Before Prog

 

There was something special and different about prog?....Yes that was the beauty of the plan. To observe these innovators....to study them. You have to remember that these prog artists from the early 70's were young and in their early 20's. chasing after ambition. Most of them had already studied Classical music for years and probably played Jazz at jam sessions through the night with each other. It's not a difficult vision to have. Technically the plan was to incorporate Classical , Jazz, and Folk mentality to create Progressive Rock. The rock side to it was clearly mastered years ago such as the usage of the pentatonic scale found in Blues. Prog musicians in the early 70's had already played standard Rock music for years. But this time they decided or whoever made that connection first......impossible to know? to take steps forward and add mixed musical elements which had not been done before in the style they projected to audiences.   I tend to believe that Emerson was groundbreaking with the Nice and he caused a fuss in London. All sorts of bands were forming to play or emulate the obvious approach of Keith Emerson. Rare Bird, Greenslade, Argent, Trace, Refugee, Beggars Opera, there is more. Nice stuff ...but sometimes it's too much like Keith.  Gong went in the jazz direction which is present on the Radio Invisible Gnome trilogy. Sometimes it was from 1 extreme to the next....other times French prog bands would smooth out these influences fitting the composition more directly for the purpose of sounding melodic. The dream they had was to write a musical score of about 20 minutes which would be lyrically a play. So now America's Rock audience were attending a Rock concert which was like a film.  I've heard Steve Howe do Jim Hall licks and passages in some of the strangest atmospheric pieces. I mean for a musician it's easy to spot this immediately......but he was taking the music to a different place and I think that was cool. Another example is how prog musicians would take a series of note passages in a Classical piece of music and reverse them. Many guitarist and keyboardists performed this practice. When the notes are played backwards it creates expansion tunnels for creation. Musicans may hear chord structures which are very original just by playing a Classical passage backwards. Many signature hooks in prog have also been created this way. Trying various experimental methods with what masters have created in the past.  It all happened so naturally .....but they were great musicians many of them.....and yes it was definitely a plan.