Conditions of Progress

Atavachron wrote: micky wrote: Atavachron wrote: What was it that allowed rock 'n roll to evolve to such a great extent while other musics such as blues, folk, and country are still more or less unchanged?   What qualities does rock posses that fostered the change, variety and complexity that became available to rock and progrock musicians? the lack of tradition is one of the biggest reasons IMO.  While there is a conservative element to rock and roll (see critical haters of prog).. it is not NEAR as entrenched as more established musical forms. thus the ability.. and incentive to experiment and evolve under the right conditions...  Right, maybe the fact that it was a new form allowed an opportunity for experiments and expansion.   And it kept growing, like some neoplasmic musical elephantiasis.   Pretty rare.

Atavachron wrote: micky wrote: Atavachron wrote: What was it that allowed rock 'n roll to evolve to such a great extent while other musics such as blues, folk, and country are still more or less unchanged?   What qualities does rock posses that fostered the change, variety and complexity that became available to rock and progrock musicians? the lack of tradition is one of the biggest reasons IMO.  While there is a conservative element to rock and roll (see critical haters of prog).. it is not NEAR as entrenched as more established musical forms. thus the ability.. and incentive to experiment and evolve under the right conditions...  Right, maybe the fact that it was a new form allowed an opportunity for experiments and expansion.   And it kept growing, like some neoplasmic musical elephantiasis.   Pretty rare.

a good point was raised by that LA guy.... a lot of it boils down to the listeners as well.

Yes it was a relatively new form... as such the traditionalists.. and yes Rock and Roll has them. The ones that did champion punk rock as RnR going BACK to its roots over the overblown prentention of mid 70's rock. While other, older, more entrenched forms of musical styles have their traditionaists... where it differed from rock IMO.. was many of those rock traditionalists were in journalism and they had an agenda to push.

 While for the others.. especially folk and country.. it derived not from teh top per se.. but from the bottom. It was the listeners.. the audience that demanded purity and traditionalism.  Even then with the social changes of the late 60's we saw changes ... great changes in folk due to Dylan who gave a big middle finger to the traditionalists.. and in country where Willie and his boys did the same to Nashville and the quite conservative traditional country music listening base.  The point being regarding audience.. what is the breeding ground all these musicians... why .. of course.. it is from the audience. I've yet to meet or heard of a musician that wasn't first and foremost a music fan.

So with a listener base in rock not giving a sh*t for what rock be or sound like.. it is quite natural for musicians, the fan of, to naturally translate that lack of sytlistic conformity to their own music.

thanks David

Like Lazland, I would debate the premise of the thread.  However, I would say that rock has progressed because its a hybrid to begin with.