"Aah, but they sound just like classic prog acts such as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull."

 

Exactly. They're imitating established successful formula. This is the opposite of prog.

 

To me prog is not a musical style, it is an attitude where new things are tried. Some of this "dad-rock prog" is about as progressive as Coldplay. Prog should threaten and challenge expectations. Some of the recent records receiving high praise here are as threatening and challenging as a cup of warm milk with some chocolate teddy bear biscuits on the side. They are comfy old pairs of slippers.

 

Note that I am not attacking Yes/Genesis etc. In their day, what they were doing was new/different and so they really are the genuine article. It's the people/bands who think that 40 years later it's acceptable, even praiseworthy, to be doing more or less the exact same thing, that I have a problem with. As I said in my Phideaux review, I understand wanting to make an album like the ones that inspired you but it's a lose/lose situation. If you fail, well you failed. And if you succeed, it's redundant because those albums already exist.

 

"Gosh I hate all this pop music, all predictably following established patterns in the pursuit of the success of others. Anyway, check out this new prog band, they're great, they capture the spirit of classic Yes to a tee." Ooh look it's got a 20 minute song with old fashioned key boards and mystical lyrics and silly time changes and it doesn't take me out of my little comfort zone, five stars. This is flagrantly sad/embarrassing nostalgia and it's super-unprogressive.

 

I'm not the biggest Kayo Dot fan but they are an example of a band who is prog precisely because I *don't* hear echoes of Genesis and Yes et al. They are doing their own thing. Or someone like Opeth, chiefly responsible for bringing what had a been a largely ostracised genre (death metal) in from the cold. Doing something new.

 

How does a site dedicated to musical adventurousness and experimentation lavish such praise on those who coast on the glories of others? And at the same time, if you suggest something genuinely new, like a prog album which contains drum and bass or rap or country-western themes, many will react with revulsion and disgust.

 

I think a lot of people here like the idea of being prog, rather than actually being prog.

I don't listen to The Watch but I do listen to Phideaux, and I listen to it for different reasons than I listen to Yes or Genesis. Yeah, it has a lot of symphonic-ness going on, but it is utilised in different ways than either of those bands. One of the biggest features of the band for me are the vocals, I love both the gorgeous female vocals and Phideaux's unique voice. The music is consistently enchanting, the melodies nice. But that's just my opinion.

I think that prog suffers from the genre name. One the one hand, people come to it because some of the music was literally progressive. Fair. But that's true for a lot of genres, that at some time or another were doing things that were brand new. Then people started to work within the frameworks of what they thought worked or didn't work from these original ideas, fleshing it out, adding new things, doing their own take of it. But because prog is called "progressive" rock, bands that don't take this approach will always be taken down by those drawn to it because of the "progressiveness" of the music as opposed to just liking the sound. But both camps are right, because in the end music is a personal experience whose value comes from our own response to it.

Nope! But you've got my hopes up. I'm looking it up right now.

I don't have a definition it's all at sensation's level.

I think the next progressive step would have to be an extreme regression, kind of a refreshed vision of past music. Maybe a resurgence in baroque or renaissance style music?

I agree with the general premise, but there's a difference between being a revivalist and an emulator.

AL: It's hard to have a prog context at hand, when you write a song on your own, anyway...

JW: Yes, exactly so. Prog stuff tends to happen in the rehearsal room. You get a drummer and a keyboard player involved, and they start extemporising on themes. I mean, I think that prog probably came about somewhere where American jazz and blues hit European classical music. I think that's how prog was born. The father was European classical music, and the mother was American blues, and the offspring was something we call progressive music. I don't think as a generic term it works anymore. Because it's not progressive, in fact it's more regressive.

AL: It promised too much, I think...

JW: It promised too much, yeah. And also, now it's back to everyone... Everyone who wants to be progressive, in inverted comas, want to use mellotrons, Marshall amps and Rickenbacker basses, you know, it's all back to 1973, which is hardly progressive. So it's very much regressive. But it seems that progressive has become a generic term for a style of music which involves time changes, classical moods...

AL: Sophisticated rock, in a way...

