWMFTT and the chords just scare me, like they were thought up by someone who grew up on Jupiter.

plus, so many of his songs are in difficult keys... Ab is a popular one.

I think "This Whole World" is up there with all those key changes.
"Our Sweet Love" is another good one.

and how about a tune with no chords at all... "Our Prayer"?

This Whole World was always easy to me. Just a lot of major chord changes.
The acapella tunes I don't even attempt because they are so difficult. I really wish the BB's made a pure acapella album. The SOT's and outtakes are definitely cool, but they leave more to be desired IMO. Brian's acapella arrangements are astounding.
Surf's Up is somewhat complex, but once you learn the chords it isn't too tough.

Of course "Our Prayer" has chords.  The chords are done with voices.  So they're...umm...vocal c(h)ords.

Sorry, Our Prayer is nothing but chords.  :lol

Just listening to Brian demoing "It's Over Now".  The chords are so complex that even he seems to be having a hard time playing them!  Yet it comes out sounding totally right in the end.  He was just on a different level from most other musicians.

Those chords are really cool. I wish on the finished recording of Its Over Now, they didn't slow the tape down. It sounds better when you speed it up.

Diamond Head, esp that middle section.

according to Al Vescovo, the pedal steel guitarist on Diamond Head (and Little Pad), he came up with the music for Diamond Head almost on the spot.  Brian's main contribution was the song concept and all the different sound effects...

Al's a good guy, he's played a lot of sessions, and he is an amazing jazz player.  I have every reason to believe him on this.  It IS a complex tune played on a complex instrument.

Maybe the chords make sense, but the tempo changes don't...  ;)

There aren't any diminished chords in this one, but what the hell...  ;D ::)

Whats so complex about a diminished chord?  ???

well, there's a half-diminished or two.  do two halves make a whole diminished?  ;)
give the guy a break.

Depending on a person's background, nothing is very complex about anything that anyone has mentioned in this thread. Key changes, chords with extensions, tempo changes...hardly revolutionary stuff no matter what Sean Lennon or David Crosby may have said in this documentary or that.

Brian's arrangements and his creative editing ideas are/were a lot more complex than the actual compositions.* That's why it didn't really make sense when someone earlier mentioned how amazing it was that he wrote them pounding in that block-chord style on piano. He wrote the songs, figured the chords, in that style. It is entirely doable. However, then he had the imagination to come up with arrangements that, in the mid-60s, especially, went far beyond his own instrumental skills.


*Obviously I'm not taking anything away from those compositions. They're brilliant. Complexity doesn't equal quality, otherwise no pop at all would be much good.

Okay I'm no expert on theory by any means, but as far as I can tell there are a few during the string break. 

I think there is one diminished chord in Don't Talk.

One fully, one half, if I'm not mistaken.

Spot on there Luther. I HATE when people say "this isn't very complex, so it's not very good".

Music is all about emotion for me, so if chord changes are brilliant but don't move me (along with the melody) then it doesn't get me like some 'simpler' music does.
Two bands I can think of who I like who use 'complex' chord progressions are Steely Dan - who I love but they don't 'move' me particularly, and Genesis (Peter Gabriel era) - who have a lot of unusual changes/key changes/tempo changes etc - who send shivers up my spine considerably with much of their music because they knew how to imbue the songs with emotional impact.

as a veteran nerd, and former sheet music wallah, i'm going to wade in here and say - yes, all the above, especially 'surf's up', 'this whole world' (barking mad), 'til i die', etc.

there are some great little subtle things as well, like the passage at the end of 'in the back of my mind' with the falling bass line (and, while we're about it, what on earth are the strings doing on the fade?)

but, for sheer harmonic barminess, you've got to go a long way to beat 'mrs o'leary's cow'.  (even 'fall breaks...' resolves to a sensible, pipe-and-slippered F major now and then.)  'molc' is completely indescribable.  no chord names can do it any justice.  the first sequence has a bass line playing Ab - Gb - Fb - Gb (with fifths and octaves above each note) over a sort of second inversion Faug (or third inversion Dbmaj7+5) chord played on four flutes (C-Db-F-A) and, when they arrive later, backing vocals singing Bb7/Ab - Ab7/Gb - Gb7/Fb - Ab7/Gb7.  the second sequence takes the bass line to C - A - C - Eb, the flutes to (B-C-E-G#) the backing vocals singing some sort of F major chord.  and, just for good measure, strings and whistles and sirens sliding up and down and all over.  the sum total of that would, to a sheet music transcriber, be pretty much [N.C.]

or an embolism.

blimey, brian can mix it up.  it's the effortlessness with which he does it, as others have noted, that makes it so accomplished.

You guys are funny. I don't see why a diminished chords is any more complex than any other chord.

The thing which is complex in Don't Talk is the voice leading (I'm not talking about vocals) in the strings as he moves from chord to chord.  ::) ;D

Can somebody tell me (in plain English) what sort of things make a composition complex. And am I right in thinking that Brian just made things sound complex (in some things) with his arrangements. Because some of the songs sound pretty bloody complex to me.

Matt-Zeus,
   I agree with you fully about early Genesis sending shivers up the spine with the voicings that Tony Banks,Rutherford & Hackett used.
   Genesis was always about "feel".Especially in the 70's.

Bri

They aren't.

The recording of a song can be looked at (listened to) in many ways, and can be simple or complex in many ways. So everyone probably has his or her own view of this. But some possibilities include:

- theoretical complexity, meaning the structure of the song is out of the ordinary. Instead of a standard pop format of, say, I-IV-V7, it uses unusual chord progressions, key changes, etc.
- arrangement complexity, meaning even if it isn't necessarily difficult as a piece of music (the lead sheet looks simple), maybe the background harmonies and instruments are arranged in such a way as to be difficult or unusual
- engineering/production complexity, meaning that it was technologically difficult
- lyrical complexity, meaning VDP wrote it, and Mike Love didn't

:lol @ the last one...

theoretical complexity - The Warmth of the Sun

arrangement complexity - Sloop John B

engineering/production complexity - Good Vibrations

lyrical complexity - I can't think of any that Brian wrote. His lyrics, although can be could, tend to be very simple. Since this topic is about Brian compositions then it doesn't count if VDP wrote the lyrics.

Might I suggest 'Ding Dang'?

I'm a self taught guitarist and have no formal training in music.  Over the years i've learned some things about chord structure and different keys and so on, but nothing stretched me to learn more than trying to play BW compositions on the guitar.  After learning WOTS I began to understand a lot more about different keys and chord structures that I have been able to apply elsewhere.

So the lesson is to try as many BW compositions as you can on your favorite instrument.  You'll be a better musician for it.

I definitely agree with that, and I'd like to add "you'll be a better songwriter" too.  Getting into Brian's music when I was around 17 sparked a big change in my songwriting.  No more I-IV-V over and over again.  Learning Brian's songs, figuring out how he does things and makes the changes work, made me want to experiment with chords and be more creative musically.  But as you said, it certainly made me a better musician also.  I got more and more into piano (I had been mostly just a guitar player before that), to the point where now I think I'm pretty good for someone without any training.  It's no coincidence that my playing is very derivative of Brian's.