The Future of Prog looking forward, Grim?
 

Being the co owner - founder of a fairly successful art rock prog label, it's always a daunting question thinking about the future.

My feeling is the best prog was made in the 1970's and little has been nearly as innovative, creative and executed as well since. I certainly have my theories, but would enjoy hearing what others have to say about it.

How does prog really move forward?

I guess it's hard to be "progressive" in the way prog rock used to be, when just about everything has been done now. When prog rock got going in the seventies, the idea of using, say, violins in rock, even pushing keyboards to the front of the mix was quite new. Songs were constructed in a formulaic way (verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus etc) and generally short. Prog rock giants like Yes, ELP, Genesis etc took this formula and kicked it out the window, leading to a lot of excitement at the time because all of this "new" music was different.

Prog rock bands of today, while there are some good ones, are basically copying the same sort of music as their idols/inspiration, with the result that it's hardly what could any longer be called progressive. Prog Rock is basically now just a label, like extreme metal. It's all been done.

I suppose the most progressive of bands these days are ones labelled as experimental or avant-garde, who actually ARE doing new things. Most are not my cup of tea, but they're probably doing more to advance the ideas in music than so-called prog rock bands such as Spock's Beard, Arena or IQ, though I love these bands.

Perhaps the term progressive rock, with respect to those and other bands, should be redefined. Retro-progressive? Retrogressive? Maybe just Keyboard Rock? I don't honestly think any of the bands around in the last ten or twenty years can claim to be moving the music forward and therefore could not, in the strictest sense of the term, be regarded as progressive.

And I'm a lifelong prog head!

I just listened to a band called Comedy of Errors. Good band, but one of the most obvious melding of bands like Yes and Spock's Beard. I still use the term progressive rock for the bands who play like that, who I like, but really as I say, to find true progressive rock you probably need to look outside the genre, to the experimental bands. They're the ones who are actually taking chances, breaking moulds and perhaps trying to set new trends.

I agree that the genre has failed because of the misnomer that to be progressive bands have to keep changing the sound radically or be experimental, innovative etc. Prog is just a genre like any other. It has a style and a way of doing things, just like any other genre. Usually it is defined by the rhythm section. For instance, let's do a reggae version of "Help". The drummer plays a reggae beat and the bassist the same just using the root note.

All the great prog bands had jazzy drummers. It's a rule of the genre (in the classic sense) You don't need to bring in electronica beats to keep it "progressive" Bring in Bill Bruford, not Moby.

Rock is usually pounding the downbeat. A prog guitarist is going to bring in jazz or classical chops into the rock format. Same with the keys. Jazzy horn solos over prog beats makes it Prog.

I have a lot of thoughts about it.

Is the term progressive rock really appropriate if you're just playing the same old ****e that Steve Howe did thirty years ago?

Again, progressive is a horrible name. Was "Elvis" prog? It was progressive, was it not at the time?

I think "complex" is a key ingredient. Complex rock might be a better definition.

His guitar playing was very complex. Still is. It's still much more original that a typical modern metal shredder who is just running chromatic scales all day with lightening speed.

The great prog guitarists were very artsy, stylistic, but also playing over much more complex rhythm sections.

Take Ritchie Blackmore. He certainly could have been playing in any prog band at the time, but the drumming was very rock, it did't have much jazz movement to it very often. If Bruford or Collins was drumming their style in Deep Purple, it would have been much more of a prog band. Certainly DP did some proggy stuff, "Pictures of Home, Lazy, Burn" but most of it was much simpler rock rhythms.

Same thing with Page. Zeppelin start toying with Prog on their 4th…. (Stairway etc) then Kashmir, Achilles, In the Light, those were certainly Prog tunes. But not enough of their material was prog. Maybe 50% of the material should be prog? I don't know.

Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend" how could a song be more prog? Big keys, complex rhythm section, long epic build. He just didn't do a lot of that stuff. He actually auditioned at one time for Gentle Giant from what I heard.

You're good ole daysin pretty hard there.

Well, the good ol days was a way of doing things also…. and that way does have a history of quality output.

It's true what Frownland says, and what I said earlier, that to call the music progressive is almost laughable in the twenty-first century. I enjoy the beautiful guitar work of Steve Rothery or Sean Filkins or even Andy Revell, but I love it as prog rock because it sounds like Genesis or Yes or whomever. I can never listen to a new, for example, Marillion album and think "Wow that's really progressive" in the sense of pushing the musical boundaries. I'm not really sure who could take that plaudit these days, as like I say, nearly everything has been done.

