Is classical influence essential to prog rock?

TODDLER wrote: A monastery is a residence of a community of monks. The way of life is very disciplined. If you take music seriously ..you must adapt the same role. I spent 5 years with a teacher studying the Classical guitar /music and perfecting a good tone. Bread and water was my diet along with 1 meal of bird helpings. 15 hours a day is not enough to be masterful in a timely fashion. More like 20 hours a day for weeks on end and with 3 to 4 hours sleep a night. I had no other activities and no social life whatsoever. I gave it up to combine my knowledge with other styles of music and concentrated on composition. Many Progressive Rock musicians have followed this path and many have a natural ear to learn Classical and have little training. You must dismiss all teachings of other styles in order to reach the level of Christopher Parkening or Segovia. Progressive Rock musicians add reflections of Classical music to create signature lines to their epics. They are not fully devoted to the life of a Classical musician. It is merely a adaption which is applied to their music. There is such a contrast between the 2 worlds.

Edited by Dean - March 01 2014 at 04:49

Is King Crimson post-Starless and Bible Black classically influenced?  Hardly think so.

Hi,

Edited by moshkito - March 01 2014 at 12:45

Dean wrote: ^ the influence of Richard Wagner on Klaus Schulze is well documented (and somewhat self-evident in his work). ...just sayin'

Yes. Just calling a band he created "Richard Wahnfried" is proof of that. "Wahnfried" was the name Wagner gave his house in Bayreuth.

Dean wrote: TODDLER wrote: A monastery is a residence of a community of monks. The way of life is very disciplined. If you take music seriously ..you must adapt the same role. I spent 5 years with a teacher studying the Classical guitar /music and perfecting a good tone. Bread and water was my diet along with 1 meal of bird helpings. 15 hours a day is not enough to be masterful in a timely fashion. More like 20 hours a day for weeks on end and with 3 to 4 hours sleep a night. I had no other activities and no social life whatsoever. I gave it up to combine my knowledge with other styles of music and concentrated on composition. Many Progressive Rock musicians have followed this path and many have a natural ear to learn Classical and have little training. You must dismiss all teachings of other styles in order to reach the level of Christopher Parkening or Segovia. Progressive Rock musicians add reflections of Classical music to create signature lines to their epics. They are not fully devoted to the life of a Classical musician. It is merely a adaption which is applied to their music. There is such a contrast between the 2 worlds. You are of course absolutely right (as always).  The classic example of this is Rick Wakeman, who dropped out of the Royal College of Music after a year to pursue a career in rock music and earn a living as a sessions musician, leaving his classically influenced mark on many memorable pop and rock recordings of the day (Bowie, Cat Stevens, T Rex, Magna Carta, Harry Nillson, Elton John, Edison Lighthouse, Ralph McTell, etc,) before becoming a Prog Rock keyboard wizard. ps: At that time (1968-1970) he was clocking-up as many as 18 recording sessions a week as well as playing live with dance bands and pub bands - like all/many/most rock musicians this was now his music training and education - countless public performances over constant practising.

Speaking of Bowie aka the sexiest man alive , the track Heroes by Bowie which Eno co-wrote and Robert Fripp played guitars
I think U2 were inspired by those synth tunes maybe however one of those for Bowie was just enough by me   

I thought that Klaus Schulze was at first more inspired by John Cage, Philip Glass, Terry Riley and other 20th century minimalist composers than by Richard Wagner and other 19th century greats? At least until he moved away from the Kosmische Musik subculture in the mid-1970s that is, he would in interviews mention avantgarde modern classical composers most often as inspiration.

This thread seems to have gone back on track to being quite enlightening, by the way. I appears that while classical music has indeed been an influence on progressive rock, said inspiration has also often been overstated greatly. Kind of reminds me of the similar revelations surfacing in this thread about the evolution of electronic music I started a long time ago.

Toaster Mantis wrote: I thought that Klaus Schulze was at first more inspired by John Cage, Philip Glass, Terry Riley and other 20th century minimalist composers than by Richard Wagner and other 19th century greats? At least until he moved away from the Kosmische Musik subculture in the mid-1970s that is, he would in interviews mention avantgarde modern classical composers most often as inspiration. This thread seems to have gone back on track to being quite enlightening, by the way. I appears that while classical music has indeed been an influence on progressive rock, said inspiration has also often been overstated greatly. Kind of reminds me of the similar revelations surfacing in this thread about the evolution of electronic music I started a long time ago.

Mr S makes his feelings abundantly clear during this interview from May 1997:

PSF: It's been suggested that John Cage, Terry Riley and Karlheinz Stockhausen influenced your work. Is this fair?

KS: "Fair"? Neither fair nor unfair. Better words would be: nonsense, absurd, false. Every time a journalist cannot cope (pun intended) with a certain music, he mentions "Stockhausen" as a kind of synonym. Have you ever checked Stockhausen's output? About 5 (five) compositions that could be called "electronic", and they were done about 30 to 40 years ago, made with an oscillator or something like this. He did over hundred of other compositions that have no relation whatsoever to electronic music. Besides, what I heard meanwhile, sounds awful to my ears and to most other people's ears. Stockhausen is maybe a good theorist. But, who's listening voluntarily to his actual music, and who "enjoys" it? I also had and I have nothing to do with Cage or Riley. Not with their music nor with their theories and philosophies (if they have any...). This is simply not my world. When I started to do my music, and before, I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, before to the Spotnicks and Ventures, but not to the names you mention. Nobody in my surrounding and in my age did. This was a kind of "culture" that just did not exist among us. Only many years after, and because every third journalist asked me about "Stockhausen", I finally bought his theoretic books and I read them. Interesting stuff, I must admit, but the results are not my cup of tea.

The rest of the interview is just as cranky but of course Klaus may have just had his 'tits in the wringer' that day,

Like I said, we all have our bad days at the office (even kosmiche commuters)

here's the link:

http://www.furious.com/perfect/kschulze.html

moshkito wrote: As for the essentialistic nature of it, I sincerely doubt that we even know what the term/idea, is really asking. Mostly because I am using a violin, I am already automatically associated with "classical" music, and not looked at as modern, or serious. But this is hard to do with the Electric Guitar since it was not there before, which makes it harder for us to make that "comparison" and comment!

There seems to be a definite bias towards European classical influence in this discussion....what about other classical influences?  Classical Indian music seems to have touched many artists, from George Harrison to Steve Hillage etc.