(Long ... sorry! And hopefully helpful!)

If one is attuned to "music", I don't think that "inspiration" is a problem. A child goofing around on a piano or guitar, would be just as exciting as the greatest maestro in this globe. The problem starts when we think that what the child has has no importance, meaning or understanding ... and this is where "music" has led many of us completely astray ... we, then, go for the things we "like", and a lot of it has NOTHING to do with music whatsoever! 

KC, without a doubt is at the top of all bands when it comes to "quality" in their performance and material ... but then, that's like saying that Frank Zappa's groups were not only talented, but exceptional! I would say that Frank's groups would challenge RF and KC at any time, since the music in there is much more difficult and varied than the KC way, which does allow some freedom for the players, but it also closes them down quickly ... for a different take on the group.

Where the music is going, is a serious fallacy and problem ... that's like saying that you know where you are going and you have all the crystal balls in the world and never have an issue with the thoughts and ideas of where the music goes ... why should it matter? Music is far bigger, an instinctive of our personalities for anyone to suggest that we can not tell where it is going, not to mention that tomorrow a slight change takes it off that supposed path.

Bill has interesting ideas, but I think he knows that some things he said are not right and end up seemingly incorrect and improper. Knowing where music is going, seems to me like a line more suited and invented by an over eager fan interviewer that knows as much about music as he/she does about car engines ... and it becomes kinda ridiculous after a while. I liked, very much, the BB book, but I have to tell you that he was likely a bit lost in his ideas, when all he really wanted is to be the child having fun with his toys in the middle of KC or any other band! AND, my friend, THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MUSIC, as much as it does with what he sees and feels at that specific moment playing that piece ... but it fits in the "music" because we found it there ... but if it weren't we wouldn't know otherwise now, would we? And would we think differently? You can't answer that because you did not hear/have that other piece with/without the bit/part that we believe made it music ... which is a ridiculous notion all around.

There is music all around the world ... walk outside at 5AM and listen to the Bird's Symphony, and close your eyes and simply enjoy the "going nowhere" ... other than the bird's perhaps hoping for some food as the young ones are hungry, or simply something else. We keep putting meaning into things that many times, do not have it, and are not clear to us! Why? Because we're so bored inside and think the world out there is better than us?

Please listen to music, not because it is this or that, but because it is that part of the human spirit that speaks the best about us all ... NOTHING ELSE ... and sometimes, the "meaning" and "where it is going" is an illusion that we fell for ... just like we did with that puff thingie or another joint, or any kinda of supplementary something!

KC is not the issue. Your listening ability would be if I can state that ... and I would like to suggest that you also listen to something else ... so you can find that KC is not the only one that EVER has done something special ... something that we don't understand, and often misinterpret.

In the end, a lot of RF and KC is about ... I wanna do this ... and he does! And why do you think that is more important than anything else in music?

Hope this helps ... it is a treatise about loving music for what it is ... although in my 55+ years, the more music I hear the less I worry about a "favorite", because you wake up real quick and find that there is a lot of other beauty out there, somewhere else ... that we love to ignore now and then!

Also there is still a lot to discover from the years between 1970 and 2020. I sometimes find it hard to find the things that blow me away listening to new releases only, but sometimes I realise that some bands do great things for umpteen years and I have ignored them because there's just so much music and so little time. It is hard to recommend something in particular because it isn't clear at all how much you already know. I was for example blown away by the Swans releases from 2012 onwards, by discovering Sonar and Aquaserge, by pretty much everything released by the North Sea Radio Orchestra and William D. Drake (or former Cardiacs fame, if you don't know them check them out absolutely), and by some recent electronic material by Battlestations. Not listed on PA but from what you have mentioned, you also might appreciate Matmos or Heilung. To mention some older stuff, have you listened to This Heat/Camberwell Now, or the later Talk Talk albums? Chances are you know Can, but have you listened to Holger Czukay's best solo stuff?  But there is so much more.

What did I do to rekindle my musical inspiration? I bought a guitar and joined ProgArchives! 

I kinda had the idea that this situation was more valuable from a distinct understanding of what music is/was rather than suggestions ... and those tend to scare me, since I have heard most of them, and I can not say they are/aren't good representatives to help someone understand his inspiration ... he, I would say to to the very early days of electronic music and listen to how it was originally just a sound with no connection to anything else, and how, all of a sudden, it was designed to express yet another feeling inside, and become an instrument on its own for a while, and then ... superfluous ... replacing an orchestra!

I kinda call that not the invention of an instrument, as much as its very destruction ... it's not even an instrument anymore. It's just another keyboard!

In these situations I default to the history of the arts ... film/theater being the 2 I am most educated on with music following, in terms of my listening abilities and experience. Other than the fact/idea that he/she might need to explain to their noodles what music really is, and does ... I think the perception is distorted so badly ... as to not have any idea what "inspiration" really is ... KC is not the inspiration ... THE PERSON IS ... and I would think that expecting it to come from the outside is bad ... really bad and a horrible fallacy!

Hi,

Thanks ... I don't know that folks can see that creating it on their own is more valuable than expecting someone else to do it for them! 

This is it for me.  

I'm a huge Rush fan and have been since about 1980/81. I still listen to Rush but not nearly as much as I used to. I now find myself more interested in discovering new bands. There is so much more out there waiting to be found. Finding Prog Archives has been a real blessing. This site has introduced me to many bands that I never would have found otherwise.

I have also toyed with the idea of learning an instrument. Just haven't taken the plunge yet.

Hi,

And there are many more musical scales that the western culture ignores all over the world. And some/many have more than 12 notes.

But in terms of the instruments you mention, that is all, or the majority, of what folks hear, thus their imagination, naturally will follow one of those. Weird thing is that in dreams and some further out experiences, there is music, and it can not exactly be defined in any of those instruments ... though I'm not sure we even have any idea how to interpret those. It is possible, however, that it is a soundscape that is a factor of the universe winds and such .... which would not, exactly, sound like something we know, because we don't and the explorations of the universe in the past 75 years have not exactly looked at sound per se that I can remember.

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michaeldupont wrote: I ask myself, where does music go from here

What else can I say than to your yet to be discovered favorite band and artists. A little random but: Herbie's Mwandishi-sextet (and all Mwandishi related), early Terje Rypdal, The Necks, Art Zoyd/Univers Zero's dark avant-chamber"rock", McCoy Tyner in the 1970's, Can, Magma, Igor Wakhevitch, Schostacovich' string quartets... my list is endless in regards to "challenging music" that floors me in similar ways to my favorite King Crimson albums. I never collect discographies. Only what I genuinely like. We're all differnt, but I'm glad I'm not as obsessive over one spesific artist.

Also, there's microtonal music. Screw 12-tone supremacy.

99% of all the music out there* uses only 12 notes. Microtonal music is really interesting, but it's not very harmonic and thus doesn't appeal to many people. A few bands, for example King Gizzard, have managed to use it in a way that's not too abrasive. 

*I was thinking within the scope of Prog. Of course there are microtonal scales in a lot of traditional music from Africa and Asia.

miamiscot wrote: Don't stop believing. Never stop searching. Your next favorite band is out there. It's up to you to find them.

look how Winwood did it (ok, that was in 72, so over 50 years ago)

Hi,

And that was what I meant. There is a lot of music that we do not listen to in this Western World, and the possibility might be that said person is actually attuned to something else that is not exactly western minded. I have to make a point of stopping to listen to "rock music" almost strictly to prevent my becoming a zombie and think that western music is what the world is made of. 

It isn't, but the commerciality of the western music is really tiring, and way too repetitive for me in style, format and of course, notes and chords ... with people thinking that those chords and notes mean this and that and all else in music that is not linear (so to speak) ... is not music or accepted as "music".

My musical beginnings were rooted in the Brit Pop of the 90s and also a fond love of the Beatles (being from Liverpool) and also Neil Young. So I got into Prog (although didn't know this) via Pink Floyd when I was 16. I quickly racked up all their albums, live stuff and the odd bootleg. It was pretty much all I listened to until I was about 21 when I started getting bored and I stumbled across this site. I soon realised that there was a wealth of stuff just waiting to be discovered. So over the next 10 years I became a crazy KC fan, a Rush fan, a PT / Steven Wilson fan, also getting into the likes of Hawkwind, Yes, Genesis, Caravan. I own at least x1 album of every band in the top 25 all time Prog Archives list I think. I also got into Metal via PT so I like Black Sabbath, Opeth and also really like Aggaloch amongst others.

