Emulating Classic Prog Is Not Prog

Nathaniel607 wrote:   I would like to hear some great non-Western music if you have any in particular to recommend!

rogerthat wrote: As an Indian deeply interested in both Indian and Western music, fusion done right is something that really excites me.  Prasanna, the Indian guitarist, made a great album with Victor Wooten called Be The Change.  Some of the best I have heard in years. I would also suggest Ilayaraja's How To Name It, a brilliant fusion of Carnatic and Western classical music with nods to jazz/funk.  To me, the master of fusion. His film soundtracks are often superlative, but the language and rendering may be too much to handle first up for an unaccustomed listener so would recommend initiation through How To Name It, which is instrumental, barring some vocalised (sans words) sections.

 

Textbook wrote: You know the albums/bands around here where people say in the reviews "This doesn't really sound like much else I've ever heard"?   (One example is Cardiacs and their monstrous Sing To God double album, where that remark or something like it becomes something of a catchphrase.)   When that happens, you're listening to progressive music.   If rattling off a list of established prog acts adequately conveys your impression of a band, you're listening to karaoke.

Dean wrote: Textbook wrote: You know the albums/bands around here where people say in the reviews "This doesn't really sound like much else I've ever heard"?   (One example is Cardiacs and their monstrous Sing To God double album, where that remark or something like it becomes something of a catchphrase.)   When that happens, you're listening to progressive music.   If rattling off a list of established prog acts adequately conveys your impression of a band, you're listening to karaoke. C'mon, that would make any emergent style of music "progressive music"; that would make the first song of any music style "progressive music" and the second song "karaoke". You appear to have ruined you own argument for the sake of a cheap jibe.

I completely agree with Dean here. It appears some people think that "Prog Rock" is the one and only "home" of all innovative and progressive rock music.
It's just a style of music and that's it.
Lots of innovative rock music is not Prog at all, but listens to multiple names such as indie, new wave, techno, and so on and so on.
Just pick up a Wire magazine and you will be struck by the massive amounts of new music there that has nothing ado with Prog.





Edited by Bonnek - April 22 2011 at 07:33

I think we all love music, we're adventurous listeners in that we love hearing and finding out about music that we had not heard or known of before. I doubt if any participant of this thread--or member of PA--listens to--and has listened to--only "prog." I love music by Telemann and Brahms, Newcleus and early Run-DMC, soul/R&B from the 1971-74, some Dwight Yoakum and Barbra Streisand, try to comprehend Astor Piazzollo and Django Reinhardt, enjoy all periods of Jane Siberry and kd lang, am blown away by Hans Zimmer soundtracks, love to try to keep up with Mickey Hart, John McLaughlin, Bill Bruford and now John Zorn and Tobey Driver, laugh at Cake and Primus, Zappa and Clutch. And I could go on and on and on--as most of us could.

Textbook wrote: Dean: Well maybe I did go a bit too far but really I'm just being reactionary against what I see as a deeply entrenched fuddy duddy musical taste here, on a site that should by definition be anything but fuddy duddy.   PS Add Glenn Branca already.

I must move in different circles to you (hmmm, tries to avoid thinking "ever-decreasing"... and fails) for I don't see much in the way of fuddy duddy musical taste here when taking the membership as a whole and not concentrating on individuals, who in the main take no part in the additions process except to moan about it after the event. Then generalisations are tricky things because no matter how broad a brush you use to sweep them out of the way, there will always be a undercurrent of thought who believe they are part of some a silent majority who, if not exactly agreeing or disagreeing with any particular idea or ideology, at least support or reject that idea, regardless of how much of actual evidence there is. The simplest observation that we have more here than just the Big Seven, their derivatives and their imitators would suggest to me that the additions process at any rate is far from fuddy or duddy, which would imply that the musical tastes of those who suggested, evaluated, added and reviewed those non-derivative non-imitators was equally ill described. Even using your own example of the Cardiacs, this band was added six years ago in the "first-wave" of bands added to this site, indicating that 'the site' accepted the notion of progressive (adj) and Progressive (n) as two distinct and separate concepts from the get-go.

andyman1125 wrote: Nathaniel607 wrote:   There are only so many notes, you know? Only so many chords. 12 Major, 12 Minor, and about 100 variations (but usually, they don't sound too different).  You obviously have no music theory background. There are thousands of chords.

That is definitely not true, at least not in the Western diatonic tradition. There are thousands of ways to voice chords, depending on the range of the instrument, but even allowing for extended harmonies (which are only really I chords imposed with vii chords or ii chords and so on, you're still drawing from the same set of notes, just at different times. Ok, so you can just stack notes around for the sake of making really obscure chords, but these will not be very musically useful--not in the way out ears prefer at least. Same with micro-tonal music.

The best way to be useful in Western music is to make a good melody or delve deep into interesting timbres (re: synthesis and experimenting with various combinations of ethnic instruments). Even if most interesting combinations of chords and progressions have been done already (protip: they have), it's the style in which they're used and the timbres they employ that make it unique.

So, if you walked into a pub and saw a band playing Genesis, Yes, Rush, Dream Theater, John Wetton, Avenged Sevenfold songs etc, you would walk out? Much rather find another band covering SEX ON FIRE and BORN TO BE WILD and some Bon Jovi eh? For me, such a band would be a breath of fresh air, but I don't suppose its a situation that I'm ever likely to stuble on.

The definition of prog being used in the OP is relatively misguided, because it simply equates prog rock with being progressive and innovative. But the simple fact of being rock band in some way is not the most innovative thing to do, given rock's development and relative dominance of popular music over the last 50-60 years.

The problem emerges if one considers the first two waves of Detroit Techno. There was some extraordinarily innovative music coming out of that scene at the time, but referring to it as progressive or including it on this site would be relatively silly, because what holds prog genres together is less an uncompromising attitude towards innovation, rather than a historical accident. Although I say this without denying that the music was certainly innovative. 

The genre of progressive rock as a category is a historical accident and thus it really cannot be reduced to being innovative or some other set of criteria, because what falls under the category generally shares certain characteristics. But there are nearly always exceptions. For instance, if rock instrumentation was viewed as central to prog rock, than progressive electronic would be contradicting. If prog is about innovation while then much Prog Metal, bands emulating classic prog, post rock, and neo-prog would contradict the criteria to be used. Thus the only thing that really holds prog rock together is that we use the term to refer to certain things, and we as prog rock fans understand what falls under that category.

Novak wrote:   But then, you talk to the people that write this stuff and to them it's just music.  Their music.