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SteveG View Drop Down
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Points: 20497 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 20 2014 at 13:37
Originally posted by Prog_Traveller Prog_Traveller wrote:

Well imo(but I am by no means a lone in thinking this)metal started with Black Sabbath. There were bands who hinted at it before them and had metal elements (Just like with KC and prog)but BS are almost unarguably the first true metal band.
I must agree as far as BS making metal so popular, but there were forerunners like every other music genre.
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 10:33
Back in the 70's ..Ian Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, Robert Fripp, and Tony Banks all knew exactly what they wanted to do and exactly how to go about doing it. They were completely diverse from each other. That's because in the early 70's there was the strong willed existence of "practices". One particular good rule of thumb was to not emulate another artist to the point where you sounded ridiculous. Many underground Prog bands in the 70's were influenced by the big 5 , but only to a small degree and not enough to mask their originality. Gong, Hatfield and the North, Camel, Univers Zero, ...there are many. The most disrespectful thing to do with your art..is to outright copy someone else.

Original Prog masters/innovators lifted Classical music to create a new style of Rock. They studied specific composers music to create something else and not to imitate it. The idea is to study a composer's music and not the bands who incorporated it into Rock music. Get the picture? There is something very wrong here when there are more bands emulating than experimenting. The original innovative Prog musicians of the 70's spent their time studying other styles of music and beyond that...other cultures. Some bands today..are just copying what they did and not focusing on how they did it. Which would be the smart thing to do if anyone desires to be a composer and create something very original.
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Points: 9869 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 10:47
Heh, I was having a discussion on something related in an entirely different context.  I would say that the problem is not so much the musicians but the way classification now happens in rock.  Because fans are drawn more to the SOUND of rock music than the compositional nuts and bolts of it, there probably comes a point where they cannot accept something as rock that is too sonically removed from conventional notions of rock.  In the 70s, rock was still growing and expanding so perhaps listeners just got busy discovering the music as it was unraveled.  It's quite possible that that phase is over and listeners will only feel confounded by bands that defy classification. The thought that something new might be happening probably doesn't occur to people anymore.  It might be a harsh thing to say but then I listen to what people say about their music and how they describe it and they describe their needs almost exclusively in terms of genres.  So I can see where a comfort zone that prefers accepted stuff, the tried and tested, might develop. It's no wonder that older bands are having a revival even when releasing stuff that's at times only about half as good (at best) as the things they did in their prime.  Music at all levels, whether the regular chart busting pop or even the elite genres like jazz, exists now only to fill 'needs' and entertain, not to create an experience that probably neither the artist nor the audience knows how exactly it will pan out.  
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:02
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

Heh, I was having a discussion on something related in an entirely different context.  I would say that the problem is not so much the musicians but the way classification now happens in rock.  Because fans are drawn more to the SOUND of rock music than the compositional nuts and bolts of it, there probably comes a point where they cannot accept something as rock that is too sonically removed from conventional notions of rock.  In the 70s, rock was still growing and expanding so perhaps listeners just got busy discovering the music as it was unraveled.  It's quite possible that that phase is over and listeners will only feel confounded by bands that defy classification. The thought that something new might be happening probably doesn't occur to people anymore.  It might be a harsh thing to say but then I listen to what people say about their music and how they describe it and they describe their needs almost exclusively in terms of genres.  So I can see where a comfort zone that prefers accepted stuff, the tried and tested, might develop. It's no wonder that older bands are having a revival even when releasing stuff that's at times only about half as good (at best) as the things they did in their prime.  Music at all levels, whether the regular chart busting pop or even the elite genres like jazz, exists now only to fill 'needs' and entertain, not to create an experience that probably neither the artist nor the audience knows how exactly it will pan out.  


