For those who claim music is dying.....

Kati wrote: Unfortunately rap artists are all united they will prosper no doubt while prog musicians have to deal with fellow snobs who have an urge critique

Oh, this one was thought out!

I recently moved to a place where there is a music store two blocks away.  When I first saw it, it did not look like there was much business.  But a few months along, I know realize they get a lot of business.  I doubt there are a lot of Prog fans going in there, but they have a large selection of classical and marching band sheet music as well as a good selection of different kinds of instruments.  Guitars and marching band mostly, the latter of which seems to be a major part of their sales.  People are clearly playing music and buying instruments.  Prog may not be a big part of the scene, if any part, but it is certain music is not dying around my neighborhood.  There has been a conflict between popular music and "more serious" music ever since pop became a thing.  As with all things, you have to dig a little bit to find the good stuff.  Fast food restaurants may be on practically every corner, but good food is usually not that far away.  Once you find the good stuff for the first time, more and more of it will present itself because you now know how to see it. 

Smurph wrote: It's not the death of music. But as an artist I've spent 14,000$ recording 2 albums in the course of 14 months. I won't be able to record another album for maybe a year due to lack of money. I expect to see somewhere around zero dollars return. I already have another album written. I won't be able to record it in a real studio... so I have to use home studio equipment which won't sound as good... if I didn't have to work a job and made just enough (about 30,000$) per year I would be able to put out a nice studio quality album and 2 homemade albums per year. As artists we are beaten down and unable to get all of our ideas out because lack of time and money. And because of that we can't spend any money on promotion because we would rather make more music with that money... meaning that no one will hear it anyway. The cycle of life...

I know similar feels. Being ambitious with not a lot of money makes for little to no profit. Anecdote time:

I was in a folk duo with my brother. Folk makes it sound like it was stripped down, but the music we wrote definitely wasn't. It was acoustic guitar based, but we were writing string parts, horn parts, organ parts, parts for a band. We could generalize a lot of the parts we wanted in recordings. But it got to the point where we had to get at least five people to play live shows because of all the melodies, riffs, harmonies that went on at any given moment in our music. Most of the people around who could play the stuff were either jazz students or gospel players. We tried to deal with who we had around us. Thing is, most of the jazz students had gigs pretty frequently, so scheduling rehearsals was hard. Many of the gospel players couldn't read music well at all. We had to show a keyboardist how to play our parts one gig, when we could've just played them ourselves better were we not at our guitars. Making charts felt futile especially when the jazz guys would have just about one night to go over it and the gospel guys would have to be shown parts anyway. Our shows normally went terrible. No one got their parts and everyone was out of tune. We kept no money for ourselves at any given gig and gave it all to players who would come and go and not have time for it anymore. We had a lot of gigs where we were just fish out of water (we once played at a metal festival curated by a former guitarist of ours). We were extremely nervous for each show, and it was agonizing to work so hard on this grand material and never be able to realize it.

Contrast with:
I am in a trio now. We don't get over our heads, we all can rehearse pretty often, we all are invested in the music so we split profits equally, we play better shows, we gain more experience writing stuff and having it played by a band, and we gain more experience with venues. I am still writing ambitious music outside of that and assembling a group to play it, player by player. But there's nothing wrong with working with a more manageable palette outside of your primary project. Solo improv stuff, a garage rock duo, whatever.

Progosopher wrote: I recently moved to a place where there is a music store two blocks away.  When I first saw it, it did not look like there was much business.  But a few months along, I know realize they get a lot of business.  I doubt there are a lot of Prog fans going in there, but they have a large selection of classical and marching band sheet music as well as a good selection of different kinds of instruments.  Guitars and marching band mostly, the latter of which seems to be a major part of their sales.  People are clearly playing music and buying instruments.  Prog may not be a big part of the scene, if any part, but it is certain music is not dying around my neighborhood.  There has been a conflict between popular music and "more serious" music ever since pop became a thing.  As with all things, you have to dig a little bit to find the good stuff.  Fast food restaurants may be on practically every corner, but good food is usually not that far away.  Once you find the good stuff for the first time, more and more of it will present itself because you now know how to see it.

Music is so socially ingrained that I really doubt it ever die. It will always be for young people a cool way of social interaction (and peer posing for those not sincere) and there always will be the rags to riches ideal that has now transfed over to hip hop and rap performers. Another thing that keeps music vital is that it always has revivals of genres for god know what reasons. I've seen a folk revival in the early sixties and an Electric Blues revival

Edited by SteveG - December 17 2014 at 16:45

verslibre wrote: SteveG wrote: Next sub genre: Gangsta Prog.   "Yo, I'm gonna bust your strings!"   "And I'm gonna pop a cap in your Tron!"

stopping right there with even looking at this thread....  can't top that post in an otherwise silly topic.

We know music isn't dying....  for those that say it is...  they are idiots and need to check out all the music purcolating in the underground. Music will NEVER die.. it is just changing and mutating in how we make it and get it to audiences.  The days of the industry are numbered..  for rock music the industry is already on life support.  It will take longer for some other forms like Country or rap.. but then again more so that any musical form.. it really isn't about  the music. Both are too immersed in pop culture and are tickets out of inner city sh*tholes or tin shacks for the artists.  Rock always has been the music and attitude which never really left the garage and the simple joy of plugging in and turning up to 11 and pissing off your parents and neighbors.

