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Catcher10 
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 Posted: October 04 2010 at 14:39 |
 sealchan wrote:
Now that I am hoping to finally resume some album reviewing (I had stopped midway through reviewing "Fragile"), I hope to take up an idea that may provide a way to identify a progressive rock song by its own content rather than in the context of its time and the artist's influences. As a result, however, I now realize that what I am doing is not defining "progressive rock" so much as I am trying to find elements of music that tend to draw more of my personal attention and appreciation to the song. This approach assumes that there is a static genre one can call "progressive rock" and that songs that can be identified as progressive rock songs can be identified based on their intrinsic characteristics. This approach abandons the equally worthwhile view that progressive rock refers to any rock that "progresses" the form of rock music which can only be understood if you consider the song in many contexts beyond itself. I am attempting to define a quality or set of qualities that a song can have that may be most common in progressive rock songs.
The core of my thought is that there are ways in which a song can be composed so as to suggest a scope beyond the simple verse-chorus form that is usually sufficient for most pop and rock songs. Specifically, this would include the use of the instrument in a way that equals or surpasses the significance of the vocals and where the song contains a linear progression of story in lyrics or of musical themes in instrumentation. Perhaps this is just a naive way of saying that songs which contain these elements are those that were created by musicians who decided to look to the broader realm of music forms and apply it to the simplest form that is rock. But my aim is to play the definers game (not for everyone) and see if I can't make a good approximation of how to identify many progressive rock songs from the "bottom up" of just looking at the individual song, so I intentionally focus on the first view and ignore the source of this style of composition for the sake of the style itself.
This approach can also be applied at the album level to identify those albums which are, more or less, those that have a defining concept. So whereas most songs have a core idea, most albums do not and the extent to which an album is crafted into a core idea also could qualify it as a progressive rock album. The extent to which the album's songs are connected in small groups or all together as a whole is relevant. This approach might better validate the signifcance many people attach to those albums which seem, on some level, to be concept albums, but in looking at the lyrical content alone might not be.
The central theme, I feel, between the song based and album based means for identifying a progressive rock album is that something beyond the verse-chorus form is intentionally used to enhance the song. The more this is done, the more the song qualifies as progressive rock. When parts of a song begin to enhance or reflect each other or various songs in an album do the same then there is a expansion in the realm of the possibilities for rock music as art and it is this idea that is, perhaps, behind what has always been meant by labeling a song or an album or a band as "progressive".
I will need to set up some arbitrary rating system to establish the "progressiveness" of the song or album based on the critieria above and apply it systematically. I've actually sketched out a rating system and if I can find where I put that "sketch" will probably start using it in my album reviews going forward.
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I am not sure you are not saying anything different than what most feel is progressive rock here......If a song or album does not meet your criteria will you not "like" the album then?
Not saying anything bad here I think I am just trying to understand your point better?
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Paravion
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 16:14 |
^ It seems he's proposing a (new) method of defining and identifying progressive rock. Admirable, but difficult.
| I am attempting to define a quality or set of qualities that a song can have that may be most common in progressive rock songs. |
What kinds of qualities do you wish to discover - intrinsic, extrinsic or a combination? It's not clear. You seem to propose a structuralist approach, where you describe music in terms of elements (or - "qualities") and that the elements' interrelations (structure) help to define the genre. It's not very straightfoward. To have any weight as a method, there needs to be a widely accepted agreement of what elements progressive rock has to have or in central cases has. I would certainly abandon any view that states prog has to have certain elements and think more in terms of what elements prototypical prog has. I don't think any agreement is easily reachable though. Pursuing this approach, certainly, requires that you absolutely don't consider any questions about personal preferences - and that's rather strange, considering you'd want to use it in writing reviews.
| But my aim is to play the definers game (not for everyone) and see if I can't make a good approximation of how to identify many progressive rock songs from the "bottom up" of just looking at the individual song, so I intentionally focus on the first view and ignore the source of this style of composition for the sake of the style itself. |
What is "the first view"? Is it where you don't consider extra-music circumstances and focus solely on the music's intrinsic qualities? - I wouldn't consider such an approach adequate.
