Is Progressive Rock truly pretentious?
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Topic: Is Progressive Rock truly pretentious?
Posted By: criticdrummer94
Subject: Is Progressive Rock truly pretentious?
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 04:36
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I know it kinda sounds stupid but a lyric in the song It really spoke when it said and I quote "If you think that its pretentious, you've been taken for a ride." So I'm gonna ask you. How would you define pretentious and does it set with Prog music? -------------  
MY IDOLS |
Replies:
Posted By: Chozal
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 05:15
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Pretentious : "Making unjustified or excessive claims as of value, or standing". It is true that Prog has this image for the non-prog listener of a pompous, needlessly intellectual music. I do not think it is true for the genre or for any of the subscenes, as genres : they are neutral ways of making music. When it comes to musicians, the virtuoso approach can indeed sometimes sound pretentious if that makes any sense. Obvious examples are Emerson or Dream Theater, people that I often hear described as "playing for their own sake". Which can be discussed. I don't know any but I am sure some prog "fans" too like to feel themselves superior because of the music they enjoy. To cut it short (or rather shorter, as I am not accustomed with long and documented posts), the music is not pretentious, the people can be. But it still is a minor characteristic that is overblown by the main audience imo, following the punk pattern : "anyone can do music, so why do these old jazz people want us to lear odd time signatures, modes, harmonies ? f**k off, let me play my riffs". As a minor "downside" to the genre it can be played upon -try to make the most complicated riff, blend as many influences as possible, just for fun - but the masterpieces of Prog - Brave, SEBTP, Aqualung, Images and Words, etc speak to everybody with a rock sensibility at one point or another, without sounding pretentious, just good music. ------------- https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Infinite-Progability-Drive/141225469388975" rel="nofollow - The Infinite Progability Drive , feeding you daily progressive/weird music for just a like <3 |
Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 05:25
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In general, no, not in the least. Of course there will be a few bands or albums that can reasonably have the finger pointed at them and called pretentious, but its a rarity rather than the norm. If you want pretention, look at Hip-Hop. ------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005 
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Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 05:35
| Much of bad music is pretentious regardless of how complex it is. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 07:01
It was an epithet hurled by critics of the music at the time, nothing more, nothing less. I hopped on the prog bandwagon about four years after that line was written. I found the critics at the time to be the pretentious ones. If you are an inept critic then you resort to what you think are clever retorts rather than digging in to the substance. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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criticdrummer94 wrote:Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 07:08
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Depends who you are. To your average rock fan who thinks songs must be 3 to 4 minutes long. You have to take drugs and have a sleazy lifestyle (bit cliche I know) then all prog is pretentious to them. Musicians wanting to play music that oversteps the constrictive boundaries of a normal rock song is just not proper music. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: AtomicCrimsonRush
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 07:11
ok move on now.... ------------- 
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Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 07:24
By the way, It has come up before, but I can't be bothered to look up the thread. While Peter was making an allusion to prog rock critics of the day, he was in fact singing about the penis or in a more broader sense about genitals in general. And when it comes to pretentious genitals, the penis wins over the clitoris.  ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: twosteves
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 08:44
So true---which is why Gabriel took a final swipe at critics ---who were pretentious f**ks themselves---as the Lamb came to an end---a preemptive strike so to speak.
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Posted By: twosteves
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 08:45
Also true.
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Posted By: Progosopher
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 09:40
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I think most people confuse 'pretentious' for 'pompous.' A pretentious musician is one who pretends to be better than he or she is. To me, these people are posers more concerned with how they look than with how they sound. A pretentious fan is one who pretends to know more about music than he or she does. The same goes for critics. So, no, Prog is not pretentious, but it is often pompous. ------------- The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty" |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 10:13
Good point. I'd call something like Yanni pretentious because it was promoted as something very sophisticated, which it wasn't. Prog's bite lives up to its bark in that regard. In any case, there's nothing inherent in the very premise of prog to suggest that it is pretentious but there may be some bands who are, just like in any other genre. |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 10:18
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Yanni. Not sophisticated. I like that. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: The T
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 10:21
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Yes. And that's why you like it. ------------- 
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Posted By: CloseToTheMoon
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 10:39
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Nope. It's just music for people who enjoy music. There's pretentiousness in any genre, but as a rule I think Prog was originally created by bored musicians. ------------- It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen. |
Posted By: DisgruntledPorcupine
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 11:06
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I used to use that word, but my view has changed. Now I think pretentious is the most overused word ever and now borders on being a synonym of incredibly experimental and unique, which really ticks me off.
