How Did You Get Into Prog?...or music in general

Let's see... well,
(Am 22 atm) Can't remember having any specific taste until I was about 14 or 15. Up till then I'd listen to pretty much anything that dad would put on (2k records with rarities from before the 60s, and regular updates from the 60s till the present) without paying too much attention to it. MTV and a german music chanel VIVA were the norm for the rest of the time. My older brother would record videos on VHS but that never really interested me that much. Not enough for me to start listening to any of it actively, anyway.

Well, at that breaking moment, when I was 14 or 15 I finished reading Journey To The Center Of The Earth, and my dad couldn't miss the opportunity to play me an album from one of his favorite keyboard players. THAT caught my attention, let me tell you. :D So it was Rick Wakeman.
It took some time before I settled with other proggers. I specifically remember making my first ever personal compilation that consisted of selections from Rick Wakeman, David Bowie, the musical Hair, and Roger Waters. I started really actively listening to prog about a year later with Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick. That got me hooked, and I spent the better part of the next 4 months listening over the Tull discography. Nothing else. Then I started broadening up horizons, starting with some stuff that I heard here and there, going deeper and deeper.
The search goes on. :)

I got the spark from Dream Theater and Pink Floyd.

my own personal timeline (im 23 as of now)

before 1997 - i have little recollection of what i liked back then. I was exposed to classical music around 1998, from my music teacher in middle school, and it's been around ever since. However, I never listened to it on my own till much later on in life. More on that later...

late 90s - pop, modern rock, hip-hop, whatever the big hits were at the time. I do remember enjoying A Charlie Brown Christmas a lot back then

late 2000 - i got into Lenny Kravitz, he was my fav for a while. i dont remember any other specific bands/artists at this time. i know i sort of enjoyed the big pop hits from Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, and NSync I think i was also into Blink-182 at this time.

2001 - still into LK, and Blink 182, but also Sum 41, P.O.D. (i know...), Alien Ant Farm, but i also got into some classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who, Guns & Roses, etc. My musical memory at this time is still hazy. One thing that sticks out is getting into System of a Down when Toxicity came out.

2002 - i think i was more or less, still listening to the same bands as mentioned before, i dont recall anything sticking out. I know i got into more classic rock late in the year, like AC/DC, later-era Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Black Sabbath. I believe i was also first exposed to Metallica before the end of the year.

2003 - i remember moving away from most of what i had listened to before, aside from classic rock. i still listened to some modern rock stuff, (mostly Rage Against the Machine and SOAD) but i found myself yearning for more heavier music. Over the couse of the year, i began to explore metal, starting with the more popular bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Van Halen, etc... I know i was fully into classic metal bands because i remember the controversy surrounding St. Anger when it came out and being part of discussions. When Iron Maiden's Dance of Death album came out, i got into them pretty quickly, along with Judas Priest. I remember vividly being exposed to Opeth during the last week of the year.

2004 - i listened to mostly metal at this time, occasionally listening to classic rock. i got into all the Thrash metal (my favorite kind of metal at the time), bands like Testament, Exodus, Overkill, Megadeth, Metallica, Annihilator, Iced Earth, etc... being exposed to Opeth, i got into them, along with other Death Metal bands like Decapitated, Death, At The Gates, ( i dont listen to this music anymore, so i dont remember all the bands) i never really got into Black Metal, but i remember kind of enjoying Emperor, and really enjoying Drudkh (their first 2 albums, which is all they had). I also remember enjoying Unearth, and a couple of other "-core" bands, but not much. i remember hearing Phish for the first time in the summer, but not enjoying it (as i would later). I also heard Dream Theater for the first time, sometime early in the year.

2005 - the floodgates of music opened for me in 2005, though it started slowly. I was moving away from metal, but not entirely. I got into Dream Theater like hardcore during this time, still enjoyed Opeth, and still liked thrash metal, but the death/black/extreme metal was moving away from me, and i was first exposed to Rush (YYZ) from a friend, and i also heard "Long Distance Runaround" by Yes on the radio (but couldnt track it down til later in the year. A friend showed my "You Enjoy Myself" by Phish and i was immediately hooked! within the same week, another friend gave me a copy of "Romantic Warrior" by Return to Forever, and it's been uphill from there. I remember after graduating high school, and the whole summer being filled with music, and my favorite bands being Phish, Pink Floyd, Dream Theater, Rush, and Opeth. It was this summer i discovered progarchives.com and i became exposed to so much music. At the time, you could download music off the site, instead of stream, so i used to have a lot of random tracks by random bands (which are all lost now) I went away to college and was exposed to even more music! i think i was exposed to every genre of music imaginable in this time. I found out Yes was the band i heard on the radio earlier in the year, and the song. I began to explore prog rock and jazz fusion the most, as that is where my tastes led me. I began to get into Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, ELP, Return to Forever, Symphony X, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Brand X, and craploads of other bands. I got into electronic music like Telefon Tel Aviv, acoustic music (An Evening with John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess, Jim Hall and Pat Metheny Live) I also began to listen to classical music on my own for the first time.

from here on out, im going to try to just list bands and genres i liked the most at the time, since i could go on and on about my musical journey.

