I like what Seven Impale and Native Contact do.  I like metal prog meets jazz.   

Or, What Motopsycho did withThe Death Defying Unicorn.

Or what YES did with Magnification, when they dropped Keys and wrote orchestral parts instead of keys.  It doesn't have to an orchestra.  Use your imagination,  use a barbershop quartet as an instrument. A jazz quartet as an instrument.      

Add more drummers and different kinds of drums.

  I'd like to see a major Animated Prog musical Fantasy movie with major talents contributing songs and voices.  

Interested to see how Therion's 3 1/2 hour Opera turns out.    

Put several constraints on an album.    For example write each song in different key with different time signatures.   Put a time constraint on recording time and album length.  Release 4 thirty minute EP's in a row instead of a 2 hour album.  Constraints cause creation.  You wouldn't play tennis without a net.   

Do what Zappa did.  Don't let the other musicians hear what the others are playing.  Study Zappa and Miles Davis techniques.  Not their music but their techniques.  

I didn't know we had any Oulipians on the forum. Splendid!

It's up to the listener to choose his/her preference of music and genre within the Prog family.  

 

More cellos, for sure

 

Violins, I'm much less certain.

 

Naked women would also be an improvement.

I came into this thread thinking this immediately, and was surprised it took this long for someone to post it 

And a oompah backing band, with a melodica

(Neal Morse adding Eric Gillette to his band was a stroke of genius.)

I'm all for incorporation of old ideas and old sounds but I'd like to see less emulation, replication, and imitation. 

Be bold! Be brave and risky. Trust in your own creative instincts--your own intuition! And don't be afraid to use outside, objective feedback during the engineering and production phases. 

Otherwise, I am very encouraged by the many young people who have felt drawn to this medium for their artistic expression. Keep on proggin'! 

I agree.....Clearly prog does not mean what it did 30yrs ago, I struggle thinking of any band today that is prog. Atmospheric/moody/dark/reserved seems to be the tone of the day (Ana_thema, Marillion, Riverside...). It's fine but not always is this type of music fun to listen.

So for me the question I cannot answer cause I don't consider most of today's music prog.......If I want to listen to prog I'm fine spinning my records from the 70's.

This is actually articulated very well, and something I think about a lot. The top-tier bands had "the sound", because that's all that technology allowed at the time. It's funny to think bands take gear that's 3-4x as expensive, then try to make it emulate older stuff .

 

...whoops, never mind.

I've found some really great bands on here that otherwise would of missed without this forum.  I love music a lot and adore discovering newer or bands otherwise would never of found.  There used to be more music forums around but they seem to be dying a bit!....

 

While I agree with what you're saying with regards to the label "Progressive", I think the shortened form "Prog" actually fulfils the same role as "Gorp" would.

 

 

 

Thanks, I forgot that one!...

"Gorp" is an awful word to use!...

Exactly.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=musical+masturbation

and please stop this habit making double and extended albums.  

40-50 minutes of good music is enough. its hard to make it longer without being repetitive 

Listen to songs in reverse and come up with "new" riffs! 

This site is infamous for it's broken CAPTCHA process. Copy + Paste your posts, ALWAYS.

Hi,

It's just weird that no one knows or understands the term that is being used as a "definition", and then start adding/subtracting instruments ... so they can hear their favorites.

If you want favorites, go do the top ten ... forget "prog" or "poorrog", or anything related to the term, that has nothing to do with it.

When all this came up, what became "prog" and "progressive" did not even have a definition, because no one knew what to call it ... and it even got something like "art rock" attached to it.

Sadly, 40 years later, we're not smart, and can only think in terms of "definitions", even though they are NOT, and NEVER WERE, proper and concise to the music itself that got that "title.

It's always weird to me ... Robert Fripp saying he is not "progressive", and neither is KC, and yet we call them that. I guess the artist is an idiot and would not know anything about his music, and besides, knowing music is ... hmmmmm .... making sure you are stuck to the staff and add the oddities that supposedly make it "prog" or "progressive"?

Here's my take!

1. The addition of any instrument, is accidental, not incidental.

2. It can not be a "song" format, or any known format in music, because otherwise, it wouldn't be "progressive", unless it were doing just scales ... in which case, THAT IS NOT, progressive at all ... that's just a hand study to improve your playing! In fact, those scales are mostly mechanical and mathematical ... and that is not known as "progressive" or "prog". UNFORTUNATELY that is all you hear?

3. Subject matter is not limited to fantasies about dragons and metaphysics!

4. The "meaning" of the pieces should be completely abstract, so the audience is considered not intelligent enough to just enjoy the listen, which a "prog" audience" can not do!

5. A new century and time would help, so that all these old ideas and thoughts are long gone, and we can finally hear something different ... instead of the awesomely tired and boring ... smae thing all over again, but this time with a violin, or a cowbell ... folks, that is not even original anymore and has not been for 50 years!

6. How can it be "progressive" or "prog" when it is not either of those by pure definition? It's just an idea by pop-fan=crazed folks that love their top ten because they have nothing else to enjoy with their friends?

The only good post in this silly thread.

Listen to what you like or make up your own music if you don't like what it out there, but don't generalize all of prog into a few words. Basically everything that was stated here exists, so what is the problem?