That's a better way of looking at the phrase. Obviously not all rappers or hip-hop artists are pretentious, but the ones that seem to get the most attention are. |
Posted By: Tull Freak 94
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 12:37
| Yes it is but that's not necessarily a bad thing |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 13:17
| No it's not. In my job I try to be a bit of a perfectionist and I don't think my customers find that pretentious, I know they appreciate it. We are the customers of the musicians so it's only for us to be grateful that they try to deliver a quality product. |
Posted By: JS19
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 13:31
| When we start topics on this forum called 'How To Convert People To Prog', that's pretentious. |
Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 13:34
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to dismiss progressive rock as pretentious is wrong because that is a generalization, and the prog world is a complex one, and has a lot of different aspects and attitudes associated with it And as someone said before, there is pretentiousness in every type of music |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 13:59
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to pretend=to try in advance (from latin praetendo). prae="in front of". What are we speaking about? There are good lyrics and bad lyrics as well as good music and bad music, or even rappers who pretend to call music what they do. ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 15:56
...from the Latin praetendere = to put forward or stretch forth - originally it meant 'to claim' as in Bonnie Prince Charlie, The Young Pretender who claimed the throne. It was later that it came to mean false claim.
It is nothing to do with good or bad music, good or bad lyrics - a piece of music that has good music and lyric can still be called pretentious, though personally I don't believe that any piece of music (good or bad) can ever be pretentious in itself.
Pretentious is when the artist or fans makes claims about the music that are attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than it actually possesses. Raising "Prog" to high Art (with a capital "A") and putting on a par with the great Classic works (rather than the really crap classical works that no one has ever heard of) is pretentious in the extreme - calling Prog anything other than what it is (Popular Rock Music) is pretentious and vainglorious. ------------- What? |
Posted By: colorofmoney91
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 16:14
------------- http://hanashukketsu.bandcamp.com" rel="nofollow - Hanashukketsu |
Posted By: Triceratopsoil
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 16:29
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Posted By: Earendil
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 17:50
| probably |
Posted By: abnormalist
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 17:58
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Well, I think that term has been tossed around way too much. If a musician feels that what he/she creates is more than "just music" and is some kind of spiritual or transcendental experience, then yes it would be pretentious, because it would be pretending to be something it's not. There's no denying that music can create very strong emotions, but, at the core, it's just structured sound that happens to please somebody's ears. 
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Posted By: The Miracle
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 18:06
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I like my music to be ambitious, which is the same as pretentious but in a good way. A band can come off as plain pretentious when they try too hard to be "intelligent' or to pull off an overblown concept, but that's not restricted to prog and doesn't have to characterize the band's entire output. So I think it's a valid term to describe the flaws of a particular album or track, but to apply it to a whole genre is a sweeping generalization. People who dislike challenging or complex music (such as punks and Rolling Stone reviewers) like to use that term as an excuse to dismiss it, so that's how prog got stuck with that stereotype. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/ocellatedgod" rel="nofollow - last.fm |
Posted By: Alitare
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 20:33
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I dislike theoretically challenging/complex music and not only do I hate Punks/punk music in general, but I also detest Rolling Stone Magazine. I like music to be emotionally challenging, but oh well. Is some progressive rock pretentious? Of course! Most of them pretended that simply changing a song from 4/4 time to 19/4 time and changing the length from 4 minutes to 14 minutes makes the songwriting 'better', which makes me laugh a bit. That's a fair bit of pretense. And then they start thinking that quoting Ayn Rand or singing about Henry VIII makes the music somehow innately 'deeper', as if 'I will choose Free Will' is some illustrious, mind-blowing statement. Golly! I could meander and rant for hours, but I won't. I'm an anti-prog proggist. I love my Aqualung and 1970's Floyd and Gabriel's Melt is so damn exciting! But I can't really appreciate the 'complexity' and 'technical prowess' aspects to this genre. This isn't intended to be some all-encompassing assessment, nor is it a judgement. I'm merely attempting to express my feelings - not my beliefs, my feelings.
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Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: December 05 2011 at 20:40
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Yes, it is. |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 00:06
If this is the definition, I think that there are a lot of examples in the top 100: ELP, Yes, Renaissance, and for different reasons King Crimson and so on... the answer should be "yes", but are we absolutely sure that the absolute value (if something like an absolute value exists) of at least one of their work is not "Art"? How many classical works are possibly pretentious when we go to less known or less important classical artists? Prog is not classical music and is not jazz, but how can we be sure that in the 22nd Century prog and rock won't be studied in the schools? Thinking to Alice Cooper painted close to Beethoven in the same book is quite funny isn't it? ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: cannon
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 03:58
 "What does it feel like to be in the same room with the greatest rock singer in history?"
