Bagi saya sih, setelah membandingkan penampilan SO7 live secara akustik, lagu-lagu di Musim yang Baik lebih enak didengarkan versi akustiknya. Tapi tetap menyukai permainan di album versi original, :)
The Evolution of Sheila On 7 s Music
What's with the music of Sheila On 7?
Remember the song Dan on the first album? Simple song with standard chords / keys. But many have difficulty imitating the unique sound in the song. The next few years, after several times seeing their live performances, realized that Anton had not hit the hi-hat for first half of the song, he hit Tom's floor. That makes Dan's intro distinctive sound, it also makes it seem as if the tempo of a half song is slower than the next half, which suddenly becomes faster (even though it remains the same) and becomes more refreshed (Anton starts using HiHat).
What became my focus was the melody of Eross's guitar. In Dan, I can copy the notes for notes, but again I can't have the same feel as the original (of course, but at least I want to be able to approach, and it turns out to be difficult). A month ago (meaning almost 16 years later), I discovered that Eross did the melody almost always in the second string while picking the first string (high e-tone) continuously, giving Dan's distinctive effect. (That was also when I discovered that Slash did it in the Welcome to The Jungle melody)
Oh yeah, in the first three albums of Sheila On 7 they detuned their guitars. The guitar tuning was lowered by one fret, so for example if I wanted to follow the songs of Sheila On 7 in this period, we had to let our guitar strings go down so that our tunes dropped by half the tone. (This is what makes me connect them to Guns n Roses, even though there are no similarities at all: D, Slash records Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion using a guitar that is tuned down by one semitone).
Eross's guitar sound is hard to imitate; at least for me first. I was a metal band guitarist during high school and was very difficult to imitate the distinctive Sheila On 7 sound. (uh oh.., after all, why the metal guitarist play pop songs? Heheh ...).
Apparently the key is "metal". The effect I use is the Boss Metal Zone and the drive / gain is almost always fully rotated to produce a melody that compressed and had sustain as long as possible. With the maximum drive / gain of the guitar, it's also easy to "scream", whether it's using natural, artificial or pinched harmonics.
But with the drive / gain opened fully the chord will lose its individual tone, we can only hear "zet zet zet", or "djent djent djent" which characterize the hard rock metal. Sheila's sound is completely different, although it clearly uses guitar effects (stomp-box or built in amps), but individual notes that form chords are still heard, the secret is the drive should not be fully opened so that even if we shake the guitar using chord bar (all strings), the sound of individual notes still heard.
(Eross using Bad Cat Tube Amp, naturally has little distortion / clipping even without pedal effects. Eross uses locally made StompBox eDrive)
Of course many don't like such settings, including me first, because with only half the drive / gain (at five, or a maximum of seven), the guitar will lose sustain. When shaking the powerchord with the palm mute it also becomes "grok grok grok" or "grung grung grung". On the other hand, with clear individual notes, we can explore a variety of possible melodies, including inserting lick-licks between riffs when "in charge" as a rhythm guitarist. That is what Eross looks like, which has become the trademark of Sheila's sound until now.
About the key to the guitar, Eross seems to have a habit of letting the number one string open. Parts of the blues style or indeed like the challenge of "how long can I listen to this dissonant tone of E before going crazy". But the results sound unique and until now I think he succeeded, :)
For example, in Perhatikan Rani, A Chord does have an E naturally but not on G and F chord and by left the E string open all the time we will get the A-G6-Fmaj7 chord progression for free, :)
Also in the song Saat Aku Lanjut Usia in the reff section "genggam tanganku..."
Normal chord: A C#m/G# F#m E D E A
But with all the keys added with the first string opened, the result is
A C#m/G# F m7 E Dadd9 E A
the result is a semi-blues / jazz instant, or even punk, (for me it sounds like that), :)
In Pejantan Tangguh, we can hear a little difference in SO7 music sound. I remember when it was a time when there were lots of Eross advertisements that played Epiphone. Looks like this is a time when Eross used a guitar with a humbucker pickup; can be seen on live recordings at those times; Eross uses Les Paul, even the Gibson Flying V.
Also this is the point when Anton goes from SO7.
Sakti's departure slightly changed Sheila's sound characteristics. The most striking thing is when they bring certain songs that are dominantly rhythmic like the song Jangan Beritahu Niah live.
When live, when Sakti is still in the band, both guitarists can "trade-off" rhythms, as well as tandem melodies in the "bagaimana lagi, yang harus kukatakan ..." Eross and Sakti guitar sounds complement each other (one play root, one plays a third harmonic tone) .
Can't Eross play these two notes alone? Of course you can, but one guitar with overdrive plays two tones at the same time it will be different from the two guitars with overdrive playing each one tone.
Can the drive/gain be reduced? No no. The characteristics of Sheila on 7, half drive. If one guitar will be quiet. It depends on the song too. Some songs like Dan, Melompat Lebih Tinggi, Pejantan Tangguh is still fine playing with one guitar.
Of course the song Itu Aku also fine played with one guitar, because the base is piano. It's just that I miss when Sakti plays the melody with Eross before the main melody.
The next album, even without Sakti, still uses two guitars in most of its music, like in Pasti Ku Bisa; even though using a rhythm with an acoustic guitar. Eross seemed not willing to leave Sakti. I imagine when recording or creating songs, he still includes "Sakti's guitar" there. Of course it is rather tough when performing live and feels lonely.
Here also Eross starts to look dominant using Telecaster (either Fender or Squier by Fender)
On the album Musim Yang Baik we can see from the Lapang Dada song; Sheila On 7 now has a 4 piece band style, with one guitar. What also looks different and new is the drum that seems to use trigger or even completely electric.
Quiet? Not really, this is because the absence of the Sakti guitar is compensated by Eross's tighter guitar playing on this album (as in the welcome intro). Usually Eross's guitar playing seems relaxed (or lazy, hehehe) because there is Sakti. Now it sounds like "hard worker" or a guitarist who is "diligent", :)
For me, after comparing SO7's live performance in acoustic format, songs in Musim Yang Baik are better heard by the acoustic version. But I still like the original version of the album, :)
Is it true? Could it be that the music sounds more crowded because there is a piano, string section or brass section? No, because pianos, strings or brass have always been there since the first album, so it didn't really matter. What's different in this Musim Yang Baik album is a guitar that sounds just one part.
Yeah, Eross has let Sakti go to pursue his goal (his search? His goal? His hidden desire? His destiny? Inner satisfaction?) And has been determined to become a single-guitarist for Sheila On 7.
Recently we can see Eross more often using a Fender Telecaster, we can see Tele characters twirling on SO7 songs on the last album. In Musim Yang Baik almost all of them have Telecaster sound characteristics.
Telecaster. A guitar that is hard to tame. Classic indeed, but if we look, hold and play, the Telecaster is like a homemade guitar, without many features and when we go for pop songs the neighbors will protest, (no matter even if our chords are correct). Yeah Tele, 'the voice is weird'. If the setting of our amps is right, the sound can be crispy, growling, sexy; if not, the sound is like an un-tuned guitar, heheh... . But eross managed to tame it. Eross was also endorsed by Squier by publishing the Squier guitar by Fender Telecaster Eross Candra Signature Series. A Classic Telecaster with a Pine body but uses a stacked-humbucker pickup bridge (a humbucker in single-coil-form that fit in standard Tele pick-up bridge hole). The bridge pickup sound becomes more ferocious because it uses humbucker.
Evolution? Sheila? Yup
Eross? Guitar? Yup.
Eross? Style? No. He's the most consistent guitarist I knew