I just think of prog rock as a label, defining a sound I enjoy and identify with. But I couldn't put my hand on my heart (well, who could? It'd be a physical impossibility unless I were Terminator 2 or something!) and say for instance that the new Steve Hackett album was really progressive, or that Jon Anderson has written something really progressive. I'm happy calling the music I enjoy prog rock, but it is something of a misnomer. Even neo-prog bands like Marillion, Pallas and IQ were just rehashing the greats. Most then moved in another direction, as did the likes of Genesis and Yes, kind of away from the precepts of prog rock.

Doesn't make the music I listen to any less enjoyable, but I'd be hard put to defend it if someone were to ask me why it was deemed progressive.

Just a point: if I had to justify the music I listen to as being labelled progressive (which I don't) then I would venture that it is progression of the actual songs themselves, as in, they progress through different moods, tempos, using other instruments, soft passages, louder ones, instrumentals and so on, and that the "story" in the lyric often progresses too. I certainly wouldn't try to say that Spock's Beard or Arena or Willowglass are pushing any boundaries, but if I had to defend the prog rock title, although it's a poor argument at best, this is how I would do it.

Like how successful? Could you get The Musical Box into a recording studio, or film them in concert and release it on DVD?

I don't feel it's a matter of pushing boundaries. More a matter of creating within more expansive boundaries, such as working in odd time signatures and using time tested musical structures like counterpoint etc. Then the art of it is finding melodic sensibility within that and keeping the focus on playing or tracking live…. keeping that quality musicianship at the forefront and showing that live music can be executed without having to rely upon all the latest technological fads, gadgets and so forth.

The word progressive is not a good word to describe, because it insists that it leaves it's origins. Great jazz or classical music doesn't need to change radically to have relevance even in the contemporary world.

This is true, however in the seventies (and late sixties) it was called progressive because the musicians were doing something that really hadn't been done before in rock, like using new instruments, going beyond the structured three-minute-single song format, composing long instrumentals, and progressing beyond what was seen as the norm, or accepted format of the time. Now, these days, yeah, it seems silly to describe it as progressive rock, but then, some bands who are labelled as nu-metal are about as new as an episode of Friends, so labels stick and there's nothing much you can do about it really.

The problem is that one could argue that 'Progressive" means we have to leave the instruments in their cases and do all the music on a computer. I have heard younger artists make this argument that "garageband" and "protools" are the instruments of this generation, and that the kids these days are just using the tools available to them, just like Pink Floyd did etc.

I think that is a shallow argument because if there was one defining thing about prog rock in the golden age was that you often had highly skilled musicians coming into the rock genre, classical and jazz musicians who where composing and executing the pieces in basically a rock format. For instance, a jazz drummer playing on a large rock kit. A classical guitarist playing on a Fender start or a classically trained pianist on a Hammond Organ, Moog or Rhodes electric.

The idea that "rock" now had validity to the older folks was really something new. It wasn't just folksy guitarists playing through loud amplification.

Um. That's an interesting view on it, I guess.

That is an idiotic concept. If the "older folks" were worried about rock's "validity", then the older folks should have been more worried about their irrational inferiority complex for listening to pop music. If you think that adding jazz and classical influences to rock makes it somehow more valid, then you just have a shallow concept of music.

I think 70's style prog is far from being exhausted in originality. If you look at what you had then, the blending of styles, all of those styles could be explored in much more detail.

Complex Latin Rock: Santana
Classical Rock: YES, Renaissance.
Complex Folk Rock: Jethro Tull
Jazz Rock: Mahavishnu Orchestra
Complex Surrealism Rock: Gabriel era Genesis
Complex Metal Rock: Scorpions, UFO
Psychedelic Rock: Pink Floyd
Synth Rock: Tangerine Dream
Funk Rock: Stevie Wonder
Complex Blues Rock: Led Zeppelin
Complex Comedy Rock: Frank Zappa
Complex Acid Jazz Rock: King Crimson, Gentle Giant

And so forth…


I think there could be another 10 bands that explore each of those sub genres with slight variations that would not necessarily sound overly derivative. A different vocalist, unique soloists, composers etc. There is still a lot of room. There is no reason we could not have had another 30 or 40 years of really interesting rock music that would fall under the style of 70's progressive rock.

For example, I don't think there ever was a band that really did complex Indian Rock, or took that where it could have gone. You certainly had artists dabbling there, but there could have been a band that really nailed it in a way Santana did with Latin rock.