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 08:28
| The word "pretentious" is a word which is over-used in the world of prog. The lyrics of prog come across as being pretentious...(there goes that word again), and then you have the musicians composing a concept album. This is what rattles the chains of prog haters. The last thing on earth they want to hear is a story about Aqualung the hobo or the sci-fi of Tarkus, etc, ect....but people of this nature leave out the other chapters and they miss out on great music. Merlin by Halloween, Attic Thoughts by Bo Hanssan, and all sorts of underground prog artists who have taken the music steps beyond what appears to ride the perfect wave on the surface. Pretentious...the word itself...defines a style of music. If prog is like theatre then it is pretenious for it's nature alone. It's what many people around me have always hated about prog. It's ridiculous to consider their viewpoint a weight of honest value. It's all a preference ..however adults have to return to childhood and make fun of the things they dislike in life. I make fun of the news media and also find it annoying. If I dish it out, I should be able to take it. That is why prog should remain a private self-endulgent affair with yourself. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 08:51
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To be into the music just because of song length or difficult time signatures really misses the point and is the definition of pretentious. If you don't like it simply because it sounds good to you then why bother?
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: JJLehto
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 09:20
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Oh my yes! Really though, every genre of music is to some extent so watcha gunna do? |
Posted By: The Neck Romancer
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 09:53
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Posted By: DisgruntledPorcupine
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 09:58
| Correct. Complexity has absolutely 0 to do with pretentiousness. |
Posted By: The Willow Farmer
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 10:39
------------- Recent Music Acquisitions: Johnny Marr-"The Messenger" Steven Wilson-"The Raven that Refused to Sing" Fish-"Sunsets on Empire" Riverside-"Shrine of New Generation Slaves" |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 10:44
But at least we have a "Vangelis" to show them ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: Canterzeuhl
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 10:59
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Is it pretentious because we know what we're talking about? To imagine for a moment I don't know what a time signature is, nor what a Moog sounds like and instead I enjoy a thumping backbeat to grind in a dingy club to, and I asked you what sort of music you like, I don't think you could sound like anything else other than pretentious. Well, other than boring and unsexy.
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Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 12:07
Pretentious?? What on earth do you mean??  |
Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 13:20
Maybe, but thats the fault of the complete ignorance of this hypothetical person rather than the music/musicians they are calling pretentious. ------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005
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Posted By: Bj-1
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 13:38
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Couldn't care less as long as I like it.
------------- RIO/AVANT/ZEUHL - The best thing you can get with yer pants on! |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 13:43
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People who are truly exploratory and love doing new things in music will naturally expand, sometimes into odd times, unconventional instrumentation, structure, and composition. If you want to call it pretentious, go ahead. Musicians will keep doing what they feel they should, with or without approval of the mainstream. This isn't just rock music. It's underground music everywhere.
------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: Big Ears
Date Posted: December 06 2011 at 16:58
| Progressive rock is pretentious, self-indulgent, bombastic, over-blown, ego-inflated, etc. That's why I like it! |
Posted By: Manuel
Date Posted: December 07 2011 at 10:05
| As mentioned before, for the pop oriented public, progressive music (not just prog rock) sounds quite pretentious, simply because they are just looking for a nice beat and a catchy riff to dance to. They are not interested in listening to arrangements, orchestration, instrumentation, etc. So yes, they will think prog is pretentious, since they want music to dance to, not something which has been written to be listened to. |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: December 07 2011 at 10:43
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Nobody ever said that to me, People said lets listen to something easier, or lighter.
Seems it sound too complex or hard to follow or dark, in some peoples ears, but actualy i dont thing many people would be thinking its pretentious, they just want something more easy for them to swallow.
Pretentious is the kind of word critics would use, not the everyday guest in your house. ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: Horizons
Date Posted: December 07 2011 at 13:18
Agreed. ------------- Crushed like a rose in the riverflow. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: December 07 2011 at 13:37
I would say, immediately, that if you have to find out what it all means by asking, and you don't know or feel the difference, that it won't matter what anyone tells you anyway!
And this is specially important if you are an artist, painter, musician or writer ... because if you are asking those kinds of questions, you are not "listening" to your own inner movie that helps you create and define the next ... whatever ... in any art!
This is why I always say, that too many people are caught in the commercial/industrial world and they do not know who "YOU" is, and what it means ... because if you knew, you would only ask that question as a joke on a kid ... to have fun with him/her and help him/her learn the difference between the "know" and the "pretentious" or over enfatuated rock'n'roll stars!
One thing to remember ... he/she that knows the truth doesn't have to lie or twist words! ... he/she that has alterior motives will twist words to confuse you and make their position stronger! Like rock stars maintaining their fame!
You really need to see the movie "Bedazzled" with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore ... the original ... and you will learn a lot from Lee Quite Quat ... !!! trust me! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: OT Räihälä
Date Posted: December 08 2011 at 12:09
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No. Why would it be more pretentious than anything else? ------------- http://soundcloud.com/osmotapioraihala/sets" rel="nofollow - Composer - Click to listen to my works! |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: December 08 2011 at 13:03
Easy ... ask the groupies ... but let me tell you that what some have said was not exactly complimentary at all!
And you don't want to hear a few stories from the radio station! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 08 2011 at 16:36
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In the end all that matters is do you like what you hear. The pretentious comes from critics who like to do a weak justification for something they just don't like. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: Cylli Kat
Date Posted: December 08 2011 at 19:53
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Nicely said. I wholeheartedly concur.
