Is 70's prog a nostalgia thing?

A lot more musicians, I tend to think, were coming from classical backgrounds. It was the beginning of the mass exodus fro classical music that has ended up killing a lot of classical music today, like no one goes to the orchestra or symphony or the opera anymore ... why bother? There are way better singers and music players in rock/jazz/other music than there are in those places. Why would you bother catching Jean Pierre Rampal, when the best modern flute player of the past 50 years is Ian Anderson? It can still be said that Rachmaninoff is tough, but I doubt that someone can play Pastorius that easily as well! ... so you can see where music was helping the instrumentation, where classical music was not as much. My take is that the classical training was getting so rigid and so poor that ... it started falling apart and deserved to when instructors in colleges and universities are so strung out on stuff that is not better than what is around the kids.

 

The funny thing about technology ... today's synthesizers are just another string instrument out there. So someone saying that the musicianship required in those days was not superior, they are simply ... confusing the issues. Today you have to know computers and midi, but yesterday, that stuff didn't exist! And you had to play different keyboards in order to get a sound, and then to get it to behave correctly and properly. Check out things like Tangerine Dream in so many live recordings, why? Because it was impossible to duplicate the same thing exactly as it was designed. And then check their anniversary concert in London so you can see what happened 30 years later! It's a lesson in technology, and here was one of the first bands to use computers ... only had about 12 to 13 Atari's on stage at one time!

 

Too bad that someone is looking at yesterday's musicians with today's ears ... (or vice versa for that matter!) ... there is no way that music can be appreciated with that kind of comment and criticism. We might as well extend that and say that the folks that played and created Mozart and Beethovens and everyone else, were stupid!

 

I don't get it!

 

It's really sad .. it really is!

 

Today, if anything, you can get by with less musical knowledge and instrumental expertise. You do NOT have to know how to play a flute or a violin to compose with it ... there is enough software out there. So a lot of bands today know how to use the technology ...

 

Ok .. the music changes ... today it has more technology in it, but to say that there was less instrument playing ability today or yesterday is a bit far off the mark.

 

... if we look closely enough, it's ALL regressive...Even the most avant garde-sounding bands are just following the same patterns as avant jazz artists of the 50's and 60's...And why is it that every time someone shows me a band that is supposedly truly progressive, it turns out they sound just like King Crimson doing "Lark's Tongues in Aspic"? Dissonant melodies and avoidance of ordinary sounds isn't anything new, Stravinski was doing it 100 years ago...

 

Not quite ... there are some schools in Europe that intentionally were doing improvisations and experiments with the idea of breaking down the Western definitions and designs. Many of these bands, were a part of krautrock, most which, later ended up doing things that sounded somewhat more conventional, which I think was a reaction to the need for speed ... ooppps ... some money to pay for things. And many of these scenes stretched to film and theater and other arts. Sadly, we are often not able to add that discussion here and someone even removed my reference to Werner Herzog on Popol Vuh at one time (with quotes) in Wiki and in one other place  ... just to give you an idea how sometimes people are not aware, or willing to actually check and find out something else ... and there are times when even here, I tend to think that someone would rather think that KC is progressive and Robert's inner world and expression and discussion of Gurdgieff has nothing to do with his music and how he works, rehearses and creates it! ... until we do, a lot of the words we discuss are somewhat empty, I keep thinking. Mostly because we are not talking about "his" music and "creativity", but merely discussing some ideas of our own and wether we like it or not -- and that discussion is subjective and infused with comments that hurt and do not in any way help the discussion here.  And there is a MASSIVE difference in that concept when you compare the artists inner works with your ideas of what prog is! ... not even close! And if I were an artist with that many albums I probably once or twice would have said ... who do you think you are to be telling me you are right and good and I am not? That your ideas about music are right and my music is NOT? Or worse, can't be because you don't like it?

 

Which is exactly what the elitist discussion is about, isn't it?

 

And some of these folks in Germany and France, were a part of one of the world's best known schools and arts for improvisation and one of these even had Ravi Shankar as one of the instructors! And one can even research bands like Agitation Free, that even got donations from the school to actually put something together involving eastern music concepts with western instruments and specially electronics. And one should note how much of an influence Ravi was on a lot of music, even going so far as to tour with Yehudi Menuhin and creating a series of things called "East meets West" ... and even my dad, who already had a collection of over 3k classical LP's at the time, thought it was extraordinary that someone had done that ... and showed people that there was other music in other places!

 

Basically it tells you that the media had not been alive yet (tv grew up and woke up with the VietNam war, btw!!!) and most people did not know there was other musics or other cultures out there, if you will. Today, with the internet one would think that there is enough for folks to realize that the scope of knowledge has changed so much ... that we can even talk about different styles, which many could not then, without a college education and hope that it was strong enough to know that there was a world out there!

 

I'm not sure that the "influence" is that important, since in the end it is all about the "inner expression", and those that can last the longest without giving up on that inner expression, rarely fail to get noticed.  The music itself might have more tendencies that are aligned with the culture the person is associated with -- pretty much the same with the way we talk here ... absolutely no different! The tough part is that some of us have travelled and lived in other parts of the world, and some folks think that Milton Nasciment is not an important composer, or Antonio Carlos Jobim, or Hector Villa Lobos, because they have never heard what that hoopla is all about .. or if I mention Egberto Gismonti ... nothing! And most of that can't even be called "jazz".  It's about the artist, and I would like to see a "prog" board take the lead in helping settle that down and make itself a real name in history for helping solidify a style of music that deserves the credit. But not sure we can when the definition is flighty and not complete and more inclusive of what the music really is all about. It's not about Genesis, King Crimson or ELP ... it's about a million other things!