Depressing but true
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:09
I thought it was very beautiful how Laura Nyro influenced Todd Rundgren's chord voicings and changes. His style of vocal phrasing and his creative melodies were out of Laura's soul. It was so incredibly strange how Todd Rundgren was naturally creating his own voice musical with her sound. He came across with a uniqueness in his writing , a distinctive sound of his own, and the listener was unable to identify all the cross patterns to Laura Nyro's music. If another artist is emulated in this way, then it is totally acceptable. It's a rare experience.
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Points: 9869 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:21
I think there are indeed bands who are able to write in their own voice.  Even if influences are evident, they rarely sound too obvious, i.e., like a xerox copy and instead get blended with other influences and some original ideas of the band's own.  Just today, felt that with Snarky Puppy's We Like It Here.  Everything Everything is a very creative band too.  I thought ACT were on a great trip for sometime too.  But as I said, I doubt there are enough listeners that relate to them for what's new about such bands.  Maybe they have, subconsciously or consciously, convinced themselves that these bands do offer something they like in their music.  The listening of music is often compared, on the internet, to the consumption of food.  Which, as a bigtime foodie, I would respectfully submit is a deeply flawed comparison.  Food only satiates an immediate and primal need at the end of the day: hunger.  Music as an art form is much deeper even if its aural form makes it more visceral than literature or painting.

Edited by rogerthat - October 24 2014 at 11:29
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:45
It doesn't help the music world when most music stores are following those steps and helping the musical youth environment to stay in the current state of things. The music stores should be discouraging them from their demands. They could easily do it through the steps taken with a student in music education, but they won't because it decreases sales and popularity. "The School Of Rock" is based on observations of icon Rock players and the study of their technique. This is a far step to accomplish something worthwhile, but it presents an extreme on the other end which tells us that Rock music wasn't originally like a school. If they take that environment away, it decreases the spiritual and musical genius of originality existing in Rock. As a teacher , you don't want to go the opposite extreme to the point you arrive at...where all and everything is constantly being observed and all that is natural seems dismissive.

Rock musicians globally during the 60's and 70's had their own school. They taught each other and sometimes worked together. They created that world on their own and it does seem a little contrived to form "The School Of Rock" when it revolves around specific heroes to attract media attention. Kids playing the drums like Keith Moon or a girl singing exactly like Janis Joplin is not my answer for how we could change something about the times we are living in. Again...as I said before, you don't imitate Janis Joplin, you learn and incorporate the vocabulary of it. If you don't...it's not real music and the person who is doing it is not a real artist with a mission to be original. That's the sole purpose of music in the arts. Express what you want and hope to be creative and not following instructions derived from the writings of rules in a money game.


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Points: 9869 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:53
Yup.  Really couldn't agree more.  Well, the marketing was what originally helped rock get as popular as it did.  But it also created this monstrous phenomenon of icons.  I think the icons have ultimately become too big for rock and define its image almost in entirety.  As you said, everybody wants to play like XYZ and such, nobody wants to find their own voice.  And to push things even more in that direction, we have all these reality TV shows.  So getting on that stage and performing THAT iconic song is the deal now, not writing a song of your own that households across the world would play.  Of course, recorded music in any case no longer commands the cultural space to reach households on that scale.  Sort of reminds me of how boring and 'also-ran' the current Mercs look.  Based on looks alone, there's no reason to choose them over the competing BMW/Audi models.  The 1980s Merc was a solid, stately, majestic beast.  With perhaps the result that their designers now had an image to constantly live up to.  That impulse, I think, is what kills originality.
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 12:04
When I used to teach guitar in music stores...most kids who were interested in Rap music, underground Alternative, Hip Hop, ...all wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix. At first I laughed because I knew his attraction to kids was more based on his publicity. When kids tried to learn his ballads they struggled with inverted chord changes and note passages that fell between those chords and they would ask: "What's going on here..why can't I play this fluently?" I suggested that they learn a more easy to play "Soul" song from the 60's to understand those triad chords and inverted chords and as a basic introduction to mastering that style/concept of playing. They were puzzled and didn't make the connection between "Soul Music" and Jimi Hendrix. The majority of kids in the 60's and 70's or even 80's did. Many of these young guitar students had no idea that Jimi Hendrix spent years in his career working with Ike & Tina Turner or "Little Richard" and by the time Hendrix got a hold of "Soul" style guitar playing he took it to steps above and beyond where he incorporates it into progressive Psychedelic style in "1983, A Merman I Shall Turn To Be" It's because these kids are being sold a plastic picture frame image of Jimi Hendrix and not understanding that he was not only an unorthodox type of guitarist to the extremes of extremes, but that his artistry was very natural and not 100 hundred percent to be hyped.
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 12:23
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

