How to define and classify progressive rock? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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David_D

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Posted: November 18 2010 at 13:33

Hi Progpos!

Thanks a lot for your very good remarks.

They do of course bear the mark of our to a certain degree diverse point of view in the matter of the best way of defining Progressive Rock. Nevertheless, I'm very glad that you with your comment have made me think at the lack of clarity in the question of the basis on which I had decided what to include in my definition, and now I want to improve it.

As far it concerns Pink Floyd, Rush and Dream Theater, I must say, we have quite different opinions, and what I find most correctly appears from one of my previous posts in this thread, which states:

"A bit late answer/comments to your concerns, Mushroom Sword:

1.Whether Pink Floyd will be included in my proposal for prog definition?

Well, I don’t know what you have been thinking at in this matter, but it should be quite obvious that yes. As Pink Floyd is agreed to be characterized as space-rock and this style I explicitly mention as a part of the main sub-genre “psychedelic prog”.

2. The question of including Rush, Tool, Dream Theater and “hard rock”.

As the main thing here, I would not consider “hard-rock” as a major style equal to “my” main sub-genres/styles. So, I’ll suggest that we either have to do with some music where the heavy elements are very pronounced, and in that case we classified it as a part of the main sub-genre, I have defined as “heavy prog”. – And here I’ll surely include Dream Theater. - Or, we have to do with some music where other elements are more dominating, and in that case we classified it as one of “my” other main sub-genres. But in that case we can talk about sub-subgenres, for instance “hard symphonic prog” which I think would be a proper characteristic of Rush. Or another examples could here be “hard jazz-rock”, as for instance label for Liquid Tension Experiment, or “hard folk-rock” as the characteristic of the peruvian band Flor de Loto.
As far as it concerns Tool, I’ll prefer not to comment them here, because they are not so little quirky."

To this I have to add that I consider Progressive Space Rock as being synthesis of Rock and electronic Avant-garde while in Heavy Prog, the way I've defined it, I of course include Progressive Metal and thus Dream Theater. Here, I have again to add that in my opinion, Progressive Metal is, among other things, a fusion with Classical.

Edited by David_D - November 18 2010 at 22:26

progpositivity View Drop Down

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Posted: November 17 2010 at 18:11

Hi David! I see some things that I like about your definition.

At your request, I'm posting some concerns or questions that might be used to "fine tune" the wording a bit - if you wish to do so. If not, that's certainly "OK" too! Of course, they could be a result of me misunderstanding something. I hope they don't sound too critical.

Here is my current understanding of your definition.

1) Prog creates a synthesis of rock music plus at least 1 of the main genres of music. The main genres are: classical music, jazz music, ethnic music, electronic music, and avant-garde music.

2) Prog must be either

a)"rather complex" OR

b) experimental in some way other than - above and beyond the mere fact that it has synthesized rock with another main genre of music.

I certainly can see how this recipe could create some very excellent Progressive Rock music!

My concerns are mostly about some important music that I think gets "left out" and the lack of clarity regarding the basis for which we make the decision to include or leave out certain music.

Music that seems like it could get "left out" but which I think should be included:

* What about rock music that becomes very complex without achieving a synthesis with another main genre? Music like Rush and Dream Theater and Pink Floyd? I don't think they really draw very much from the other main styles but they still seem worthy of being included in "progressive rock".

* What about music that is a synthesis of rock and a genre that is not one of the main styles? What if music is complex, is written in a 7/8 time signature and yet it is essentially a synthesis of rock and soul - like a progressive Stevie Wonder type of music? I think it would be worthy of including in the domain of "progressive rock".

For these type reasons, my preference would be to not require a true synthesis and to not quantify a list of required "main styles" in the definition. But that is just my preference. This is your approach to defining prog and I'm just stating my own opinion and preference.

* What if music is a synthesis of rock and jazz, but the resulting jazz-rock fusion is not "rather complex" nor is it "experimental" in another way than #1? It sounds like it would not qualify according to your definition. But I think all jazz-rock fusion should qualify. This leads me to my final question/concern.

The basis on which we make the decision to include or not to include.

* This definition leaves us decide whether music is "rather complex" or "experimental" but it doesn't provide a guiding reference point for making such a determination.

For this reason, I would be interested in having an indicator or "reference point" to help in the definition. As you know from our previous discussions, I believe a good such reference point is "beyond the traditional boundaries or limitations of the rock genre".

Of course, it is OK if you just say it is complex and/or experimental. You don't "have" to quantify it. I just think it helps solidify the definition in one's mind if we are able to provide a reference point.

Edited by progpositivity - November 17 2010 at 18:32

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David_D

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Posted: November 16 2010 at 20:52

No, the original definition was

I will propose that some music to be called progressive rock has to:

1. be a synthesis of rock and at least one of the other main styles: classical music, jazz, ethnic music, electronic or other avant-garde, and

2. be rather complex or at least to some extent experimental in another way than 1.

except from that instead of "ethnic music", it said "folk", and #2 shall secure excluding of those syntheses which are not supposed to be characterized as progressive rock.