Also, music videos with lots of nudity.....cause advertisement 

Right! I suppose that was ultimately my point. Those synth sounds were very unique, even if they were intended emulation for that period. So we basically have bands trying to emulate an emulation. It's like tape trading; each copy is worse and worse. Almost like progressive rock telephone! 

I've got a tight drummer who's into prog (fantastic taste, honestly). Two guitars has been done to death.

Also, I'd make The Astonishing get a better reception than it does.

Ill have to check them out, thank you!

This is something I've thought about a lot; vocals get all the attention when it comes to listeners. I feel like the rest of the band gets robbed because of this, honestly. They take all this time and effort to construct these complex, beautiful passages and people will turn it off if they don't like the pitch/tone of the person's voice. It's make or break and it's really too bad. So many people dismiss YES because of Jon Anderson's voice. What a shame!

 

 

 

 

Master of Time wrote: I think prog could use more diversity. Different experiences and cultures bring in more influences and different approaches. Let’s face it, prog is still largely white guys, I think more diversity would breathe some life into the prog scene.

There is plenty of that all over the world, specially with cultural influences ... however, they are not considered "progressive" by the standards that are defined in this board, and the discussion of lesser bands here, being a database, is forever banned to the last item listed amidst 10K entries ... and this makes a lot of people think that it is not worth the discussion, when the lack of a more open ability to listen to different things are the reason why a lot of folks do not know more music.

It is always one of the weirdest things ... you get folks posting from Chile, Brazil, South Africa and new Zealand, and their countries do not have anything "progressive" ... and they are posting about Genesis, and ELP and this and that ... and it is like they can not recognize the "progressive" or "prog" idiom, if their life depended on it.

It is down right scary ... just like those WD stories ... cardboard versions of old stories from around the world, and you believe them as original and new, because of the colorful presentation ... and other countries in this world are no less affected by it than we are ... !!!

You can't improve "prog"!

Now I ask you ... how do you improve "Stravinsky"? Or "Beethoven"? 

And all of a sudden the question comes off as silly, and inappropriate within the history of music and its creativity designs ... we just refuse to CREDIT it for its abilities and can only thing of COPIES ... and never something else original and creative.

Let me ask you something ... how to improve "you" and your question?

You know something? You're alright, Moshkito .

I agree!  I'd like to see more female vocalists up front, vs. a lot of white guys, struggling to hit the high notes. 

James LaBrie, Benoit David, and John Davison all come to mind right away.

First let me apologize right off the top here and say that I didn't 100% understand everything you said just in regards to phrasing and such, and that's my bad (also I don't know what you're referring to when you say WD stories), and also, it's not clear in all of it whether you're responding to me or the OP, especially with this sentence in particular, "Let me ask you something ... how to improve "you" and your question?" because I didn't ask a question, I just gave my two cents about the original question, but I'll address one specific point you made.

You brought up the idea of improving Stravinsky and Beethoven and used it to call this question inappropriate, but I find the analogy inappropriate. For one, I'm sure if you asked their contemporaries at the time they would have opinions on how they could improve, whether they would be right or not is another question but they would have their opinions. Also we're not talking about improving specific artists from the past, we're talking about improving the current prog scene as a whole (at least that was my impression). I'm sure there are many ways in which you could improve the contemporary classical music scene.

I agree, though I'd like to see more women in on instruments as well. 90% of the time when I do find prog bands with women it is as the vocalist. Just all around in all positions I think more diversity in the genre would produce some interesting material.

The Dark Elf wrote: Drop the song length down to 2:30 and make it danceable. Some good looking singers and musicians might help as well.

You think that might bring some more girls and groupies around?

And I'm not talking about the ones that hand around YES shows these days ... goodness gracious ... get me some dope and get me outta here!

SEVENTH WAVE was in LA with 7 keyboard members ... and I had exams to deal with at UCSB and couldn't go! 

I regret that badly and would love to hear a bootleg of that!

Drum machines, kazoos, airplane propellers, and maybe a Minimoog.

Master of Time wrote: ... You brought up the idea of improving Stravinsky and Beethoven and used it to call this question inappropriate, but I find the analogy inappropriate.

Actually your comment is more of a copout than anything else.

IF you do not like something, get yourself an instrument, and do it yourself, but you have no right to pontificate that others are not correct and need to do "better". You sound like the church already ... and its "favorites", and of course, as has been the history of it, many musicians and artists died because of these ideas ... so you want to continue the evil?

-------------
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

Ohhhhh ... you have not heard PDQ Bach, yet?

The shame ... duh total shame!

Deconstruction and restructure!

I assume you enjoy Tales from Topographic Oceans? I love my prog side-long as well!

Aye - Favourite Yes effort by a country mile - But ITS FAR TOO SHORT!!!

They should have reprised a lot of their back catalogue and weaved it into the tracks (as they did briefly with close to the edge theme)

That ship has sailed a long time ago - I have the musical ability of a desiccated whelk....

You are a rare breed, sir! While not my personal favorite (it's hard to top CTTE and Relayer for me), it's definitely more seminal than the prog community gives it credit for. I somehow have that record memorized very well. I've never heard anyone complain of it being too short! I wonder what they could've done if they made each song an entire LP in itself (4 LP set instead of 2 double sided)? 

TFK - are one of my favourite prog bands - because they do like an extended epic and even in the shorter epics - e.g. Monsters and Men - The monumental guitar solo by stolt - is nicely extended - you think it's over then - he's off again - I like that in a track.....