Why DO women like prog?

ProgWytch wrote: Dellinger wrote:   I don't necessarily agree with the stereotype that prog music has no emotion. It's just that perhaps prog songs don't necessarily rely in emotion to impact it's public, or, as the music is more complex than pop, it is more difficult to understand it, and so it is more difficult to "find" the emotions it trys to portray. Or, simply, it is capable of portraying a wider range of emotions than pop, and if it doesn't make you feel melancholy or pain over a lost or uncorresponded love, then people will say it isn't emotional... while perhaps the song is actually transmiting happiness. Yeah good call on that. For instance, there are some tracks on Scenes From A Memory that bring tears to my eyes.

Funny how Dream Theater is one of the favourite examples people like to use for un-emotional music. Still, I do have found some very emotional examples within their music. Within Scenes from a Memory, specially the track "Finally Free", I feel it reaches different emotions, from happiness, to sadness, to desperation. Other examples of emotional songs from DT for me are "Space Dye Vest", "Disappear", "Stream of Conciousness", "The Count of Tuscany". Perhaps also "Octavarium". I guess there must be others, but this ones are the ones that come to mind.

ProgWytch if there were a of guy totally in touch with his emotions and listened to Michael Bolton (without being gay) would it be called a syndrome, an abnormality? [/QUOTE wrote: It would be called an "impossibility".   Hi ProgWytch, Nice

It would be called an "impossibility".  

Hi ProgWytch,

Nice to meet you.

@everybody else:  I poured out my soul a few pages back and got no love, so I couldn't resist knocking out of the park that softball that ProgWytch offered up. 

Ok,, nobody bought my prior explanation(which I actually put some thought into), so how bout this one which nobody should ever seriously contemplate saying...

Uh, who cares? Woman should stay in the kitchen and cook diner and help mow the lawn and give their husbands back rubs and stuff.

Ok, you guys & girls should all know by now I live for satire.

Though it is nice to have some women around here.  The absolute worst part of prog is going to a concert and looking to your left, right or behind you and realizing you are part of about the biggest sausage-fest there could ever be. 

Going to see Greg Lake in a few weeks, that should be a little more of a "balanced" crowd.

Ya really great post, it's a very similar question to "why aren't there more women in the videogames industry, or comics"? The simple fact that up until recently, women weren't accepted as even being welcome in rock music, and oftentimes even now still aren't treated with respect. So really it's going to take THIS generation raising their young girls right before we see a massive female influx because the majority of the current population has already been alienated by those who have made them feel unwelcome pieces of meat *COUGHTimeAndAWordCOUGH*

The problem is too many men seem to have plenty of opinions and theories, but rarely actually listen to the women they theorize about. Meanwhile a small, but vocal contingent of women are jumping up and down trying to tell men the obvious and are often overlooked because the men are to busy trying to figure out the answer for themselves that they're too stubborn to actually take women at our word that we may actually have the answer as a result of direct experience.


Edited by ProgWytch - April 11 2012 at 23:42

Fassbinder wrote: I permanently fail to understand the fact that the percentage of men liking Prog is higher than that of women. Personally, I just don't see the difference between men and women in this aspect.

prog is 'nerdy' music, and most nerds are men :-)

there is no specific reason why women not are into prog.. they are just not aware of it's existence
people usually found music through radio and tv communications, friend recommendations , etc.  prog is neither radio-friendly or MTV-friendly, so a lot of people only know about it from close friends or family member
for example, my sister got some prog exposure, because I listened it all the time at home
or, my friend(girl) have a boyfriend, who is musician in local prog band



Edited by awaken77 - April 12 2012 at 07:29

Men and womens brains do, in fact, operate differently.  This probably has something to do with it.  So it's not a stereotype that men are more intellectual while women are more emotional.  It's how we are wired.  Of course, there are always exceptions that prove the rule.  I have personally know women who seemed almost emotionless and were incredibly intelligent and analytical.  I've known men who were very emotional and not interested at all in intellectual pursuits (and were not gay).  I've actually encountered more of the former than the latter (probably because my father was a scientist, and I met most of these type of women at work event of his when I was younger), but that's just me, not really something to base a theory on or anything.

I also agree with the notion that prog is less emotionally focused than other types of music, in general.  Obviously, there are emotions in prog, but I've never felt they were central to most prog bands approach.  I think musical skill, and compositional skill, have always been paramount.  This would account for some of the fact that women are not as drawn to it.  Though again, I've met a couple of women who were musicians themselves, that enjoyed a lot of prog for precisely those aspects.