Yup.  Really couldn't agree more.  Well, the marketing was what originally helped rock get as popular as it did.  But it also created this monstrous phenomenon of icons.  I think the icons have ultimately become too big for rock and define its image almost in entirety.  As you said, everybody wants to play like XYZ and such, nobody wants to find their own voice.  And to push things even more in that direction, we have all these reality TV shows.  So getting on that stage and performing THAT iconic song is the deal now, not writing a song of your own that households across the world would play.  Of course, recorded music in any case no longer commands the cultural space to reach households on that scale.  Sort of reminds me of how boring and 'also-ran' the current Mercs look.  Based on looks alone, there's no reason to choose them over the competing BMW/Audi models.  The 1980s Merc was a solid, stately, majestic beast.  With perhaps the result that their designers now had an image to constantly live up to.  That impulse, I think, is what kills originality.


This is all part of a psychological approach to how entertainment is represented for younger generations. It's one of those lightbulbs turning on in someone's head. I mean..this is how it started: If someone in the record company staff had a new business idea for marketing, they would set up an "inhouse" to proceed it's measure to profit. Everything revolved around money and got to a point where the commercial artist wasn't allowed to have freedom in music until they became big and bad and powerful in order to do so. Who on this earth can tell Paul McCartney that he cannot write a symphony? Fortunately artists like Keith Emerson had enough financial backing to record solo albums. Francis Monkman probably did with less financial droppings. The ultimate position is Mike Oldfield's. He's able to survive nicely and still compose at will.
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Points: 4807 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 12:25
Modern prog I generally can't get behind, but then again, I really haven't heard much which means my first statement here indicates squarely that I need to find time to extricate my head from my nether regions. I'll need to listen to RED one more time before that occurs.
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Points: 20497 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 14:17
Originally posted by TODDLER TODDLER wrote:

Back in the 70's ..Ian Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, Robert Fripp, and Tony Banks all knew exactly what they wanted to do and exactly how to go about doing it. They were completely diverse from each other. That's because in the early 70's there was the strong willed existence of "practices". One particular good rule of thumb was to not emulate another artist to the point where you sounded ridiculous. Many underground Prog bands in the 70's were influenced by the big 5 , but only to a small degree and not enough to mask their originality. Gong, Hatfield and the North, Camel, Univers Zero, ...there are many. The most disrespectful thing to do with your art..is to outright copy someone else.

Original Prog masters/innovators lifted Classical music to create a new style of Rock. They studied specific composers music to create something else and not to imitate it. The idea is to study a composer's music and not the bands who incorporated it into Rock music. Get the picture? There is something very wrong here when there are more bands emulating than experimenting. The original innovative Prog musicians of the 70's spent their time studying other styles of music and beyond that...other cultures. Some bands today..are just copying what they did and not focusing on how they did it. Which would be the smart thing to do if anyone desires to be a composer and create something very original.
I support your views Todd, but how does one disengage the modern prog world from copycat bands like IQ, et al? Modern proggers are very comfortable with the familiar and the known and would probably flip if they actually heard something new, strange and experimental, regardless of their feelings that they would happily embrace it.
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Points: 9869 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 20:43
Originally posted by TODDLER TODDLER wrote:

When I used to teach guitar in music stores...most kids who were interested in Rap music, underground Alternative, Hip Hop, ...all wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix. At first I laughed because I knew his attraction to kids was more based on his publicity. When kids tried to learn his ballads they struggled with inverted chord changes and note passages that fell between those chords and they would ask: "What's going on here..why can't I play this fluently?" I suggested that they learn a more easy to play "Soul" song from the 60's to understand those triad chords and inverted chords and as a basic introduction to mastering that style/concept of playing. They were puzzled and didn't make the connection between "Soul Music" and Jimi Hendrix. The majority of kids in the 60's and 70's or even 80's did. Many of these young guitar students had no idea that Jimi Hendrix spent years in his career working with Ike & Tina Turner or "Little Richard" and by the time Hendrix got a hold of "Soul" style guitar playing he took it to steps above and beyond where he incorporates it into progressive Psychedelic style in "1983, A Merman I Shall Turn To Be" It's because these kids are being sold a plastic picture frame image of Jimi Hendrix and not understanding that he was not only an unorthodox type of guitarist to the extremes of extremes, but that his artistry was very natural and not 100 hundred percent to be hyped.

