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ian picken 
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: June 25 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 127 |
 Topic: What do you class as Epic??Posted: March 04 2010 at 10:25 |
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What do you class as epic prog rock?
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Vompatti
Forum Senior Member
VIP Member Joined: October 22 2005 Location: elsewhere Status: Offline Points: 67465 |
Posted: March 04 2010 at 10:27 |
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Everything Homeric.
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29630 |
Posted: March 04 2010 at 12:15 |
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It's often used just because a piece of prog is long, but I think you have to take content into account much more.
Edited by Slartibartfast - March 04 2010 at 14:30 |
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lazland
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Offline Points: 13868 |
Posted: March 04 2010 at 13:49 |
That's exactly why I would plump for Five Percent for Nothing  |
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5210 |
Posted: March 04 2010 at 13:56 |
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A fifteen minute jam with little variation is not epic. A ten minute complex composition is. i.e. Firth of Fifth is epic. Willie the Pimp is not.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29630 |
Posted: March 04 2010 at 14:29 |
It's not?!?!?!  Let's play Epic, Not An Epic. Supper's Ready, epic - long song that seems to take you somewhere. Amarok, long piece of music (not an epic) - makes you want to run away.  ep·ic1. noting
or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a
hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in
elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem. 2. resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country. 3. heroic; majestic; impressively great: the epic events of the war. 4. of unusually great size or extent: a crime wave of epic proportions. –noun 5. an epic poem. 6. epic poetry. 7. any composition resembling an epic. 8. something worthy to form the subject of an epic: The defense of the Alamo is an American epic. 9. (initial capital letter  ) Also called Old Ionic. the Greek dialect represented in the Iliad and the Odyssey, apparently Aeolic modified by Ionic.Hey, no fair using the word epic to define what an epic is.   Edited by Slartibartfast - March 09 2010 at 14:17 |
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5210 |
Posted: March 04 2010 at 14:34 |
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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sealchan
Forum Senior Member
Joined: March 12 2009 Status: Offline Points: 179 |
Posted: March 04 2010 at 15:30 |
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When I get to review longer songs than I have already I may attempt to come up with a definition for prog rock purposes. I think I will muse about what some of the qualities would be:
1. Something about how the song composition is more of a linear series of ideas than it is a recurring set of ideas. Not sure how to phrase this yet
2. Lyrically I think that multiple conflicting perspectives should be described either within a single character or across multiple characters. Within a single character this would be achieve by having the song's protagonist change their perspective completely one or more times. In this way the lyrics take you on a psychological journey.
3. Song length: I can't think of how to define this but in practice I don't think I could call a song under 4 minutes epic. If it had a dense series of musical ideas in that short of time I think it would seem too frenetic or chaotic. I suppose cognitive psychologists could set up an experiment to determine how long a musical idea needs to be presented before it would seem to be a rush to move on to the next. What is the shortest song you can think of that you might want to call "epic" in the context of prog rock epics?
When I think about mythology one thing I thought made a story an epic was when the story covered multiple generations of characters. Otherwise it was "merely" heroic, or about the transformation of a single character. In this simplistic view then Star Wars IV-VI was heroic but the addition of Star Wars I-III made Star Wars epic. For music this is not a good standard because there just isn't that much room for story or character development in the 20ish minute long song.
As Slartibartfast said above
I think this "take you somewhere" is a key subjective quality of the epic.
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sleeper
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 09 2005 Location: Entropia Status: Offline Points: 16449 |
Posted: March 05 2010 at 05:41 |
A good album but The Divine Conspiracy is much more epic.
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Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005
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Harry Hood
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 15 2005 Status: Offline Points: 1305 |
Posted: March 05 2010 at 18:23 |
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A song/album is automatically classed as epic if any of the following artists are involved:
Clive Nolan Dan Swano Devin Townsend Andrew WK Roine Stolt Neal Morse Arjen Anthony Luccesen Roger Waters Other artists may be epic from time to time, but these particular artists for me stand out as being consistently epic.