I have to emphasize that in terms of Prog; Crimson, Rush and all things Porcupine Tree do things to my ears like no other. However, I must confess that over the course of the years my attention has wavered. It's been some time since I last listened to Floyd and Crimson. I listen to Rush a bit now - But only because I've realised I like some of the early 80s albums that are less familiar to me. Pretty much all the prog albums I have haven't spun for quite some time (I have a library of CD's). I can't point as to why this is, and I'm sure that some day I'll have the urge to delve back in.

So these days I've found myself immersing in Neil Young, a singer songwriter from America called Amos Lee (folk, rock, soul), Jason Isbell (Southern Rock, folk, Americana) and Drive-By Truckers (see Isbell). My listening habits are deeply set in the songwriting formula at the moment rather than complex time signatures of Prog. But don't get me wrong - There's still plenty of guitar soloing across the stuff I listen to now that comes off fresh compared to most of the dull efforts from elsewhere - I think southern rock is flying the flag higher than anywhere else to be honest.

 So that's where music is remaining fresh for me currently - Neil Young I have realised is my out and out favorite artist / band. I own just over 50 physical releases of his. From studio albums, archive releases and live albums. There's so much variety from gentle acoustic stuff to heavy garage rock with lengthy guitar jams. Plus he's a fantastic lyricist.

I made a decision recently to go through my entire CD collection beginning with A and play x1 album per band / artist until I've gone through it all. So who knows, the Prog flame may yet re-light this year for me.

I hope this can be of some help to you. If you can't stick singer/songwriter stuff then based on your love of Crimson, Metal might be a good genre for you to delve into. I never thought I could stand death growls, but there's something about the way Opeth do it that rings right with me.

As someone said earlier - Just listen to music. it keeps the soul warm! 

Hi,

Nice ... in one of the films about him there is a bit that he sings out of tune ... and it still sounds fine and right for the moment ... only AD2 and XTC have I ever heard doing something like that ... and you get the handle really fast ... it's about how it feels at that moment, and sometimes, us being stuckup on the notes, just are not listening and appreciating the expression itself, probably because we're somewhat remembering the original and it is different.

I have had a lot of respect for him, since "Ohio" ... and his honesty ... he's one of the few that has never really been stuck on that star thing ... he just wants to play and sing. I was "there" (Madison WI) and the National Guard had encircled the Rathskeller and were frisking everyone coming in to be sure there were no this and that ... but the fun for the NG was them frisking all the women that came to work at the Rathskeller and all the students! All of a sudden, a song had a lot more meaning for me.

 

In the above posts, there seems to be a lot of advice about expanding one's musical tastes, but is there any point in trying to enjoy something that one really doesn't enjoy? Sure, there is a lot of music out there that one has never heard before, and searching for music that one might find inspiring may itself be a source of enjoyment, but there is no imperative to have music in one's life if one is no longer enjoying it. Perhaps boredom is a problem to be overcome, but I'm not sure anyone else can help you with that.

 

Hi,

Thought about this all night ... and I think that this signals a very limited listener, that is NOT spending his/her time listening to music.

To not realize, and open up, to what is likely the prettiest of all expressions that humans have ever created, it is sad to me, that folks limit it, and see it here A LOT ... because of their inability to hear anything else in music ... and the only truth about music I have ever found, and understood is that the more different things you listen to, the less problems you have with the odd/different things that you come across, and you also STOP thinking in terms of "preference" and learn to start appreciating many things ... 

Ex: I do not love/enjoy baroque music anymore than the Romantic Era folks, any more than the Jazz folks in America, or any more than the progressive folks mentioned on PA ... and the sooner we help any listener to understand that, the easier it will be for that person to appreciate music ... assuming that person has the willingness to open up his noodles to some more scrambling!

Uninspired by music is a scary thought ... so the guy is bored with his wife/girlfriend, or worse, his/her children? TIME OUT ... we know where the problem is!!!! And where the appreciation is NOT.

The same piece of art can act differently to the same person depending on the situation, the state of mind and sometimes also the weather. What doesn't work today may work tomorrow. 

Don't force yorself.