Harmonium-Symphonic or Prog Folk?

This might be a good subject for a prog poll. I would choose for Symphonic Prog anyway. On 5ème Saison, the shorter tracks are folk indeed, but the longer tracks include too much mellotron for folk, so these would be symphonic on a folk base. I don't know much about L'Heptade, but the mp3 sample on PA points in the direction of Symhonic Prog again.

Flip a coin.......... A very, very difficult choice as I have written in the reviews of all their albums. But that problem is now mine (@#~^&$% !!!!!!!!!), being a member of that team. 

I need to take that debate in the Symph team. 

cannon wrote: How about placing them in both sub-genres?

Against the rules, I am afraid. The reason is that half of the bands here is difficult to put in one genre. Hence the term progressive rock. Sometimes I wish this was The Meerkat Archives where problems like that was as unusual as flying cows.

harmonium.ro wrote: It's because the teams of PA specialists have categorized the band as such (like almost all of the other bands on PA).

1. The Symphonic Team has categorized less than 40% of the bands, most of them were added before Prog Archives was open to the public.
2. We have made not one, but three clean ups, we started wit 619 bands and ended the first clean up with 400 bands, we sent some to Folk (Sean and I had a  fluent communication over this issues and trusted in the opinions of each other), Neo Prog (We moved more bands when the Neo and Symphonic teams were one), Heavy Prog (Great communication also), Eclectic (We sent many bands there), and even some ridiculous additions that we had to move to Prog Metal, Avann't Garde (You have to be lost to place a Metal or Avant band in Symphonic), Prog Related, and even retired a couple bands that never existed.
3. No matter how many cleanings we have, the problems will ever exist because the limits between genres are sometimes dark 

Now, the case of Harmonium was discussed on http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33788&KW=&PID=2358669#2358669

And my reply was:

Ivan_Melgar_M on February 5, 2007 wrote: Originally posted by OGTL I am just confused as to why Harmonium is included in the Symphonic section of the site. The first two are almost absolutely Folk, and En Tournee and Heptade are more symphonic yes, but the band's roots are in folk, and i think that it belongs in the Folk genre.. if anything Jethro Tull should be in Symphonic and switch places with Harmonium.. like 4 of their albums are folk.   Hi OGTL Welcome to the forum.   Being that you are a new member I will tell you that  we have a Symphonic team that I'm honoured to lead, we made a house cleaning because almost 33% of the bands assigned to Symphonic originaly were not Symphonic at all, and 147 have been moved to other sub-genres.   Since none of the actual members of the Symphonic Team except me,  was member of it when we had the Seventh Session (The session in which the bands that started with the letter H were checked): http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24377&KW=Symphonic   I will have to explain his particular case.   The guidelines of Prog Archives clearly state that for the inclusion of a band in a determined sub-genre and despite we mention all their discography,  we must only  base the location of the band in  the 100% Prog albums, the others don't count, are only mention for a coherence purpose.   That's the reason why Genesis is in Symphonic and not Prog Related despite they released at least 5 POP albums (FGTTR, ABACAB, We Can't Dance, Shapes and Invisible Touch, CAS is a hybrid), we only considered the releases from Trespass to Wind & Wuthering or maybe even ATTW3 and Duke and we mention the later plus FGTTR but this last ones are ignored for the location of the band.   So being all Genesis Prog albums in the Symphonic sub-genre, then the band went to Symphonic, the same with Yes with Big Generator plus 90125 and many more bands.   Harmonium is a very particular case: Harmonium (1974): Is not a Prog album it's a Folkloric album almost exclusively, we couldn't find significant Prog elements, so according to the guidelines of Prog Archives, we must mention it in he discography but must not consider it for the sub-genre in which the band is going to be included. Si On Avait Besoin D'une 5ième Saison: This one is a 100% Prog album, but combines Folk Prog elements with a clear Symphonic structure and influences from the first King Crimson era and Genesis. At this point, we could go for either of both sub-genres, so we have to wait for the next album. L'Heptade: Despite a few Folk and Jazzy elements, L'Heptade is a 90% Symphonic album, so the balance turned in favour of Symphonic. Harmonium En Tournée: Jazzier than the previous despite Symphonic essentialy, but being a Live album is neither too trascendental for the inclusion of the band in a genre. If you check the history of the band, well, it's closer to Symphonic if we don't count the debut album which must be ignored according to the guidelines received when we started our work with Symphonic. Even if we count it, we have three mainly Prog Symphonic albums and one Folk (Not Prog Folk) album. I't's also important to consider that Harmonium was added to Symphonic by one of the owners of the site Prog Lucky, who is an expert in French Canadian bands being from that country, so his opinion is valuable.   We also crossed our opinions with other reliable Prog sites like:   GEPR: Canadian symphonic band, sounds very early-Genesis influenced, might also elicit comparisons to Ange, and the ethereal feel of Pulsar. French vocals. L'Heptade is a good place to start, if you can find it.   GEPR clearly describes them as Symphonic and Genesis influenced.   Proggnosis: COUNTRY GENRE-subgenre-style ARTIST   (#Listed)   (click to view Artist page) Canada Prog - Symphonic -Other/General Harmonium   (4)   Proggnosis describes them as Symphonic also.   Progressive Ears:    Harmonium      A Quebec-based group, from the 70''s  def   Progressive Ears describes Symphonic (SYM) as the main genre.   Again everything points towards SYMPHONIC, but still and despite I believe it's correctly included in Symphonic I will talk again with Sean Trane who is in charge of the Prog Folk Team, but my vote is for them to stay.   I trust our team's work because we are very careful when doing it, but we can make mistakes being humans, in this case I believe we went further than reasonable to verify this good band.   The poll is out of question, this an issue that corresponds to the teams and this will be our decision in coordination with the other teams involved.   Thanks for your thread, it gives us the chance to explain our procedures and shows interest.   Iván

As a fact we discussed it with the team and with Sean, and we agreed this was a special casein which the limits were blurry, so both teams agreed to discuss it and we agreed it was better in Symphonic.

Still, if Scott and Torodd agree that is better to move them I'll agree as usual, but IMO Haronium is more Symphonic than Folk.

Iván