Is Progressive Rock truly pretentious?

Dean wrote: I have explained why Prog Rock is not Art Music and don't see much point in re-itterating three pages of posts because you think it is created to be art and not commercial, because that is simply not a definition of Art Music.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Dean wrote: I have explained why Prog Rock is not Art Music and don't see much point in re-itterating three pages of posts because you think it is created to be art and not commercial, because that is simply not a definition of Art Music.   Your conception of art music is different than mine...For me Art Music is music that privilege the artistic experience over anything and I do believe this is the case of most Prog Rockers. Probably our cultural environment influences our opinion,.here  in Latin America  the term Art Music (musica artística) is different than for British speaking listeners, for us is only music that can be considered art.. But again, we must agree to disagree. Iván

OT Räihälä wrote: Dean wrote: But we are conversing in English and not Spanish so when I say Art Music I mean Western Art Music - again, there are three pages of posts where I explain that I'm not talking about music as an artform. So, No, I will not agree to disagree because I'm not wrong - I will agree that you are not talking about the same thing I am. But who says you have the right to define what the term "Art Music" includes? I don't think it's a question of which language we are using. To me Art Music is music, where the creator has had the intention to make a piece of art. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have accepted Marcel Duchamp's Fountain a piece of art in 1917 because it didn't fulfill art's definitions then, would you..? So, back to the square one with this... And I strongly agree with Ivan.

rogerthat wrote: Actually, if we do want to do a post modern double take on the meaning of the word art music, might as well question the very need for such a term and accept that all music is art in some or the other light.  Or maybe something like "academic music" or some such if you would still want to capture the difference in approach.

The problem there is "academic music" (or "serious music" or "erudite music") is still invokes elitist thoughts because of the inherent elitism in the words "academic", "serious" and "erudite" and that for me is the problem. Art Music is a terrible terminology, but it is the one used to describe all classical music, including non-Western classical music and any music that is not Traditional or Popular - again those latter two terms are ambiguous because of the words used in the names, not in the definitions that describe them. It would be easier if they were called something unambiguous, in non-hierarchical terms like Ghah Music, Juim Music and Xorl Music - that way someone could describe some Ghah music as being popular traditional art music and some Juim Music as also being popular traditional art music without causing a disagreement.

^ agreed.

OT Räihälä wrote: Dean wrote: However, I do question whether some composers and song writers never intend to make art when the compose - to me that is elitism to say that they do not - only the composer knows the intent behind any composition, we can only guess at what it was and we certainly cannot tell just by listening - all we can guarantee is that they intended to make music. Therefore you cannot define music by intent (Elitism is a state, where someone would want to be considered as one of the elite. True members of the elite would never claim to be among the elite - there's no need for that. For that reason only someone who doesn't belong to the real elite can be accused of elitism.) Of course there are musicians and composers/songwriters who never have any intention of making art! When I played in a punk/rock bands in my youth, I was totally aware of that the works I and my pals made was in no way art, and wasn't meant to be art. They were just rock music. When I realized I must start creating more ambitious music, it became an intention to make pieces of art. In my view, intention is the essential question.

Then surely that is a personal experience and not a generalisation. When I created this, I never intended to make some pseudo-classical pastiche, though I did intend to use seperate keyboard tracks for violins, cello and bass rather than just hitting the generic "strings" key so I could create a more natural string-quartet feel - and with the church bells I did intend to recreated a peel of church bells as six seperate bell tracks and played Plain Bob Major using them rather than simply recording an actual set of church bells playing it, which denotes ambition of somekind. So I certainly believed I was creating art (however bad that turned out to be), but I would not call it Art Music by intent or result.

All the music I have created thus far has had the intention of being ambitious. I try to do the best I possible can with my limited abilities. It isn't Art though. So I don't think intention is the essentiual question

Edited by Snow Dog - December 11 2011 at 06:58

Dean wrote: Snow Dog wrote: All the music I have created thus far has had the intention of being ambitious. I try to do the best I possible can with my limited abilities. It isn't Art though. So I don't think intention is the essentiual question What makes you say it isn't art? If we collected together 99 tracks from soundcloud and played them alongside one of your pieces who is to say which are art and which are not - could a random group of people single out your piece as being specifically non-art?

Edited by Snow Dog - December 11 2011 at 08:16

OT Räihälä wrote: Dean wrote: Then surely that is a personal experience and not a generalisation. When I created this, I never intended to make some pseudo-classical pastiche, though I did intend to use seperate keyboard tracks for violins, cello and bass rather than just hitting the generic "strings" key so I could create a more natural string-quartet feel - and with the church bells I did intend to recreated a peel of church bells as six seperate bell tracks and played Plain Bob Major using them rather than simply recording an actual set of church bells playing it, which denotes ambition of somekind. So I certainly believed I was creating art (however bad that turned out to be), but I would not call it Art Music by intent or result. Then there's also the question of function; where and how the music is performed or transmitted to the audience. If that piece of yours were slotted in the programme of a contemporary music concert, everybody would call it art music, independent of what they thought of its artistic value. Some would like, some wouldn't, and for most it would be in between (as it usually is).

Then I think we're arriving somewhere (not here) - The piece is the opening track (hence "overture") to a concept album that I wrote with the intention of being a "Prog" concept album - however, due to lack of skill or whatever, I don't think the end result is actually Progressive Music at all and actually regard the album as a failure, while that is not totally relevant - I chose it for this example because it isn't a great piece of music of any genre. So what we are now saying is that context is everything - just as Duchamp's Fountain is only art in an Art exhibition, (in a toilet it is just a badly installed urinal) - a piece of music is only Art Music in an Art Music environment, in the context it was written and released it is Popular Music, however artistic or functional it may be.

Edited by Dean - December 11 2011 at 09:25

Dean wrote: But we are conversing in English and not Spanish so when I say Art Music I mean Western Art Music - again, there are three pages of posts where I explain that I'm not talking about music as an artform. So, No, I will not agree to disagree because I'm not wrong - I will agree that you are not talking about the same thing I am.