Progarchives.com has always (since 2002) relied on banners ads to cover web hosting fees and all. Please consider supporting us by giving monthly PayPal donations and help keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.
^^ Like I've stated before, my mind is not necessarily closed to this idea but it seems odd that here we are in 2014 and although Prog Rock is not that well documented a topic, the weight of published opinion appears to contradict the idea. From memory, I think the majority of the authors I referenced were British/European, so what we need perhaps is a well researched Prog history from an American perspective. After all, it's only fairly recently that the prevailing orthodoxy has taken hold that Punk was an American phenomenon imported to the UK by the likes of Malcolm McLaren. (A reality that really upset most of my Scottish punk pals back in the day)
Agreed-- the Punk thing is interesting, to me Punk is British through-and-through. I think the issue is that rock is without doubt entirely American and so you have all incarnations in this enormous country at any given time. The notion that some US bands were playing a kind of punky rock in, say, the mid-60s, is entirely possible but Blighty still would win the contest of where Punk as we know it started, it seems to me. Probably Prog as well but it is less clear, which also makes it much more interesting.
Wait up David, we misunderstand one another?. Punk WAS an American phenomenon, it originated in the USA (Richard Hell from Television/Voidoids/Heartbreakers was the guy who came up with the ripped clothing and spiky hair ideas)
Usually when I listen to a Prog rock epic that is 20+min i can hear where a song breaks off or changes direction. That usually means that up until that point happened (major transition) that sub section or suite of the song finished and then transitioned into something else. Quite simply put, epics or long songs are broken down into parts and divided into scales (for those that can actually read sheet music! Lol). Rush Did it with Cygnus book 2 X-1 and vowed never again to record a song in this fashion ever; hence which is why the more Succinct Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures followed. It's demanding, but I think it's the only way to keep track how you play something the same twice. So yeah, sub sections...adding and over dubbing etc make the epic stick. I have a ton of respect for Prog bands that create quality epics. Obviously, it isn't easy. Structurally if I had to vote for the classic, pinnacle long Prog song it's Supper's Ready that gets my vote. That song is pretty flawless and is pretty much a drawing board to show how to create a good epic as well. :)
Joined: September 30 2006
Location: Pearland
Status: Offline
Points: 64353
Posted: April 06 2014 at 06:47
ExittheLemming wrote:
Atavachron wrote:
ExittheLemming wrote:
^^ Like I've stated before, my mind is not necessarily closed to this idea but it seems odd that here we are in 2014 and although Prog Rock is not that well documented a topic, the weight of published opinion appears to contradict the idea. From memory, I think the majority of the authors I referenced were British/European, so what we need perhaps is a well researched Prog history from an American perspective. After all, it's only fairly recently that the prevailing orthodoxy has taken hold that Punk was an American phenomenon imported to the UK by the likes of Malcolm McLaren. (A reality that really upset most of my Scottish punk pals back in the day)
Agreed-- the Punk thing is interesting, to me Punk is British through-and-through. I think the issue is that rock is without doubt entirely American and so you have all incarnations in this enormous country at any given time. The notion that some US bands were playing a kind of punky rock in, say, the mid-60s, is entirely possible but Blighty still would win the contest of where Punk as we know it started, it seems to me. Probably Prog as well but it is less clear, which also makes it much more interesting.
Wait up David, we misunderstand one another?. Punk WAS an American phenomenon, it originated in the USA (Richard Hell from Television/Voidoids/Heartbreakers was the guy who came up with the ripped clothing and spiky hair ideas)
Yeah but ripped clothing and spiky hair does not a Punk rock movement
make. I don't know that much about Punk but I tend to prefer the
empirical musical evidence over any other source, which is to say what was happening
in the music being played live and recorded, when, and where. I
doubt Punk in any real form would've started in the US anyway (though it did flourish here in the '80s).
It was a British phenomenon, not an American one, both stylistically
and musically. But I could be wrong.
I reckon it to Metal-- one can say it was Blue Cheer or Steppenwolf or Hendrix, but if we're being honest, it was Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and Judas Priest.
Joined: April 12 2008
Location: Denmark
Status: Offline
Points: 5898
Posted: April 06 2014 at 07:08
The first punk bands (MC5, New York Dolls, The Stooges) were all from the US... a 1974 encyclopedia of rock music my father owns mentions those three as examples of the genre.
"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
Joined: April 12 2008
Location: Denmark
Status: Offline
Points: 5898
Posted: April 06 2014 at 07:23
My point is that when punk was first codified as a music genre categorization in the mid-1970s, it was overwhelmingly used to refer to bands from the United States. (Michigan in particular) The British didn't really get in on it until a bit later, and yes important punk bands on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean (and elsewhere on the planet) have always been quick to mention Iggy and friends as important sources of inspiration.