JW: Yeah. I don't mind, I like sophisticated rock, you know, I like the fact that people can play their instruments. But to me, I think that music must change, it always has to change. We can't stand and try to turn the tide back, it must change. And you have to go with that, otherwise you're drowned. 

http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_John_Wetton_in_Big_Bang_Magazine" rel="nofollow - http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_John_Wetton_in_Big_Bang_Magazine

...I'd like to see some newer technologies like Auto-Tune being used in a prog music format!  Could be pretty radical! I don't think I've heard any of that yet.  

I've no idea what is 'progressive' anyway. It was originally used to describe a general feeling that many bands were breaking away from the shackles of the normal conventions in rock music.They introduced new ideas into the mainstream and did in affect create a new style of music. That style still exists and for convenience be called prog.Conferring progressiveness on any band is tricky though. According to Ian Anderson Aqualung is progressive while Thick As A Brick is ''prog''. He makes a clear distinction between these two things. One is about advancing and exploring new ideas. One is the stylised finished product. For many bands 'progressive rock' ended about 1971 and gave way to a stylistic approach that was recognisable. If you can recognise and label it too easily then its probably not progressive!

Seriously though retro prog has it's merits and can be very good, Anglagard did very well with it. But it's very often extremely tedious and boring. 

like the earliest neo-prog albums do very little for me some of the retro prog bands do even less.

Everyone on this website seems to think everyone's copying off of someone. Just because it has similar texture or instruments or whatever. Yeah, it may use similar instrumentation, or structures, but it doesn't matter. Because the composition is different. Just cause they have a similar style, doesn't mean they are THE SAME. The same can be said about any genre - jazz, for example, has a pretty set-in-stone set of instruments that can be used, but there's still a lot of groups that manage to sound different from each other. 

I just don't get this argument... it just seems that people are trying to invent more ways to praise "The Golden Age Masters" even more than they already are.   

People seem to need everything to sound completely innovative, but forget that there can be more subtle innovations. Interesting chord structures, riffs, texture etcetera. Of course, it's nice to here something that sounds completely new, and that can be found as well.

@ Textbook  

 

so what doo you actualy think of the trancition of the aucustic and more folksy, dark and serching Genesis (Tresspass - Nurcery Cryme - Foxtrot) classic prog - including some pop, but still use of twelve stringguitar  and mellotron (Selling England by the Poumd - the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway) the trancition albums, more heavy guitar useage, influences form more oriental sounds/chord sequnces, more melodic/melancholic (A Tirck to Tail - Wind and Wuthering - And Then They Were Three) start to use Polysynth, pushing newer drum loop technology, lee to no at aucustic instruments, zero mellotron, more minimalistic (Duke -  Abacab - Genesis - invicible Touch).

 

 

is it becous the last four albums lack aucustic folk passages and dark passages, makes them less classic prog,  but to me Genesis were still progressive in style, by daring to use newer more futuristic instruments and recording technics (like Headless guitars, samplers, synthesisers/ARP)  80s gensis is very futuristic and minimalistic (Mama - Home by the Sea/second Home by the sea, almoust industrial)

 

 

Or maybe something you refuse to believe that exists just because you love that kind of music.

Nathaniel607 wrote: Everyone on this website seems to think everyone's copying off of someone. Just because it has similar texture or instruments or whatever. Yeah, it may use similar instrumentation, or structures, but it doesn't matter. Because the composition is different. Just cause they have a similar style, doesn't mean they are THE SAME. The same can be said about any genre - jazz, for example, has a pretty set-in-stone set of instruments that can be used, but there's still a lot of groups that manage to sound different from each other.

Of course they don't sound EXACTLY like each other. Neo-prog and retro-prog bands may not copy "The Golden Age Masters" to perfection (though I've heard a lot of these bands - like The Flower Kings - inserting snippets of 70's prog riffs and such in their songs, but the sound is pretty f**king similar and they show a clear lack of creativity and innovation.

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No. Just no. 

Polo wrote: Of course they don't sound EXACTLY like each other. Neo-prog and retro-prog bands may not copy "The Golden Age Masters" to perfection (though I've heard a lot of these bands - like The Flower Kings - inserting snippets of 70's prog riffs and such in their songs, but the sound is pretty f**king similar and they show a clear lack of creativity and innovation.

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're going to hear similar riffs if you listen. Or maybe it's deliberately quoted. Either way, that's fine.

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I don't think that originality is always a must. If so, nobody would be playing blues or jazz today.