Your level distinction between albums and songs is pretty hard to make sense of. It seems you're merely desribing a diffenrence between an album and a song.
| This approach can also be applied at the album level to identify those albums which are, more or less, those that have a defining concept. |
Defining concept? The qualities or set of qualities constitute a concept?
| I will need to set up some arbitrary rating system to establish the "progressiveness" of the song or album based on the critieria above and apply it systematically. I've actually sketched out a rating system and if I can find where I put that "sketch" will probably start using it in my album reviews going forward. |
I find it unlikely to reach any universal and adequate defintion of progressive rock on sound scientific grounds. To apply arbitrary rating systems and abstract delimitations of elements or qualities - to me - isn't a very appealing way to deal with music - or art.
Edited by Paravion - October 04 2010 at 16:23
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sealchan
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 16:23 |
Yeah, I meant to say that in pursuing the reasons behind why I tend to like progressive rock, I am trying to capture the specific elements that make progressive rock what it is. The logic being that if I like progressive rock more than other genres then it is because of those specific elements that make progressive rock unique.
While my method is meant to be objective it is going to be defined by this subjective context of my exploration of music that I like. Use of my rating system will be applied mainly to just those songs I have chosen for my own music collection. Eventually if I pursue my rating system sufficiently I can take what I learn from it and join in conversations about what is and is not progressive rock with very specific arguements. Also, I am sure that my system will run afoul of the general perceptions at one or another point, but I think that will be instructive for me to see how my system for identifying prog rock holds up or fails in the view of others.
I also intend my system for rating to be fairly simple...it will identify features and use an additive scoring system to determine a whole score for a song. If the score is above 100 then the song is a solid example of a progressive rock song...
This is, of course, an extremely nerdy way to relate to music...but that's another thread. I choose my music based on just how it strikes me emotionally as I hear it and also based on past experience with an artist and the reasonable assumption that other work of theirs will be worth my hard-earned money.
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Paravion
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 16:30 |
^ I think you're wrong in assuming that your appreciation of progressive rock is due (more of less) to specific elements that you are able to discover.
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sealchan
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 16:31 |
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I find it unlikely to reach any universal and adequate defintion of progressive rock on sound scientific grounds. To apply arbitrary rating systems and abstract delimitations of elements or qualities - to me - isn't a very appealing way to deal with music - or art.
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I agree it is unlikely that what I've been planning to do will be totally successful for a large number of people...but that has never stopped me from trying something before! 
But in the effort I think I will learn a lot. I am not deeply trained in music theory (I just know what my drum and piano teachers have taught me) and my extensive reading list currently does not include such training. I figure this will be an instructive way to listen a bit closer to the songs that I know and love that fits in with my personality. And maybe as a result I will be able to bring new perspective on these types of songs.
Also, I am a computer programmer by profession and you might recognize that this method has something of the computer programmer's way of looking at the world behind it. I am also a programmer by "nature" as well I think.
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Catcher10
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 16:36 |
sealchan wrote:
Yeah, I meant to say that in pursuing the reasons behind why I tend to like progressive rock, I am trying to capture the specific elements that make progressive rock what it is. The logic being that if I like progressive rock more than other genres then it is because of those specific elements that make progressive rock unique.
I choose my music based on just how it strikes me emotionally as I hear it and also based on past experience with an artist and the reasonable assumption that other work of theirs will be worth my hard-earned money.
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I argue that LOGIC and EMOTIONS don't mix well...when reviewing.
Well I still feel like you are confusing yourself.....over analyzing something you obviously like...regardless of logic or emotion.
I prefer a review based on emotion, music is art....2+2 doesn't equal 4 in music.
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Paravion
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 16:44 |
| I agree it is unlikely that what I've been planning to do will be totally successful for a large number of people...but that has never stopped me from trying something before! < ="-" ="text/; =utf-8"> But in the effort I think I will learn a lot. I am not deeply trained in music theory (I just know what my drum and piano teachers have taught me) and my extensive reading list currently does not include such training. I figure this will be an instructive way to listen a bit closer to the songs that I know and love that fits in with my personality. And maybe as a result I will be able to bring new perspective on these types of songs. Also, I am a computer programmer by profession and you might recognize that this method has something of the computer programmer's way of looking at the world behind it. I am also a programmer by "nature" as well I think. |
Yeah, I recognized a very formalist approach - I do some shell-scripting myself in relation to my linguistic studies - so I'm not totally unfamiliar with computer-programming and general formalist thinking. But the mapping-process - where you map these formalist ideas onto music and art - Is not likely to yield anything of significance - but it can be nice brain-exercise.
