Spinoff Thread: You Know You're In a Prog

Most people (at least I'm assuming, don't cry if I'm wrong here) who appreciate prog are, in fact, musicians themselves.
If any of the following thoughts has crossed you or a fellow band member's fragile mind, you are in fact, in a progressive rock band:


-Four strings on a bass just isn't enough. As a matter of fact, it's even more awesome when the bassist's instrument has more strings than the guitarist's.

-The singer isn't bored after the first 6 minutes of pure instrumentals.

-You change time signatures. Constantly. For no apparent reason.

-Accuse anyone who does not do so of lacking musical intelligence and not being a true prog musician.

-Drummers must have a double kick pedal in order to be prog.

-Scratch that, drummers must have both a double kick pedal and a double-bass drum kit.

-At least two people in your band are abstract artists. They draw some of the weirdest things, the kind of Dr. Seuss meets MC Escher alternate universe....maybe the kind of thing from a 50's Sci-Fi movie (or a Yes album cover ).

-You may get plenty of gigs, but the chicks all leave out of boredom during the second ambient break...

-You have a keyboardist, but he/she never talks...

-You cried when Tool's 'Vicarious' lost 2006 "Best Heavy Rock Performance" Grammy to such simplistic music as Wolfmother...

-One word: Ibanez. This is not negotiable.

- A song under four minutes is NOT prog. If you are stuck with a song under four minutes, insert a phrygian solo trade-off between the guitarist and keyboardist as long as needed.

-You're not a Berkley graduate. You're better: you're a Berkley dropout.

-You and your fellow band members spend 5 hours a day critiquing other bands on some ridiculous online forum.

-You and your fellow band members spend 5 minutes every day actually practicing your instruments.

___________________________________________________________
Make sure your band's name is either a
a)Oxymoron

-Silent Noise
-Tender Harshness
-Healing Gun

b)Some geeky sounding name ripped from some obscure book.

-Deitronus
-Tarakoch
-Fentaran

or

c)Random combination of at least 2 three-syllable words.

-Eternal Twilight Tranquility(Can`t get much progger than that)
-Redolent Arithmetic
-Evolution of Vernacular Domesticated

Nice.
_________________________________________________________

-None of your songs are under 4 minutes.

-If anyone calls you out on that in a negative light, claim that they lack musical intelligence and don't understand what prog is all about.

-Riffs written in 4/4 are NOT progressive. If you happen to write a cool riff in 4/4 time, alternate between that and a prog time signature, like 7/8, 3/8, or π/5.5. (That's actually a Tool time signature)

-Be able to mention 20 bands that no one has ever heard of, not even true prog fans or musicians. Own no releases from these bands.

-Stuck in song-writing? Insert a part with a slow single-note gallop rhythm where the singer yells "ENTER THE SUUUNNNNNNNN" several times.

-Everything you write revolves around a central narrative that makes almost no sense at all.

-Bonus points if these epics revolve around a series of comic books/novels that you or another band member are involved in creating.

-If you are the guitarists, you constitute that Robert Fripp, Alex Lifeson, John Pettrucci, Steve Vai, Adam Jones,  Steve Wilson, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Mikael Åkerfeldt are all gods.

-If you are the drummer, you constitute that Neil Peart, Danny Carey, Mike Portnoy, Chris Pennie, Brann Dailor, Martin Lopez, and anyone who's ever worked with Zappa as gods.

-If you are a bassist, you constitute that Les Claypool, Victor Wooten, and John Myung are gods. There's some others, but they just weren't prog enough.

-If you are a vocalist, you have some favorites, but nobody cares because you're just a vocalist.

-You have a not-prog side project that your fellow band members don't know about.
________________________________________________________________

Some of these aren't original, but hey, its a compilation.
Appreciate

-SS

Shwang_Shwinga wrote: -You change time signatures. Constantly. For no apparent reason. -Accuse anyone who does not do so of lacking musical intelligence and not being a true prog musician. -Drummers must have a double kick pedal in order to be prog. -Scratch that, drummers must have both a double kick pedal and a double-bass drum kit.

Haven't checked the rest, but these four might as well just be an indication of musical incompetence..... As for the third one - I agree with Philéas


Edited by Angelo - April 23 2007 at 15:43

Morbix wrote: Dude, it's a f**king joke. Chillax.

It's a bad joke though.

you people=

at taking jokes

Christ, you guys are stuffy and humorless.....your lives make me sad.

Wow. I don't know, Ghandi  taking a joke and raping it like you did is a pretty dry and humorless thing to do. The time sig thing wasn't serious, I actually read music (gasp), and I know that....no, f**k it, I shouldn't have to justify what was meant as a humorous jab at insane time sigs to someone who obviously takes themselves too seriously. I mean, if you didn't have anything constructive to post, maybe you should've just left.

hmmm...many of these things apply to me...what does it all mean, oh right, it means i'm in a prog band....but i'm not...???????! Well, me as myself is a band in itself, a band called...well, I can't tell you that! I am a sort of abstract artist, and I usually try to avoid writing in 4/4 .

We could add that all members of the band when acknowledging one another on stage, the audience, the end of a song ,a massive solo, spontaneous applause or other significant interruptions such as the drummers audible flatulence, put their palms together at chest height in the praying pose and bow slightly in the relevant direction.

This is, of course, because we want to demonstrate to the world at large that we are duly reverent, unaffected, unpretentious and at peace with all things, esp. other members of the band .............

Oh , hang on a minute, this is a seriuos thread isn't it........ Well, I'm being serious. I'm like that, aren't you?

This is the 'Just for Fun' thread people and God forbid we're passed the point of having a laugh at ourselves.
To quote the star of 'When the Wind Blows', sorry, that's 'Whistle':

    "Are you 'avin' a laugh? Is 'e 'avin' a laugh?"

Apparently not!.....[But there must be more to this though than meets the eye]. So....

K.O.D. ......people. Good night.