The older generation that grew up on big band and classical music thought all rock music was silly and lacked serious musicianship. Bringing in trained musicians into rock did give the genre a new sense of validity to the older folks who wrote it off an just nonsense.

Take for instance Deep Purple who I forgot to mention.
Ritchie Blackmore loved classical music and Medieval music and brought that into rock.
Jon Lord had classical training then blended that with a distorted Hammond Organ. Throw in a singer who did the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar and you have a very unique offering of music into the rock world.

Yeah. Like I said. Dumb. And I highly doubt any Frank Sinatra fans were that enthused about Yes.

I struggle to see how this could be the case. I honestly dont' understand what they're saying. If they mean just make music on computer, fine, but that's electronic/ambient music, not prog rock.
I'm with this guy, as above. He MAKES his own instruments!
Again, I don't see what you're saying. You're advocating the idea that just because say Blackmore was classically trained that the older generation suddenly afforded him validity, and ignored the fact he wore leather trousers and had long hair, and played one of them eel-ek-tronic gee-tars instead of an upright bass like most normal folks?? :confused:
x2

There are plenty of kids trying to make prog rock on their computers. There are all kinds of drum kit programs, bass, guitars, keys… everything. They try to construct it, and often do, all on a laptop without ever learning an instrument.

What it lacks is the human feel and touch (and there are now programs for that as well).

An instrument vibrates when you play it in real time. That vibration affects the way you play and what you are playing. The computer doesn't do that. It lacks vibration.

If you can't do it live, you're just pretending. There is a lot of pretending going on.

If you turn your speakers up you can feel the vibration from the electronic instruments. In my experience people who moan about how electronic instruments suck are generally people who have heard embarrassingly little of those instruments. Can you show me some of this computer prog that all of these kids are apparently doing these days? I get the feeling your imagining this big movement as a way to make your "them damn kids don't even know what music is!" sentiment. Like I said earlier, you seem to be good ole daysin pretty hard.

Plenty of artists who play "real" instruments don't play live. Plenty of artists who play electronic instruments and such do. Concerts are just one aspect of music, and to equate them with musical quality is small-minded. What matters is the end product, whatever that product may be.

Referring to the creation part of the music, not playback.

If you hold a guitar or trumpet in your hands, it vibrates when you play it in real time, and that affects the player with instant feel and feedback.
That doesn't happen when you are copy and pasting sound files on a computer.

It all needs to be explored, but there is a difference between a person that actually plays an instrument and those who don't. Sound collaging on a computer may be digital art, but it is not playing an instrument.

How much digital music have you actually created? Cause from the way you talk about it, it sounds like a lot.

I thought I give you a fair warning to you The Batlord is trolling and probably said that to get a rise.

What he said about the inferiority complex is totally rubbish. Chris Squire was a fan of the Pop band, Fifth Dimension, and their session bass player was Joe Osborn, who Chris cites as a favorite. And he imagine Yes to be a cross between 5th Dimension and (say) Iron Butterfly, when the band first started out.

Choosing underground music over Pop is no more a inferiority complex as than choosing Pop over underground music. Whatever the choice, people are generally confident in the music they like, with not much thought of what else is out there.

Actually each band drew from more directions musically. When Keith Relf and Jim McCarty left the Yardbirds and formed Renaissance they wanted a band to explore more Classical, Folk and Jazz elements.

Yes only drew directly from Classical (Art music) for so long. They always evolved as a band. Then they switched to a more Jazz oriented style in Relayer. Which coincided with the rise of Jazz fushion bands in the mid 70s. Even Joni Mitchell moved away from Folk and explored more Jazzy stuff. Yes drew inspiration from the time. The Prog band change with time, explored new territory. Thrakattak is different 21st Schizoid Man.

I think what is different from today's Prog than the 70s is that today they go after having a signature sound of Prog, instead of blending a variety of musical sounds.

There were probably some, maybe not that well known. Take for instance the nephew of Ravi...
Ananda Shankar-Streets Of Calcutta


I don't know about Indian Prog Rock but there is indie Indian Rock
elephant stone - don't you know


I listen to indie mostly. And every other genre like Acid Folk, Stoner Rock, Space Rock, Psychedelia, post-Punk, Surf, minimal Wave psych folk are being explored. I think cause of Youtube and all that is available that was once obscure there could be a new era of Prog waiting around the corner.

Computers have changed a little bit since the 1940s. You can create electronic music (that doesn't even sound electronic sometimes) in real time. Do you also dislike synthesizers? They don't vibrate with you when you play them and all they do is put effects on sounds, so are they really instruments?

