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aapatsos 
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 Topic: The art of navigating by the extremes
Posted: April 25 2010 at 08:55 |
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It might just be me, but from the latest albums I have heard in progressive music, there seems to be a tendency in the bands to ''discover'' the extremes.
By ''extremes'' I mean a musical approach that either shows rather simple, typical tunes and even simplistic at times, often combined with nice melodies or at the other edge, highly ''sophisticated'', technical music that reaches a level of complexity that might be hard to follow for a prog fan.
As far as I like both approaches at times, I would hardly regard albums that follow the one or the other direction as masterpieces, and tend to prefer the ''balanced'' albums that include both simple and technical elements.
I intentionally do not provide examples as I do not wish to concentrate on specific albums or artists.
So, do you see such a tendency in prog lately? what proportion of your preferred albums follows these ''extremes'' and are you a fan of this approach - do you find masterpieces in these categories? Please feel free to include aspects not covered in these questions...
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harmonium.ro
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Posted: April 25 2010 at 09:09 |
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You might like Birds And Buildings' album, Bentham To Behemoth. They start with furious, zeuhlish avant-prog but then go pastoral, symphonic, accessible, and then zeuhlish again. Great album with a lot of variety, typical album to introduce people to the more demanding prog via the more accessible genres they also touch.
I agree with your point, there isn't much middle ground between the radical innovators like Kayo Dot, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, The Mars Volta or the extreme metal bands and the accessible prog a la Porcupine Tree or post-rock.
Edited by harmonium.ro - April 25 2010 at 09:15
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NecronCommander
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Posted: April 25 2010 at 10:03 |
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I find that I really like the bands that are close to those extremes, without ever reaching them. That, IMO, is the perfect balance.
I.E. for the softer end of the spectrum, the perfect example was motW's latest album. Soft, pleasing melodies with post-rock tendencies and minimalist elements, yet the traditional guitars and percussions are never absent, as they can be with Kayo Dot. In fact, the album does a tremendous job balancing the pseudo-symphonic elements with the more traditional prog rock elements.
On the other end of the spectrum, I see Cynic's Traced in Air. Being based in technical death metal, the band spares no expenses in fast, complex riffing, eloquent soloing, machine-gun percussion, and so on, yet they still take the time to slow things down and focus on simple, jazzy melodies. Both elements are at a perfect balance in that album as well.
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Slartibartfast
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Posted: April 25 2010 at 10:36 |
Well, in the old days in the US trains would have this plow thing on the front to get buffalo out of the way, then we just shot most of them dead. 
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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sleeper
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Posted: April 25 2010 at 12:50 |
I think you might be right about the extremes being more thouroghly explored these days, but I find it a good thing because there's still plenty of bands that will take the middle ground or move only so far towards one extreme or the other. The result is a greater breadth in depth to the music scene in general. And yes, I do think its very much possible to create a masterpiece at the farthest extremety of either extreme, but it requires an exceptionally talented band to pull it off (in my case that goes double for the minimalist side of things).
BTW, love the play on the Sieges Even album title.  |
Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005
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Progosopher
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Posted: April 25 2010 at 13:32 |
We seem to live in an era that values extremes. When I see businesses with names like Extreme Pizza and Extreme Plumbing, I know the concept has lost much of its meaning. What makes these businesses extreme? The same goes with music. It's part of the broader society, especially in the USA. To stand out, one almost has to go to some extreme or the other. As Ian Gillan once sang, "It's only the glitter and shine that gets through." This has been true of the music business ever since the advent of popular music. As much as we love the artistry of Prog, there are economic factors involved. Very few can produce music without some kind of financial feedback.