Yeah, I wanted to touch upon this too, sort of.   The 60s/70s generation didn't just spring out of thin air. They were deeply influenced not only by classical or jazz music but also the soul, blues, country and rockabilly music of their formative years.  People have forgotten today that the idols of people like McCartney or Page were actually guys like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, James Brown etc.  These were all icons in their own right but for all that they revered these legends, the Beatles/Zep generation boldly stepped out of their shadow and went out and did their own thing.  What has happened meanwhile is the popular music of the 50s and early 60s has faded into near-oblivion for reasons that are probably not entirely musical and have to do with the way marketers have influenced opinions.  So the natural, chronological link that actually existed has been obscured and the classic rock generation stands alone.  It has to be impressed afresh on people that there was some amount of continuity even within the disruption that happened in the 60s.   There won't be a new Elvis or a new Jimmy Page.  People really have to stop yearning for that to happen and move on and accept new artists.
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Points: 1474 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 21:11
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Originally posted by Prog_Traveller Prog_Traveller wrote:

Well imo(but I am by no means a lone in thinking this)metal started with Black Sabbath. There were bands who hinted at it before them and had metal elements (Just like with KC and prog)but BS are almost unarguably the first true metal band.
I must agree as far as BS making metal so popular, but there were forerunners like every other music genre.
 
Forerunners yes but really no true metal band before them imo. The thing is even with BS they were unaware of anything called heavy metal at the time since the term(and thus the genre)didn't really cement until later so they are sort of like the accidental fathers to a genre that they unknowingly created. When the term "heavy metal" was thrown their way they didn't really accept it unlike Judas Priest who were apparently the first band to embrace the term.


Edited by Prog_Traveller - October 24 2014 at 21:11
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 22:17
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

Originally posted by TODDLER TODDLER wrote:

When I used to teach guitar in music stores...most kids who were interested in Rap music, underground Alternative, Hip Hop, ...all wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix. At first I laughed because I knew his attraction to kids was more based on his publicity. When kids tried to learn his ballads they struggled with inverted chord changes and note passages that fell between those chords and they would ask: "What's going on here..why can't I play this fluently?" I suggested that they learn a more easy to play "Soul" song from the 60's to understand those triad chords and inverted chords and as a basic introduction to mastering that style/concept of playing. They were puzzled and didn't make the connection between "Soul Music" and Jimi Hendrix. The majority of kids in the 60's and 70's or even 80's did. Many of these young guitar students had no idea that Jimi Hendrix spent years in his career working with Ike & Tina Turner or "Little Richard" and by the time Hendrix got a hold of "Soul" style guitar playing he took it to steps above and beyond where he incorporates it into progressive Psychedelic style in "1983, A Merman I Shall Turn To Be" It's because these kids are being sold a plastic picture frame image of Jimi Hendrix and not understanding that he was not only an unorthodox type of guitarist to the extremes of extremes, but that his artistry was very natural and not 100 hundred percent to be hyped.

Yeah, I wanted to touch upon this too, sort of.   The 60s/70s generation didn't just spring out of thin air. They were deeply influenced not only by classical or jazz music but also the soul, blues, country and rockabilly music of their formative years.  People have forgotten today that the idols of people like McCartney or Page were actually guys like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, James Brown etc.  These were all icons in their own right but for all that they revered these legends, the Beatles/Zep generation boldly stepped out of their shadow and went out and did their own thing.  What has happened meanwhile is the popular music of the 50s and early 60s has faded into near-oblivion for reasons that are probably not entirely musical and have to do with the way marketers have influenced opinions.  So the natural, chronological link that actually existed has been obscured and the classic rock generation stands alone.  It has to be impressed afresh on people that there was some amount of continuity even within the disruption that happened in the 60s.   There won't be a new Elvis or a new Jimmy Page.  People really have to stop yearning for that to happen and move on and accept new artists.

