Did Classical Music influence Prog?

This is not a fact!

 

I don't regard Pink Floyd as a Prog band, They were a Psychadelic band from the 60s and really nothing changed for them. And why ELP and not The Nice? The Nice came first, and they were both virtually the same thing, if you're talking "pioneers" surely The Nice should get the credit, not ELP.

 

And why not Van der Graaf Generator, or Amon Duul II, or even The Moody Blues?

 

I think you picked the most successful, and not neccessarily the pioneers.

 

Keith

By your interpretation you are 100% correct. By using vague generalisations Prog can be said to have been influenced by just about anything, as your Blues example so aptly demonstrates (though Progressive Blues is still a bit of a no-go area as far as Progressive Rock is concerned).

 

However, I do not believe that such a generalisation is in the spirit of the OT, which infers a more direct, one-degree of separation, connection between Prog and Classical Music, and was qualified by distinct examples by individual bands and not as a catch-all of the entire genre. I also think that the six pages of discussions that followed tend to support my interpretation, even if they have been sidetracked by the discussion of qualifications and musical training which I maintain has little or no bearing on the music that musicians create and cannot be used as an indication of musical influence.

 

And I disagree with this idea that classical music was such a primary influence, even in the Big-6. Any influence of classical music on Prog has been in the most part secondary or even tertiary.

 

The problem I have is that the if influence of the Classical Period had been so great and so direct, then it would show in more rigid and more easily identifiable structures within the compositions such as those found in the sonata form (or even as sonatas themselves) and other strict classical forms - Prog is more free-form than that - to me it shows an unstructured, "make it up as we go", approach that typifies the free-form jams that preceded it in Psyche Rock but as improvised composition rather than improvised playing. Also the classically inspired ornamentation that was present in Baroque Pop of the 60s (Procol Harum, Moody Blues etc) carries on into the Prog era, embellishing the music with pastiches of classical motifs, many simply lifted wholesale from popular classical pieces without the accompanying development of that motif throughout the piece. In retrospect the end result may appear to look structured and therefore influenced by classical techniques, it rarely follows classical "rules". Just because it sounds Classical doesn't mean it is Classical in derivation.

 

I believe we are talking about INFLUENCE, not about an absolute rule, we talk about Progressive Rock as a GENRE, not as individual bands.

Nobody denies that Rock was influenced by Blues, despite not every band in Rock has a Blues based Rock structure.

In the same way, the first generation of pure Prog bands was influenced by Classical Music (Understood as Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, etc).

It's also a fact that the 6 most transcendental bands in Prog history (Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, ELP and Jethro Tull) and pioneers of the genre, have Classical influence in higher or lesser degree, and that most bands have something of at least one of this bands.

So the Classical influence IN THE GENRE is beyond any doubt.