Is your opinion of what prog is different from...

BaldFriede wrote: Catcher10 wrote: ^ Then maybe you should re-write the definition........ That would only be necessary for the lyrics; I am fine with the musical definition. It would be you who would have to rewrite that part.

Terrapin Station wrote: Catcher, for one, I don't know if you're not noticing the words "often" and "sometimes" in what you're quoting from the site and emphasizing by underlining. But also, it's again apparent that you haven't either listened to much Dead or understood what you were hearing, because most of that stuff you're underlining fits them.

Catcher10 wrote: BTW on another thread is where I posted The Who and on this one I do agree about UFO..Please pay attention.

??? I didn't say anything about what thread the posts were on.

So again you are making a bet that I don't understand what I was hearing?

Not at all, and that's not what the last "bet" comment was about.  I'm telling you that if you're familiar with the Dead's music, your only other option is that you don't understand what you're hearing.

Please show me where I said I don't like GD???

What in the world are you talking about?  No one said anything about you liking or not liking the Dead. 

I also alluded to they don't have almost any of prog attributes in their music, and again you would have to dig really hard to apply a few.

And again, your only two options here, logically, are either that you're not very familiar with their music, or you don't understand what you're hearing (on a music-theoretical level). 

So you seem to have trouble with people having a different opinion than yours.

I'm not talking about opinions, about whether anyone likes them or not.  I'm talking about definitions of progressive rock that (a) have (music-theoretical) demarcation criteria that would (i) pick out most artitsts that are non-controversially considered progressive rock, while (ii) excluding artists that are not conventionally considered progressive rock, AND (b) that would exclude the Dead from counting as progressive rock.  This is a comment about objective features of the music in relation to proposed definitions.

I am familiar with music theory, I did not understand your words.

Sure.  But that's why I was asking first if you know what music theory is.  "Music-theoretical" is an adjectival form of "music theory."  And presumably you know what "characteristics" are?

Read the PA definition and yes it is littered with often, sometimes, etc. That is why when I stated GD do not have almost any attributes, that aligns with the PA definition.

In other words, simple logic is beyond you, too.  If the characteristics picked out are not necessary characteristics, then someone does not need to meet those characteristics to fit the definition.  At any rate, as I noted, the Dead do in fact meet most of those characteristics.  Not realizing this implies not understanding what you were hearing.

The only music I don't understand is that of Magma, 100% a French progressive rock band but I don't speak Klingon or Kobaian, take your pick

It's going to help that you're so modest. ;-)

Also, note that you're equating semantically understanding lyrics with understanding music on a music-theoretical level.


Edited by Terrapin Station - December 17 2016 at 12:26

Mine is very different, simply because I don't believe there is a difference between "prog" and "progressive". Progressive rock simply means a rock band doing something new, nothing more nothing less. That something new can be great or complete garbage.

I do consider the Deep Freeze Mice to be prog. Yes, many of their songs appear to be short and simple, but then there are also some extremely long and experimental tracks on their albums. Take the album "The Gates of Lunch", for example. The first nine tracks are short and apparently simple, but then there also is the 23 minute track "Godzilla Loves Me, I'm an Ashtray" which is extremely experimental. And the short songs are often not as simple as they seem at first listen. Not to mention the hilarious and often surrealistic lyrics.

thwok wrote: Since this is a "progressive rock" website that we all love, "rock" should be an element of the music we find here.  I suppose "progressive electronic" and "progressive folk" are possible exceptions.  However, I think my point is valid.  I love Dave Brubeck and his innovations, but you certainly can't claim that his music is "rock" in any way.  Therefore, he doesn't belong on this website.  I completely agree with Progosopher's statement about Proto and Related.  I'd rather listen to The Doors, who were far more creative, than 90% of the derivative stuff that falls under the Symphonic Prog banner.

I doubt anyone claims Brubeck is rock. It's the influence of one type of music on another that is the relevant bit (ELP and Tull leap to mind).

A similar thing happens with Miles Davis and Kind Of Blue f'r instance. It's in no way rock but the artist later incorporates rock and all it's other associations for his music which in turn in formed fusion. His music is associated because of his relevance and it is his music and we, as prog rock innocents with no idea of any other music, can hear how all these other types contribute to the process and results.

Otherwise we might think that ELP and Tull originate something (which is not an ELP or Tull claim) when this is not so. We find this out and rather than using another resource we can hang around here and read about other related music and how it contributes. This all helps to join up the dots.

After all Holst... Webern and Stravinsky as well as Beethoven and Bach then up to Copeland and Janacek are not rock either. Henry Mancini anyone? But their music informs prog rock ever so much. What's more it leads us to classical rock's already artistic roots. You get a much more exquisite melody from Chopin than so much else. (Thrash fans should have looked way at this bit.;)  )

The point is that music is a series of disparate processes not a thing defined by arbitrary boundaries.

This is why music, for better or worse, is a universal language unlike, say countries which defined by some bureaucrat's line on a map and thou shall not pass (real life). Music identifies the individual (better real life).

My definition of prog is very broad these days, certainly compared to what it used to be in my youth. Artists had to confirm to a fairly strict set of characteristics to be prog in my book. They had to have epic songs in their repertoire, preferably concerning lofty and intellectual subject matter, and the musicianship had to be blistering.

These days I'm somewhat less pernickety. If it's a bit odd, different and a bit clever that'll do me, hence I believe Radiohead is a prog rock band and so are Muse. So there...

Dean wrote: In a bandcamp world my definition as become considerably narrower. Much more of this and I'll start to question whether Neo Prog, JR/F and Krautrock really belong here...

IMHO, neo-prog is prog, but fusion and Krautrock aren't really, though not unrelated, either. Fusion is first of all a kind of jazz rather than rock, although of course strongly influenced by rock; it was mostly played by jazz musicians who embraced rock in order to overcome the perceived directionlessness of free jazz. Krautrock is a parallel development to prog: a music played by the same sort of people (young, mostly male, educated, left-wing) as prog, but in a different country with different traditions and with a different history, and with different outcome. Its aesthetics was far more radical than that of most English prog. Surely, both are related to prog, though.

I believe that "prog" and "progressive" are two separate things.

Well, that prog rock and rock music that is progressive are not the same thing is a truism by now. On this, we probably all agree. Of course, music can be progressive in many ways - it may be novel in style, in sound, in structure, or it may express a socially progressive position in its lyrics, or whatever, and while prog rock was named that way because it was perceived as being progressive in various ways, it never held a monopoly on being progressive in whatever sense, nor was it the most progressive music of its time. Today, "prog", or "prog rock", is simply a designation of a particular music genre that is defined by a set of features, no matter whether a particular piece adds something new or not.