------------- [Insert Clever Phrase Here] |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 09:20
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Very pretentious critics postulating Prog is pretentious.
Hmm could i use that in a song  ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 09:52
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Prog is ambitious for the people who like it and willing to make a personal effort in the understanding. Prog is pretentious for hose who want exclusively easy music to shake their booties. Pedro Calderon de la Barca (Classic Spanish writer) said in his book "La Vida es Sueño" (Life is Dream) “In this treacherous world Nothing is the truth nor a lie. Everything depends on the color Of the crystal through which one sees it” Of course in Spanish sounds better "En este mundo traidor, nada es verdad ni es mentira. Todo es según el color del cristal con que se mira" Iván
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 12:13
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^ Pretentiousness has nothing to do with accessibility, complexity or ambition. Music is pretentious if it is pretending to be something it is not or if the fans pretend it is something it is not. Anyone claiming Progressive Rock is Art Music and not Popular Music is being pretentious. ------------- What? |
Posted By: OT Räihälä
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 13:15
Bollocks!  The crux of progressive rock is that it belongs to "art music" at the same time as it's also a part of popular music. The elementary purpose of progressive rock work is it to be a piece of art.I could turn this upside down: Anyone claiming Progressive rock is just Popular Music and not a form of art is being pretentious. ------------- http://soundcloud.com/osmotapioraihala/sets" rel="nofollow - Composer - Click to listen to my works! |
Posted By: Catalani
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 13:20
| I don't think so. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 13:27
------------- What? |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 13:51
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I would wager a piece doesn't get to be called "Art Music" just because it was classical or jazz, and looking at the Wikipedia page doesn't clarify much. It's all very vague. I would think works like Tales from Topographic Oceans and "Close to the Edge" (song) straddle the line between art music and pop music, and pressed to choose one of the other art music fits better. And I was thinking today, works like Phaedra by Tangerine Dream and most of Klaus Schulze's repertoire are strictly art music, or classical music, just with synthesizers. In fact, I find them more interesting than most 20th centural "typical classical". The instruments, performance technique, composition, and notation is wildly new and innovative, and it would take an astonishing traditionalist to believe it's "popular music."
------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 13:59
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^ You see? Pretentious. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 15:21
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^ Quite.
Again, music doesn't have to be popular to be Popular Music, just as folk music doesn't have to be traditional to be Traditional Music - these are just nouns naming three broad terms of music not adjectives to describe what the music actually is, just as Progressive is a noun naming a genre of music not an adjective to describe what the music does. It's okay for Yes, Schulze, Tangerine Dream, ELP, King Crimson and Renaissance to be decribed as Popular Music - it's not a derogatory term, it does not belittle their achievement or compositional skill, but to say that they are Art Music and therfore more closely allied to Classical Music than Pop Music is pretending that it is something that it is plainly not.
Close To The Edge is a good example of why Prog Rock is not Art Music - it is not a single piece of music, it is not structured or arranged in a classical music form, it is three rock songs
I love Phaedra, it's a wonderful, dark piece of music, but to say it is more interesting than most http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_classical_music" rel="nofollow - 20th Century Classical Music is something I could never say - you're putting that up against Sibelius, Satie, Holst, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninoff, Ives, Schoenberg, Ravel, Bartok, Prokofiev, Gershwin, Copland, Weill, Tippett, Shostakovich, Barber, Britten, Babbitt, Bernstein, Ligeti, Boulez, Gorecki and Delius to name but a few (and before I start listing the avant guard, electro-accoustic and minimalists composers, and the "film-score" composers like Morricone, Nyman and Davis). I am by no means a traditionalist, but I do like to think I am a realist. ------------- What? |
Posted By: KingCrInuYasha
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 16:07
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Kind of mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, yes it can be. I mean, really? Is something like The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur by Rick Wakeman really supposed to be on the same level as, say, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony? On the other, it can be totally exaggerated. What's so pretentious about instrumental prog like some of the stuff Wetton-era King Crimson used to do? Not helped by some of the more vocal opponents of the genre, especially those who like punk, who claim their genre was meant to deflate the "pretentiousness" rock and roll was going through at the time. I'm sorry, but when you have the same over enthusiasm that every other music fanbase has, it leads me to believe otherwise. ------------- He looks at this world and wants it all... so he strikes, like Thunderball! |
Posted By: thehallway
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 16:24
