Music=Art?

yargh wrote: "If you go back to the classic prog bands, their art tends towards high art (in the sense I explained earlier) because they use the music and instruments both of the day and the past in order to create something far beyond." This is a completely empty phrase.  Does that mean that prog bands who don't use "instruments of the past" are exempt from tending toward "high art?"  Furthermore, it is utter folly to assume that because the progressive rock bands appropriated some classical influences, that they must "tend toward high art," assuming that by "high art" you mean classical music (a shaky assumption).  Knowing how to use a cycle of fifths is not exactly a summit meeting of classical and popular music.  But since a good many prog bands -- especially symphonic prog bands -- don't make music of any greater complexity than this, they can be exempted right off the bat.  Progressive rock isn't classical music -- it generally doesn't remotely approach classical music in terms of harmonic development, compositional rigor, or instrumental technique.  Progressive rock is rock, nothing more, though certainly nothing less.

It's not an empty phrase, it is what is commonly known as a generalism.

The implications you are reading into my ramblings are a bit on the convoluted side - and pull only from select aspects of my statement, prmopting me to assume that you only skim-read it:

You mention the instruments, but not the music.

You ignore the fact that drums are old instruments, as is voice, guitar and organ (the Romans used organs at their games).

You ignore the fact that "the past" could easily mean the immediate past - 3 years rather than 300, for example.

Appropriating actual classical themes in music is pretentious (you didn't write it, but it fits where you think your music should be), while appropriating styles is a good and progressive technique. Part of Prog Rock is its unashamed pretensiousness. I'm thinking ELP particularly here.

"Classical" is art music because it was created by artists - fully trained and highly competent musicians who were well versed in the history and arts of composing and playing music. It is art because it is very carefully crafted using traditional tools and raw materials (folk tunes and so on), to create something far greater than the whole. Beethoven's 5th is one of the highest expressions of the art of the Symphony.

Progressive rock bands are high in pretension and create art music - and compared to other forms of rock music, prog rock is high art. Very few of the classic prog bands used the cycle of fifths on anything like a regular basis, so I find your comment on this rather confusing. Where are the cycles of fifths in Gentle Giant or Genesis' music? Shub Niggurath?

It's not so much about the complexity - prog rock is more about original interpretation of existing forms with the overall goal of producing new ones. "Symphonic" is an entirely arbitrary term - no prog rock band I know of has written a symphony in the Classic sense, or anything like one.

I'm not saying or even suggesting that Prog Rock is "Classical" music - I can't really see how you got that implication - but, like "Classical" music, it is a form of Art music in that it is shaped and composed with education and skill. The level of that skill varies wildly, but when you consider that there is only Folk and Art music (on a sliding scale, not a division), it's clear which side Prog Rock falls into.

I hope that clarifies things

"I'm not saying or even suggesting that Prog Rock is "Classical" music - I can't really see how you got that implication - but, like "Classical" music, it is a form of Art music in that it is shaped and composed with education and skill. The level of that skill varies wildly, but when you consider that there is only Folk and Art music (on a sliding scale, not a division), it's clear which side Prog Rock falls into.

I hope that clarifies things "

Prog is a form of pop music; it not "art" music, and if you have any training in musical theory, you're not exactly making your teachers proud right now.  The genesis of most progressive rock is from riffs and grooves developed during rehearsal sessions, not from the painstaking process of the creation and editing of a score.  In other words, it comes from the same places as other rock music.  I'm not saying that progressive rock can't be "art" and I'm not saying that classical music is "better" than other music.  What I am saying is that if you wish to put music into the obselete categories of high art and low art (or art music and folk music), prog is a lot closer to low art or folk music than it is to "high art."  This is the truth on all formal levels of the music. 

It is a shame that there are people who cannot simply like something without proclaiming it to be objectively excellent, or dressing it up as "high art," but you've exhibited this massive blindspot on other issues (like Marillion, for example) so I guess nobody should be surprised.