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Prog As Substitute For Life
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fuxi View Drop Down
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Posts: 1990 		  Quote fuxi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Prog As Substitute For Life
    Posted: October 13 2009 at 02:52
Guilty. But not just when it comes to prog. I see music in general, literature and the visual arts as the very best life has to offer. (I'm not a musician, only a dedicated listener, but as far as books are concerned: I enjoy, translate and teach them every day.) Mind you, I've got a wife and three daughters, and I do my utmost to give them the love they need, but if you were a philistine, you could accuse me of being precisely the kind of loner you're talking about. And I'm proud of it, too.
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Posts: 40 		  Quote Fogon the Tyne Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 03:05
I just think being obsessive about anything to the exclusion of other options just isnt healthy. You need perspective in all things.   I love prog music but I also love a host of other things.  Good post though because I do have a  friend who is totally into hard rock  its all he really wants to chat about and being truthful  can make him boring.
I have become comfortably numb
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Posts: 2995 		  Quote Toaster Mantis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 03:19
Originally posted by Fogon the Tyne

I just think being obsessive about anything to the exclusion of other options just isnt healthy. You need perspective in all things.


I also think it's not very long that kind of monomaniacal fixation on one specific hobby can actually be that rewarding or entertaining, and in my experience that's usually something you do out of habit more than actual enjoyment. So that kind of "lifestyle" is very hard to maintain actively for very long, I imagine the people who actually do that are very few in number.
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Posts: 271 		  Quote Textbook Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 04:04
I notice that I tend to overload on something for a month or so, become bored/sick of it and move on but if it's something I love I always come back.
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Posts: 485 		  Quote tamijo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 07:28
Originally posted by Padraic

Originally posted by Textbook

Perhaps it's not that proggers achieve nothing- this is clearly false. Maybe it's that it's not enough for them, that they're searching inwardly for more. Is it perhaps akin to religion in some ways? (Again, devil's advocate.)



It's just music, dude.  Smile
 
Thumbs Up +1
 
 
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Posts: 7760 		  Quote Blacksword Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 10:37
Prog is for life. Not just for Christmas.
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Posts: 211 		  Quote Green Shield Stamp Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 11:37
Prog (along with countless other artistic and cultural forms) enhances life.  It doesn't substitute it.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
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Posts: 423 		  Quote kingfriso Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 14:38
Interesting discussion. Living your live with the things you want to do withoud bothering other people too much is perfectly ethical in my opinion. The vinyl records I buy are second-hand, so I don't even produce waste with my hobby.

Choosing for what you want to do without desturbing others isn't selfisch at all. Choosing for yourself while hurting others, that's selfish. Futhermore, if we wouldn't listen to prog, the people who want to make it wouldn't have a live as a musician, which could be very hard for them.

Althouht I don't agree with this topic's starter, I admire the courage for raising the question.
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Posts: 105 		  Quote Birdman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 18:07
Originally posted by Padraic

Originally posted by Textbook

Perhaps it's not that proggers achieve nothing- this is clearly false. Maybe it's that it's not enough for them, that they're searching inwardly for more. Is it perhaps akin to religion in some ways? (Again, devil's advocate.)



It's just music, dude.  Smile
 
Indeed it is, but damn GOOD music.  And that's what makes me (and prog addict) different from mainstream radio-friendly music listeners.  Because I care about the lyrics, I care about the harmonies and moods of a song, I care about the time signatures.  What I DO NOT care about is what others think.  I'm proud of the music I listen to, I'm proud of the sport that I like (being an Arsenal fan in Québec-Canada is lonesome affair, I'll tell you that much !) and I'm proud of the books that I read (Kafka for Christ's sake...). 
 
These are the best things that life has to offer (not forgeting wife and kid of course...) 


Edited by Birdman - October 13 2009 at 18:09
Et je ferme les yeux
Puis je croise les doigts
Pour empêcher
Les souvenirs de fuir.
(KERMESS - Atome d'existence)
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Textbook View Drop Down
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Posts: 271 		  Quote Textbook Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 18:20
It's funny that prog/buddhism seem to coincide a bit yet being really into prog means searching for and clinging to old records for dear life.
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Posts: 387 		  Quote soundsweird Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 13 2009 at 23:59

Who's to say whether the way one live's one's life is any better or worse than any of the other millions of ways that life could be lived?  Unless you're clearly living a dysfunctional existence, of course...
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Posts: 108 		  Quote TealFoxes Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 14 2009 at 03:59
I value an intimate romantic relationship the most in my life while music takes a distant second. I'm comfortable with that & don't need success, fame, fortune, enlightenment, etc. Now some people might consider these values much more important in their lives than what I value. Hence, the cycle of various personalities continue... it's All about perception.
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Posts: 12 		  Quote thrashaddiction Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 14 2009 at 12:26
THESE are all great responses...i tend to think that i am owned by my music collection sometimes....that i must listen to great music before there is no time left...i must justify the cds i baught...its great to have an open mind & enjoy all types..not just prog...prog is more of a thinking mans music & pop is is just for the blue coller type...and its cool to be both
get what you can out of life before it gets what it can out of you
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Posts: 38 		  Quote NecronCommander Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 14 2009 at 19:45
Is it that much different from how other people let music influence their lives?  Say, people who are really into heavy metal and tattoo their arms and chests into unrecognizable patterns, wear black leather, torn jeans, and sport incredibly long hair?
I don't think it's a fair argument to make that people who live for music, be it progressive or not, are lazy or without ambitions.  We simply just have a serious passions for something and pursue it doggedly.  It doesn't mean we (by we, I mean music addicts) are incapable or unwilling to do other things.
I say that music is my life, yet it isn't the biggest aspect of my life, by far.  What I mean by that is that music is the thing in life that makes me feel the most fulfilled I can feel.
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Posts: 2995 		  Quote Toaster Mantis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 15 2009 at 03:25
By the way, I'll play the devil's advocate here and say that to really appreciate music you'll also need to have a lot of life experience because that's where you get the context to place the music's themes in. (hell, that's usually where the musicians got the idea for what they'd write)
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Posts: 2869 		  Quote Alberto Muñoz Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 15 2009 at 09:24
Originally posted by Epignosis