Edited by Paravion - October 04 2010 at 16:45
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sealchan
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 16:48 |
When I publish my review of Yes' Fragile (here and on Amazon.com) I will update this thread, if I can still find it...then you can see how this will play out in my practice...
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GY!BE
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 18:27 |
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I think the term "Progressive" was invented way after the music itself was produced...Ask anyone who was a big fan of ELP, KC, Yes ect. They didn't know at that time what was this very type of music. They just knew it was good.
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moshkito
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 19:02 |
| ... The core of my thought is that there are ways in which a song can be composed so as to suggest a scope beyond the simple verse-chorus form that is usually sufficient for most pop and rock songs. Specifically, this would include the use of the instrument in a way that equals or surpasses the significance of the vocals and where the song contains a linear progression of story in lyrics or of musical themes in instrumentation ... |
I kinda think that something like this would work IF the structure is written out, academic style and such and then performed likewise.
However, a lot of the work that became known as "progressive" this was not the case at all ... since a lot of these things came from experimentations and improvisations and various moments were taken and made better, or simply rehearsed a little more until such a moment as the rough edges fall off ... which is the case with King Crimson's first album.
Not all work and material out there is "songs" ... and the compositional aspects might differ ... I suppose that we can call all the pieces that Stravinsky did "songs" since we're too lazy to consider him a composer, and we're not giving a "band" the same latitude ... to compose and know enough about what they do.
Somewhere along the line, the mind "drops off" and you do what feels right ... and the work follows and stays with it ... and is one of the greatest things that "rock music" and "jazz music" brought to music history in the 20th century. Music history was (and is!) boring ... and we can joke that most people here are never going to even check any of it out ... see?
I am thinking that if you apply what you said and start with any composer ... you are going to find the same thing over and over again ... since most of them always tend to follow a concept that is similar to the history of Western Music for the last 500 years ... now, you might consider studying other music's that are not mandated or related to the 12 harmony melodies, and you might find ... wow ... there is something else here in these things ... and the "format" for ragas, for example, is called ... no format at all, btw! You just start and go, and you don't know where it is going to take you ... and basically, what you are stating, would not allow the free form works from expanding and bringing about and helping define ... that which became known as "progressive" ... what you are doing is the opposite of the non-process that was used, and I am not sure you can measure something from a different world with the same tools from this world.
Separating the music from it's time and place is not a good idea. As an example, using your ideas, Picasso's Guernica, would tell you absolutely nothing about the war in Spain ... see the difference now? No one, is immune to their time and place and people around them ... and the majority of the music is a consequence of the time and place ... and folks like Stravinsky come off as different and weird, but one could say that they had the imagination to hear something else in their minds and bring it to the score ... that most people didn't when all they could do was count beats on a DAW these days.
Hope this helps ... people have the ability and the beauty inside ... you just have to play and not be afraid or ... your ideas or mine ... you have to learn from within what you feel is right for what you want to say ... or you are just another pop icon ... gratifying the fans! And progressive was not about that at all -- unlike a lot of ideas in this board.
Edited by moshkito - October 04 2010 at 19:49
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Slartibartfast
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 19:24 |
Because it moves backwards into the future....
GY!BE wrote:
I think the term "Progressive" was invented way after the
music itself was produced...Ask anyone who was a big fan of ELP, KC, Yes
ect. They didn't know at that time what was this very type of music.
They just knew it was good.
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Good point. 
Edited by Slartibartfast - October 04 2010 at 19:25
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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moshkito
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Posted: October 04 2010 at 19:37 |
Paravion wrote:
I find it unlikely to reach any universal and adequate defintion of progressive rock on sound scientific grounds. To apply arbitrary rating systems and abstract delimitations of elements or qualities - to me - isn't a very appealing way to deal with music - or art. |
Sometimes I find the academic aproach scary ... you create a concept, and automatically associate the world with that concept and you don't exist as an individual, but you are a part of a "society" and here are the 3 norms that this society lives by ... I call it the Sociology 101 syndrome for undergraduates. And the same thing with music history.
