Losing interest in prog

Sometimes I think the process of this musician who can't bare to NOT play like Tony Banks is pathetic. All musicians need to do is experiment more. If you want to invent a more interesting innovative prog style of composition you have to play Classical music and Jazz daily as a practice and then you might come up with an idea which differs from the typical prog music formulas which are constantly used. Gentle Giant based on counterpoint, Yes, Genesis, and ELP based around Classical music and so musicians tend to keep their spirit alive by concentrating more on what these bands created from Classical and not what they..themselves could create from the style. Prog needs Jazz and Classical on the menu so you should create the music yourself by investigating those styles first and listening to your innovators second.

How do you think Fripp or Banks came up with these unique ideas? It's a stupied concept because musicians today emulate the sound of these characters instead of locating the original influence which was period music or Avant Jazz. This is what has killed prog for me. You can even cop a line from Penderecki's sacred choral works, reverse it, change it's structure around and it becomes a beautiful complex signature line for a prog piece...but no, musicians would rather run to the recordings of Fripp and steal his ideas...and trying different reverse procedures of those ideas ...which it all starts to sound the same.  To be influenced by a Classical composer does not mean that your end result will sound like "A Passion Play" or "Selling England By the Pound". Or to say that the essence of the Classical music combined with a prog rock mentality will always sound like the music of the prog innovators is incorrect depending on how creative you are. A structure of notes written by yourself can differ from what people in the past have written. Some ideas for prog songs are un-explainable... however when musicians write the idea they also must come up with a structure of their own for the piece to sound original. If they can't create that on their own..it's because they need to go back and study more and stop the nonsense of playing along with "Fracture" 3 times a day. That will destroy your creative mind and you will find yourself writing things that sound like Fracture most of the time. Do you see how ridiculous this is?

 

It's a Sugden PDT-4 Masterclass, recently rated one of the three best CD players irrespective of price.

 

There IS nothing much better, but it's up against possibly the most realistic vinyl player ever made. It's so good, I need a better listening room.

 

Pet 'n' house  Freudian slip, internet style?

 

Perhaps I need it after spending nearly £20k on a hi fi to put it in a room which isn't ideal!

My sentiment exactly.  While most new prog does not excite me, the genre still has an aura about it that will never completely fade away...

 

That's exactly what I DON'T hear. If you listen to Guns n' Roses, Van Halen, Bon Jovi and other "cock rock" bands, or the NWOBHM bands or the Metallica/Motley Crue type metal or the Nirvana/Alice in Chains inspired grunge bands, well yes, they repeat the same basic formula ad infinitum, albeit with some variations. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy some of that stuff, but it can get samey after a while.

 

I hear people say Marillion simply copied Genesis and recycled their ideas. Utter crap. Genesis never had the angry, embittered edge that Fish's lyrics gave Marillion. They say Grendel is just a recycling of Supper's Ready. Apart from one passage near the end which is in 9/8 time and has a very similar bass line, the structure, mood, melodies and subject matter are chalk and cheese. I could argue the same for IQ's music being as distinct from Genesis as Beethoven was from Vivaldi.

 

Apart from Starcastle and one or two other bands which deliberately set out to clone another band, prog is about as varied and interesting a genre as any could be. That's why I, for one, will NEVER get bored of it.