Prog elitists

Kepler62 wrote: I don't understand why you guys can't just groove to the music without getting all deep and philosophical about it's structure and meaning. It's music man. Now this thread has morphed into a mathematics thread. Progressive rock just happens to be a form of music that I like listening to. I like jazz and classical equally as well. I like Elvis. Yeah Elvis. I don't worry about key, time signature, changes, syncopation, blah blah blah. I really don't understand what the worry is.

Different people react to music in different ways, and it is every music lover's right to enjoy it they way he/she prefers.  Even the same listener can enjoy different things in different ways.  I've recently been really enjoying a new box set of the great pub rock/hard rock band Dr. Feelgood, and when I'm listening to them I can state with some confidence that I'm not thinking about math.  I'm getting out my aggressions in a benign way, swinging my arm and endangering the lamps.  Even with the same piece of music, I can listen to it in different ways at different times.  But, for instance, if it has polyrhythms or otherwise complex time signatures, I can't avoid hearing the math because that circuit in my brain kicks in automatically.  Since my mother was a piano teacher, I grew up on music theory and that naturally colors my listening habits, especially with classical and jazz.  Other people find that stuff distracting, and I respect that.  Discussing this stuff is meant to be fun, and I don't think anyone is passing judgement or evangelizing.

No i don't think music is especially mathematical as opposed to every other aspect of life. I'm simply arguing that within the topic of "prog elitism" that this thread originates as, that the reason some prog lovers are deemed elitists in the first place is because they have a higher brain function in mathematics whether that be trained or a gift of the universe at birth which, of course, can always be expanded upon. 

The very same is true of visual art. A painting is a series of colors swirled around in different forms, textures and shades of intenisty and has the same mathematical input as audio. Light reflects off of a painting and then it stimulates our rods and cones and retina and we interpret it emotionally in a way that is condusive to our current understanding of those signals.

Same with any linguistical interpretations such as literature, lyrical content within music etc. The physical universe is governed by mathematical interactions. Bioloical beings evolved within this universe. Now if you want to take this to a metaphysical universe to ascertain why exactly our consciousness responds to this preordained equations then that is something that falls into the mysterious ethers of the unknown although studies have taken place in these arenas.

In effect, there is no elitism in prog. There are only brains that have been properly trained to recognize it and those that have not. There are no right or wrong answers only the question of where any given individual exists at a certain point of development at any particular point of space and time.