"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
^ well American or British, most of the first wave of what became codified as Punk for me, sucked heinously (and I always reckoned it was an artistic bohemian critter in the US but an overtly political beast in the UK) Let's not get further off topic with another where did the mooted anarchy fail to appear first US or UK? debate shall we?
Joined: September 20 2010
Location: Serbia
Status: Offline
Points: 10213
Posted: April 06 2014 at 08:17
This is the very first ex-Yugoslavian progressive rock epic , recorded by INDEXI in 1969.
I think it's well structured & longer than 10 minutes prog song which actually have nothing to do with British progresive rock movement (scene); INDEXI were one of the representatives of authentic Yugoslavian prog.
Joined: September 20 2010
Location: Serbia
Status: Offline
Points: 10213
Posted: April 06 2014 at 09:33
rogerthat wrote:
Wasn't there some Italian band that released a very developed prog album in 1969? I can't recall the name offhand.
I do not know, but I can bet in hard cash that the album was recorded in Italian language; that Italians were singing in their own language made that authencity; the same thing is with Yugoslavian prog bands, or with Kosmische Musik which used "stylized" English.
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
Posted: April 06 2014 at 09:44
This is not a competition.
I'm sure there were some bands in many parts of the world that were making a noise that sounded like a hybrid of heavy metal and punk around the mid 80s, but unless those bands were in Seattle around 1987 when the term Grunge was first applied to that specific style of music then it wasn't Grunge.
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
Status: Online
Points: 16165
Posted: April 06 2014 at 09:50
verslibre wrote:
Art Rock = traditional structuring, tweaked from "1" to "11" (Symph, etc.)
Progressive Rock = anything goes (RIO/Avant, etc.)
...
Too much of this, was defined/designed wayyyyyyyyyyyy after the fact and the music. I tend to ignore those labels, because many of them don't even describe the artists at all, specially when some of them do more than one thing!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
Posted: April 06 2014 at 09:55
pfft! We should avoid the use of words "artists" and "music" ... far too restrictive and don't even begin to describe the time-varying compression of air molecules that they create.
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
Status: Online
Points: 16165
Posted: April 06 2014 at 10:08
rogerthat wrote:
...
Er, thank you very much. I do know that British and English are not the same thing. I however used the word British because 'Canadian' is clearly excluded from 'American' while English is not likewise excluded from British, it is a subset as is Scottish. Moving on...
...
It's not meant to sound bad at all, despite Dean's mean spirited comment.
When a language is not your original language, when you are writing, sometimes the words don't show up, and it has a tendency to throw things off! I mean ... c'mon ... my Brittish (got it right this time!) collection of music is 40% of my total number of records and cd's! And the number of bands I list all the time from all over that continent all the time that I like, is more than any other, maybe with the exception of Germany, and even then, it's only the 70's stuff in Germany!
But I get really tired of articles and posts and what not continually saying that ELP, Genesis and bruhaha invented progressive music, when it was a world wide event in music. Paris, for example, had just as good and weirder music than KC's first, but no one here is going to look at that list and give it a serious notion! Is it because the French and the Brittish (now that sounds wrong!!!), fought each other for so many years? And Italy had a very strong connection to classical music, that helped develop their own rock music and eventually "progressive". But here, nooooooooo, it has to be all this and that because they are the number one!
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
Status: Online
Points: 16165
Posted: April 06 2014 at 10:23
ExittheLemming wrote:
...
I do accept that musical developments in countries outside England would have been pivotal in the subsequent developments and directions of Prog Rock but I still believe the consensus view that it's origins are predominantly from English culture. The following authors also arrive at the same conclusion and do attempt with varying degrees of success, to explain the reasons from a cultural, social and economic perspective: ...
The concern is that you are confusing the issue further, in my book. The fact, is that of all the countries in the western world both America and England had the strongest interest in it, and went after it. Europe came right behind, although they were big in short wave in the old days.
As such, the market would help American and Brittish writers a lot more than someone from Italy, or Japan. And, of course, right away you have someone knowing all the LOCAL bands, but they have never heard (enough) of the other material, enough to appreciate a similar feeling and work.
In America, this is far worse, because America is like, 5 different countries let's say, and each one has their likes and dislikes, and people in NY have a tendency to laugh and ignore everyone in SF and people in SF have a tendency to think that NY'rs are stuffy and not cool, or hip! It extends to progressive and any other music, but NY laughts at you because they sell more than SF! And the NY Times is bigger than the SF Chronicle, that is now all but dead because of a rich turkey, whose reign started in the days of Orson Welles! (Citizen Kane).