He also still didn't name a single example of this supposed computer prog all those kids are supposedly making today.

A synth is like an effect for a guitarist. It's a keyboard running through a signal process. The player performs and the sound is heard instantly through an amp as they are playing so there is real time feedback.

Copy and pasting sound clips around in a computer program is not playing an instrument. It may be digital sound collaging, but it's not playing an instrument.

Yes, you can create music through computer sound collaging, but it should not be confused with a musician playing an instrument in real time.

A painter should not be confused with someone taking a picture with their iPhone, then using one of the digital programs to simulate a painting from that image.

One also should understand the different between reflective light and pixelated light. All the world around us is seen through reflective light except for the artificial light we see coming from electronic monitors. It's different and affects us differently.

So when sounds are created and manipulated by a synth, it's cool, but when one of them newfangled computers that them damn kids on your lawn are always talking about does that, it suddenly isn't? Also why do you keep saying sound collage? Copying and pasting sounds may be the lazy way you'd go about making electronic music, but there's as much variety within types of computer instruments as there are stringed instruments.

It's also a bit ironic that you're so opposed to using new techniques in prog rock.

If you think on a higher level of what a guitar and a computer have in common, they're both tools that a musical artist can use to create music. Using both involve different processes, techniques and challenges. You can create sounds and invoke feelings with a guitar which are difficult to do with music composition software, likewise you can create sounds and feelings with music composition software that are difficult to achieve with a guitar. Neither of them can stop a musical artist from being creative and making progressive music.

Of course not, they're both different things. Someone simulating a painting on a computer isn't a good example though, better would be a graphic design artist creating art from scratch on a computer. Similarly a musician should not be confused with a composer. There's a lot of amazing electronic artists that I acknowledge as talented composers and producers but I don't see them as musicians in the same way as a guitarist in a rock band. I also wouldn't consider a guitarist in a rock band playing someone else's music perfectly note for note to be a composer. But both of them can be considered artists in their own right.

Again, different things with different purposes. Rock music effects me differently to electronic music. Rock music can take my head to places that electronic music can't reach, likewise electronic music can take my head to places that rock music can't reach.

If you have the mindset that electronic (or more specifically computer-composed) music is vastly inferior to music created with a conventional musical instrument then you are not looking at electronic music from the right viewpoint. And I'd certainly consider an electronic artist like Aphex Twin to be progressive in the same way that prog bands in the 70's were.

This ignores the possibility that people first PLAY those sounds, on their piano, keyboard, guitar, whatever, and then paste them together, as you so unkindly call it, which is I think denigrating some really innovative musicians. I'm not into the sampled electronic music personally, but talk to our members Plainview, grindy or YorkeDaddy about how much of their heart and soul goes into making what you call "digital art". I think you have a fight on your hands here, my friend.

Ya, it's all good.

Not here to argue. This thread is about the future of progressive rock. Electronica once created on real time instruments like Tangerine Dream did in the 70's. Today, it is digital sound collaging is it not? Why is that offensive?

I remember in school cutting out magazine pages and making collages on poster board. There was some briefly interesting stuff. I don't see that stuff going into art museums often.

Can one of the pro electronica posters here put up a video of some of this great electronica stuff that is so wonderful?

A musician implies that you play an instrument. Messing around on a computer is not playing an instrument. Making a song by sound collaging on a computer is not making one a musician. It does make them a digital sound collager.
It's not a bad thing, but it's not playing an instrument. The computer doesn't vibrate in real time when copy and pasting sound files.

Could you finally come up with an example of this?

I get links sent over all the time. I usually don't listen for very long because I find quantization very boring and un original. As soon as one goes in and starts manipulating things with a computer, it's no longer the artist playing those parts. It's something else.

As far as posting links here, I'm respectful of the artists not to do that. But there is plenty of over manipulated nonsense out there, but I don't like to criticize other artists specifically by individual.

Hmmm...
It just struck me as odd, because I'd actually be pretty interested to hear progressive rock compositions done just on a computer, but there are very few, almost none, I could find.
The only more or less common usage of programming I keep encountering are programmed drums and this seems to be usually done because a drummer is not available, not as an artistic choice.

So, which kinds of modern or at least post-70s prog have you explored (bands, styles, countries) and what exactly have you disliked about it?

As long as people are still buying Pink Floyd, Dream Theater, Rush, prog will still live. Maybe not as successfully, but there's still an audience. I know I like modern prog.