Harmonium-Symphonic or Prog Folk?

I have just about everything from Renaissance, Karda Estra, and Solaris. The other bands on the list I don't know their music. Renaissance is folk and classical influenced, but Karda Estra with the classical nylon string guitar? I don't know unless you are pointing out the sections of their music where female vocal harmonies are backed by classical guitar....otherwise I don't hear folk actually as much as I hear the influence of 20th century composers. Solaris maybe European folk influenced to a degree as they are more in the Jethro Tull vain... but Harmonium seem more extreme than these 3 bands. There are times when they sound a hundred percent folk without blending Symphonic into the mix or other times they are quite the opposite. With the other 2 bands.....I feel they blend styles in completeness. With Harmonium it just feels a bit different to me personally and if I were you....I would have the most difficult time in defining a term. I'm sure these other bands on your list are difficult to define just as Harmonium are. Thanks for posting this list. In the area of investigation into 70's( not neo), European progressive prog/folk bands I haven't gambled enough to travel deeper. With France I haven't traveled beyond Ange, Pulsar, Edhels, Mona Lisa, Clearlight, and maybe a few others....because I get into Electronic music and 20th century composers. I feel that my problem with researching further is simply time and money. But thanks for the list ....I will research these bands.

 
They seemed to be more schooled as players than maybe a band like Pulsar, however both bands displayed this great originality in their dark keyboard clusters. The first effort from Harmonium is mostly folk oriented , however the 2nd and 3rd releases explore these distant prog chord variations ....so it is a difficult task to make a perfect analogy and pigeon-hole them into a term. I wouldn't want the job of doing that. I do know what I hear is correct. Not all or even most prog folk bands cross into that Symphonic realm like Harmonium do. And then one analogy just bounces back and forth to the other. So I feel sorry for the person who must tagged them.

Now, the case of Harmonium was discussed on http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33788&KW=&PID=2358669#2358669

And my reply was:

Ivan_Melgar_M on February 5, 2007 wrote: Originally posted by OGTL I am just confused as to why Harmonium is included in the Symphonic section of the site. The first two are almost absolutely Folk, and En Tournee and Heptade are more symphonic yes, but the band's roots are in folk, and i think that it belongs in the Folk genre.. if anything Jethro Tull should be in Symphonic and switch places with Harmonium.. like 4 of their albums are folk.   Hi OGTL Welcome to the forum.   Being that you are a new member I will tell you that  we have a Symphonic team that I'm honoured to lead, we made a house cleaning because almost 33% of the bands assigned to Symphonic originaly were not Symphonic at all, and 147 have been moved to other sub-genres.   Since none of the actual members of the Symphonic Team except me,  was member of it when we had the Seventh Session (The session in which the bands that started with the letter H were checked): http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24377&KW=Symphonic   I will have to explain his particular case.   The guidelines of Prog Archives clearly state that for the inclusion of a band in a determined sub-genre and despite we mention all their discography,  we must only  base the location of the band in  the 100% Prog albums, the others don't count, are only mention for a coherence purpose.   That's the reason why Genesis is in Symphonic and not Prog Related despite they released at least 5 POP albums (FGTTR, ABACAB, We Can't Dance, Shapes and Invisible Touch, CAS is a hybrid), we only considered the releases from Trespass to Wind & Wuthering or maybe even ATTW3 and Duke and we mention the later plus FGTTR but this last ones are ignored for the location of the band.   So being all Genesis Prog albums in the Symphonic sub-genre, then the band went to Symphonic, the same with Yes with Big Generator plus 90125 and many more bands.   Harmonium is a very particular case: Harmonium (1974): Is not a Prog album it's a Folkloric album almost exclusively, we couldn't find significant Prog elements, so according to the guidelines of Prog Archives, we must mention it in he discography but must not consider it for the sub-genre in which the band is going to be included. Si On Avait Besoin D'une 5ième Saison: This one is a 100% Prog album, but combines Folk Prog elements with a clear Symphonic structure and influences from the first King Crimson era and Genesis. At this point, we could go for either of both sub-genres, so we have to wait for the next album. L'Heptade: Despite a few Folk and Jazzy elements, L'Heptade is a 90% Symphonic album, so the balance turned in favour of Symphonic. Harmonium En Tournée: Jazzier than the previous despite Symphonic essentialy, but being a Live album is neither too trascendental for the inclusion of the band in a genre. If you check the history of the band, well, it's closer to Symphonic if we don't count the debut album which must be ignored according to the guidelines received when we started our work with Symphonic. Even if we count it, we have three mainly Prog Symphonic albums and one Folk (Not Prog Folk) album. I't's also important to consider that Harmonium was added to Symphonic by one of the owners of the site Prog Lucky, who is an expert in French Canadian bands being from that country, so his opinion is valuable.   We also crossed our opinions with other reliable Prog sites like:   GEPR: Canadian symphonic band, sounds very early-Genesis influenced, might also elicit comparisons to Ange, and the ethereal feel of Pulsar. French vocals. L'Heptade is a good place to start, if you can find it.   GEPR clearly describes them as Symphonic and Genesis influenced.   Proggnosis: COUNTRY GENRE-subgenre-style ARTIST   (#Listed)   (click to view Artist page) Canada Prog - Symphonic -Other/General Harmonium   (4)   Proggnosis describes them as Symphonic also.   Progressive Ears:    Harmonium      A Quebec-based group, from the 70''s  def   Progressive Ears describes Symphonic (SYM) as the main genre.   Again everything points towards SYMPHONIC, but still and despite I believe it's correctly included in Symphonic I will talk again with Sean Trane who is in charge of the Prog Folk Team, but my vote is for them to stay.   I trust our team's work because we are very careful when doing it, but we can make mistakes being humans, in this case I believe we went further than reasonable to verify this good band.   The poll is out of question, this an issue that corresponds to the teams and this will be our decision in coordination with the other teams involved.   Thanks for your thread, it gives us the chance to explain our procedures and shows interest.   Iván

As a fact we discussed it with the team and with Sean, and we agreed this was a special casein which the limits were blurry, so both teams agreed to discuss it and we agreed it was better in Symphonic.

Still, if Scott and Torodd agree that is better to move them I'll agree as usual, but IMO Haronium is more Symphonic than Folk.

Iván

I don't really care what classification it is and don't know why is it so important to classify.

Almost. Might be Eclectic (KC) or Heavy (Anekdoten) Prog as well...