As for prog as genre v/s prog as approach, the former simply does not make sense as an idea at any level to me because a rock-based genre necessarily has to have some sound. A sound means boundaries, by implication, and prog cannot have boundaries. It is supposed to evolve, change, 'progress'.  Of course, it's impossible, practically, to run a forum on prog music without some identification of prog characteristics as a genre but I personally only loved and love the approach, not so much the sounds. The same sounds that Genesis used would sound boring to me if the music composition was predictable and stale.  And the problem is not only with quoting music written by Genesis or KC. Some of these bands don't even attempt to create an original context within which to quote the masters, it's all designed to evoke the prog 'flavour'. Flavour, what flavour?

Oh, lastly, Kayo Dot isn't, imo, the best thing since sliced bread yet to me and there's ample RIO/Zeuhl that's hardly all that progressive, my favourite example being the Dun album Eros. 

But there are different chord progressions, instruments, microtonal scales and a lot more stuff out there. Bands don't need to stick to Western music principles when trying to innovate.

Nathaniel607 wrote: Polo wrote: You know what sucks? Old music with "subtle innovations". It's not old music if it's a completely different composition. It's new music with a style similar to old music. If you think it's possible to create something truly innovative without using any of the devices I, or you have said, try (to compose it or to find it). So, you're not allowed any previously used note sequence (good luck with that), chord sequences. Your vocals aren't allowed to be similar to anyone else's. It's got to have completely new textures. No previously used arrangement styles. I'd like to hear it. Well, actually, I wouldn't because it would probably sound like sh*t.

Being 100% original is impossible. What I don't agree with is deliberately copying a formula, changing it slightly and then call the final product "innovative".

Ever heard this little band called Kayo Dot? Not perfectly original, but it's pretty distinct and doesn't sound like sh*t to me.

Nathaniel607 wrote: Also, I'm judging by your avatar that you're a John Zorn fan. Even he wasn't truly innovative by your standards, as all he did was combine two previously used things - free jazz and hardcore punk.

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Okay, microtonal scales. Yeah, they exist, but I've never heard them used well. Some eastern stuff with quarter note changes can sound good, but generally, stuff using the 24-note scale just sounds dumb to me. There's an example (for me, at least) of innovation does not equal good. You could take this to the nth degree and use a 252-note scale but it would just sound like a bunch of pretentious w**k. 

Polo wrote: Being 100% original is impossible. What I don't agree with is deliberately copying a formula, changing it slightly and then call the final product "innovative". Ever heard this little band called Kayo Dot? Not perfectly original, but it's pretty distinct and doesn't sound like sh*t to me.

This is pretty much exactly what I'm saying. The only (fairly big) difference is what I consider "distinct".

Polo wrote: I'm pretty sure no one combined these genres before Zorn. Stab me in the face with a soldering iron if Naked City isn't innovative.

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THIS!   Well said.

 Additionally, I'd ask the question-don't we listen to music that makes us happy, or that in some way moves us and makes us want to listen to more of it? That doesn't mean it has to sound exactly like something else, but that it will have characteristics that the listener truly enjoys. For example: I love Gabriel era Genesis. Does that mean I shouldn't like or deride an album like Big Big Trains The Underfall Yard because it sounds a lot like classic era Genesis? NO! It is influenced by that era, but it isn't the same. There are examples like this in all genres and sub-genres. The only thing that should be important is whether or not the listener  enjoys and wants to hear more music that is similar. To paraphrase Rick Pitino (I know-a sports reference!!!!!  ) "The classic prog era isn't walking through that door!" It's passed and we need to find what we enjoy and listen to it.

Not sure I entirely understand this. Are you saying we shouldn't like a genre because it is generally derided? But so is everything except rap and pop! (or are you saying that is how the world thinks of us)

Also, I think you're talking it a bit far. I agree that people should try and expand  their horizons, but not at the expense of hearing beautiful music that isn't entirely original-sounding (I still consider it in actuality original, since the composition is original, like Big Big Train's Far Skies Deep Time).

There's a perfect medium. At one end, lies someone who listens to new music, but it may as well be the same, and at the other end, lies Walter. 