2006 - metal music is almost 100% out of my listening habits, excluding prog metal bands. All prog and fusion bands i mentioned before, and also Gentle Giant and The Mars Volta. I got into psychedelic music around this time (you can figure out why on your own ) When summer came i got into Herbie Hancock, P-Funk, and later on, Frank Zappa. I also remember getting into Pat Metheny, John Scofield and other more 'jazz' artists (not necessarily jazz-rock of the 70s)

2007 - Full blown Frank Zappa mode for the first half of the year, before i got burnt out. Had to get every album! this was also the year i got deeply into jazz and jazz-fusion. Miles Davis became one of my favs. Prog rock was actually on its way out for me. I got into non-fusion jazz in this year, along with other fusion artists (there's just too many to name) and also got into jam bands a lot. Blues as well, but i guess i always enjoyed blues, considering the music ive listened to. In the fall, i got heavily into funk. 85% of the music i listened to by the end of the year was improvisational music. All of this moved over into.......

2008 - Similar to 2007, though February was the first time i was burnt out on music (or could never decide on something to listen to) and i recall going at least 2 weeks without listening to ANY music whatsoever. When i came out of it, i was listening to more jazz than anything. During the summer i rediscovered metal (Iced Earth, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, etc... no death or black metal) which in turn led me to get back into prog rock and prog metal, though my listening habits were still jazz and fusion; but i spent a lot of time rediscovering old favorites.

2009 - My 2 favorite bands became Umphrey's McGee and Dream Theater (again). I was moving away from jazz and fusion (though not like metal, i still listen to loads of jazz) At this time, i believe my tastes had evened out. I generally enjoyed everything and all things that i ever enjoyed before (minus death and black metal bands) 2009 was kind of like a summary of all my favorite kinds of music. Not to mention a lot of new music came out, and i was checking those out, plus past prog masterpieces i had missed out on before (again, too many to name) I also started getting into electronic music again, moreso than before. This is also the year i opened up and realized i enjoyed hip-hop (in small doses, at the time)

2010 - and here we are. Nothing too new for me in terms of musical development, aside from getting even more into hip-hop (Jay-Z, Eminem, The Roots, etc...) and electronic music (Daft Punk, dub-step). Ive also begun to enjoy electronic jazz like Squarepusher and Jaga Jazzist. I was on the biggest prog metal kick this past summer (Planet X, Riverside, DT (and releated), PoS, etc...) which evolved into symphonic prog ala Transatlantic, SB, Neal Morse, TFK, etc...

i could go on all day (particularly on the last 5 years, which i kind of generalized, since the OP wanted to know how you got into prog and music in general) if you've read this far, there's tons of bands and artists ive missed, and even more stories and details into the history of my music tastes. But i figure no one really cares, and i was trying to just be general. (i also realize this is a big post haha) and if you do care, just ask me something and id be more than happy to fill you in.


Edited by darkshade - November 24 2010 at 15:00

I was in a band that sounds like Thin Lizzy with half the talent. When you get into prog, you slowly become a better musician

Seems like I've been into music all my life but it was prog that really got me into music.  I didn't attempt to play any instruments until I caught the prog bug.

Sweatin' To The Oldies.

Weird how once I gave this a little thought I started to remember almost exactly how I got into music and then prog specifically-

Thats because that is a stereotypical norm that has been labelled onto a whole generation when it should be labelled just to a specific period. All old music isn't classical music And you can't label secular and choral music as classical music, or even plainsong and english folk tunes, classical music, just because their old

Bach is a Baroque composer and Mozart is a Classical composer. I hate it when all orchestral music is labelled as Classical music, t's like calling Paul Potts opera, when he is popera contemporary sycho

i am into all that stuff, it's just they don't spring to mind at night when I sleep. I'm also a massive Soul & Acid Jazz fan, they move into that whole contemporary movement