There is a difference between compromise and balance. The former frequently results in a low common denominator which is almost always disappointing, while the latter often results in a rich and full expression. Extremes have their appeal and their purpose, but by going to one extreme or another, balance is lost, the music is one-sided. I see this in a lot of metal bands: by going to an extreme of heaviness, they too often compromise uniqueness. The same has happened in the opposite direction with a lot of new-age music: it becomes so soft it too compromises uniqueness. Aristotle came up with a method to find the right balance by examining the extremes. This is part of his ethical philosophy, but I think it can be applied here to some extent: To find some sort of balance in music, we can look at the extremes and therby navigate by them.  |
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The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
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Henry Plainview
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 00:46 |
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I actually have a problem with this. I'm not saying that I dislike variation, but the classic prog bands had a tendency to throw pop songs in (ELP is the most infamous, but almost all of them did it), and I really don't like that. I hadn't noticed it as a particular trait of modern prog.
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if you own a sodastream i hate you
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BaldJean
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 01:03 |
 Henry Plainview wrote:
I actually have a problem with this. I'm not saying that I dislike variation, but the classic prog bands had a tendency to throw pop songs in (ELP is the most infamous, but almost all of them did it), and I really don't like that. I hadn't noticed it as a particular trait of modern prog. |
well, to be honest: all of prog is pop.I don't mind to have s simpler song thrown in for a change from time to time. the great composers wrote simple things too, along with their complex masterpieces. music is not all about complexity, music is about feeling. and sometimes a simple song conveys the feeling much better than a complex 20-minute epic; there are dozens of examples of that in prog. I think it is some kind of snobbery to always expect the complicated. why put chains on an artist? if he, she or they feel like doing a simple song, let them do it. I certainly won't play the "guardian of public morals" in our elitist prog community
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Henry Plainview
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 01:27 |
BaldJean wrote:
Henry Plainview wrote:
I actually have a problem with this. I'm not saying that I dislike variation, but the classic prog bands had a tendency to throw pop songs in (ELP is the most infamous, but almost all of them did it), and I really don't like that. I hadn't noticed it as a particular trait of modern prog. |
well, to be honest: all of prog is pop.I don't mind to have s simpler song thrown in for a change from time to time. the great composers wrote simple things too, along with their complex masterpieces. music is not all about complexity, music is about feeling. and sometimes a simple song conveys the feeling much better than a complex 20-minute epic; there are dozens of examples of that in prog. I think it is some kind of snobbery to always expect the complicated. why put chains on an artist? if he, she or they feel like doing a simple song, let them do it. I certainly won't play the "guardian of public morals" in our elitist prog community
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Of course they can, but repetition annoys me so I am also free to dislike it. ;-)
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if you own a sodastream i hate you
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AlexUC
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 12:25 |
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"Extremes" is something I totally enjoy on music. My favorite artists (Kayo Dot/Maudlin, Devin Townsend, VDGG) can be all grouped under this qualification. Some poppy passages would let me rest after more intense moments.
Additionally, I would say the use of contrasting styles on music is an effective tool for expressing complex emotions and moods.
Not sure if I totally agree looking at this as a lately tendency, but one can't deny it's pretty common nowadays.
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aapatsos
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 13:38 |
BaldJean wrote:
Henry Plainview wrote:
I actually have a problem with this. I'm not saying that I dislike variation, but the classic prog bands had a tendency to throw pop songs in (ELP is the most infamous, but almost all of them did it), and I really don't like that. I hadn't noticed it as a particular trait of modern prog. |
well, to be honest: all of prog is pop.I don't mind to have s simpler song thrown in for a change from time to time. the great composers wrote simple things too, along with their complex masterpieces. music is not all about complexity, music is about feeling. and sometimes a simple song conveys the feeling much better than a complex 20-minute epic; there are dozens of examples of that in prog. I think it is some kind of snobbery to always expect the complicated. why put chains on an artist? if he, she or they feel like doing a simple song, let them do it. I certainly won't play the "guardian of public morals" in our elitist prog community
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I somewhat disagree with your first statement as I understand it, unless you can give a bit more detail to what you mean. I do see some of prog being popular, but this is mainly the ''simplistic'' side of it. I agree totally with the second point you are making and I can think of numerous examples where a simple melody has struck me more than a perfectly executed complex song. Should we though make a distinction between simple and simplistic  ?