Many other countries did not have this freedom of the arts and press and radio to be able to show you something different. We're lucky that these two countries had the media resources to make this work, because if they didn't it would be just alike some progressive band from Podunk, Switzerland that none of us give a cahoot about because we think it sounds like Genesis, and they did their thing 3 years before Genesis! That's my concern, and what I call "our own" ignorance.
The arts, and ALL the arts, existed all over the world, not just London and NY and then SF and Paris, and this is the part that we're not recognizing. For PROGRESSIVE to make sense, you will have to INCLUDE those artistic movements, or it will simply die and dissipate into just another fan band, and lose it's value in time! You haven't read many articles about the top ten in 1914, have you?
Edited by moshkito - April 06 2014 at 10:27
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
Joined: February 01 2011
Location: Michigan
Status: Offline
Points: 12701
Posted: April 06 2014 at 12:46
Dean wrote:
mean-spir·it·ed adjective : feeling or showing a cruel desire to cause harm or pain
Oh, right. Must have been really cutting words then.
Dem roight ebil, it were.
Of course, accusing musicians and the musically-minded of racism or fascist nationalism when referring to historically verifiable points isn't at all mean-spirited. Fatuous, perhaps -- maybe even without context or utterly baseless -- but not mean-spirited.
...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
Posted: April 06 2014 at 12:52
The Dark Elf wrote:
Dean wrote:
mean-spir·it·ed adjective : feeling or showing a cruel desire to cause harm or pain
Oh, right. Must have been really cutting words then.
Dem roight ebil, it were.
Of course, accusing musicians and the musically-minded of racism or fascist nationalism when referring to historically verifiable points isn't at all mean-spirited. Fatuous, perhaps -- maybe even without context or utterly baseless -- but not mean-spirited.
Joined: June 03 2010
Location: Mississippi
Status: Offline
Points: 98
Posted: April 06 2014 at 16:19
Now that this went way off topic, here's a response to the first post...
I'd like to hear more classical forms in prog rock. Like sonata, theme-and-variations, rondo, etc. A lot of what I hear is either extended verse-chorus song forms or completely free forms. Those are fine and a lot of great music's been made with them, but there's a lot of possibilities to explore with classical forms.
You could argue that Yes's "Close to the Edge" is either a modified sonata or an extended song form. I've also seen King Crimson's "Starless" and "Larks Pt. 1" explained as a sonata. I can't think of any rondos right off hand unless I count stuff in ABA form. And I don't know how to fit a fugue to rock music...
Vocal music tends to use standard song forms regardless of song length, and that's even true in a lot of prog rock. For all the talk about "songs without choruses", I hear a lot of choruses in prog rock songs. Which is fine with me - I like a LOT of these songs. But if you want to get away from that, especially if you're doing instrumental music, the classical world's come up with a lot of ideas for forms for instrumental music.
As for how sonata form and song form can be a lot alike:
Standard sonata: Exposition (two themes) - Exposition repeat (two themes again) - Development - Recapitulation
Song form (common variant) - Verse/chorus - Verse/chorus - Bridge - Verse/chorus
The main difference is the development section works with the melodies in the exposition, but most bridges introduce new melodies.
But there's also a lot of benefit to surprise. That's one of my favorite things about prog rock - I never know what's going to happen next. I listen to some classic jazz, and one thing that bugs me is how the form is identical for most pieces. Everything's a theme-and-variations set up - main melody, everybody solos, main melody again, and end. Which works well for a lot of pieces, but there's no sense of surprise. There's a few exceptions but not many.
I know this is confusing and I contradicted myself a bunch, but this topic interests me a lot.
Joined: February 01 2011
Location: Michigan
Status: Offline
Points: 12701
Posted: April 06 2014 at 16:50
Dean wrote:
The Dark Elf wrote:
Dean wrote:
mean-spir·it·ed adjective : feeling or showing a cruel desire to cause harm or pain
Oh, right. Must have been really cutting words then.
Dem roight ebil, it were.
Of course, accusing musicians and the musically-minded of racism or fascist nationalism when referring to historically verifiable points isn't at all mean-spirited. Fatuous, perhaps -- maybe even without context or utterly baseless -- but not mean-spirited.
Fortunately I didn't do that either.
No, you didn't. But then I wasn't referring to you.
...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
This page was generated in 0.168 seconds.
Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.
/PAlogo_v2.gif "Progarchives.com Homepage")
Prog Song Structure
Topic Options
Atavachron wrote:
