The fact that most progressive bands create their music like an art form is really what sets this genre apart from the rest of the music out there. There are deep lyrics in a ton of songs, and the musical compositions have thoughtful and complex arrangements, etc.

I think some music, certain genres, are more artistic than others. I happen to thing genres like Post-rock, noise, ambient, and drone are the most artistic in the modern age, as well as certain brands of jazz and hip-hop, but that does not exlude other froms of music, progressive rock included, from being considered art.

 

I have the same problem with modern art. Ok, Picasso is art (although I wouldn't call it very good), but what about when it's just random splotches of paint that a monkey could throw onto a canvas?

 

Of course, it feels weird typing this considering I'm quickly becoming an avant-garde fan. ;-) 

it only lasts as long as your senses experience it. That's why older classical movements (20 minutes long) are regarded art and shorter movements (3 minutes long) are considered pop, it's not the musical content but the time it takes a piece to come to completion. The time experience creates grandeur to a whimsical art form.

 

I would argue that Bicicle Race from Queen is art and Supper's ready from Genesis is just a collecftion of half exploited semi-musical themes. but on this site I would stand alone in that assesment, so i wil not mention this.

 

But in my uninformed opinion, music is not an art as such, it's the conveied message through music that determines the artistic value of a musical piece.

 

BTW: come on Sasquamo, I admit that even hip-hop and street poem is art, even if not a complex, intelligent one

 

You don´t know what you are talking about. Try please to not use visual arts terms and definitions to the musical ones... art is a complex thing.

 

And so, why is Picasso art?? Do you think that a monkey can make music like the "avant garde stuff" that you listen??

 

 

Eh? I am talking about two separate things: music and visual art 

 

And so, why is Picasso art?? Do you think that a monkey can make music like the "avant garde stuff" that you listen??

Because Picasso took some skill to create. A monkey http://www.abcgallery.com/P/picasso/picasso31.html - could not create this ; however, if you gave one a paintbrush and canvas, it would probably look something like http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/virtualtour/gifjpg/2_5.jpg - this . No, I don't think a group of monkeys could compose and play a Henry Cow album. A group of monkeys could not compose almost any avant-garde music unless it reaches the point of being so avant-garde it's basically just http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbBBczzDeCA - banging on stuff that has a speaker attached to it , in my experience; but there is still much left for me to explore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However in Henry cows case that might be the deliberate goal.

 

About the visual art terms applied to music... I read it again and it was a misunderstanding, my mistake.

So it's almost absurd to ask if Prog Rock is art...all music is art in one or anopher way.

 

The musical cannons are strict but art is free, it doesn't matter if the form is free or completely structured, it's a form of art.

 

Prog Rock is music then it's ESSENTIALLY ART.

 

Iván

 

On the one side, Music is an Art, therefore Prog Rock is Art - case closed.

 

On another, we can distinguish between the skillful crafting of compositions and the intuitive and almost non-skilled writing of songs as the difference between Art music and Folk music.

 

It doesn't mean that one is artistic and the other isn't, but it's a helpful way of distinguishing between the two - one is more quantifiable than the other.

 

Since Prog Rock is largely composed, we can deduce that it's a form of Art Rock, if we consider what the term means as a matter of fact, rather than by the extremely loose and abstract meaning it seems to have which no two people seem to agree on.

 

Just to muddy the water a bit, as Atavachron says, it's not impossible for spontaneous and instinctive music to be artistic.

 

However, there doesn't seem to be a lot of artistry involved in churning out a standard song based on 3 chords - so maybe there needs to be a general theory of relativity that can be applied to art...

 

Well, this prog fan certainly likes jazz, as well as classical, and some bluegrass.  Country and rap are not my cup of tea.  I have to say though, I'd guess about 90% of my collection is prog. 

 

Speaking of painters, my favorite is still Salvador Dali, if you're ever in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area you must visit the Dali museum, they have a huge and excellent collection.  In fact they have more than a few of Dali's masterworks, huge paintings that wouldn't fit on a conventionial house wall.  They each took about a year to make.   Progressive art at it's best.

 

Though he's not a painter per se, Escher is also one of my favorite non-musical artists.

 

When I think of Garfunkel I always think "Funky Art Garfulkel", don't know why.

 

Don' feel the art in Mahavishu?  Egads, that avatar is an actual picture, isn't it?

 

What about Apocalypse?

 

Simians should not let simians do internet.

 

Isn't it funny how different people view the world?.....

 

for example.... I find it interesting that I disgree with nearly every one of Sasquamo's posts no matter what the subject matter. This is not to say he is wrong, just that we don't agree on ANYTHING except a love for prog. I just find it interesting, that's all.