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peart_lee_lifeson
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 14:20 |
Hearing a really complex album can be great, as can be hearing a really simple one, though, an album in between usually keeps me more interested. The most important aspect, I believe, is that music written to be either really complex or simple shouldn't be written for either reason alone. I feel that musicians should play and write what they feel, not what they think other people will like. Though, I guess, if I like an album, I'll listen to it whether or not it was written in such a way.
Edited by peart_lee_lifeson - April 26 2010 at 14:23
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King Crimson776
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 17:37 |
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Between the Buried and Me is brought to mind. They have the uber-complex heavy parts, the softy simple parts, but there is hardly any middle ground, so it seems very... well, not one-sided, but two-sided as opposed to multi-faceted. :P I find this problem in certain modern prog, but sometimes the music is still enjoyable.
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moshkito
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 20:11 |
| It might just be me, but from the latest albums I have heard in progressive music, there seems to be a tendency in the bands to ''discover'' the extremes. |
From experience in theater and film, it is much easier to "throw it all out" and see what you got left. It is a massively strong acting example done for modern theater in advanced acting classes and you could easily apply some of this experimentation to the majority of krautrock and a lot of the film, theater and art that came out of Germany at that time.
What is an extreme? Careful with your explanation and definition, as it can not be a personal preference, because then you take away the objectivity required here.
So if you are saying an extreme is three notes that might aproximate a chord and then one note is added that is totally off the wall and no relation to anything else at all? ( ... guess what a lot of 20th century music is all about!!!) ... ) is "progressive"?
So an extreme is when I take a melody, turn it upside down, add some salt and pepper to it, and then use the high notes on the trombones and the low notes on the violins! (... it's been done, btw!). Melody does NOT prog make, or music make by itself, btw ... melody is simply a part of the music, not a separate entity, although it can be a portion by itself. And a lot of "prog" is not always about melody. Porcupine Tree, I would say yes, but I am not sure that Amon Duul 2 (or Can for that matter!) is about melody that much at all, even though they also have "melodies" in their music! ... but their work was not about "conventions" and "melody" and "rock music" were two of the easiest traps ever to find. You don't need to go to a major Conservatory of Music to find that out. You won't even get past a quarter in there, either!
Or is an extreme, something that you have not heard ... that you have a hard time explaining musically, which is what synthesizers did before they became just another keyboard instrument? ...
And here is the other problem. Do not confuse "notes" with "sound" ... as in "sounds like this" ... or a set of notes or chords that we have decided that "they are sad" as is often mentioned with minor chords! (How bizarre is that?) ... and now it would seem like you are "defining progressive" as something that you expect other things to be, and guess what ... I am not you and you are not me, and your definition of prog for me is bad, and mine for you is probably worse ... see ... we're two different musicians now. You play left handed and I play right handed!
| ... By ''extremes'' I mean a musical approach that either shows rather simple, typical tunes and even simplistic at times, often combined with nice melodies or at the other edge, highly ''sophisticated'', technical music that reaches a level of complexity that might be hard to follow for a prog fan. |
I have made the decision, and yeah, it sounds arbitrary sometimes, that if something is "prog" the whole thing is NOT about "songs" anymore. I say this on purppose to force you and I to get away from the more conventional music that you hear in country, pop and even most bars with the lounge lizard NY jazz, or the majority of rock places in London!