Edited by David_D - November 16 2010 at 20:57

rogerthat

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Posted: November 16 2010 at 19:08

David_D wrote:

rogerthat wrote:

A good definition of progressive rock necessarily has to be broad because by nature it is NOT limited to a few musical styles. It can be argued that the musical styles going into it is not important now and was not in the 70s and it is a certain compositional approach that those bands shared.

Can making syntheses of styles not be said to be a certain compositional approach?

You misunderstood me,the point is prog is not by its nature limited to a few musical styles. I haven't been keeping tabs on the progress Wink

of this thread but the original definition you proposed was of a synthesis of rock,classical, jazz and folk or something on those lines. I submit that there may even be music that is a synthesis of these styles and yet not prog.

David_D

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Posted: November 16 2010 at 16:19

Can making syntheses of styles not be said to be a certain compositional approach?

Edited by David_D - November 16 2010 at 16:20

David_D

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Posted: November 09 2010 at 15:18

Ok, now I think it's better for the time being to drop the idea of renaming symphonic prog to classical prog. But we could at least clearly define symphonic prog as consisting of more than only a synthesis of rock and European classical music. That more is surely Andalusian (flamenco) rock but maybe also fusion with Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian (Gamelan), Ottoman (Turkish) and some other "classical" music. I agree though with rogerthat that the condition for being classified as symphonic prog must be an appropriate stylistic resemblance with the classic symphonic prog. Otherwise it'll be some mess.

If somebody could be interested in which classical and art music exists in the entire world, Wikipedia have made an suggestion for an overview - follow the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_classical_and_art_music_traditions

Edited by David_D - November 09 2010 at 15:43

Slartibartfast View Drop Down

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 17:17

Sometimes things you like just have to be appreciated in their own right and don't need to be considered prog. Make your case, if it goes nowhere, move on.

Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

David_D

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 16:20

Slartibartfast wrote:

Prog Folk or Folk Prog is always English, British, or Celtic for me. Folk proper does compose a much broader range of music around the world.

Does that mean that you could appreciate the idea of calling it "Ethnic Prog" when the talk is about the subject consisting of the synthesis of rock and folk/ethnic music in the entire world?

Edited by David_D - November 08 2010 at 13:32

David_D

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 15:41

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

rogerthat wrote:

Ivan intended it for folk prog maybe but no harm done in having a general ethnic basket imo.

You are right Rogerthat, I believe that Prog Folk or Folk Prog are misleading terms due to the large history of Celtic or British pastoral bands being identified with this terms.

So I proposed to change Prog Folk to Ethnic Prog...No relation with Symphonic.

Iván

No, the question was whether your "Ethnic Prog" term concerned the traditional/ethnic music of the entire world?

Edited by David_D - November 08 2010 at 13:31

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 13:13

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

rogerthat wrote:

Ivan intended it for folk prog maybe but no harm done in having a general ethnic basket imo.

You are right Rogerthat, I believe that Prog Folk or Folk Prog are misleading terms due to the large history of Celtic or British pastoral bands being identified with this terms.

So I proposed to change Prog Folk to Ethnic Prog...No relation with Symphonic.

Iván

Prog Folk or Folk Prog is always English, British, or Celtic for me. Folk proper does compose a much broader range of music around the world.

Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

Ivan_Melgar_M View Drop Down

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 11:57

rogerthat wrote:

Ivan intended it for folk prog maybe but no harm done in having a general ethnic basket imo.

You are right Rogerthat, I believe that Prog Folk or Folk Prog are misleading terms due to the large history of Celtic or British pastoral bands being identified with this terms.

So I proposed to change Prog Folk to Ethnic Prog...No relation with Symphonic.

Iván

David_D

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 11:22

rogerthat, if you have somehow followed the discussions at the other quest for prog definition, could you maybe give a briefing concerning the headlines for discussions?

Edited by David_D - November 09 2010 at 15:47

David_D

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 09:36

David_D wrote:

rogerthat wrote:

David_D wrote:

Neither can I see a big problem in the fact that non Western "classical music" fused with rock will have some differences from the classic symphonic prog. I mean that should not be so relevant in the matter of justice classification. Contrary, the most important thing here must be that we use the same logic, and, I'll say, that we don't discriminate.

A good explanation of the problem, rogerthat, and now I can see it, too. Thanks.

As a matter of fact, thanks a lot because I'd say, I really learned something new here. And now, I guess, I better understand why the music I have, fused with Indian, all is jazz fusion, and why I've had substantial difficulties with finding some more complex and rocky music fused with Indian. It has even been a bit easier with Japanese and even Chinese. You're very welcome to recommend, if you know some more elaborate and rocky Indian fusion.

Edited by David_D - November 08 2010 at 13:29

rogerthat

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 08:50

Ivan intended it for folk prog maybe but no harm done in having a general ethnic basket imo.

Edited by rogerthat - November 07 2010 at 08:51

David_D

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 08:49

rogerthat wrote:

A good explanation of the problem, rogerthat, and now I can see it, too. Thanks.