 

 

LMAO

 

 

Rock and Roll is practically the epitome of low art, musically speaking, so to marry it with musical forms viewed as high art, such as the Classics and Modern Jazz (never Trad!), is to bring the two together.

 

As ever, it's not that simple - most Classical composers took popular songs of the time and wove them into their works of art in order to ensure that they would remain popular with a *paying* audience unfamiliar with the subtleties of great art. Mozart was a classic case of this "dumbing-down" or "selling out" (although the irony is that he actually did neither).

 

Since the "high art" composers worked this way, it's interesting to see rock musicians approach it from the other side (most Prog musicians are not as fully trained as the great composers, let's face it).

 

But hearing some rock musicians playing the classics can be almost as painful as hearing some classical musicians attempt to play rock - the combination is very difficult, so one can only respect those who achieved the fusion successfully - and thereby hangs one...

 

Mozart was certainly one of the cases of classical "sellouts"; he made music for money, but that's reasonable, he was not a man of wealth, he had a family, etc... he also "lived to work" as some say. He would usually go out with hs fellows and still he would write down music in little paper sheets. But Mozart never lost artistic integrity for doing what he did, he still incorporated "high art" in his compositions, and that's why I admire him the most, his music also reflected his light-hearted humour, a very balanced personality; ironically he also led a tragic life.

" No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.''

 

Edvard Munch (1863-1944),Norwegian painter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So if prog is honestly created without any thought for commercial value, (Fripp, I'm a'lookin' at you...), then yes. It's an art. As it were.

Originally posted by Atomic_Rooster As a poet, heres my take on art.  Art is completely subjective.  Art can and will be anything you want it to be.  If your idea of art is Progressive rock, then Progressive rock is art.  If you think Henry Cow or Jackson Pollock created art then their work is art.  If your idea of art is monkeys copulating over a collection of crude percussive instruments, then it is art (sounds very much like something the artist Allan Kaprow would attempt to create).  There is no point in arguing over it or trying to persuade other people by putting down other varieties of art, because it does not change the perspective of what art is.

 

-the products of human creativity
-the creation of beautiful or significant things; "art does not need to be innovative to be good"; "I was never any good at art"; "he said that architecture is the art of wasting space beautifully"
-a superior skill that you can learn by study and practice and observation; "the art of conversation"; "it's quite an art"
-art, in its broadest meaning, is the expression of creativity or imagination, or both.
-human endeavor thought to be aesthetic and have meaning beyond simple description. Includes music, dance, sculpture, painting, drawing, stitchery, weaving, poetry, writing, woodworking, etc. A medium of expression where the individual and culture come together.

 

 

music=expression through sound=expression=art

prog=music=expression through sound=expression=art

 

I couldn't resist either.

 

Yes, the intention is the first step... I agree with that. Was indeed Duchamp who say and did that in first place. What I am trying is not to make a definition of Art... that would be far more ambitious than Tales From Topographic Oceans. What I´m trying to say (always from my perspective... something that I missed in my recent post) is that wanting something to be art is not enough. If Marcel Duchamp had not put the urinary in that context (a sculpture contest)... would be a different story. When I talk about context I don´t mean a gallery or a museum. I mean that has to be a significant enviorment that makes the object of art ask questions. The context is art itself. If you put a sock in a basket with many other socks, in a laundry... and no one see it, I think that is difficult to make that sock be a work of art... even if I wanted to be that way. I think it is difficult... not impossible. If someone want to convert this sock in art, then, as an artist, has the responsability to know in what way (and why) is art. Duchamp and Kaprow knew what were they doing. They were breakin boundaries, but they knew how to confront a tradition and the best way to do it. They did history and now they are part of the tradition that the actual avant-garde has to confront. So... art is not completely subjective and not any object is art because I want it to be. Of course that you don´t have to make works of art that change the paradigms (like the vanguardists did)... but you have to take the contemporary paradigm in count, if you want to be part of it or if you want to brake it.

 

So... I really didn´t want to turn aside the original subject... but this conversation has achieved very interesting points of view... this is mine, and we can discuss it.

Thanks Atomic_Rooster for the pigs... but I think that you are also creating a reflection of reflections that reflect your reflected reflection... or something like that.

 

I think that the most interesting thing in all your posts is to ask Fripp. What a great idea... Fripp´s subjectivity is the only objectivity, so if he creates art... is objective law for all of us, mortal beings!

 

Hmm...

 

I love this!

 

Well a caveman banging 2 rock together,it was prog for that time