So guess what you are asking? Well, you are confusing dexterity in an instrument with the type of music and the style. Dexterity has absolutely nothing to do with prog or otherwise. But in many ways the definition of a lot of classical talent and music, for most of us is a dexterous approach. I ended up in a discussion with someone that thought Allan Holdsworth was prog because of his dexterity and talent, similar to Jon McLaughlin I guess, or Frank Zappa. ... Now we have a problem ... how can, or ever, has dexterity, had anything to do with anything else other than the person's ability? And since when does one person's ability define all music? So because Jean-Luc Ponty is very good with his violin, he's something or other, but never what we think ... ohh what the heck, let's call it "jazz" or "fusion" ... and he has a lot of experimental and explosive stuff that fits into "prog" really well, but somehow, we look at a violin as some kind of devil-idiot instrument that can not be progressive since it is 300 years old?
I think that music is about two things. There are notes and then there are sounds.
If you listen for the notes only, you lose sight of the "trip" to the stars and back, and the ultimate reason why 80% of all the music is created in this universe and has been for thousands of years. It's not the notes that take you away ... it's the feeling that it can get you to flow off and see all kinds of inner feelings. The notes themselves have nothing to do with it, since you can get a different person to play the same notes and it didn't click for you.
Lastly, the hardest thing. We have to be careful with these "definitions" ... it's like saying that Charlie Daniels can't fiddle, or Doug Kershaw is an idiot, and Darryl Way is not very good, or that Jean-Luc is a master, or that Kris Karrer couldn't play a fiddle at all! ... these people are master fiddlers and using it in contexts that you can not even imagine. Karrer spends his time playing with Sufi masters in music, to give you an idea of the depth and dedication and how he attacks his own feelings in music. That is "progressive" within a western music context, since he would do something with the violin that is different than you and I are used to. But it might be boring for all those folks in the far east that have hear many other fidlers, but they know that if someone puts on a rock piece that Kris is going to town and everyone else will stand there and clap and dance with it too! And so would Charlie or Doug or Darryl or Jean-Luc ... and to say that Kris is not dexterous is insane! Or Jean-Luc or Darryl Way ... but how do you compare these guys to them playing something like a Beethoven or Mozart? ... you do not! They probably can, but it does not interest them! Or vice versa for many classically minded people, that have a tendency to think that the majority of rock music is poor music anyway! ... and because you are not definining it properly, I am not sure that we're improving the argument.
Just some more food for thought.
Edited by moshkito - April 26 2010 at 20:22
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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santiagomo87
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Posted: April 26 2010 at 21:19 |
Nice read moskito, I will certianly look out for those fiddlers you mentioned (I don't really like Ponty though). However I think you went a little too far. It was clear to me that he OP was about tendencies with going to extremes in the dynamic range of heaviness and softness, we don't need to redefine "progressive" for this.
I have been thinking on this subject for a while. Yesterday I listened to Between the Buried and Me for the first time and it was my first experience to tech/extreme metal. They are really really heavy and fast, and I thought I didn't like that kind of metal at all but really liked it, I guess you never know. However what I liked about them was that they are always at an extreme either heavy or soft (I still need to listen to the album more times to relly get it though), and this is one of the few bands that I like it that way because it fits their style.
It is very difficult to call these extremey things a tendency because nowdays prog is very diverse and has many new bands each year, and every single one of them has something innovative to the genre. A lot of these new bands are actually very well balanced and never go to the very extremes of dynamic range. Two examples I think of this are Phideaux and Beardfish, which often get a little bit heavy and soft, and many times are quite repetitive but their albums are well balanced and interesting at most if not all times.
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Santiago
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moshkito
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Posted: April 27 2010 at 17:45 |
Hi,
Extremes are strange. What is extreme for me ... check this out:
Sebastiam in Traum - Klaus Schulze
Terje Rypdal - Eos (skip first cut) (so soft that it is scary!)
Jan Garbarek - Soria Maria
Egberto Gismonti - No Caipira (side 2 in its entirety with the piece dedicated to Villa Lobos)
Amon Duul 2 - Yeti (the title piece in its entirety)
Guru Guru - Das Liebe von ... radio (sp) from Tango Fango
Aphrodite's Child - 666
Magma (just about all of it really!)