I am not sure I understand this, it seems to read as if music outside the Western system is invalid. Have you actually heard music outside the Western music system, with an open minded perspective?  Are you aware that Indian music, for instance, is melodically and rhythmically more intricate than Western music? And are you aware that some artists have been able to blend both schools seamlessly?  So if I understand you correctly and you are dismissive of music outside the Western system, it seems perfectly plausible to me that your threshold of tolerance for more of the same would be high because your willingness to embrace something different is apparently not very high. 

Nathaniel607 wrote: Yeah, I wasn't saying this. Naked City is incredibly innovative and I've never heard anyone fusing these two genres before that. All I was pointing out is that you were saying "x combined with y combined with z won't sound innovative to me" yet a lot of good musical innovations came from combing things. And usually it's quite subtle. Even Naked City doesn't sound too different from plain old hardcore punk (just with a screeching saxophone as well). And of course new compositions but too a point, it's using the aesthetic of hardcore punk. (doesn't really apply as much to the covers...)

The question is less over what gives enjoyment to a listener and more over what is progressive.  The OP's ire is directed at holding up that which is extremely derivative of classic prog as progressive music and throwing a fit over controversial additions like Bjork and questioning whether they are prog.  I agree with the OP to the extent that it seems contradictory to question change and modern influences and insist on referencing old prog at any cost, which is effectively what such a stance tantamounts to.   One must also bear in mind here the many threads made over the prog listener's obvious superiority to those who listen to 'plebeian' music and the former's open mindedness towards  receiving adventurous music. So much for adventure! 

Well, everything that the classic prog bands touched is not progressive either, especially some of their work from the 80s.  So, I would have to disagree with that. I would not consider Yes as progressive if they had stuck to tributing Paul Simon.  Similarly, Simon Dupree had to become Gentle Giant to be progressive.  This argument can be extended further that if Metallica had remained a Diamond Head and other NWOBHM tribute band, they would not be considered such an iconic metal band.  You are sort of saying that in your next para anyway, so I would stress that THAT part of it is more important. From a humble start, the band must progress to evolve their own vision of music.  It need not be radical and groundbreaking to be considered progressive, but it must have originality not only of sound but also of composition. As long as the singer doesn't try too hard to copy other singers, a band would have an at least remotely original SOUND but that's not enough. 

What isn't progressive is denying an artist the progressive label based on aesthetic similarities alone.

That would be a valid argument for a new band with one or two albums, not after they are several albums old. I have heard The Light, Snow and Kindness of Strangers, representing different stages of their career and I must say that as far as boundary pushing goes, it's pretty modest.  Though Spocks Beard are not who I'd call completely derivative.  

I don't think anybody is suggesting some aesthetic similarities would alone make a band not progressive.  It is very difficult to make music that does not bear some resemblance at least to something made before, even if the resemblance is not striking.  But there are bands whose identity derives entirely from those who came before.  Presto Ballet is one example I can immediately think of.  I do feel it is unfair to malign artists like Bjork for doing what we assumed prog artists were supposed to while a PB is accommodated purely for having the prog 'sound'.

 

I agree especially with the bit I've highlighted. We just seem to bow down to Yes and Genesis with the idea that these bands achieved perfection and could not be improved upon. I don't follow that reasoning either. I've always enjoyed IQ more than Genesis because their music engages me on an emotional level even though its not innovative or even on as high a level from a technical viewpoint. There is just no accounting for taste

I cannot really comment on IQ since I have heard only two albums of theirs, neither of which I thought as of comparable to Genesis.  But I don't see how that highlighted portion follows just because people criticize retro or neo prog.  I like OK Computer more than Dark Side. I like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo more than any Return to Forever album. Perhaps, some of us are a little more willing to embrace sounds and styles that don't reference back so obviously to classic prog?

 

The thing was, Sanchez had never listened to Rush. He'd coincidentally arrived at a similar sound all on his own.

 

But let's get real, this is the exception, not the rule. I really don't think that's going on with most of the "let's pretend it's 1973" style prog here. These guys are consciously imitating something they'd wish they'd been a part of.

 

Neo Prog didn't exist in the late 70s / early 80s when the stalwarts of that "subgenre" began making music, it's a later invented "tag" - those bands were not emulating "the golden age" or being "retrogressive" (how could they? they were contemporaneous), they were continuing a "progression" that many of the more established bands had begun themselves in the mid 70s (Floyd in '73, Tull in '76, ELP in '76, Genesis in '76, Yes in '76, Gentle Giant in '77) - the only "crime" of the later bands was the relative ages of the band members who were too young to have recorded in the early 70s. And so it is with modern bands, regardless of whether they are Progressive (n) or progressive (adj).