So....there'e people out there yearning for that? I 'm not consistently exposed to that to give the notion any weight. I believe it, but it's usually people in my age group and realistically that makes little sense to me when there is a simple explanation as to why. Whenever you get down to the grit with the technical side to music or the advanced or experimental side , what always comes to mind is discouraging. For example, in the 60's and 70's music revolved around the concept of a method. A natural way of following methods to compose. Taking steps that musicians don't take today because they are kids afraid of the dark. So..instead they mask the real reason with an excuse ..which evidently appears to be a critical judgement on any method or concept of writing from the 60's and 70's era. "That was then, this is now" attitude. Which is closing off their minds from the intelligent way of looking at things. A good method is a good method! If it is a method of opening doors for musical expansion to another dimension or world, (like in the 70's), what in Jesus H does it have to do with the fact that it was created/thought of, in 1969? Why not apply it now? Steve Hackett does. Happy the Man did on their last release "Muse Awakes" .

 I assume that members of Happy the Man and Steve Hackett  are expanding more in music because they have an understanding for how certain ideas were originally invented in the day and they certainly write music as if they do, but it has little to do with the knowledge deriving from 1969. It's called "practices" aned the side of imitating someone else is in a galaxy...far, far...away. Some of these neo Prog bands today have the talent/ability to create something of their own. Not another Voyage of the Acolyte or a Crafty Hands , but something of their own and they refuse to do it. They are so perfect at copying Rick Wakeman and Robert Fripp, but  have zero interest in studying and observing how Wakeman and Fripp did it themselves. They seem to careless about looking into that or observing the process or even the pattern of the process.. That's foolish! That can compare to the kid in elementary school who looked at the answers on your test just to pass without even taking a chance on the ability of their own common sense. This is sad and should be changed by adding older methods and concepts of writing to new ones. That way...the music would at least even out and people would develop hope.


Edited by TODDLER - October 24 2014 at 22:57
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 24 2014 at 22:37
John Goodsall from Brand X has the influence of John McLaughlin in his playing and to boot, he has written certain pieces with a Mahavishnu Orchestra twist. In point though...he actually doesn't play like John Mclaughlin, he is only adding reflections of that in order to give Brand X a personality. He's not on a mission to copy anyone. Too many neo Prog bands today are focusing on lifting actual riffs of Robert Fripp and that's working against the good future that music could have if they didn't... and as a result it sounds unoriginal. Create from your head and your mind and not somebody else. It's so frustrating that I'd like to tie them to chairs and give them some solid advice about originality. Too many keyboard parts in Neo Prog pieces are simply lifted and it's very lame to do that. It's frustrating to think that any Neo Prog band that will do this ..is so incredibly talented and are wasting their time along with dismissing the important or vital methods needed to be applied in order to save music. 

Edited by TODDLER - October 24 2014 at 22:38
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Points: 9869 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 25 2014 at 02:14
Originally posted by TODDLER TODDLER wrote:

[QUOTE=rogerthat][
So....there'e people out there yearning for that? I 'm not consistently exposed to that to give the notion any weight. I believe it, but it's usually people in my age group and realistically that makes little sense to me when there is a simple explanation as to why. Whenever you get down to the grit with the technical side to music or the advanced or experimental side , what always comes to mind is discouraging. For example, in the 60's and 70's music revolved around the concept of a method. A natural way of following methods to compose. Taking steps that musicians don't take today because they are kids afraid of the dark. So..instead they mask the real reason with an excuse ..which evidently appears to be a critical judgement on any method or concept of writing from the 60's and 70's era. "That was then, this is now" attitude. Which is closing off their minds from the intelligent way of looking at things. A good method is a good method! If it is a method of opening doors for musical expansion to another dimension or world, (like in the 70's), what in Jesus H does it have to do with the fact that it was created/thought of, in 1969? Why not apply it now? Steve Hackett does. Happy the Man did on their last release "Muse Awakes" .