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Pretentious is a word only ever used by people who, deep down, feel some kind of inferiority towards the subject they are attacking. For example, I doubt the Queen has ever called anybody pretentious, while many outspoken rock critics continue to use the word to describe any music they don't understand. And it's no bad thing that they don't understand certain music types, but it's bad that they blame the musicians for their personal inability to comprehend the music. In any case, pretentious doesn't even work as an adjective in music, because music itself cannot exude arrogance or elitism...... and if it seems to allude to it, as I said, that's the listener's idea that they've projected onto the sounds. I've never heard any musicians, in interviews or in their music, ever implying that their music is in any way superior to anything else. Some classical composers I suppose. But generally, people don't complain unless it's because they know the music is good but they just don't want it to be popular. If a band was overall just terrible, the critic would say so...... but the critic says pretentious when, for whatever cultural reasons, they don't want to like the music even though they can see that it is of a high-standard. ------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 17:11
For the record I would list Phaedra, and similar pieces of electronic music, alongside any "great" pieces by those artists I have heard which you mentioned (Stravinsky and Ravel come to mind). And it personally holds my interest more The Firebird Suite, so take that for what you will. I'm willing to accept the hazy (to put it mildy) definition of Art music as long as pieces like Bach's Prelude in C are excluded. A lot of classical music is simple as all hell, and as long as we don't just lump all Mozart and all Bach and all whoever into it, then I'll accept that ok, The Ring of Nibelung can be art music whereas Close to the Edge, not so much. What about Klaus Schulze's X though? What specifically would make this album, or works, not Art Music? The drums? The compositionional style? (More on that matter, what type of composition does a piece have to have to be art music? Again, Wikipedia offers nothing so perhaps you know.) I'm very curious. ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 18:17
The Wikipedia article clearly states that Art Music covers all forms of Classical Music and while some musicologists disagree, most recognise that Art Music is written down and not passed on orally (ie traditional folk music) or by recordings (popular music). The litmus test for that would be a performance of Close To The Edge by any group of 5 trained musicians given equal reception as the same pieced performed by the "composers", while I'm sure in his day JS Bach was quite the crowd-puller, he didn't have to be in attendance at every performance of the Brandenburg for it to be a hit.
I don't know Klaus Schulze's X to comment on it, Wiki seems to want to tag it "Classical", though cynically that appears to be because it has an orchestra playing on it, but I say that without having heard it - other Prog performers have crossed-over to classical music, Karl Jenkins being the most successful and Mike Oldfield and Tori Amos being the most recent.
------------- What? |
Posted By: Zombiezilla
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 18:18
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Prog is "Art Music," but then again, so is any music. Music is part of the arts, thereby making it "art."
I might be a good person for this discussion, as I mentioned previously I came to Prog from a Punk background. My favorite styles of music are Punk, Glam (Hanoi Rocks, not Poison), Rockabilly and Prog. I'm not so sure if people catch just how similar Punk and Prog are to each other. Most people look at Punk as being a bunch of mindless musicians, and though that might be the case some times, there is also incredible musicianship in Punk. A buddy of mine who is a drummer in numerous Death Metal band, and an amazing musician, always wrote off Punk. Then he heard BGK and changed his feelings. Amazing songwriting, and unreal drumming. So in the songwriting category, if it all comes down to flashy playing, then the Punks are guilty also.
If it comes down to thinking you are superior to everybody else, and what you are doing is the most important thing in the world, sorry, NOBODY touches the Punks. That is the essence of that whole dang movement. They believe that they are the only ones who knows what is good and truly great. Yup, I'm going to generalize because in this case it can be done. I've seen Punks beat the crap out of people just for liking music that they felt was inferior to theirs. I ran from the Punk movement because I was tired of the constant crap and arrogance within the movement.
As for Prog and the pretentious lyrics, I never understood that. If writing about the subjects that Proggies write about makes them pretentious, then we might as well call any author who writes any form of fiction pretentious.
I will say that Prog can be a little cheesy at times to the non-Prog person. Either that or just friggin' weird.
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Posted By: Kazza3
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 19:19
Dean, your answers are, to me, continually accurate and intelligent, and I have enjoyed reading them. 
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Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 21:27
Progressive rock isn't necessarily pretentious. I don't think any band ever set out to make "pretentious" music (other than perhaps Emerson, Lake & Plamer  ). The truly gifted musicians I've known simply do not wish to play simplistic music, and that's just as true in blues or jazz circles. Three or four chord tunes without variation are exceedlingly dull to play over and over again (and if you play for a living, even intricate compositions can get dull after the 100th or 1000th rendition) .
But I think pretention lies more within the individual than the band. Have you ever heard someone like Johnny Rotten or Kanye West pontificate on music? There are pretentious folks involved in all genres of music. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 09 2011 at 22:09
Amen, thank you. Adapting art music techniques to popular music does not make it art music itself. |
Posted By: OT Räihälä
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 03:49
The basic misunderstanding here is the concept that Art Music would be a style. It is not, it is an ethos. Of course you can veto to musicological classifications, but don't forget that the essential spirit of the arts is to move forward by breaking the "rules", which of course are not real rules, but rather mere conventions.
