Originally Posted by Matt Finley
Well, I agree starting at the bottom with drums and bass which is the standard approach, then up to the next level. However, I reverse those top two. I want to hear the melody work with the foundation and bed, and then lastly I add in the color.
The more I think about this the more I realize that the pyramid might not be such a good shape to describe this concept. There are some songs, for example by Santana that I've heard a hundred times and Carlos could be wailing away on some great guitar solo but I'm focused in on the bass and the congas. Other times, I'll focus on a "mid level" backing organ. How we define musical preference is a deeply personal and individual thing and yet we as humans in the West can agree over the centuries what is good music (think Mozart) . . . go figure. I'd guess that this is also true for folks in the East.

Nonetheless, a non-universal diagram is better than no diagram at all, at least for me.

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For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.