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TheCaptain 
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Joined: January 04 2009
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 Topic: most important element in music/prog
Posted: January 21 2009 at 22:07 |
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All I care about is if the music sounds good. I don't care why or how. So for that, I guess I'll just pick melody.
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Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.
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BroSpence
Forum Senior Member
Joined: March 05 2007
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Points: 2614
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 22:03 |
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You ain't got sh*t if you ain't got rhythm.
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tszirmay
Special Collaborator
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 16:47 |
An achingly beautiful melody is hard to beat (like Epitath, for example) but my main interest in prog is "mood" or atmosphere, really. There are so many examples of how the sound/sonics/atmosphere can really take the music to another level. The main tools? mellotron, strings, orchestrations, synths bit also certain rhythmic patterns on guitar, percussion etc.... The idea is to propel the listener into another realm , far from the prefabricated predictability of PAP/POP. 
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I never post anything anywhere without doing more than basic research, often in depth.
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Visitor13
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 16:40 |
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Harmony is unloved because it doesn't jump at you like melody and rhythm do, I guess.
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the_binkster
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Joined: September 20 2007
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Points: 83
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 16:37 |
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Why is harmony so unloved? Melody is nothing unless you harmonise properly. Far more "progression" (both in the literal sense and the prog sense) is achieved through clever manipulation of harmonic structure and rhythm than through the "tune". Improvisation, which if I remember correctly was, and is, the basis for much prog, is driven by harmony (when was the last time you asked for the tune instead of the key/chords when jamming with a band).
Melody is lovely, yes, but progression in music has been achieved right back from Classical to Romantic and Romantic to 20th Century through new approaches to harmony and tonality. The development of motific ideas is used far more than the creation of one soaring melodic line. A "nice" melody is the by-product of functional harmony (the harmony allows you to predict the next note sub-consciously which when played makes the tune sound natural).
One can never explore melody in the way harmony allows for exploration, you can't really use a new interval . Surely then harmony has to be the most important? (Oh and rhythm as well if you're talking about Meshuggah)
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jimidom
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 02 2007
Location: Houston, TX USA
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 14:31 |
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"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - HST
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Visitor13
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 14:25 |
 Visitor13 wrote:
Timbre.
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And texture. I don't really know where one ends and the other starts.
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The Pessimist
Prog Reviewer
Joined: June 13 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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Points: 3834
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 14:11 |
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Actually it entirely depends on how melodic/rhythmic the song is.
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"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."
Arnold Schoenberg
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008
Location: Wales
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 13:29 |
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time!
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The Pessimist
Prog Reviewer
Joined: June 13 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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Points: 3834
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 12:54 |
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Rhythm for me.
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"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."
Arnold Schoenberg
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Visitor13
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 12:13 |
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Timbre.
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Vompatti
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 11:43 |
I've yet to hear a work by Merzbow that doesn't have a melody. To be honest I can't even imagine what it would sound like. 
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Henry Plainview
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Joined: May 26 2008
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 11:38 |
I am not sure how to vote, but I don't understand at all how so many people think structure is more important than anything else. Wouldn't development of a theme fall under harmony?
HughesJB4 wrote:
Merbow has written plenty of stuff completely devoid of melody, but it's still music to my ears, because it has other elements of music, proving melody is a component, but nothing says it's necessary to use it to in order to create music. |
I have great difficulty calling Merzbow music. Because as you said earlier, free jazz and oppressive 20th century classical music does have a melody, it's just a really dissonant and distorted one. But Merzbow is manipulated white noise sometimes, and sometimes it's...I don't even know.
Perhaps it is a personal problem that I cannot accept the same thing from computer manipulation that I could from an instrument. But, for example, the other day I was listening to Einsturzende Neubauten, which I got from eMusic for reasons that escape me now, and at the end of a song I was like "Wait...I am currently listening to a sample of a power drill. Why am I doing that?"
topofsm wrote:
However, Shostakovich once said, "All aspects of music should be subordinate to melody and such melody should be clear and singable." |
I strongly disagree with that. He made some good music, but why would I want to be able to sing it?
Negoba wrote:
Most prog follows this as well, but pushes into a little more complex territory in all counts. I feel what really defines prog is structure and form which can be quite different from other forms of music where repetition is extremely important. |
Repetition is extremely important to prog too.
Edited by Henry Plainview - January 21 2009 at 11:40
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if you own a sodastream i hate you
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008
Location: Big Muddy
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Points: 5210
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 11:33 |
Melody and harmony normally feed off each other, so I don't consider them independent. That duo, along with rhythm form the basis of most all forms of what we call music.
Most prog follows this as well, but pushes into a little more complex territory in all counts. I feel what really defines prog is structure and form which can be quite different from other forms of music where repetition is extremely important.
Avant forms of music try to shed the conventions of melody/harmony/rhythm but still have to deal with the more basic ideas of pitch/timbre/time which are just simpler forms of the classic three.
I voted structure/form as this is a prog site.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Alberto Muņoz
Forum Senior Member
Joined: July 26 2006
Location: Mexico
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Points: 3577
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 11:20 |
I will tell you the most important element in prog music:
THE LISTENER
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Einsetumadur
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 24 2008
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 265
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 11:00 |
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Harmony, meant as "harmonies", the chords and the work-out of the melody.
Music which has a lack of "harmony", noodling around on the strangest melodies all the time isn't listened to by me - especially when I read about the "virtuosity" of a band I can guess what the real problem of the band is : they don't have any sense for harmony.
Of course, the music is great when the band is able to do both things, but feeling is more important than virtuosity - as you can see at the music of Moody Blues that profits of great songwriting. Of course I love them more than King Crimson ...
... and this is the exception: music that is so fresh and radical like King Crimson or parts of VdGG's work can be very good, too - but all in all the harmony plays the most important role.
Edited by Einsetumadur - January 21 2009 at 11:02
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All in all each man in all men
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someone_else
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 07:40 |
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If I can hear music in noise, the noise may become music to me. But usually it's the melody that makes the music.
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Mr ProgFreak
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 08 2008
Location: Sweden
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Points: 5195
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 01:26 |
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I just think that noise is noise and music is music. I love a certain amount of noise in music, but if it's just noise without any discernable melody then I simply won't call it music anymore.
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Petrovsk Mizinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 24 2007
Location: Ukraine
Status: Offline
Points: 25210
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 01:19 |
^Well, if you don't consider Noise Music to be music........well you just suck then don't you?  
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Mr ProgFreak
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Joined: November 08 2008
Location: Sweden
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Points: 5195
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Posted: January 21 2009 at 01:16 |
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^ I don't consider noise to be music. You may call it "Noise Music" for the lack of a better word, but I think that without any melody it isn't really music anymore - more like an abstract form of "sound art".
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most important element in music/prog
