At work I get funny looks kind of like "TriumvirWHAT?" Actually, they kid me a lot, with my obsession with the band. But in terms of actually listening to them or other prog? Most of them couldn't be bothered.

              My sisters don't take an interest; they are pretty mainstream in their music taste.

               Luckily, my best friend likes prog, and will listen to it with me. Not all is accessible to him, but he does like Triumvirat and Le Orme, for example.

                I have another friend who likes progressive music, but we don't listen to it together; he is too busy watching science fiction movies, series, etc. which is ok in itself, but limiting in terms of prog appreciation.

                      My late father, who was from the generation that grew up on 1940s jazz, actually could get something out of progressive rock; my mother never heard it.

My sister when I was listening to The Endless River said Talking Hawking sounded like if it was Stephen Hawking talking . Surprisingly she said she liked "Mood for a Day" when I was listening to Fragile.

Over the years I have had a few boners, but in general, no one has ever really sat down and talked music with me. This place, is as close as I have gotten to actually share some music, and appreciate folks comments and experiences, however different they might be from mine.

But one time, when someone said to me he loved music and knew all the songs, after all he had 999 mp3's on his iPod, I immediately turned over my 3 books of CD's, each of which has a band with 3 or 4 LP's worth of songs in them, and it was only about 400 CD's ... (I take my collection from a band, put it on a CD and I can play it on the car) ... over 150 bands available in the car.

When the guy looked at it, and realized that he only knew "a few songs" he never talked music around me anymore, but his wife told me that he one day asked ... if the stuff I had, was really music!

I guess some folks confuse "song" with "music" and with "hit". I always think of "pop musik" as just a song, not serious music as one of our dearest friends would have said! 

Or the best one around Guy Guden ... someone interrupting his show to say Golden Earring is not "rock'n'roll" ... and Guy having to say ... who cares, it's great music! Some folks seem to think that rock'n'roll is music and classical and anything else isn't! 

How's that for weird?

I have a lot of friends who love progressive rock... Uhm... It's actually the other way around, I became friends with them because we have similar music taste. 

My boyfriend and I are big prog fans, but he's a lot pickier than I am. I really appreciate all what he plays when we listen to music, but sadly some music which I adore aren't his taste. He's more of the old school prog, while I'm open for a lot of different (prog) genres. 

Sadly I also lost some friends because they didn't understand my music taste... Well, actually my dedication to music. There are a lot of people out there who 'hear' music, but actually never listen, and don't have a special taste in it. I don't mind, but somehow they seemed to be 'annoyed' by my dedication. They also thing all what I do now (writing reviews, doing interviews, etc) is 'just a hobby', or worse, they even say that I should quit and need to find a real job (or jokingly sending hints that I need to find something else). Sadly I have no support from my parents either, while they actually got me into prog. They think I've ruined my seven years of education (I studied Microbiology and graduated in 2013) and that I 'need' a proper job in a laboratory, so I can earn 'proper' money... While I'm now happier than I've ever been by doing reviews, interviews and such. 

I know, it's better to say that "our daughter works at a topnotch laboratory and earns big money" than "our daughter followed her dreams, enjoys what she does now every day but struggles hard financially", but I hope my parents would be proud of me someday... 

 

So I'm batting .500 in my immediate family.

I think on this forum there's next to nobody who says that but then this kind of strawman-assailing comment is par for the course coming from you.

Thank you, Manuel!  I think it's important to consider the age and generation of listeners in this conversation.  Most of my friends are the people I work with.  I'm 50, so I'm at least 20 years older than most of them.  I don't spend a lot of time trying to convert people, but I know most of them wouldn't be moved by prog.  However, one of my immediate supervisors is in his early 30s.  He loves rock from the classic prog era, so he and I love a lot of the same bands!

Mind you, this lady attended Yes 35th Anniversary tour (pictured with me and Lord Richard!) and The Musical Box's "Lamb" show.  

At least she gave it a shot! 