What is scary, is that a lot of these people are not studying the time and place and trying to find out what was in the artist's minds when this stuff was created .. SpECIALLY WHEN THESE ARTISTS ARE ALIVE ... and instead are trying to define their music by their own ideas -- not the creator's ... which is totally bizarre!!!!! .... I have written 400 poems, 3 screenplays, 4 plays, 475 foreign film reviews, 100 rock/import music reviews over 30 years ... and I have yet to find a "concept" that I can follow ... there isn't one, and in talking to many of these artists that we discuss, I have found a nice communication point ... and it has nothing to do with "musical concepts" or "poetical concepts" or "political concepts" ... it has to do with life and how you express that life and how that life lives through you and how these things wash by you ... and yes, there might be a lilttle thing or other that is visible in that person's work, like for me it would be how I don't use rhymes and how I make use of the "stage presence" or "silences" ... as a thought pause. But if all someone can do, is analyse those "presences" and "silences", I guarantee you that they are not listening or reading it ... otherwise they would know exactly how I feel and ... above all ... how I said it! ... One other thought, the scary one for me, is me hearing people discuss some of my own work ... I get so embarassed I wanna hide ... you should have seen a class break down a portion of a screen play I wrote straight from my dreams ... they weren't even close ... but in the class in those days, and taught by Paul Lazarus (wrote for Stanley Kramer and father of the Westworld writer) ... the idealism was Hollywood color sets and pictures ... but my screenplay was not about that ... or Judy Garland -- and that is what I was being compared to!
Art history, music history, literature, all have been for hundreds of years, nothing but a reaction to not being able to do what a person wanted to do ... and sometimes, trying to compare that to what was before is gooing to get you crazy ... you can't compare Stravinsky to Tchaikovsky ... just like you can't compare Picasso to Degas ... the way the work was done, was even different ... and the conception was probably even more different ... you can not conceive a Guernica ... all you can do is ... just paint it and let your hand/hate for the war outside live through you ... and Picasso did, just like Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali also did ...
Sometimes I wonder why colleges and universities are even out there ... is anyone out there? ... even care? We're people, too, you know!
Edited by moshkito - October 04 2010 at 20:03
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com
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Pelata
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Posted: October 05 2010 at 07:10 |
Slartibartfast wrote:
Because it moves backwards into the future....
GY!BE wrote:
I think the term "Progressive" was invented way after the music itself was produced...Ask anyone who was a big fan of ELP, KC, Yes ect. They didn't know at that time what was this very type of music. They just knew it was good. |
Good point.
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I fully agree...
To attempt to distill it down to defining elements, especially in a genre that covers so much ground is not only an exercise in futility, it's like trying to define beauty or art...it's relative AND (IMO) it's a disservice to the artists who make it...
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J-Man
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Posted: October 05 2010 at 19:44 |
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I don't know what the hell progressive rock's definition is... but I know what it is when I hear it.
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Mushroom Sword
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Posted: October 05 2010 at 20:20 |
Pelata wrote:
Slartibartfast wrote:
Because it moves backwards into the future....
GY!BE wrote:
I think the term "Progressive" was invented way after the music itself was produced...Ask anyone who was a big fan of ELP, KC, Yes ect. They didn't know at that time what was this very type of music. They just knew it was good. |
Good point.
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I fully agree...
To attempt to distill it down to defining elements, especially in a genre that covers so much ground is not only an exercise in futility, it's like trying to define beauty or art...it's relative AND (IMO) it's a disservice to the artists who make it... |
So... to define Progressive Rock is "True art and beauty"? I'm fine with that :)
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Cybrmynd
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Posted: October 05 2010 at 21:16 |
Gerinski wrote:
I've said this before but I will say it again, to those who describe the spirit of the original 70's prog as "those guys who wanted to progress beyond the boundaries of the existing music, and discover new uncharted territories" and therefore ascribe this interpretation to the term progressive rock.
Many tend to forget that the origin of prog was in big part coming from competent musicians who were fed up with the disappointing musical simplicity of the Elvis rock & roll and in Europe the beatlemania 3-minutes-long songs fever with lyrics like "baby I love you, yeah-yeah".
Rock music (included psychedelia) did not allow them to develop and fullfill their competences as serious musicians, and they wanted to recover some of the approach and mentality from classical music and jazz, but with the attitude and the new musical resources of rock.
One of the most archetypal descriptions of prog in its first years was that of "that music which attempts to blend rock with classical music and jazz elements".
They wanted to recover musical values from the past which had been lost with the advent of rock.