Popular music and Art music are not mutually exclusive. Why would they be? Not all pop tunes are piece of art, because they are not meant to be, but a few are because their creators have meant them to be. This is the question of ethos.
This is another misinterpretation. Phaedra doesn't need to be more interesting than all the names you mention to be a piece of art, and thus, belong to art music. That would be to classify a work "art music" depending on its artistic value (defined by - who?), and even on how adventurous it is compared with works that already belong to some certain canon. Here we also have to put the term "classical music" under scrutiny: there is little classical in the works of, say, post-WW2 moderninst composers. Art music is a good term for all progressive music of today, that seek for new areas. There are artistic works that may belong to the continuum of classical music, ethnic world music, jazz, popular music etc. It is a violent act to bundle together both L. v. Beethoven and Beat Furrer as classical music. I tend to think art music of recent decades is more related to to visual arts than to music of gone centuries.
You refer to Wikipedia as an authority at your own peril... Not all art music is written down. There is for example a myriad of composers of electronic music who never write anything down, and a few of them can't even read music, because they've never had the need to.The question of a performance of CTTE vs. a Brandenburger by trained musicians doesn't belong to the question of art music. It is more a question of the reception of a piece of art. Brandenburgers became famous at the time when there were no recordings, and as 99,9% of classical music, there is a convention that whoever can perform them and claim that their performance is authentic. What comes to CTTE, there is only one authentic manifestation of it, and that is Yes's recording on the album by the same name. In the former case, a piece of art music is conceptually closer to other old works of performing art, like a play by Sophocles or Shakespeare. The recording of CTTE on the other hand is a piece of art in the same way as Andy Warhol's painting of Marilyn Monroe in different colours - you can reproduce it, but it will never be exactly the same as the original (unless it's a digital copy). And with a Brandenburger performance we can't say there's an original way of doing it, because even J.S. Bach himself never heard a performance of any of them. BTW, Dean, this discussion is very inspiring (although a bit too time-consuming...).
 ------------- http://soundcloud.com/osmotapioraihala/sets" rel="nofollow - Composer - Click to listen to my works! |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 05:23
The misundersting is not mine, it's standard Musicologist notation so it isn't their misunderstanding either. I have not denied that Progressive Rock is an art form, or is art, or is artistic music, or is music as art, after all are not all musicians called "artists", it is just not Art Music that's all.
Art Music is not an ethos, and since it covers 600 years of music development based upon traditional forms, it cannot be a style. There is an ethos behind that, but it is not an ethos in itself.
All Popular Music is art.
All Art Music is art.
Not all Popular Music is popular.
Not all Art Music is popular.
Popular Music is not Art Music.
Art Music is not Popular Music.
I never said it had to be more interesting to belong to Art Music - Stonie brought that up without qualifying it - I simply listed a few 20th Century composers whose work could be more interesting to me. I have said Art Music does not equate to "interesting" so even if Phaedra is more interesting to you than say Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11 (featuring the "popular" 2nd movement: Adagio For Strings) it does not change anything. Similarly, the "artistic value" of any piece of music is also immaterial to whether it is classified as Art Music or not, as is how adventurous it is.
With Classical Music you are referring to 600 years of music, of which only a narrow 70 year period is actually called Classical (Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th Century, Contemporary, 21st Century), which is why I prefer to use the noun Art Music as that includes non Western classical music forms as well. Beethoven is from the transition from Classical to Romantic, Furrer is Contemporary - they are not bundled together. In the Prog world there are people who get upset with the violent bundling together of disparate musicians from opposite ends of a 40 year history. The Classical world appears far more receptive to new ideas and forms than the Prog world is
The wiki article is heavily cited, follow those citation links if you wish. Traditional formal notation (staff notation) is impossible for electro-accoustic and avant garde music, but other forms of symbolic notation are used just as other notaion forms are used in non-Western classical music. Cage produced a "score" for 4"33'.
(This is why conductors are famous)
Misses the point I was making, but never mind, I'll run with it ;-)
With the increasing popularity of Tribute bands and cover versions I actually believe that Rock Music (not just Prog Rock) is breaking out of the definitive Performer/Recording trap and in 40, 100, 600 years there will be "tribute" bands performing Dark Side Of The Moon, Scenes From A Memory and Thick As A Brick as concert performances in the same way as modern symphony orchestras are Mahler, Beethoven and Bach tribute bands today.
Anything that keeps my brain ticking over is enjoyable to me.
Please note that at no time have I ever said that Prog Rock couldn't be or shouldn't be incorporated into the Art Music cannon - at the moment it just isn't and it is not our say-so that it should be - you may want to join an exclusive club, but the club would have to accept your proposal for you to be a member.
ps: sorry, I plucked The Brandenburg out of thin air without thinking - of course Bach never heard that played in his lifetime, in fact no one did and it wasn't a "hit" until much later - Bach was a poor example since he was not a performer as such, even the Goldberg Variations that were performed in his lifetime were not performed by him - Mozart would have been a better example perhaps - there's always room for the odd slip-up when typing forum posts in the heat of the moment. ------------- What? |
Posted By: OT Räihälä
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 07:00
It seems we do not really disagree on the structure, but end up with different conclusions. I consider art music as an ethos, because as an art music composer myself, I have to justify my work every time I start. I feel I should do that even if I made progressive rock, but if I wrote light ditties for pop singers, I wouldn't think of it as art, but rather as a way to get money.