That's all kind of...dumb.

Many of us have wives, children, enjoy movies, and participate in many other forums besides this one.  We have careers, ambitions, friends, video games, hobbies, beer...in a word, lives.

We are people before we are prog fans.
Seconded


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The T View Drop Down
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Posts: 7092 		  Quote The T Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 15 2009 at 11:15
Like all stereotypes, it is somewhat based on truth...
 
Luckily for me, I grew out of making music the center of my life a while ago...
http://musico-t-eca.blogspot.com/
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Posts: 223 		  Quote TODDLER Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 15 2009 at 12:58
Originally posted by Textbook

(I'm playing devil's advocate here in case that isn't clear. Also, I'm not writing about myself, just presenting for discussion the argument behind the negative attitude towards prog nuts.)
Like drugs (I keep finding parallels here) it seems to me that those who despise or look down on obsessive prog fans do so because of a suspicion that we are armchair adventurers- either we had expectations of experience that our actual lives do not meet or we are aware that their are certain extremes of experience that we'd never reach. Rather than attempting to meet these with our lives, we use music to transport us to those places. The argument is that we could/should be out doing something which will actually affect the world but are actually sad little people sitting in rooms with silly records avoiding people and achievement. We might get married and have children etc but we seem to be reserving part of ourselves, especially in the mental sense, for the music, that there's something mastubatory or selfish about the whole process. "Well I might be a bit boring but at least I can cope with really hardcore difficult music." Do you think this may be true?
This theory may be true but it is neutralised somewhat by saying the same applies to any sort of fanaticism such as being a sports nut or a D&D devotee.
Achievement is brought on through ambition. Ambition can be defined as a form of insanity. For example, the many people in this country that neglect their children for their ambition purposes. The man who works overtime in the office and refuses to give in to his family needs misses out on a child's growth. One day this kind of a person may wake up to see that his daughter who was once 8 is now 18 and wonder where the time went. The daughter in return might feel her youth and personal problems were neglected by the father.

I would never allow this to happen in my life. Prog music is secondary to the importance of things such as my daughter's first essay or spelling B. However if I am sitting in the back yard drinking coffee and reading the good book, the last thing I would want is an adult trying to take away my freedom. I won't tread on anybody elses shoes and I expect the same respect from them.
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Posts: 223 		  Quote TODDLER Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 15 2009 at 16:16
Originally posted by Fogon the Tyne

I just think being obsessive about anything to the exclusion of other options just isnt healthy. You need perspective in all things.   I love prog music but I also love a host of other things.  Good post though because I do have a  friend who is totally into hard rock  its all he really wants to chat about and being truthful  can make him boring.
I think what would be defined as obsessive to a jack of all trades type of person, would be defined as dedication to a professional musician. I remember being in my early 20's, waking up at 7am and spending 5 hours warming up on Andrea Segovia'a book of scales. Then a lunch break. The afternoon would be spent working on a new Bach piece. Time for dinner. Then most of the evening I would play from start to finish, all the classical pieces that I had memorized. I wanted to cut through all the chase, but the example I have given shows the sweat and toil one must endure in order for your audience to be pleased with a performance. They are paying astronomical amounts of money to see a devoted musician and not a smuck who plays like a half wit.Shocked

If you want to be a outstanding player, you must sacrifice dates with girls and or most social gatherings. Really it boils down to the old s-it or get off the pot dealLOL You have to make an effort in this way. Total devotion is what makes a musician solid. Once in a while you can answer a phone call. It's not as if you have taken the vow of silence like a monk. People won't see much of you when you are practicing...true.
But you can still run for a hot cup of coffee. If it were some other career that is widley excepted, people wouldn't have beans to say about it. When you are away at college, what can they say? When you return with a future that pays off and supports the family, most people have respect for your craft. Most people in society do not understand the hard devotion that goes into mastering an instrument. They think it's a joke. Sort of like how MTV has always been. Some people are so stupied and ignorant that they will walk in on a musician when he is playing a Paganini piece and say......Well, I can tell when your'e making a mistakeShocked Well, of course you can. Because I am practicing you idiot! not performingLOL
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Posts: 223 		  Quote TODDLER Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 15 2009 at 16:36
As you can see both of my posts are a contradiction in terms. The first one is for a person that is maybe in his 40's or 50's, has a family and has pretty much mastered his craft, but is neglecting his family for the sole purpose of ambitious profit. The second post is about a person in his early 20's or 30's and is single, and in the midst of mastering his craft. I hope that clears the air of confusion.Wink 
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