Prog used in the classroom!

I kinda did the same thing at UCSB and did very well while directing things in there and got an excellent grade out of it, except that the institution ripped me off and gave me a BA instead of a BFA, which was their way to tell you that they did not want you as a Graduate Student over there at all!

 

I refused to do the conventional living room plays and work, and my specialty was the odd ball stuff and weird stuff and anything that was different, and already my focus was on many of the things that became known as "progressive" with the exception that my focus was already on theater and film, something that this group here doesn't like or appreciates at times!

 

I used more "prog" than you can imagine. On the "An evening of International Theater" with one play by Marguerite Duras, one play by Peter Handke, and then a play by the Portuguese writer Jorge de Sena, I used Ange, Amon Duul, Guru Guru and then two portuguese bands that no one knows, one that used to do a few fado/fandango things -- though nothing like Carmen had done before. I also used stuff by Colin Townes and Ange and Alan Stivell ... and I never had an issue using these ... or anyone listening to them ... or discussing them ... but by that time Santa Barbara already had Space Pirate Radio for several years and even the LA Times had said good things about the import show and its incredible number of music.  I also used Klaus Schulze on another play that had dream sequences, and Tangerine Dream on yet another play.

 

It is only been in the last 10 years, and in places like this, that it has been really tough putting together the music with the arts from folks that want this stuff to remain their personal preference of a band ... and seeing Atom'ic put this together for a class is a treat and massive and something that not many of us are willing to do and enjoy sharing with a whole generation. The scariest part being that folks here, in general, do not believe or care enough for the arts. But yes, that is what I think and I agree that it might not be the case. I see folks, even with this thread make the effort to expand it even more ... and we need to do that.

 

And don't forget that the three folks you mention became sort of unwilling representatives for that form or inner work -- actually Jon McLoughlin was there way before Carlos Santana was btw -- and he always attributed his ability to play faster and well to his higher forms of essence that you and I would have a very hard time to explain and appreciate!

 

There were a lot of other internal and spiritual things that were ignored and shamelessly so. Eberhardt Schoenner was doing some stuff that folks could not deal with ... and his "Trance-formation" was the original Gregorian Chants with electronics and a screaming guitar by Andy Summers -- which was what the "new-age'rs" rejected ... that guitar was awfull ... actually it was perfect! Stomu Yamash'ta was already doing spiritual stuff that ended up with various names but was influenced by his Japanese culture. Kitaro was playing drums and doing some meditational things in Chronicle with long cuts ... and it did not stop there ... Popol Vuh was already doing internal meditational stuff that kinda turned into a bit of ritual (Brothers of the Light and Dark and the like) ... Klaus Schulze, for me was always spiritual as I could do some serious meditations on those long pieces ... but they would not exactly have the theme of "spirit" and "religion" associated with it, which I tend to agree is probably a falacy and stupid idea about meditation and the inner life of the spirit.

 

But I seriously doubt that many people are capable of discussing this today with folks going around saying that these words and that or this is dedicated to Jesus and that this and that is dedicated to the Koran or any otner book. It distorts the value of the work, and distorts the spirituality of it all as well ... as if a simple quote was the real thing ... it's NOT.

Lovely ... and they ran away like cats and dogs when they heard the screaming girl go crazy ... if they ever got that far, right?

 

It was my contention and I did do a class that lasted 2 full days on the history of Gothic Literature, that went from 1750's (Radcliff and Walpole) all the way to the new stuff that Ann Rice was already putting out -- I had not read her work, but was already aware of her work. But that in the 70's the "occult" and "dark" side of things was actually better represented in music, although there were some movies that were coming out in Italy (Dario Argento) and both Hammer and Universal had never quit ... but their material was a re-hash of the old stuff ... Count Dracula was still Count Dracula ... Frankenstein was still Peter Cushing ... and Russ Meyer was having fun making fun of these with more ______________ ... and then we heard Goblin, White Noise, Plus, and many other bands, and their material was far more adventurous, so yeah, I added it to the class in a 20 minute version for folks to have an idea that ... it never stopped ... there never is history that does not exist ... and it is strictly a matter of us noticing it or not ... and that is the part that we need to help students with a lot better.

 

I love this thread and hope I have added to it ... and Atom' ... I am out of words and compliments already ... !

Thats awesome - i wish I had students like you at that time.

but then Dark Side of the Moon is sort of classic rock as status also, it is very likely that a course in rock history and music history that Pink Floyd and DSoTM will be mentioned, in the same breath as Srg Pepper, Pet Sounds, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Bookends, Led Zeppelin IV, Night At the Opera etc, an album that SHOULD be in the curiculum is In Court of the Crimson King, which did what Srg Pepper did in 67 it wowed peuopl into thinking new, those albums should be at least talked of or showed a piece of music from it, title track or 21st Century schizoid Man,

i also remember Pink Floyd was talked about in class in the same breath as Beatles and Stones, the Who, Cream, and all those British Invasion bands

i was more into Motown and Stevie Wonder when i was in 8th grade and payed attention to music, Earth, Wind and Fire, Marivn Gay and Lionell Richie .

my favourit english artists that were mentioned in music class was Cat Stevens, Elton John and David Bowie   

STAR TREK???? Absolutely NOT! She's the Lt Gay Ellis of Shado Moonbase, a Gerry Anderson production.

It was totally British effectively. Intriguing but very poor from a scientific point of view with one of the worst soundtracks ever heard (only Space: 1999 of the same producer  was worse than this).

Great example ... of how much music is out there that we are not aware of ... and how our ears could use being better tuned to listen to different things ... and enjoy them!

 

This is the hardest thing to teach in school in any of the arts classes, and sometimes not something that the curriculum wants you to mention or discuss a whole lot because it ends up being a dead-end discussion many times with opinions getting in the way of the talk. And this is the hard part of talking progressive, when folks don't want to see/hear about the time and place that helped bring the music around.

 

I still think that most folks think that Woodstock is/was just an opportunity to get drunk and have fun ... ohh yeah ... it had some music ... and no one gave a gamn about it ... except Mosh that still talks about its importance. But I don't remember, even in my time, that many kids around me taking things seriously ... most of it were too worried about getting their first girl, or their first guy, or what not ... and the arts were not that big a deal ... but we knew who Jimi, Janis and Jim were and what they stood for. And yeah, we had issues during the Kent State shootings, but you have to remember that Madison has 50k students and it is quite liberal in the arts because of it. The high schools try to ignore it, and when they do the teachers get fired and rightly so! We had 2 principals dismissed during my time there ... and one dis-respected Dr Martin Luther King on the wrong day!