From this viewpoint, the motivation of prog was regressive rather than "progressive in the sense of seeking completely new territory beyond the boundaries of the existing music".
What they wanted was not so much to experiment into completely uncharted musical territory (if they did, the results would have been even much more weird) but rather to make rock which still retained classical music values in terms of competent composition and musicianship. For the most and best known part, the original 70's prog was not excessively experimental, that came later.
But because such an approach was totally new within the scope of rock, the end result happened to be called "progressive", which is somehow ironic. |
I like this explanation. Imagine what would have happened if ELP or Genesis, had written music in a minimalist style, something that was considered new in the realm of classical music in the 60's, a style that was essentially "progressive" for its time. My personal opinion about prog is this: Music is progressing, even outside of prog. No one can deny that the pop sounds of Lady Gaga are far removed from the pop sounds of Donny Osmond and the early Beatles. Progression is totally independent of musical ability, taste, and the musical status quo, and it can be a shame when progressive is applied to a whole genre of musicians, that really are not breaking ground philosophically. In the end, Progressive Music has more to do with philosophy than actual music itself. Yet we use it in such a way that in my opinion, is slightly dishonest.
Edited by Cybrmynd - October 05 2010 at 21:22
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moshkito
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Posted: October 06 2010 at 16:08 |
Hi,
Similar point here ...
There is a discussion on the Tangerine Dream board about the meaning of the band's name ... and I couldn't help it and finally posted on it.
It doesn't matter what the band name means ... why? ... it's easy to explain in a surrealistic sort of way ... since the Bunuel/Dali films kinda show it best ... and "Tangerine Dream", would be just an image ... and it could be a sequence of images or not ... and preventing it from being an "image" on its own, would kill its ability to live. Thus, is the name is defined, the band loses the "inner freedom" of the fleeting image ... and somehow, that is something that most fans do not seem to understand or appreciate.
Not all names or words or images are intended to "mean" something, and in this case it was not meant to mean anything ... just to live for its very moment of life ... and defining it, just like defining the music that the band plays, is like ... taking the life out of your own imagination ... and I think that Edgar Froese knows that ... and thus loves to play the game that he will never explain it ... because it would take a book or more to explain surrealism, and how it describes a series of images ...
Sometimes our tendency to define everything to a minute detail ... takes the life out of it ... all of a sudden the inspiration that begot it ... is lost!
Progressive music had a lot of beginnings similar to that ... between experiments, improvisations, and other daily events ... something new cameth upon us ... and we have given it a name, but are limiting its scope. And the more we do that, the more (and faster) we will kill it!
Let the image live! Let the music live!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: October 08 2010 at 00:23 |
A well known musician answered this:
| Pop songs are about repetition and riffs and simplicity Progressive music takes a riff, turns it inside out, plays it upside down and the other way around, and explores its potential."
Keith Emerson
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Not because it evolves, progress or is more advanced than anything, but because of it's structure that progresses or changes constantly.
Iván
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Manuel
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Posted: October 08 2010 at 22:19 |
My personal opinion about prog is this: Music is progressing, even outside of prog. No one can deny that the pop sounds of Lady Gaga are far removed from the pop sounds of Donny Osmond and the early Beatles. Progression is totally independent of musical ability, taste, and the musical status quo, and it can be a shame when progressive is applied to a whole genre of musicians, that really are not breaking ground philosophically. In the end, Progressive Music has more to do with philosophy than actual music itself. Yet we use it in such a way that in my opinion, is slightly dishonest. [/QUOTE]
I completely agree with you, music progresses in every way. Take cuban music for example, it was born from the combination of the Spanish Flamenco and the beats from music the african slaves brought to the island. This gave rise to a lot of rhytms, like guajiro, danzon, and eventually to all latin beats, like merengue and salsa. Now if we don't accept this as progressive, then we need some help appreciating music.
What we call prog nowadays is nothing but a combinations of beats, rhyms and tunes from many styles into rock music. It is a major accomplishment of course, but not the only progressive example in history.
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IGNEO1991
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Posted: October 09 2010 at 10:07 |
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Because it is a form of rock music that 'progresses' from the norm, it moves on, it develops, it experiments ... it does exactly what it says on the tin.. doy. Look up a dictionary definition and im sure it would match my explanation
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/PAlogo_v2.gif "Progarchives.com Homepage")
Why is it called progressive rock?