 I assume that members of Happy the Man and Steve Hackett  are expanding more in music because they have an understanding for how certain ideas were originally invented in the day and they certainly write music as if they do, but it has little to do with the knowledge deriving from 1969. It's called "practices" aned the side of imitating someone else is in a galaxy...far, far...away. Some of these neo Prog bands today have the talent/ability to create something of their own. Not another Voyage of the Acolyte or a Crafty Hands , but something of their own and they refuse to do it. They are so perfect at copying Rick Wakeman and Robert Fripp, but  have zero interest in studying and observing how Wakeman and Fripp did it themselves. They seem to careless about looking into that or observing the process or even the pattern of the process.. That's foolish! That can compare to the kid in elementary school who looked at the answers on your test just to pass without even taking a chance on the ability of their own common sense. This is sad and should be changed by adding older methods and concepts of writing to new ones. That way...the music would at least even out and people would develop hope.


Not just people in your age group but even those youngsters who are nostalgic for a bygone period.  What, unfortunately, fascinates them is the sound and not the approach.  And that is why they would not recognise, much less appreciate, contemporary music made with a 70s approach.  I have to tell people that the only way out of this is ultimately simple: just spend the time to look for those artists who do capture the spirit of that age and apply it to a modern vocabulary.  They are there, go and listen to them and buy their music.  Make them popular...or at least make their vocation a sustainable one.  Yes, it takes too much effort to look for the proverbial needle in the haystack given the number of bands.  But the fact that one is not able to make that effort does not mean lamenting about the glory days will solve the problem.  It reminds me of another recent conversation I had about tennis.  Guys lamenting that today's Nadal or Murray don't have the genius for unorthodox strokemaking of Marcelo Rios.  I was like, folks, the champs of that time, i.e. Sampras or Agassi, didn't play like Rios either.  You want something out of the way, you've got to look for it.  It won't land on your lap.  There's this peculiar combination of nostalgia-fuelled pessimism and lazy inertia that's quite prevalent on the internet as far as music goes.
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 25 2014 at 08:49
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

Originally posted by TODDLER TODDLER wrote:

[QUOTE=rogerthat][
So....there'e people out there yearning for that? I 'm not consistently exposed to that to give the notion any weight. I believe it, but it's usually people in my age group and realistically that makes little sense to me when there is a simple explanation as to why. Whenever you get down to the grit with the technical side to music or the advanced or experimental side , what always comes to mind is discouraging. For example, in the 60's and 70's music revolved around the concept of a method. A natural way of following methods to compose. Taking steps that musicians don't take today because they are kids afraid of the dark. So..instead they mask the real reason with an excuse ..which evidently appears to be a critical judgement on any method or concept of writing from the 60's and 70's era. "That was then, this is now" attitude. Which is closing off their minds from the intelligent way of looking at things. A good method is a good method! If it is a method of opening doors for musical expansion to another dimension or world, (like in the 70's), what in Jesus H does it have to do with the fact that it was created/thought of, in 1969? Why not apply it now? Steve Hackett does. Happy the Man did on their last release "Muse Awakes" .

 I assume that members of Happy the Man and Steve Hackett  are expanding more in music because they have an understanding for how certain ideas were originally invented in the day and they certainly write music as if they do, but it has little to do with the knowledge deriving from 1969. It's called "practices" aned the side of imitating someone else is in a galaxy...far, far...away. Some of these neo Prog bands today have the talent/ability to create something of their own. Not another Voyage of the Acolyte or a Crafty Hands , but something of their own and they refuse to do it. They are so perfect at copying Rick Wakeman and Robert Fripp, but  have zero interest in studying and observing how Wakeman and Fripp did it themselves. They seem to careless about looking into that or observing the process or even the pattern of the process.. That's foolish! That can compare to the kid in elementary school who looked at the answers on your test just to pass without even taking a chance on the ability of their own common sense. This is sad and should be changed by adding older methods and concepts of writing to new ones. That way...the music would at least even out and people would develop hope.


Not just people in your age group but even those youngsters who are nostalgic for a bygone period.  What, unfortunately, fascinates them is the sound and not the approach.