My wife rarely says anything to me about it , my daughters don't either , and my son in law is ok with it but doesn't really listen to it much being more of an alt blues  and rock fan.

Before my daughter got corrupted by Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry, etc I had her listening to and enjoying, almost the entire Permanent Waves album. She also liked Red Barchetta.

I knew it wouldn't last but it was fun while it did 

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, my mom couldn't understand my fascination with prog. She was particularly put off by Rush's recurring use of the "man against star" symbol, ignoring its Orwellian implications and asking: "Why'd they have to put a naked man on the cover?"

My oldest son (and recent college grad) appreciates a substantial number of prog acts. I started him out on classic Rush and Marillion and he's since explored the genre intermittently. My youngest son, however, listens almost exclusively to rap and R&B. Thankfully, he tends toward the most progressive-sounding acts in the genre like Flying Lotus, Run the Jewels and Kendrick Lamar.

I generally don't try to introduce new acquaintances to prog unless they seem the musically adventurous type.

A friend who had clearly rehearsed this and planned for just the right moment to say it, said the following, and I paraphrase as best as I can remember.

"You think that the music you like is unknown to people, and they would like it if only they heard it, but they have heard it, and they have rejected it".  

It was shared with the intention of stinging, and it did.  He was basically right.  I think it was a turning point for me.  Since then I have slowly but surely cared less and less about whether people like my music or not, but am really happy and appreciative when I have guests and I get some compliments on the mix I am playing (which is probably 70% prog)

 

Most of the people I know are not really into music anyway. This is Kentucky, after all.

Well said, Ken.  My epiphany happened when I either read or heard somebody describe Beatles as pretentious.  I was like, ok so why I am wasting my time anyway.  If opinions about music are THAT diverse, surely it's pointless to bother about who does or who doesn't like prog.  

None of my family listens to or even knows what prog is.

The same goes for the very few acquaintances that I interact with.

Before I retired no one in my office knew what prog was. If you asked them if they liked prog they wouldn't even know that you were talking about music.

Most of my neighbors listen to loud traditional Mexican music except for one older white guy across the street.

When he's sitting on the porch or hanging out in the garage he listens to 70s classic rock.

Outside of death metal prog, RIO, and Math Rock my wife will listen up to 3 hours in a row of progressive music she likes. 

Most my high school friends from the 70's enjoy classic prog like Yes, Floyd, Tull, and many others.  The New stuff?   Not interested.

With the exception of an occasional Dream Theater, Primus, or Tool fan, everybody else could care less.   

well put Jim

He obviously had an agenda and he did represent a segment of the population.  His statement that people have rejected my music does not comment on how much of a chance they gave it.

It reminds me of my college roommate whose LP collection said NOTHING about personal taste, as there was nothing in it that wasn't on the charts, and it was all over the map.  He asked me why he should have to delve into obscure stuff when the radio hand picks the best stuff for him.  Seriously.

But we have to be careful not to institute a prog version of the hit charts.  It should be ok not to like the BIG artists of prog like Floyd, Yes, etc, without being considered daft.  Music, like all art, is very personal, and sometimes a lesser artist speaks to one personally more than a better known one.

Yep.  For a while, this was so rare for me that it was THAT exciting.  Thankfully, my long term g/f likes some prog and has gone to some concerts with me.  However, she is liking loud music less and less, so I need some more concert mates.  She's a fan of Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and most of the classic prog bands and associated crossover acts.  Ask her about being stuck viewing a man's exposed crack for the entirety of a Dream Theater show!

I went for dinner at a colleagues a month ago.  She HATES most of the music i listen to and does not understand the appeal of dissonance whatsoever.  Her husband and I had a grand old time however talking about various prog/psych/crossover artists we enjoyed.  We've both renewed out interest in music the last couple years.  We were having so much fun that my colleague felt left out!

Another friend recently discovered Porcupine Tree, but his tastes only overlap mine a little.  We did see King Crimson together last year, which was very cool.

Another friend describes me as having 'obscure' music taste.  As intelligent as she is, she's only into pop and musicals.

My poor father seems to have little interest in music these days, but was the one to introduce me to Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jeff Wayne, The Moody Blues and Alan Parsons, among others.

This year, i expect I will have to attend some shows alone to really see what I enjoy.

Hell.....most of the people I know never heard of King Crimson.

As for the guys in my band, the baritone guitarist is a big fan of the classic prog groups, as well as newer stuff like Leprous, Haken, and Frost*. The other two band members are more into jazz, but they liked the YouTube links of Crimson's Lark's Tongue in Aspic and In the Court of the Crimson King I sent them a while back. One of them even listened to Supper's Ready!

Unfortunately, trying to show other people this music is rather difficult. The last couple times I tried to play King Crimson's first album to a couple of ladies, they got completely freaked out by the cover art....

I don't blame them, maybe you should have just played the music and not shown them the cover. I find that album cover to be pretty revolting myself. 

Yeah that cover was definitely a product of its time during the psychedelic era. I have no idea why Crimson went with that cover. Then again, Crimson's always seemed to focus more on the music than visuals.

10+ minutes instrumentals don't go down very well in most party's, dosent matter if it is Jazz, Classic, Prog or Heavy.   

"Only if you play Triumvirat"

Incredulous stare, and replied "What???"

"Triumvirat"

Then there was no response from her, and she put a mainstream pop station on, and that was the end of that.

Typical (not that Triumvirat would be on the radio, but you get my drift.)

Then I decided to step it up a little, and went for Khan's Space Shanty. Strangely enough, still no protest. Then Gentle Giant's Acquiring The Taste. "This is pretty good!". CHRIST PEOPLE EVEN I HATED THIS THE FIRST TIME I HEARD IT. So I took it another step further and put on Herbie Hancock's Sextant. After they still seemed to be more or less enjoying it, I was tempted to put on Larks' Tongues In Aspic, but then we went home for the night. 

So apparently prog isn't as inaccessible as its made out to be. At least, as long as you make sure not to hype it up excessively and say that "prog is the only true music" or some such thing before you put it on, I've noticed that most people tend to enjoy it.

That's why the label "Prog" really doesn't mean anything outside of literal definition, good music is good music. If one enjoys classic rock I would find it hard to believe that they would not enjoy the classic prog bands. I think the stigma was just created by prog snobs, because at the end of the day it's just rock/hard rock. 

English teachers seem to be disproportionately prog-minded. Same with physics teachers. Matter of fact, back in high school, my physics teacher, my French teacher and I had a game that we had going where we'd name a lyric from a prog song and everyone else would have to guess the song. (eg. "Spoonful of miracle" -> Supper's Ready, "dirty holes" -> Yours Is No Disgrace, etc.). I'd say that more than half of my last semester of grade 12 was exclusively prog talk. During lectures, during labs, at lunch, you name it. I'm pretty sure that they walked in on each other's classes taking tests just to say something like "seasoned witch" (Close To The Edge, obviously). 

Yeah, grade 12 physics was the highlight of all of high school. If it was an early morning class and we walked in groggily and yawning, Mr. E would put on this baby to wake us up:

Never failed to get us guys going, but I don't think the two girls in our class were quite as keen on the genre.  

About halfway through the semester we ended up compiling a list of all the essential prog listening we had to complete by the end of the year. I think we ended up playing through all of Yes from The Yes Album through to Relayer (plus selections from Drama, Talk and The Ladder), all of Genesis from Trespass to The Lamb, some select King Crimson essentials (Schizoid Man, Lizard, Larks' Tongues Pts. 1 & 2, Starless), Cygnus X-1 & La Villa Strangiato, Echoes, the first UK album, a bit of Marillion here and there, plus whatever obscure Argentinian or Italian album I dredged up that week. Looking back, we accomplished quite a lot in that course. Oh yeah, and then we learned some physics on the side.