In my opinion, popular music scene is in general far more conservative than the classical/art music field.
In a way this proves that some prog rock is part of art music: I can't imagine people doing concert performances of justinbiebers (or whatever they are) of this world in the 23rd century, because only true art survives the test of time.
------------- http://soundcloud.com/osmotapioraihala/sets" rel="nofollow - Composer - Click to listen to my works! |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 07:09
If we take all prog as part of art music, that's not true. I think Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan took more risks than Strawbs. They could accommodate risk taking within a popular music framework but that imo says more about their compositional skill. Paradoxical as it might sound, I think art music necessarily has to be that which is very heavily concerned with the science of music. A musician can be largely true and uncompromising within the boundaries of pop, e.g Dylan so it is not a function of the artist's intent imo. |
Posted By: OT Räihälä
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 10:04
I completely agree. I should have added that the popular music field of today has become very conservative. During the heyday of those you mentioned, they surely didn't shirk a tackle, so to say, when looking for progress in their music. ------------- http://soundcloud.com/osmotapioraihala/sets" rel="nofollow - Composer - Click to listen to my works! |
Posted By: Zombiezilla
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 11:31
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Good Lord, I do believe this is going to be one of those boards I enjoy reading more than I enjoy actually taking part on. Brilliant stuff up there!!!
Dark Elf mentions Johnny Rotten. Just this morning I was thinking about this thread and thought about The Clash. Might they possibly be the most pretentious band to ever exist? Their slogan was "The only band that matters," and as they went on in their careers their music got more and more, ummm, flashy? I can't think of the right word.
I would give the title of the most pretentious album EVER to Kiss and their abysmal "The Elder." Sadly that album would back up the argument of Prog being pretentious, as it is pretty much their stab at being Prog. Yet their lack of talent, the horrendous lyrics and composition tank that effort and turn it into the pretentious mess that it is.
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 12:25
In that case I'm glad I'm not an Art Music composer - when I did write music I never felt the need to justify anything, then I was never serious about it in any way, even when there was serious or erudite intent behind the music.
I find that last comment rather sad, (in a tearful way not in a pathetic way), but anyway, I believe it is false or at least a fallacy - if it was so easy to write light pop ditties just to make money everyone would be doing it and that's clearly not happening. Writing pop songs is as much of an art as writing any music, and writing good pop songs is a gifted art.
In the short term I agree, but the life span of popular music styles is remarkably short governed solely by the time each generation spends as a teenager, since the teenage market is the prime source of income for popular music. But in the long term it is not conservative at all. Prog is an odd-ball in that we have people who have been fans for 40 years and some that have been fans for 4 minutes, and in my experience the most conservative fans appear to be those who haven't been here for the durtation..
Well, I carefully said Rock Music (not just Prog) and tried to avoid bring Pop into the picture - however, if you look at what tribute bands are around at the moment there is certainly a market for http://www.scottjordan.co.uk/categories/tribute-bands.html?gclid=CKLtiKmN-KwCFUVTfAod4yc0SA" rel="nofollow - ersatz pop bands . Certainly I can imagine Mamma Mia! still playing in the 23rd Century, but without a time machine anything we say is mere speculation. Looking backwards 600 years, what is popular from Art Music today is a fraction of all the Art Music that has ever been produced, so guessing what will still be popular from a narrow genre such as Prog or Pop in 200 years is extremely difficult. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SMSM
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 15:05
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What turned me off about punk and rap was the pretentiousness of the music claiming to be the music of the people etc, when the Sex Pistols accurately claimed their music was the great rock and roll swindle, same with rap.
When you have millionaire basketball players making rap albums and punks who can't even tune their instruments shows the pretentiousness of this music claiming to be the music of the people
Most prententious bands are U2 and Rage Against the Machine, both who think they are God's gift to the music world
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Posted By: thehallway
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 15:30
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As soon as U2 was mentioned, all the prog bands lived happily and unpretentiously ever after. The End. ------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 19:55
You didn't got my point Dean, I don't believe ambitiousness has a direct relation with pretentiousness, but critics of Prog Rock seem to mistake one for the others. For the vast majority of musicians using an A-B--A-B structure, a few chords and a three minutes limits is the idea of Rock, and whoever escapes to that mold is pretentious. Many Prog musicians feel that 3 minutes is not enough (not that a 3 minutes song is wrong "per se"), they also feel that an elaborate structure and good lyrics is necessary to express their sentiments, so they create an album like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway that is very hard work, a year of planning and recording.....Only then they believe they are close to have communicated what they want to express to the public. I believe this is an ambitious work that they do for love, most people believe they are pretentious idiots who avoid simplicity to show off, so they say PRETENTIOUS. For me pretentious is a guy who believes who does complex music for the sake of complexity, but the guy who puts all his soul in an album is an artist. And I do believe Prog Rock is Art Music, because the force that impulses this artists is mainly art and not commercialism. My two cents. Iván EDIT: Using an example, my partners in the studio used to call me pretentious because I wrote legal documents of 50 pages, researching jurisprudence, doctrine etc, when they did this kind of documents in two pages. I was not trying to show off, I was doing the best effort for a client who trusts me his defense. -------------
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 20:05
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.