RESPONSE:
When I was traveling in the 70's playing Progressive Rock, the sound developed from the approach. I don't disagree with all of your points, I'm simply stating a musician's known fact from experiencing that era first hand. Both approach and sound were ..(then), a new discovery on how to write music or make music sound. Approach was a chemistry of ideas that were detailed and had to be exact to be fitting. Like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer or Genesis. The sound was born through that. The ideas for LITTLE PORTIONS of sounds to develop an overall "sound" developed from approach. Approach in the composition ....where upon a musician would draw from various sources in ancient music or music of the 18th century, (for example), combining the perfect layer of notes , forming signature lines out of it, and as the project carried on in writing and recording demos, a sound or overall sound was present . The sound, when listening back to the demos, gave the musician choices to leave it alone or change something about it. If the sound was beautiful, but contained 1 series of notes that hearing wise, avoided those possibilities, then the musician would erase those notes , listen back to observe the difference without them, and proceed to add an ambient keyboard setting instead of the notes and that would arrive them to a conclusion about the piece. Now the piece had an overall sound that was no longer interrupted musically with a series of notes that wasn't fitting. Structure or approach to structure naturally developed a distinctive sound and then things had to be taken away or added slightly to make that beautiful sound blossom. This is precisely what Mike Oldfield did or Genesis with Selling England By the Pound or..The Lamb. Jethro Tull with A Passion Play or Minstrel In the Gallery. The sound developed from the approach.

  And that is why they would not recognise, much less appreciate, contemporary music made with a 70s approach. 


RESPONSE:
It shouldn't be labeled as a 70's approach just because it evolved then. It's merely a method that is timeless and futuristic other than a certain developed sound of the 70's that is easily indicated and quite annoying..Lol!. If it contains Hammond Organ and "Big Muff" guitar then YES! That is way dated and unappreciated by me, but...if the ideas derived from experimentation are applied fluently to an original piece of modern Prog music, everything should fall into place without "he said or she said" "it sounds like the 70's" 



  I have to tell people that the only way out of this is ultimately simple: just spend the time to look for those artists who do capture the spirit of that age and apply it to a modern vocabulary.  They are there, go and listen to them and buy their music.  Make them popular...or at least make their vocation a sustainable one.  Yes, it takes too much effort to look for the proverbial needle in the haystack given the number of bands.  But the fact that one is not able to make that effort does not mean lamenting about the glory days will solve the problem.  It reminds me of another recent conversation I had about tennis.  Guys lamenting that today's Nadal or Murray don't have the genius for unorthodox strokemaking of Marcelo Rios.  I was like, folks, the champs of that time, i.e. Sampras or Agassi, didn't play like Rios either.  You want something out of the way, you've got to look for it.  It won't land on your lap.  There's this peculiar combination of nostalgia-fuelled pessimism and lazy inertia that's quite prevalent on the internet as far as music goes.

tO ME personally, capturing the spirit of an age musically is a concept based on a type of music that presents itself ...on the surface..to be too familiar to folks. Something obvious such as the riff in Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love" where if you dismiss the dated sounding instruments in 70'S Prog, you can clearly see that the approach and formulas/elements are based on an advanced method of composing that many musicians today STILL have no real or little knowledge of. Much of the 70's approach in progressive composition is an educational process or learning experience for a musician of any age, and from any decade


Edited by TODDLER - October 25 2014 at 09:04
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rogerthat View Drop Down
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Points: 9869 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 25 2014 at 09:06
Don't disagree with anything you said there.  Yeah, when I say 70s approach, I simply mean an approach that those bands favoured.  There's no reason why it cannot be used today.  Completely agree indeed that just Hammonds and mellotrons don't make it 70s-like.  That is precisely where retro-prog gets it wrong.  
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Toaster Mantis View Drop Down
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Points: 5898 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 25 2014 at 10:41
This discussion reminds me of something that Mark Prindle remarks on his website in the introduction to a rundown of some big prog rock group's discography, can't remember which one though: In 1960s/1970s rock bands that branch out into other genres, the integration of styles from outside the rock framework sounds more organic than when bands from the 1980s and onwards attempt to do so; his best guess being that back then the exact norms of what constituted rock music weren't quite codified yet that it meant something in specific for musicians to come from a "rock background". 

I know he's not exactly an expert on progressive rock, as there's quite a bit in the genre he's downright dismissive of or otherwise rather lukewarm towards. Still, it's the first thing I thought of as a point of comparison. I remember RateYourMusic reviewer HorseMouth, who's an invaluable resource when it comes to 1960s/1970s experimental music in general extending to avant-jazz and early electronic too, make the same point several times.
"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
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