As long as there is this gene of human instinct that spurs you to be musically adventurous or creative in general, music isn't dead.

Padraic wrote: Reports of music's death have been greatly exaggerated.

Obviously.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - December 17 2014 at 19:32

Seems like a double edged sword is happening.

Obviously the new and exciting progressive minds are working in the digital, electronic world.  That is the unexplored frontier.  But that music feels cold to me.  While interesting, it doesn't move me in the way the first generation of prog stuff did and still does.  But if a band tries to play in the more traditional format like the Flower Kings do at times, then they are labeled as retro, out of date, or out of touch with the times. 

The older synths for instance sound good to me, as do the thicker maple shelled drums, or as many prog drummers used concert toms without bottom heads.  That's not a sound we hear much of anymore.  It sounds dated but still good to me. 

A lot of prog maybe most seem to be embracing the heavily distorted guitar sounds from the influence of metal, but that has been going on for a long time and it sounds dated and unoriginal to me at this point. 

I don't think you can win either way. 

Rush is a band that has survived the changing times.  They are much more sophisticated sonically than before as far as the overall palate, but I don't think they are necessarily playing as ambitiously as they did on Hemispheres or Permanent Waves.  They have even said they are not interested in making those kind of albums anymore.

Yes keeps touring but I don't know why.  They don't sound nearly as good as they did when they were all younger and Yes without Jon as the inspirational leader is never going to really feel quite right to me.

Everything new I hear in prog sounds clean and well produced, but I don't see too many of these bands touring North America.  I am sure it's better in Europe.  The local progressive bands I hear don't sound that interesting other than a lot of impressive chops, but the music seems to lack any kind of cohesive concept that will keep my interest beyond the slick licks and fast drumming etc.

Jazz music is too self indulgent. Classical is too rigid and gets a bit overblown with the endless 20 minute collages. 

The audiences are not listening like they used to.  They listen, but I am sure the music is not making the impact upon them that it did in the earlier generations particularly prog.

Music is not dying.  It's huge.  But people now like Lady Gaga more than Annie Haslam.  They prefer New Direction over Mars Volta.

I don't want to hear another band that sounds just like Genesis or Yes.  I don't want to hear another band that sounds like Dream Theater either.  The electronica fusions are too cold for my tastes and sound forced or even pandering to a wider audience.

My gut tells me that a movement somewhere along the lines of the RIO stuff would be a better entry point to peak the ears of this new generation.  They need something because what is going on now is sure to sound very dated soon enough.

Skullhead wrote:  Jazz music is too self indulgent. Classical is too rigid and gets a bit overblown with the endless 20 minute collages.

I am not sure why, but this postulate has put a wry smile on my face, and it (the smile) is just not going away 

Polymorphia wrote: Smurph wrote: It's not the death of music. But as an artist I've spent 14,000$ recording 2 albums in the course of 14 months. I won't be able to record another album for maybe a year due to lack of money. I expect to see somewhere around zero dollars return. I already have another album written. I won't be able to record it in a real studio... so I have to use home studio equipment which won't sound as good... if I didn't have to work a job and made just enough (about 30,000$) per year I would be able to put out a nice studio quality album and 2 homemade albums per year. As artists we are beaten down and unable to get all of our ideas out because lack of time and money. And because of that we can't spend any money on promotion because we would rather make more music with that money... meaning that no one will hear it anyway. The cycle of life... I know similar feels. Being ambitious with not a lot of money makes for little to no profit. Anecdote time: I was in a folk duo with my brother. Folk makes it sound like it was stripped down, but the music we wrote definitely wasn't. It was acoustic guitar based, but we were writing string parts, horn parts, organ parts, parts for a band. We could generalize a lot of the parts we wanted in recordings. But it got to the point where we had to get at least five people to play live shows because of all the melodies, riffs, harmonies that went on at any given moment in our music. Most of the people around who could play the stuff were either jazz students or gospel players. We tried to deal with who we had around us. Thing is, most of the jazz students had gigs pretty frequently, so scheduling rehearsals was hard. Many of the gospel players couldn't read music well at all. We had to show a keyboardist how to play our parts one gig, when we could've just played them ourselves better were we not at our guitars. Making charts felt futile especially when the jazz guys would have just about one night to go over it and the gospel guys would have to be shown parts anyway. Our shows normally went terrible. No one got their parts and everyone was out of tune. We kept no money for ourselves at any given gig and gave it all to players who would come and go and not have time for it anymore. We had a lot of gigs where we were just fish out of water (we once played at a metal festival curated by a former guitarist of ours). We were extremely nervous for each show, and it was agonizing to work so hard on this grand material and never be able to realize it. Contrast with: I am in a trio now. We don't get over our heads, we all can rehearse pretty often, we all are invested in the music so we split profits equally, we play better shows, we gain more experience writing stuff and having it played by a band, and we gain more experience with venues. I am still writing ambitious music outside of that and assembling a group to play it, player by player. But there's nothing wrong with working with a more manageable palette outside of your primary project. Solo improv stuff, a garage rock duo, whatever.