Further to recent exchanges of view, I seek opinions out there about the use of the word 'accessible' to describe strands of prog.  I've always been very partisan about the kinds of music I like, what instruments are involved, what moods are created, how interesting a musical passage or phrase is, how complex it is etc.  On numerous reviews for this site, I notice people using the words 'accessible', 'inaccessbile', or 'least accessible', and I wondered what they meant by that.  I never had to go through Emerson Lake & Palmer to get to Henry Cow (one of the bands tarred with this brush), or work my way through The Moody Blues to get to Magma (yet another). 

Surely reactions to music are visceral and instinctive, and its more a question of appreciating specific elements within the sound, rather than responding to progressive (sic) levels of difficulty or mood? 

Answers on a postcard please, preferably with examples to show me why we need to warn potential new prog fans away from especially dangerous and inaccessible areas. 

If you define prog as "aquired taste", then you might use a term such as accessible to describe music that is easy on the ear - that being instant recognition of melody, harmony and rythem in a known structure (verse and chorus style) Any likness to mainstream/pop music which most of us know very well, will make it more accessible. If you have heard little music outside of the big radiostations, MTV etc. then prog could be described as inaccessible.

Accessible prog: Pink Floyd, Marillion, Genesis as opposed to King Crimson, ELP and Bruford to mention a few.

Wrath,

Could you be reading more into the usage of the term than is intended? A quick look at the dictionary definition of "accessible" should clarify things - see below. It's just a handy word for "easy to listen to" in my opinion.

accessible [ək séssəb’l]

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Wrath_of_Ninian wrote: Surely reactions to music are visceral and instinctive, and its more a question of appreciating specific elements within the sound, rather than responding to progressive (sic) levels of difficulty or mood?

For what it is worth, I believe people are to a greater or lesser extent, driven by 'mob' instinct. Maybe more than some of us would like to admit.

If a critic labels an album/band as 'unlistenable', the impression of said music left in ones head is tainted, however much you might believe otherwise. Sometimes that a bad review might renforce your resolve to buy, other times it might put you off an artist you would otherwise have enjoyed.

I personally like albums that require a little 'work' to get into. Van der Graff's 'Pawn Hearts' being a good example of a record I intially hated but slowly grew to love.

No, I appreciate the point you are trying to make with the dictionary definition, but its not really what I was getting at.  I know what 'accessible' means!  I am actually more interested in the second point you made about it being "a handy word for 'easy to listen to'" (as you put it).  What makes something easy to listen to?  In YOUR opinion? And conversely, what makes something difficult to listen to?

I know its difficult to convey feelings about music in words but should we be bothering to review and grade music in terms of 'ease of listening'?  Especially when the level of ease is entirely dependent on the character of the listener. 

I just wanted to hear how people classify 'accessible' music, as the term seems to be appearing with alarming regularity these days, and with no discernible benefit for the potential listener. 

Sorry Sigod, we crossed posts there (and maybe will again).

A fair point, and I'm sure many people respond to reviews in the manner you describe.  When I read a review, especially when considering buying something I haven't heard before, I often look for musical description in the writing rather than personal input (which I feel is irrelevant, unless it is extremely amusing!).  Words like 'accessible' do nothing to help in this department, as they are entirely subjective, and yet it is starting to appear almost as a genre label in some reviews. 

I agree that muscical description is of value when you are looking to buy a new record. Hopefully though, the one making the review has listened to enough music to make a good description and comparison to other bands. I think though that "accessible" can be used pretty objectively in a review, just as a descrition of compositional structures, harmonies used a time signatures can give meaningful information.

To much personal mumbo jumbo is usesless in a review in my humble opinion too, but there is a tendency that music critics have little or no education, while art critics often has higher degrees from university, which at least have given them a better tool for writing somewhat to the point. Being an educated writer though is never a guarantee for a good review, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

Surely "Accessible" is where a band have the "essence" of prog - Nice keyboard lick on organ/piano/synthesizer or nice guitar riff (Acoustic/Electric)..These are easily picked up and enjoyed by the proggie..More strange/dischordant music may take time to sink in and be enjoyed.

Thats why I loved genesis two full years before Yes and ELP...But liked Camel/Marillion/IQ/Twelfth Night straight away,

^ Wow, we better be careful guys and girls. This thread is beginning to sound serious and dangerously close to being interesting

BTW, good sig greenback

Well spotted Sigod, maybe we all should tone it down a bit.

Hows about "My favourite accessible band is..."  

I'll go first:

My favourite accessible band is The Doors - no problems getting through them, or slamming them, or fitting them to newly built houses. 

 Welcome, Wrath of Ninian!

  Interesting question. When I use the word "accessible," it can mean "catchy," more commercial (and thus, more within the "grasp" or taste of the casual prog listener, or the non-prog, mainstream rock fan), more pop-like, easier for more people to immediately get into, etc.

For example, I would typify an avant garde, occasionally cacaphonic album like Van der Graaf Generator's Pawn Hearts, or anything by Deus Ex Machina, as relatively inaccessible (though I'd more likely say "difficult," or "challenging"), but Porcupine Tree's Lightbulb Sun, or Pineapple Thief's Variations on a Dream as "accessible," ie, no great stretch for the average rock fan (my wife makes a good "litmus test" for this) to appreciate.

Sometimes I say "radio-friendly." For my tastes, the latter, or "accessible" is not generally a bad thing (depending on the band's history), as I enjoy many forms of rock, pop, and music in general. Sometimes I just want to hum along with a nice melody, or put something on the car stereo that won't have my family squirming.... 