 

 

I am sorry but this is highly reductive.  There is simply no comparison between a Beatles and a Flower Kings and you know it.  That everybody incorporates influences from music of the past does not mean in all cases there is no innovation or innovation is of the same degree, so we must draw these lines of distinction.  And how many songs has Elvis written?

Windhawk wrote: Same goes for your much heralded examples of Kayo Dot and Opeth. With the difference that their main sources of inspiration are less well known than the ones of The Watch etc. and of a more recent date.

Agree partially about KD and certainly about Opeth.  A lot of Opeth fans are either not into metal per se or generally hate extreme metal so they are not aware of how deeply influenced by extreme metal Opeth was and in particularly the melodic death doom scene of the early 90s.  Having said that, I still hear more originality in Opeth than a Presto Ballet, which is out and out homage.

No, I'm not rejecting non-Western music. Though it is true that I am not massively familiar with the field, I was more criticizing what I've heard of contemporary uses of the 22-note scale. Harry Patch style things. What I've heard of that sounds horrid to me...

But things like Indian music don't really use the 22-note scale in the same way. Usually, they just use it to construct more convention 12 note scales, but with a couple of notes moved up or down a quarter tone. 

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

rogerthat wrote:   That's a reductive approach.  All combinations of X and Y aren't the same or equally innovative, if at all innovative.  A less out there 'sounding' example of Naked City-like innovation is Shakti.  Their blend of Western and Indian music was unprecedented then and not easily paralleled to date.  But, obviously, something that simply combines very obvious influences from Genesis and Yes is not innovation of a comparable degree at all, if at all it can be considered innovative.

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(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.

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. 

Nathaniel607 wrote:  I suppose. But combinations in that vein can sometimes make something that sounds new - not massively innovative, but still good.

Well, it is a matter of degree.  I personally do not find very obvious influences, even if from different bands, very interesting.  I think it is very important to disguise your influences since doing so is essentially to find a new context for it.  It may sound like nothing more than a sleight of hand when I put it down in words but it makes a hell lot of difference to my listening experience when the influences are well disguised and the final output sounds quite like nothing I've heard before, even if I am able to place its genre.   Cliche is probably the right word for what I've described as a problem here. Everything under the sun may have been done one way or the other but there are always different ways to do it and I like those bands who at least attempt to find their own way. I mentioned OK Computer earlier. That is actually an album with a lot of 70s influence but generally used in a refreshingly different way, resulting in a different and fresh experience.  I cannot really say that about whatever Flower Kings I've heard, more or less every songwriting choice is exactly the way I would have expected, predictable and derivative to the core.  I don't necessarily expect the next Can or Magma when the word progressive is used to describe a band, but stuff like Karnataka (of Rachel Cohen days and not the new album) I cannot honestly say is any more interesting than run of the mill mainstream pop/rock.    

Cool! I'll be sure to check these out!

rogerthat wrote: Well, it is a matter of degree.  I personally do not find very obvious influences, even if from different bands, very interesting.  I think it is very important to disguise your influences since doing so is essentially to find a new context for it.  It may sound like nothing more than a sleight of hand when I put it down in words but it makes a hell lot of difference to my listening experience when the influences are well disguised and the final output sounds quite like nothing I've heard before, even if I am able to place its genre.   Cliche is probably the right word for what I've described as a problem here. Everything under the sun may have been done one way or the other but there are always different ways to do it and I like those bands who at least attempt to find their own way. I mentioned OK Computer earlier. That is actually an album with a lot of 70s influence but generally used in a refreshingly different way, resulting in a different and fresh experience.  I cannot really say that about whatever Flower Kings I've heard, more or less every songwriting choice is exactly the way I would have expected, predictable and derivative to the core.  I don't necessarily expect the next Can or Magma when the word progressive is used to describe a band, but stuff like Karnataka (of Rachel Cohen days and not the new album) I cannot honestly say is any more interesting than run of the mill mainstream pop/rock.