But then again, what do you think of a term for traditional ("folk") music in a global scope, because that's how Ivan has proposed that we use "ethnic prog". He has written:

I always believed that the term Prog Folk or ,Folk Prog is too identified with Celtic or British Pastoral influenced music, and misleads, like for example, somebody who finds Los Jaivas could feel disappointed because they don't sound as Jethro Tull or The Strawbs.

That's why I propose to change it to ETHNIC PROG, which covers more the variety of national influences.}}

Edited by David_D - November 08 2010 at 12:40

rogerthat

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 04:18

David_D wrote:

As the first thing, again, I'm talking not only about including the Indian music but in principle the "classical music" of the entire world - which means for instance also Japanese and Chinese. Then, I can't see it as a big problem the differences from Western classical. We can say that what they have in common is their origins as the historical music of upper classes, and that's how we can define "the new", global in scope, classical music. As we could say, folk, or the global in scope ethnic music, has it's origin in lower classes.

I only focused on Indian because there's an Indo prog category. I think there would be problems with lumping Japanese, Chinese, Indian etc all in one basket as 'classical'. Reason being that apart from the socio-cultural factor of classical music forms historically being upper class music - would like to verify this but will accept the assumption for the sake of discussion - there is not much musical common ground between these styles. I think Ivan's idea of an ethnic prog category for all music styles that are not rooted in the Western medium is a better one.

But the classification then is on some historical basis which does not directly relate to some musical basis of classifying the music. Ok, we could put all prog rock with strong influence of some or other classical music in one category but it would not be particularly helpful. For instance, prog that is Western classical based, say Renaissance, may be less improvised in nature but Indo-Western fusion would lean towards jazz because improvisation is a very key element of Indian classical music. Even on classifying such cross-country synthesis as ethnic, we are only putting them in a sort of geographical basket but at least this would establish that said basket includes music that involves synthesis of rock/folk/jazz with some or other non-Western classical/non-classical music. That leads to the other problem with a global classical prog category: what happens to music that draws Oriental or Eastern elements without the same necessarily being the classical music of those countries? Say, qawali.

David_D

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 04:06

rogerthat wrote:

David_D wrote:

What "classical" means is a matter of convention. Now I suggest that we define it as the "classical" music of the entire world, but maybe it would be better then to call the symphonic prog for something else. Do you have any suggestions?

Indeed it is, and strictly speaking, classical is not even supposed to imply general Western orchestral music, but we'll leave that aside for the moment. Indian classical music is not really referred to as CLASSICAL by its own exponents here because classical is a Western attribute to begin with. We just call it Carnatic and Hindustani here. And I must stress again, there is no comparison between British or Italian classical music on the one hand and Carnatic and Hindustani on the other because the former are still only forms of WESTERN classical music, the latter are completely different. Rock or jazz fused with Indian classical music would not resemble rock fused with Western classical music at all. There is also no scope imo to accommodate rock-Indian classical synthesis within the umbrella of symphonic prog.

Neither can I see a big problem in the fact that non Western "classical music" fused with rock will have some differences from the classic symphonic prog. I mean that should not be so relevant in the matter of justice classification. Contrary, the most important thing here must be that we use the same logic, and, I'll say, that we don't discriminate.

Further, I'm not talking just about purely theoretical terms. Syntheses of non Western "classical" and rock exists. And that is the case with Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Andalusian, Indonesian and some other too.

So, I think, we should give it a chance.

Something entire else is that I just wrote at the other, "minimalist", prog definition debate that from my, surely speciel, point of view the essence of prog is making syntheses. And now when we discuss these different things, I've found more syntheses than before, if used a broad prog definition: syntheses of different styles, past (folk) and future (avantgarde), upper classes (classical) and lower classes (rock, folk), synthesis of different countries and surely also some other.

Wow! Now I'm even more impressed with prog than before - veery interesting music!

Edited by David_D - November 08 2010 at 20:02

David_D

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Posted: November 07 2010 at 02:56

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

David_D wrote:

Now I think that I've got a pretty good idea. What would you guys say to call this "global symphonic prog" simply classical prog? Does that sounds as OK to you as it does to me?

As you can read in the Symphonic definition I wrote, I'm not very happy with the name Symphonic, being that the term means nothing IMO, but it's so spread and well known, that would be impossible to change it.

Iván

Come on Ivan, say never "never". I know it's not gonna be easy and take time but that's the case with changing "prog folk" to "ethnic prog", too. The most important thing is that we believe they're the right thing to do, and, as I just wrote in my article many people around the world will be very happy with these changes. So we gonna give it a try. And yes, I've already made the required changes in my article for the "new" classical prog and ethnic folk - as I just couldn't wait with that.

Edited by David_D - November 08 2010 at 12:36

rogerthat

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Posted: November 06 2010 at 23:09

However, I don't necessarily advocate a separate Indo prog category for the same reasons that Ivan gave, it's just too small. It could be lumped in fusion imo, no harm done!

rogerthat

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Posted: November 06 2010 at 23:06

David_D wrote:

What "classical" means is a matter of convention. Now I suggest that we define it as the "classical" music of the entire world, but maybe it would be better than to call the symphonic prog for something else. Do you have any suggestions?

Edited by rogerthat - November 06 2010 at 23:07