Edited by infandous - April 12 2012 at 09:22

rogerthat wrote: infandous wrote: Men and womens brains do, in fact, operate differently.  This probably has something to do with it.  So it's not a stereotype that men are more intellectual while women are more emotional.  It's how we are wired.  Of course, there are always exceptions that prove the rule.  I have personally know women who seemed almost emotionless and were incredibly intelligent and analytical.  I've known men who were very emotional and not interested at all in intellectual pursuits (and were not gay).  I've actually encountered more of the former than the latter (probably because my father was a scientist, and I met most of these type of women at work event of his when I was younger), but that's just me, not really something to base a theory on or anything.  How much these differences are cultural and how much they are biological I don't know and I don't know if anybody really knows.  Because not all men are the same anyway as you have more or less said yourself.  Every individual is different.  We men just love to stereotype women and find something to comment about in every aspect of their behaviour.  I think THAT trait might possibly have a bit of biology/instinct in it.  Because man feels threatened with giving the woman too much freedom, so he perpetrates sexist stereotypes to mould them such that it suits him.  It is obviously getting more difficult with education...and that's how it should be.  Men can't watch a female musician or or for that matter any kind of female performer without passing - often lewd - comments about their looks or, er, endowments and yet they mock women for admiring male musicians or sportsmen who look handsome.  In what way are the two things different..I have never understood.

And women don't love to stereotype men just as much, if not more?  Of course they do.  Same with your comments about males admiring females and females admiring males.  I think generally, men do this one a bit more than women, but I've seen plenty of it from both. 

But you are right, people are all different, and the differences with men and women are probably a combination of socialization and biology.  As you say though, I don't think we have any definitive proof of one over the other.

rogerthat wrote: Dellinger wrote: rogerthat wrote: ProgWytch wrote: I should probably add also that while Prog has intellectual depth, much of it lacks emotional depth found in other genres, but that would just serve to stereotype women, and there's enough of that in the music community as it is. :p It does not have to be.  I am a guy and I agree to a large extent with that.  I don't think men should feel too proud about the stereotype that they like only technical music or dumb and decadent rock and roll and are unresponsive to sensitivity or fragility in music.  None of which is true, of course, but it would have to be if the tired old stereotype of women being 'emo' is. I don't necessarily agree with the stereotype that prog music has no emotion. It's just that perhaps prog songs don't necessarily rely in emotion to impact it's public, or, as the music is more complex than pop, it is more difficult to understand it, and so it is more difficult to "find" the emotions it trys to portray. Or, simply, it is capable of portraying a wider range of emotions than pop, and if it doesn't make you feel melancholy or pain over a lost or uncorresponded love, then people will say it isn't emotional... while perhaps the song is actually transmiting happiness. Well, that is at least how I understand emotions.  Emotional resonance has to be direct, it must reach out to the listener. If the listener has to understand first how it could be emotional, it is not emotional, it is analytical.  There is some prog that is emotionally resonant, I don't think I have said it isn't, but a lot of it isn't.  Which is fine, the stereotype that music has to necessarily be emotional is...just another stereotype.  Most academic music is meant to be listened to for the technicalities and complexities, not so much for the emotions (though those are a bonus where they are evident).

I'm not sure I understand it myself very well, but there are songs that at first just don't tell me anything (emotionally), and they are just plain boring, or whatever. However, after repeated listenings, I start finding this and that, and suddenly I really like it, even find deep emotion in it... like perhaps "Starless", first I didn't understand it, now that violin intro (I'm talking about the live version, obviously) is so nostalgic and sad, that I can't think about it as anything but emotional (and beautiful)... of course, all the wacky part after the vocal part isn't quiet so emotional... but then comes the reprise of the main theme, with so much power, that I just can't understand how it could be anything but emotional.

Dellinger wrote: I'm not sure I understand it myself very well, but there are songs that at first just don't tell me anything (emotionally), and they are just plain boring, or whatever. However, after repeated listenings, I start finding this and that, and suddenly I really like it, even find deep emotion in it... like perhaps "Starless", first I didn't understand it, now that violin intro (I'm talking about the live version, obviously) is so nostalgic and sad, that I can't think about it as anything but emotional (and beautiful)... of course, all the wacky part after the vocal part isn't quiet so emotional... but then comes the reprise of the main theme, with so much power, that I just can't understand how it could be anything but emotional.

Starless is an excellent example of blending emotions with 'musicality'.  But I have not found that kind of emotional resonance in many more long pieces.  The reprise, as you said, sounds powerful on Starless but it frequently ends up sounding cliched, as if that is some obligatory way to conclude a track.   Maybe the preponderance of k synthesizers has/had something to do with this.  Fripp uses lovely mellotron in the Starless climax.


Edited by rogerthat - April 12 2012 at 21:00