I guess this makes sense, but when I listen to the Flower Kings, I don't really hear cliches and can't predict the songwriting all that much. Just sounds good to me (well, except a lot of Flower King's songs are similar to other Flower King's songs...). Usually when I listen to bands, I don't hear much influence unless it's painfully obvious. It just kind of annoys me when people say Big Big Train are Genesis ripoffs (which I don't hear at all) or that (insert any progressive metal band here) are Dream Theater ripoffs.

I have heard very little of Big Big Train. It didn't strike me as too much of a Genesis rip off (maybe I simply haven't heard those songs which do evoke Genesis a lot, I don't know) but remember that Marillion are often called Genesis rip offs when Rush and Pink Floyd were arguably more significant influences on their songwriting.  I think people tend to call anything with a lot of keyboard arpeggios Genesis ripoffs.   

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.

 

 

PS Add Glenn Branca already.

I love music:  interesting, emotional, even challenging or "new" (to me) music. I think we all do here at PA. Most of all I think we all love to study, deconstruct, try to compare and contrast, assimilate and accommodate music. Especially with or through others. We're trying to share, as social beings we are, our personal experiences with the psycho-spiritual experience that music, rhythm and sound provide to we who are more sensitive or attuned to it. Maybe we're all wannabe musicologists. Maybe music is our mystical connection to our infinite spirits. "We are spirits in the material world." Maybe we're just addicts. Maybe we're just scared sh*tless of the real world and find escape and outlet of our angst through music. It's all good!

  

 

have you any experience with the post punk/new wave/industrial metal/alternative metal/gothic punk band Killing Joke, they are a constanly changing band, and have some relation with New Zealand as well

 

 

As to Glenn Branca, don't know the chap, but a quick cram using the idiot's guide to everything (Wikipedia) makes me think that perhaps avant garde isn't quite the same as Avant Prog in this instance. However, should you wish the ZART team to look into it, then perhaps an informative and knowledgeable thread in http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=1" rel="nofollow - Suggest New Bands And Artists would be something you could consider (already).

You obviously have no music theory background. There are thousands of chords.

 

Whatever happened to putting a record on and saying you like it?

 

Also, I would personally put COLDPLAY in as a prog' band as their music 'progresses'. Not all of their stuff, but the last two albums deffo' show signs of arrangements that would st alongsdie those of PINK FLOYD, GENESIS, RADIUOHEAD, DREAM THEATER. Prog' rock doesn't have to expand the envelope of what a category contains as far as I'm comcerned. It simply progresses within itself. The tune, the arrangement, whatever. YES is still progressive because that is what the music does. It isn't required that different styles be mashed together to create something 'new' for it to be prog' or anything else. Styles have been combines wholesale by musicians for as long as music has existed. Check out Haydn, Beethoven, Vivaldi. All great proggers!!!

 

A prog' category is there to simply help a person find music they might like. And the categories are getting stupid. There are about 45 or more 'metal' categories. I bet there are more for prog' though, just to prove it's a more 'serious' music form.

 

But then, you talk to the people that write this stuff and to them it's just music.  Their music. And often they hate being put in a box, whether it's marked PROG or not. And you tell a muso his or her music is irrelevent, then I suggest you better have yer Nike's on or at best be prepared to have the piss taken out of you wholesale. Unless of couse you can prove your credentials with an instrument. And if you can, well, you most likely won't be having that discussion because you will 'KNOW'.

 

All this remids me of the TUBES song 'I was a Punk before You were a PUNK'. Ah!! The TUBES. Wgat a great progressive band!!! One of the best prog' gigs I ever saw.

 

"..... I was a prog' before you were a prog!!! You don't beleive me? Then step outside and see me, baby!!!

I was a prog' before you were a prog'. You want some action? I'll put yer ass in traction!!!....."

 

 

Cheers, NOVAK

Ultimately, also as many mentioned before, it's about the music and your personal taste/preferences, so if you like it, who cares what name is given to it, either progressive, regressive or anything else?    

So then hundreds 

Variations aside, there are still many more than just 24 chords. Consider,

12 major

12 minor

12 M7

12 m7

12 dom7

12 half dim7

12 dim7

12 M9

12 m9

and I could keep going, and going...

But yes, I admit thousands is a bit of an exaggeration for actual chords. But voicing, yes, there are thousands of variations!

And I completely agree about the timbre and tone of a progression that makes it unique.

