what is prog?

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ except when it's prog-related, proto-prog or various artists ...

THE PROG IS ART!!!

This is another art:









Edited by Mandrakeroot - March 21 2007 at 11:20

I believe I can answer the question of "What is prog?" once and for all:

What ever is on Prog Archives is Prog.

....

NotSoKoolAid wrote: As this topic proves, progressive rock is anything anyone wants it to be. Nobody agrees, and everybody has a different definition, so they fight.

Edited by StyLaZyn - March 21 2007 at 10:20

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ I think that it takes more than just being experimental ... you also need outstanding musicianship or high artistic standards. For example, I don't think that the "Einstürzende Neubauten" are prog ... they're extremely experimental, but not very good musicians.

I dont think good musicianship is a prerequisite. I think progressiveness in music is in the ideas. It just so happens that most known prog bands can play to a very high standard too. Luckily many execelltn musos were drawn to prog. Hawkwind are a good example of a progressive band who musicianship has at best always been average and at worst been appalling; certainly when compared alongside other prog bands.

Also, a lot of Brian Eno's music was very 'progressive' but there was little evidence of virtuosity in his playing (I dont know if he is virtuoso standard or not)

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ I think that it takes more than just being experimental ... you also need outstanding musicianship or high artistic standards. For example, I don't think that the "Einstürzende Neubauten" are prog ... they're extremely experimental, but not very good musicians.

wouldn't that exclude most of modern post rock?

I think it's a sensibility. When a musician takes a theme and makes something unexpected from it, something beyond normal expectations, that's the progressive sensibility.

Edited by russellk - March 21 2007 at 06:53

Interesting discussion. I sometimes remember that rock`n roll itself was a musical progression of blues, boogie woogie, gospel, etc., thrown together with new instrumental and vocal fire. Rock was and is progressive, continuing to evolve in a tradition of both rule making and breaking.

laplace wrote: this comes back to my progressive rock uncertainty principle - you can't describe it simultaneously as a genre and as a movement

hense all the difficulty...  not being able to describe it is why these threads will be around  as long as the site is.  It was a movement the someone down the line slapped a genre tag of prog on.  Genres usually have things in commen... tell me what Krautrock, Canterbury, Zeuhl, Space Rock, Electonic..etc, have in commen.  Nothing actually musically...  they were like the light emitting by the sun.... from the same commen point...   all in different directions. That is a movement, or was one,  today someone threw an umbrella genre tag on it and put groups that have little to do with each other under the same umbrella. My two cents... and that is never more applicable than this subect.  No one sees this the same way.


Edited by micky - March 21 2007 at 05:10

I believe that the moment the music which defies pop standards of the day is released, it becomes part of the standard. This having occured, any new music also becomes part of the mold. Eventually, humans will have used every chord position and arpeggio on a key - or fretboard. What is there to do after that but finish the cycle and make music that no one remembers anymore, music from years and years ago?

What is progression itself but a cycle? Think of a revolution in the political spectrum; the Left always becomes the Right once it is successful. What is "prog" now will not be the very millisecond it is released, or perhaps twenty seconds later when it first is bought and heard in a CD player. It isn't new anymore; it is just the latest album or composition, making it THE PAST. Sure, it may be progress over something made earlier, but the piece of music, in a singular form, has now been played and recorded.

What is all this prog hogwash, anyway? I think there are far too many genres that overlap. If that's been said a thousand times, my name is Penumbra