Heldon/Pierre Henri stuff
... and this is just a quick sample off the top of my head ... I haven't looked at my music stuff yet!
By the time you get to these, or through them, you have blown out your conception of music. Assuming that you can sit through it in the first place, since a lot of this stuff is really advanced stuff and not child's play rock music with a couple of sound effects on the guitars, which most metal and thrash stuff tend to be. (Good test ... yeah .. that drummer! ... and snare drum on the 4th beat ... voila! Some prog!)
So hearing yet another metal band that sounds so much like all the others, or another lounge lizard on the wayside of fusion bands ... is just not what I want to hear ... I want to hear and feel things that ... let's say "they don't exist" ... for that is the meaning of true progress and experience ... in any art!
Edited by moshkito - April 27 2010 at 17:47
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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aapatsos
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Posted: April 28 2010 at 13:42 |
^I intentionally left the subject open to interpretation as everyone has his own definitions of an album, artist or a song being ''extreme'' in his mind. No intention to re-define prog or say that a very complex album is prog and a simple is not. To answer your concerns above, dexterity has nothing to do with what I had in mind and the ''extreme'' can apply to notes or sounds or both - or anything you define as extreme. However, great  food for thought
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progpositivity
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Posted: April 29 2010 at 19:04 |
This is very subjective as something I may have viewed as "extreme" 20 years ago now seems very "normal' to me. Let me try this out... I'll take Talybont from Gentle Giant's "Freehand" album. According to your definitions, is this song extreme?
One extreme being simple (even simplistic) tunes with nice melodies. Nope. Talybont has too much counterpoint and intricacy for that.
The "other" extreme being highly sophisticated, technical music so complex that it might be hard for a prog fan to follow. Nope. Talybont is too accessible and consonant for that. Even a child can dig the swirling layers of harmony on that song IMO.
Wow! I think I understand what you are asking! 
What proportion of my preferred albums follows these ''extremes'' and am I a fan of this approach?
To continue grading GG's Freehand album (one of my alltime favorites)...
1. Just the Same - neither extreme IMO
2. On Reflection - neither extreme IMO
3. Free Hand - neither extreme IMO
4. Time to Kill - neither extreme IMO
5. His Last Voyage - neither extreme IMO
6. Talybont - neither extreme IMO
7. Mobile - neither extreme IMO
I think I'm very *open* to either extreme. But in this case, one of my favorite albums seems to be all somewhere inbetween.
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el böthy
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Posted: May 01 2010 at 12:47 |
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I for one prefer those albums that aren´t extreme all the time. That´s why, no matter how much I love Mesuggah, I rarerly listen a whole album of theirs. And why most post-rock tends to bore me after a while.
One of the most interesting concerts I attended was Trey Gunn playing his Arrow concept, which is divided in 7 pieces of 10 each. The music is very much variations on stick, quite unusual but also quite soft and ambient... and all of the sudden he steps on the fuzz and f**k did it get heavy and loud! That little variation was by far the best thing of the night. Had he played only hard and loud, it would have been very tiring, had he only played soft music, it would have been boring... but the element of surprise in variation was the cherry of the ice cream that was that night!
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rogerthat
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Posted: May 02 2010 at 01:15 |
Henry Plainview wrote:
but the classic prog bands had a tendency to throw pop songs in (ELP is the most infamous, but almost all of them did it), and I really don't like that. I hadn't noticed it as a particular trait of modern prog. |
That depends on what specifically you identify as pop. Personally, Another Day is a lot more cringe worthy than I Know What I like, at least the latter has a groove and is fun to listen to...Another Day, sans Petrucci solo, would be indistinguishable from a Kenny G song. And I guess for some bands like Mostly Autumn or Karnataka, it's hard to get significantly poppier than they already are, whereas in classic prog the contrast often stood out and pointed attention to itself.
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The art of navigating by the extremes