Personality types and prog

WEll, the bands you choose sometimes determines your personality. But I know a kid with almost the identical tastes in music as me and his personality is not even close to mine!

porter wrote: I just CAN'T STAND PF. I've tried so many times to like them, I swear I did, but, nothing...it never happened! And I do consider them as a great band, one of the greatest ever...it's just that they don't "get" me...it's a pretty irrational thing I guess, I wouldn't be able to tell you why; it just happens. Same thing for Genesis(even though in that case I think I know why I don't like them....but let's keep that a secret .) It seems to me that a portion of my brain firmly refuses to listen to certain bands or to do things like reading novels or going to church, while another portion of it just KNOWS that they would all be good things to do. I mean, I've listened to Foxtrot and to DSOTM so many times trying to like them, and they opened my mind in some respects, but I still don't like them. While on one hand I think "wow! what a great guitar player Dave Gilmour is!!", on the other I feel an urge to kill him (even though I'd prefer to kill Roger Waters) What can I do? I must be a desperate case.

Port, what bands are your favs? I was wondering if you would find, that in comparing your fav music with PF and Genesis, that you might identify a contrast that reveals what it is specifically that 'gets at you' about their music. By deconstructing their use of instruments and compostitional arrangements, vocals, use of extraneous sound, atmosphere etc and comparing to the others - it might be possible to identify something in particular that puts you off them. In the case of VGG, I really had to look past the vocals to really appreciate the complexity of their music, but I often find it difficult to handle 'different' vocal styles that don't match the criteria I have in my head/soul for what I personally consider to be 'listenable' vocals. (Geddy Lee and Surkamp are other examples) 

Fortunately, I can overcome my prejudice about this now, which broadens the musical spectrum I listen to. I still prefer a certain type of vocalist though. (Still, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with my personality.)

barbs wrote: porter wrote: I just CAN'T STAND PF. I've tried so many times to like them, I swear I did, but, nothing...it never happened! And I do consider them as a great band, one of the greatest ever...it's just that they don't "get" me...it's a pretty irrational thing I guess, I wouldn't be able to tell you why; it just happens. Same thing for Genesis(even though in that case I think I know why I don't like them....but let's keep that a secret .) It seems to me that a portion of my brain firmly refuses to listen to certain bands or to do things like reading novels or going to church, while another portion of it just KNOWS that they would all be good things to do. I mean, I've listened to Foxtrot and to DSOTM so many times trying to like them, and they opened my mind in some respects, but I still don't like them. While on one hand I think "wow! what a great guitar player Dave Gilmour is!!", on the other I feel an urge to kill him (even though I'd prefer to kill Roger Waters) What can I do? I must be a desperate case. Port, what bands are your favs? I was wondering if you would find, that in comparing your fav music with PF and Genesis, that you might identify a contrast that reveals what it is specifically that 'gets at you' about their music. By deconstructing their use of instruments and compostitional arrangements, vocals, use of extraneous sound, atmosphere etc and comparing to the others - it might be possible to identify something in particular that puts you off them. In the case of VGG, I really had to look past the vocals to really appreciate the complexity of their music, but I often find it difficult to handle 'different' vocal styles that don't match the criteria I have in my head/soul for what I personally consider to be 'listenable' vocals. (Geddy Lee and Surkamp are other examples)  Fortunately, I can overcome my prejudice about this now, which broadens the musical spectrum I listen to. I still prefer a certain type of vocalist though. (Still, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with my personality.)

Well, I must admit that, beyond the irrational thing i mentioned about my "hate" for PF and my "not exactly love" for Genesis, I have a love for a hard-edged sound, which is something that I don't find in the 2 bands above, especially in Genesis, and I also feel a "lack of something" in both of them: for Genesis it may be some kind of "inconsistency" in their musicianship (they are good musicians indeed, but nothing compared to others, at least in terms of "groove"....now what do I call groove? that's a question....); for PF it deals with the composition. It seems to me that their best songs just came out by accident (PERSONAL OPINION, don't stone me for this), whereas most of their songs sound pretty much the same (DSOTM is a clear example of my theory, apart from RADICALLY different ones like The great gig in the sky). There are three bands in prog that I particularly love: KC, VDGG, and Yes. I LOVE Peter Hammill's vocals, because I love craziness in general, I love KC's stuff, especially the hard one (TCOL being one of my fave albums) even though I find them a little too dark sometimes, and I'm starting to adore Yes...I think they are a prog version of The Beatles, musicianship added of course, and that's a big thing!!(for me).

About the prejudice thing, you're totally right, probably the only reason why I can't fall in love with Genesis (and I was about to a couple of times) is the fact that I can't overcome the prejudice...I could with Geddy Lee's voice, I could with Peter Hammill's weirdness (even though it took me a very little time to appreciate him) but I couldn't with, say, Tony Banks' style...just sounds "wrong" to me... 

for PF it's different because my mind has decided not to give them any chance

anyway, the subject is very complicated, it'd take forever to unravel all of the subtle aspects it implies, and I don't think you'd want me to infest the forum THAT long...

barbs wrote: Thanks for your openess. I didn't want to pre-empt what your fav listening was but the two bands I thought of from your original post were KC and VGG because of their contrast to the bands you don't like, but I wasn't sure about Yes because I don't consider them harder edged. Those three, it may be argued, are possibly the most aggressively experimental. Consistently risk taking, pushing boundaries. You probably like live concerts and 'party' energy. Perhaps we could say that some progressive music has more 'grunt' than others. I know some people stay away from PF because they do not find their music and particularly the lyrics very positive. Again, in some ways (not always but some) this may be to do with personality type because a light and bubbly personality may find them either difficult to understand (don't worry, be happy type) or even a bit depressing for some. I think degrees of aggression and mellowness in music as well can match up. Male and female hormones, testosterone levels - would possibly affect what we listen to, where, when, how much etc etc ( as you said, it is very complicated but I find it interesting)

it's VEEERY interesting....I wonder what your profession is?....psychologist?

I think barbs has it. The disposition of a person's mental state certainly colours there world in different ways, and music is no exception to this. People don't necessarily have to have similar personalities either because we all hear something different. King Crimson sounds slightly different for me than it does to others and we each either like the colour or we don't.

Personally, it has come to be that the single most important aspect of life for me is without a doubt freedom. I love everything about it. I love what the word means. So if i listen to music and i can't find freedom in there somewhere, if i can't find that matching colour, then chances are i'm not going to warm up to it so much. And it changes for sure. I was obsessed with Dream Theater and Opeth at one stage, then i craved something else, something more. I didn't want to be imprisoned in those bands so here i am listening to all kinds of crazy music.

I think things get really interesting when you start composing music yourself. I've been writing music for a few years now and it's astounding how much i've changed. How i've gone from cliche metal riffs to soft jazzy stuff with really weird, edgy bits here and there. And it's really interesting to experience my reaction to some stuff i write. I've noticed that some of my material has this very distinct feeling for me, this feeling that really confuses me. When i hear this stuff it's hard for me to know what i think about it. I don't know whether to think it's really cool and interesting or.... i can't even put it into words. There isn't a word for this feeling  Maybe this material is a manifestation of my own confusion. It certainly seems as though it is.

Very cool topic!