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 21:08
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 -------------
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 10 2011 at 22:57
| I think art music at least in the western canon means something specific and even in India, it strictly refers to classical music and semi classical like ghazal is not considered art music. On the other hand, I would not want to differentiate between two works of music on the basis of intent - artistic or commercial - unless I have very strong evidence to point me in either direction. I agree with Dean that writing a good pop song is an art too. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 03:20
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. ------------- What? |
Posted By: OT Räihälä
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 03:48
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. ------------- http://soundcloud.com/osmotapioraihala/sets" rel="nofollow - Composer - Click to listen to my works! |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 04:15
This isn't about me and what I define as Art Music (that would be pretentious
 ), but about what musicologists and the Music world defines as Art Music - again, I repeat - I do not deny that music is art.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
Of course Duchamp's Fountain was accepted as Art by the Art world in 1917 and they changed the definition of Art in doing so - the parallel to that in the music world is "sampling" - which has been accepted as Music in the Music world and changed the definition of music in doing so. In this instance we do know Duchamp intended to make art because he chose to display it in an Art exhibition, not a toilet.
If you agree with Ivan then you're not talking about the same thing I am. ------------- What? |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 04:35
| 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. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 04:56
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 05:01
Fair enough, but I interpreted academic music to mean something academic in its nature and therefore having a separate purpose from what music would generally have, which is 'only' a means of artistic expression. I agree that it could also have elitist connotations but I can't think of a better word and found it preferable to serious or erudite. However, my point was simply that if at all we don't want to take art music to mean what it is supposed to, then the solution is to change the term, not change its meaning to imply something else. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 05:07
^ agreed.  ------------- What? |
Posted By: OT Räihälä
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 06:08
(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. ------------- http://soundcloud.com/osmotapioraihala/sets" rel="nofollow - Composer - Click to listen to my works! |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 06:29
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 06:37
You are aware of it because you participated in creating the music. A listener cannot judge accurately whether the composer intended it as a piece of art or entertainment. |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 06:57
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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 ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 07:16
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? ------------- What? |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 08:12
I don't know. I think I mean that I would hesitate to call it art. That would seem to be pretentious of me. And vilola we come to the point of the thread. Did you ever hear the third piece I composed? http://soundcloud.com/iancownie/shipyards-of-titan" rel="nofollow - http://soundcloud.com/iancownie/shipyards-of-titan
------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: OT Räihälä
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 09:16
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). ------------- http://soundcloud.com/osmotapioraihala/sets" rel="nofollow - Composer - Click to listen to my works! |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 09:24
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 09:25
Not true, in Sánish there's not a term Art Music, Classical music is referred as Música Clásica,, and some people call it also Musica Culta or Música Selecta (Both absolutely inaccurate IMO), but for us Art Music is music with artistic values, no matter what the genre. Now, it'¿s true a good Pop (or whatever genre you want) song can be artistic also, but IMO there's music exclusively made for commercial purpose that doesn't have any artistic value. Iván -------------
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 09:33
Dean, maybe you can, but I can't separate myself from the concepts I been raised with, II never heard the term Art Music referred to Classical Music in my whole life. I haven't read the whole three pages (Honestly is too much), but when read Art music and can't stop thinking immediately in an ambiguous term that for me has no special meaning...A Spanish speaker can speak English, but we can't avoid thinking in the terms we learned,. Despite this, I agree with you that Prog is not Classical music, only an elaborate form of Rock Iván -------------
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 11 2011 at 09:47
Ouch!
 I use it all the time and have used it in conversations with you. I guess that means you have misunderstood every instance where I have used it over the past 4 years - and on several times I have linked the Wikipedia page on Art Music to help clarify the exact musicological meaning I was using.As I have said several times here - I was not using Art Music to mean "Music as an Art Form" or "Artistic Music" (if you will kindly accept that as a translation of 'musica artística' rather than a transliteration of it) - in that I have also stated several times that for me all music is art.
Accepted - and this is why I do try and clarify the exact English meaning of certain words and idioms whenever I can - this is not the first time this has happened.
Thank you. ------------- What? |