I don't believe this. I think there definitely are modern bands who want to be identified with the prog scene and have often tributed older bands on stage.  You don't have to ask me. Read the excerpts from that Wetton interview posted by cstack on the first page of this thread. The man speaks the truth and I really appreciate that he's politically incorrect and candid enough to do so.  If one starts to write music predominantly influenced by classic prog rock bands, it's already a sea change in approach from what classic prog was, even if the musician is not consciously trying to write prog as a genre.  Watered down, so to speak, for want of a better term.    

Okay, so I did a quick calc. Power chords count so 479,001,588

 

Cool no-BS layman's article. Thanks for posting that.

That's what I was talking about when I said "variations". The 7ths, 9ths, Sus, Sus4, 13ths, 14ths etcetera etcetera. But really, there are only the 24 core chords. The 7ths and such are certainly unique but if you where to change all the extended chords out for their non-extended equivalents, you'd still usually be able to recognize a chord sequence. 

I am not a massive expert on music theory, but I know the basics (just recently passed my grade 4). 

stonebeard wrote: 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.

Yes, and this. Once you get past 9ths, they pretty much sound the same (though that's not to say they can't sound nice). 

And yes, dynamics, timbres, voicing and melodies all make a difference.

stonebeard wrote: All that also factors in that people would be playing thirds and seconds below tenor C, which no. Because very no. And that low with minor 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, and majors of the same....at once. That is called a wall of sh*t. Sure that's a chord, but no one except a troll would ever use it an call it musical.

 

 

Most of the Jazz created through time pays some homage to "ground zero"  jazz and no-one seems to have a problem. Those who like Big Band Era music expect to hear a certain sound. Motown lovers don't want to hear 1960's Folk songs. You either like Country music or you don't.

 

I want Prog to sound like one of the many variations of the Prog Music that is featured and discussed in this site.  I might even like the next evolutionary step that comes in the evolution of Rock and Roll, but that will be something else (i.e., Rock and Roll evolved to Prog which evolves to ?).  It's okay for Prog music to sound like other prog music as long as it is original - it may be bad prog or it may be great prog, but Prog is just that - Prog.

 

I am only guessing of course, but it sounds to me that the member who started this thread is either tired of Prog and looking for his/her next musical style to love, or was never really a fan and can't understand that it is okay for all Prog to have something in common.

 

Long Live Progressive Music, especially that which has its roots in Rock and Roll.

I very much prefer good retro-prog than innovative crap. But if it's innovative and I find it good, well that's great too.

 

The term "progressive" can be misleading because it doesn't necessarily mean "moving forward". Was Bob Dylan "progressive rock" when he was innovating in the folk rock field? Of course not. Prog is simply the term that has come to define an integration of popular and art music values. That's the best and most concise definition I can think of on short notice anyway.

And then what about the bass, he MIGHT be playing all of the leads while the guitarist generates a wall of noise through a massive chain of rack effects!!  Meanwhile, the drummer, heavily influenced by Stewart Copeland, plays everything in front of him, including the drum rack piping!!  

That was the essence of my band "What They Say" in Tulsa, Oklahoma, about 1990.  Some of the best lead guitar I ever played was on the four-string bass guitar!  Pity we didn't keep it together, we never released any of it.  Best was a recording of a live show, but the tapes were ripped off/lost by the guitarist.  Pity that!

I've also written & played "classic" style symphonic prog, it's really a lot of fun!  I never claimed to be an innovator (unlike WTS, above), but it is a blast to pretend to be Chris Squire!!  

Good music is good music, period.  Someone once compared "modern" prog as sounding like music you might hear when entering a renaissance festival, and I agree completely.  

More fuzz tone!!

This is bull****.  Elvis was in NO way an innovator.  He took generic rock and roll of the time and changed it in NO (i repeat NO) way and was only more popular because of the racism of the times.  Unless being a honkey is innovative, he did nothing.  

And these conversations about chords have been filled with some of the least accurate information I've ever heard.  Beware.  From the ridiculous claims to the people discrediting chords that are used ALL THE TIME in jazz.  Any jazz musician will tell you that there IS no worthless chord.  If the full diminished (A-C-Eb-Gb) works with the relative major (A#) droning under it, then theres no way any other chord is TOO dissonant (I'd think prog musicians would recognize the value dissonance.)  

This is true