I would think that an accessible piece of music (of any genre) would be one that conforms to pop/rock standards, as other members have pointed out - ie use of standard time signatures, simple, easy to sing melodies and catchy choruses with memorable lyrics.

Even those terms are "fluffy", and not necessarily correct, as, for example, Marillion's "Script for a Jester's Tear" album is accessible to the point that many mistake it for being very simple music - and yet there are complex time signatures (although not as complex as, say, Yes), there is an abundance of complex counterpoint (layered melodies), songs typically have no chorus, and the lyrics are exceptionally complex. There is, however, an abundance of beautiful melody, "pure" diatonic harmony, and an absence of sudden changes, except for dramatic effect.

So maybe it just boils down to a piece having beautiful melody - but what makes a beautiful melody?

I can't really answer that, of course, but I could suggest that a melody that invites listener involvement is one that follows simple steps on the whole, and exists in a duplex form - a "questioning" phrase and an "answering" phrase. Using diatonic shifts through "natural" tonal modulation to related keys, consistently resolving chromatic clashes both vertically and horizontally whilst maintaining simple rhythms with crosstalk only for effect are all tools a composer can use to make a piece more accessible.

As well as melody, harmony, rhythm and form, the 5th aspect to bear in mind is the overall texture. Generally, the "softer" and more conventional, the more accessible. I'm not talking solely about dynamic here, but also use of instruments.

Just to confuse matters, I'm not suggesting that everything should sound like Clannad in order to be accessible - although there is a tempting agreeableness to that argument. Of course, harshness in timbre can be used, just as louder dynamics, for contrasts in texture - but these contrasts should be used for effect, and generally not in a jarring way.

None of which explains "Rhapsody in Blue", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Money" by Pink Floyd (it's in 7/4 for much of the duration...) or Beethoven.

Supertramp are a very accessible band, yet have many proggy elements. They're so accessible that their status as a prog band is continually questioned by some. To say a particular Frank Zappa album is accessible, however, would probably be a relative comment - e.g. I find "We're Only In It For The Money" to be one of his more accessible albums.

In short, I don't think "accessible" refers to a particular style, but that there are key elements that are readily identifiable. Of course, it is such a flexible word that we could easily use it in the sense of "accessible to most proggers" (e.g. Genesis, Marillion).

Henry Cow, OTOH can easily be regarded as inaccessible in broad terms, due to non-conformity of many of the ground rules I suggested above. I still find much of his music hard to listen to - and I rarely revisit it in the way I would revisit, say Gong or Pink Floyd. The Legendary Stardust Cowboy and Stockhausen ARE inaccessible to all but those with warped minds...

My thoughts

I think music critics tend to use "accessible" and "radio-friendly" to mean the same thing. It's generally more of a cultural standard than an aesthetic one. The wider your musical exposure, the more accessible things will seem.

It's not really an objective term, though...it's harder for many people to leave an "easy-listening" station on the radio than a "modern rock" station. So obviously it means different things in different contexts.

I think there are "two picks" among tastes of Progressive Rock Fans...

I know the fans who prefer the Music for the Soul (Heart) and the fans who prefer the Music for the Intellect (Brain). Saying more exactly, there are not such "absolutes", but every listener, to my mind, is determined of "these two parts of scales". Thinking about myself, I think my  taste is approximately 45 % of "Heart" and 55 % of "Brains" (also it all depends on season, mood, time of day, etc...).

Well, the typical music for "Brains" includes: King Crimson since 1973, Univers Zero, Present, Magma, Gong (by Daevid Allen's period), Brian Eno, Robert Fripp solo, Anekdoten, Anglagard, Il Balletto Di Bronzo, Henry Cow, Samla Mammas Manna, Gordian Knot, John McLaughlin & Mahavishnu, Miriodor, Volapuk... Even Jimi Hendrix!

But the typical kinds of music for "Heart" are (this kind seems more "accessible"): Genesis'70-'73 and '75-... (but not THE LAMB! It's jus at the middle!!!! ;)), Jethro Tull '74-78, Pendragon, Marillion, Supertramp, Druid, Procol Harum, Lucio Battisti, PFM, Locanda Delle Fate, Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso 72-73, Quella Vecchia Locanda, Citizen Cain 92-94, Cast, the 2 debut albums by King Crimson...

But I think the general idea of Music is not in its "accessibility" or in "non-accessibility"...

Alagithil wrote: Jimi Hendrix for Brains over Heart? Huh? No, Hendrix is for Soul.

You resurrected a year old pointless thread with an incorrect statement.

That's cool.

Poxx wrote: Alagithil wrote: Jimi Hendrix for Brains over Heart? Huh? No, Hendrix is for Soul. You resurrected a year old pointless thread with an incorrect statement. That's cool.

I think this thread has plenty of point. It's a wide-ranging topic with plenty of conversation left in it.

If we weren't interestered in resurrecting old things, we wouldn't be at a prog site.

And I'd like some explanation of why my statement was incorrect; I think the emotion in Hendrix's playing was more important by far than his technical prowess.

So I guess I'm not cool after all...

As to accessible, it is very subjective. I for one, find Fragile to be one of the less accessible albums I own, mostly because of its crunchiness, a factor which makes it harder for me to listen to. Some, however, find it one of the most accessible prog albums. But subjectivity is generally not entirely personal. If I put out an album of me saying, "Grr," for 45 minutes, most people would make the subjective judgment that, say, any given Beatles album is better than it. But that point is about subjectivity, not accessibility.