Edited by Harry Hood - March 05 2010 at 18:24 |
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topofsm
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 17 2008 Location: Arizona, USA Status: Offline Points: 1698 |
Posted: March 05 2010 at 20:06 |
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This topic has been rehashed several times before, but still I'll throw in what I think.
It does have to have a considerable length. I still have a hard time sometimes thinking of songs around ten minutes as epic. It should be thoroughly composed. I suppose there can be jam sections and lengthened intros live or something, but as far as the definitive studio track goes there should be distinct phrases and different sections with different moods and feels. As someone said earlier, it helps if it takes you on a journey. It helps for it to 'sound' epic. The more dramatic the buildup is, the climax, the outro, the better. It does NOT have to be good. There are quite a few epics out there that I feel are churned out and praised because they are indeed an 'epic' (*cough* Count of Tuscany *count*). |
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ian picken
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 25 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 127 |
Posted: March 06 2010 at 01:46 |
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Xanadu by RUSH is the epic song..
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Icarium
Forum Senior Member
VIP Member Joined: March 21 2008 Location: Tigerstaden Status: Offline Points: 34090 |
Posted: March 06 2010 at 04:56 |
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toolis
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 26 2006 Location: MacedoniaGreece Status: Offline Points: 1678 |
Posted: March 06 2010 at 05:10 |
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Since it's a greek word let me try: For sth to be called epic, it must have a plot, by definition... And the plot can't be anything... I mean King Diamond's songs have a plot but you can't call them epic.. Think of a classic old times story and you're in: hero, battle, triumph or not... That would define epic music as well as an epic song... Now, in order to develop such story usually takes a lot of minutes of music but if you manage to "squeeze" it to fewer minutes that wouldn't negate the epicness of your piece... |
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-music is like pornography...
sometimes amateurs turn us on, even more... -sometimes you are the pigeon and sometimes you are the statue... |
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toolis
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 26 2006 Location: MacedoniaGreece Status: Offline Points: 1678 |
Posted: March 06 2010 at 05:12 |
Oh, and the atmosphere it creates should count too!!! |
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-music is like pornography...
sometimes amateurs turn us on, even more... -sometimes you are the pigeon and sometimes you are the statue... |
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Kotro
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 16 2004 Location: Portugal Status: Offline Points: 2815 |
Posted: March 06 2010 at 05:35 |
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2 minutes and 40 seconds epic:
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Bigger on the inside.
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Raff
Special Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator Joined: July 29 2005 Location: None Status: Offline Points: 24439 |
Posted: March 06 2010 at 07:26 |
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Well, 'epics' are called like that because a real epic (the literary kind) is long by definition, and those songs generally exceed the 10-minute mark. The fact that, as Toolis correctly pointed out, it should have a plot (all literary epics have one, and then some) seems to be very often overlooked in favour of mere length.
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uduwudu
Forum Senior Member
Joined: July 17 2007 Status: Offline Points: 2603 |
Posted: March 09 2010 at 02:10 |
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It's not the composed length - although anything under five minutes is proably not giving itself enough time for the musical journey (ie epic) to happen. Beginning, middles, bridges, reprises, distinct contrasting phases all leading to a climax.
There are epic songs or rather pieces like Starless, In The Court to Spper's Ready and KE 9. Then there are epic albums, Tales, Lamb, APP. |
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progrupicola
Forum Newbie 
Joined: May 11 2007 Status: Offline Points: 4 |
Posted: March 09 2010 at 13:21 |
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This music explain the term (Epic) way better than me (cause you feel it) ;) A plague of lighthouse keepers , Childlike faith in childhood's end , Flight , In the court of the crimson king , La mente vola , Return of the giant hogweed , or the entire Trespass , Thick as a brick.... |
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29630 |
Posted: March 09 2010 at 14:17 |
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Anything on Epic Records.
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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What do you class as Epic??
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Slartibartfast wrote: