Is Progressive Rock truly pretentious?

OT Räihälä wrote: Dean wrote: However, I do question whether some composers and song writers never intend to make art when the compose - to me that is elitism to say that they do not - only the composer knows the intent behind any composition, we can only guess at what it was and we certainly cannot tell just by listening - all we can guarantee is that they intended to make music. Therefore you cannot define music by intent (Elitism is a state, where someone would want to be considered as one of the elite. True members of the elite would never claim to be among the elite - there's no need for that. For that reason only someone who doesn't belong to the real elite can be accused of elitism.) Of course there are musicians and composers/songwriters who never have any intention of making art! When I played in a punk/rock bands in my youth, I was totally aware of that the works I and my pals made was in no way art, and wasn't meant to be art. They were just rock music. When I realized I must start creating more ambitious music, it became an intention to make pieces of art. In my view, intention is the essential question.

Then surely that is a personal experience and not a generalisation. When I created this, I never intended to make some pseudo-classical pastiche, though I did intend to use seperate keyboard tracks for violins, cello and bass rather than just hitting the generic "strings" key so I could create a more natural string-quartet feel - and with the church bells I did intend to recreated a peel of church bells as six seperate bell tracks and played Plain Bob Major using them rather than simply recording an actual set of church bells playing it, which denotes ambition of somekind. So I certainly believed I was creating art (however bad that turned out to be), but I would not call it Art Music by intent or result.

^ agreed.

rogerthat wrote: Actually, if we do want to do a post modern double take on the meaning of the word art music, might as well question the very need for such a term and accept that all music is art in some or the other light.  Or maybe something like "academic music" or some such if you would still want to capture the difference in approach.

The problem there is "academic music" (or "serious music" or "erudite music") is still invokes elitist thoughts because of the inherent elitism in the words "academic", "serious" and "erudite" and that for me is the problem. Art Music is a terrible terminology, but it is the one used to describe all classical music, including non-Western classical music and any music that is not Traditional or Popular - again those latter two terms are ambiguous because of the words used in the names, not in the definitions that describe them. It would be easier if they were called something unambiguous, in non-hierarchical terms like Ghah Music, Juim Music and Xorl Music - that way someone could describe some Ghah music as being popular traditional art music and some Juim Music as also being popular traditional art music without causing a disagreement.

OT Räihälä wrote: Dean wrote: But we are conversing in English and not Spanish so when I say Art Music I mean Western Art Music - again, there are three pages of posts where I explain that I'm not talking about music as an artform. So, No, I will not agree to disagree because I'm not wrong - I will agree that you are not talking about the same thing I am. But who says you have the right to define what the term "Art Music" includes? I don't think it's a question of which language we are using. To me Art Music is music, where the creator has had the intention to make a piece of art. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have accepted Marcel Duchamp's Fountain a piece of art in 1917 because it didn't fulfill art's definitions then, would you..? So, back to the square one with this... And I strongly agree with Ivan.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Dean wrote: I have explained why Prog Rock is not Art Music and don't see much point in re-itterating three pages of posts because you think it is created to be art and not commercial, because that is simply not a definition of Art Music.   Your conception of art music is different than mine...For me Art Music is music that privilege the artistic experience over anything and I do believe this is the case of most Prog Rockers. Probably our cultural environment influences our opinion,.here  in Latin America  the term Art Music (musica artística) is different than for British speaking listeners, for us is only music that can be considered art.. But again, we must agree to disagree. Iván

Dean wrote: I have explained why Prog Rock is not Art Music and don't see much point in re-itterating three pages of posts because you think it is created to be art and not commercial, because that is simply not a definition of Art Music.

Dean wrote: ^ Pretentiousness has nothing to do with accessibility, complexity or ambition. Music is pretentious if it is pretending to be something it is not or if the fans pretend it is something it is not. Anyone claiming Progressive Rock is Art Music and not Popular Music is being pretentious.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - December 10 2011 at 19:59

What turned me off about punk and rap was the pretentiousness of the music claiming to be the music of the people etc, when the Sex Pistols accurately claimed their music was the great rock and roll swindle, same with rap.

Good Lord, I do believe this is going to be one of those boards I enjoy reading more than I enjoy actually taking part on. Brilliant stuff up there!!!

OT Räihälä wrote: In my opinion, popular music scene is in general far more conservative than the classical/art music field.

If we take all prog as part of art music, that's not true. I think Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan took more risks than Strawbs.  They could accommodate risk taking within a popular music framework but that imo says more about their compositional skill.  Paradoxical as it might sound, I think art music necessarily has to be that which is very heavily concerned with the science of music. A musician can be largely true and uncompromising within the boundaries of pop, e.g Dylan so it is not a function of the artist's intent imo.