Other Prog Music Instruments

I am a guitar player so I look for guitar oriented music first. We're currently discussing bassists on another topic. Since you can't swing a stick around Prog music without hitting a keyboardist, I would like to know what other instruments you look for in your musical choices.

If I hear that a band has electric guitar, sax or flute, violin AND vibraphone or marimba in it, I want to hear them immediately!

Two of my favourite albums on Progarchives are by Pierre Moerlen's Gong. GAZEUSE has all of the above except for violin. (But it does have a piece with acoustic guitar and Fender Rhodes!) ESPRESSO II has all of the above but no sax or flute. Both albums also feature the most amazing drumming / bass playing you can imagine.

I have the U.S. release of Gazeuse which is called "Expresso". Other than guitar, Allan Holdsworth plays violin and pedal steel guitar. (I guess someone thought the original title would be too hard for Americans to pronounce - they were probably right)

BTW  Contrary to what is usually the case, the U.S. release has a better cover.

harmonium.ro wrote: fuxi wrote: If I hear that a band has electric guitar, sax or flute, violin AND vibraphone or marimba in it, I want to hear them immediately! Even if they're not prog? I'd like to recommend you some stuff.

Please do! I love Gary Burton's bands from the 1970s because they tended to have vibes, drums, TWO electric guitarists and TWO bassists. I also like Django Bates, Muhal Richard Abrams and Pierre Dorge because they tend to use the craziest combinations of instruments. (Bass clarinet is another great instrument.) So any additional recommendations would be very welcome.

I love use of diverse instruments in music. what those intruments are does not matter much. If a CD is composed of just guitar, drum and bass I would generally stay away from it (although there are exceptions. Usually wider range of intruments lead to much more interesting musical textures. This brings up the key issue in Prog music. In my opinion what differentialtes prog from other styles is its freedom of form and its fearless use of instruments for creating texture.

I enjoy instrument interplay, more than the separate instruments, themselves. But I have a soft spot for melodic acoustics, especially the violin, which I am learning how to play skillfully.

Since this is a thread about Other Prog instruments I won't be mentioning any guitars, Moogs or Hammonds. (Although I must mention is flute - all flute's interventions in prog music are beautiful almost without exception).

I like harp a lot. However, I don't know many prog songs utilizing it - not even within the realm of Prog Folk (they're usually dulcimers, Irish harps, Finnish harps and other ethnic variations, not the "orchestral" one). The thing is, it sounds dreamy, calm, mellow, and it's sounds is more associated with new age than prog. I would like to hear some full-blown prog act using it in an innovative way!

I also like accordion. It's so widely used in various folk musics (at least in Europe) that one has to wonder why it's not more represented in "pop", even prog. Only prog songs with accordion that I know of are using it as a joke or to add a bit of a folksy flavor. Countless folky tunes for harmonica are so bad they're vomit-inducing, but this instrument could be so expressive and explorative! Of course, there are notable artists that were doing that (mostly Italian and French), but they were doing it within jazz musc, not prog rock.

Why?

clarke2001 wrote: Since this is a thread about Other Prog instruments I won't be mentioning any guitars, Moogs or Hammonds. (Although I must mention is flute - all flute's interventions in prog music are beautiful almost without exception). I like harp a lot. However, I don't know many prog songs utilizing it - not even within the realm of Prog Folk (they're usually dulcimers, Irish harps, Finnish harps and other ethnic variations, not the "orchestral" one). The thing is, it sounds dreamy, calm, mellow, and it's sounds is more associated with new age than prog. I would like to hear some full-blown prog act using it in an innovative way! There's some real sweet harp on Indukti's S.U.S.A.R., even if it's more of an ornament to the music, not really a structural part of it. That would be very difficult to achieve, I think. I also like accordion. It's so widely used in various folk musics (at least in Europe) that one has to wonder why it's not more represented in "pop", even prog. Only prog songs with accordion that I know of are using it as a joke or to add a bit of a folksy flavor. Countless folky tunes for harmonica are so bad they're vomit-inducing, but this instrument could be so expressive and explorative! Of course, there are notable artists that were doing that (mostly Italian and French), but they were doing it within jazz musc, not prog rock. Why? I think the accordion brings his pwn very strong sound with very strong connotations (la chansonette, balkan gipsy music) which are both very difficult to control and integrate in something with a different feel. I think that's why it's avoided. Was your band having some accordion, I think? It was well integrated if I rememeber well.

Page & Plant's "No Quarter (Unledded)" DVD shows the heavy use of many exotic instruments over the known Zeppelin music. The music is both very good, very enriched and quite progressive! 

^ Definitely! The version of Kashmir, with mindblowing arab violins, is the best I ever heard. And that's not all.