What is prog music?

[Mam]

I was thinking about that today...I'm a fan of Rush and a HUGE fan of bands like Mastodon and Between the Buried and Me...these bands are often labelled as "prog" (prog rock, metal etc...) and I was wondering what make a band prog? A lot of prog music is very technical and complex...but jazz can be too! How can you label a band as prog? What are your criterias?

[Noseferatu]

I don't mind some prog, but I think alot of it is WAYYYYYYYY too pretentious.

Rush is awesome, and so is Dream Theater. Anything beyond that is just...ughhhh....

[5StringBlues]

Capes.Gotta have capes.

[BassMonstrum]

Good question!

When I hear the word prog I think of odd time-signatures and none-standard songstructure (you know; verse-refrain-verse-refrain-bridge-double refrain). And technicality...

[Noseferatu]

Originally Posted by 5StringBlues

Capes.Gotta have capes.

And you gotta write about trolls, spaceships, fairies, magic, castles, and hobbits.

Did I miss anything??|

[AltGrendel]

Prog rock usually has strong classical influences too. If you read about Yes's influences, you'll see Bach, Debussy, Segovia, and Stravinsky listed. ELP did several rock interpretations of Classical works, like Pictures at an Exhibition.

That kind of thing.

[BassMonstrum]

Originally Posted by 5StringBlues

Capes.Gotta have capes.

+1 on the capes, though...

[Noseferatu]

Originally Posted by BassMonstrum

Good question!

When I hear the word prog I think of odd time-signatures and none-standard songstructure (you know; verse-refrain-verse-refrain-bridge-double refrain). And technicality...

Yeah, technicality is a big part of it. It's like a law to play in 13/4 time and have a 14 minute guitar solo followed by a 20 minutes bass solo.

[Noseferatu]

Originally Posted by AltGrendel

Prog rock usually has strong classical influences too. If you read about Yes's influences, you'll see Bach, Debussy, Segovia, and Stravinsky listed.

That's because they're trying to keep and maintain the complexity of classical stuff.

[colcifer]

I don't get why people label it pretentious or how music could even qualify as pretentious.

Anyway, prog is short for progressive rock, a subgenre that often features extraordinary musicianship, sophisticated songwriting, and an egghead audience .

Artists include Yes, Pink Floyd, and FZ, though somebody will dispute that shortly. Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead were forerunners of this movement in a way.

[ridgeback]

Prog = Progressive

basicly more technical part of rock music..

[bbocaner]

It's more of an aesthetic than anything. There's nothing "progressive" about a genre that is going on forty years old now. There is "progressive rock" that isn't technical, doesn't have odd time signatures or large-scale structure. It's more of an adherence to particular instrumentation, a particular harmonic sensibility, etc..

[capnsandwich]

Originally Posted by ridgeback

Prog = Progressive

basicly more technical part of rock music..

This is true. Progressive means it progresses from one point to the next. I'm a big prog fan, loving everything from Riverside to Mastodon and Yes. Rush fits in there too somewhere. It's like music that tells a story, from point A to point B. It doesn't require lyrics or tags but just different points of the song that has certain depths that can evoke emotion and feeling. Music, in itself, is a language. If you can have a conversation in that language and make that conversation progress from topic to topic, you have a progressive song.

I know this is way over the top and kind of weird to the average reader so it may be non-understandable but yet, if you really look into it, it maybe be the meaning of life.

[poorbassist15]

Originally Posted by 5StringBlues

Capes.Gotta have capes.

Rick Wakeman's Yessongs cape comes to mind, and anything Geddy wore in the 70s.

[hrodbert696]

What Happened to Prog Rock?!?! for the whole shebang of an argument most recently. The debate is really whether recent groups like Mastodon and the Mars Volta are playing in the same (sub-)genre as 70s Yes and Genesis. I'll repeat my proposed criteria from there:

For my understanding of "progressive rock," those criteria would be:

1) Overt influence from classical and jazz music
2) Stress on virtuosity of individual band members (plural, not just a star soloist).
3) Frequent experimentation with unusual meters and keys across the overall body of work.
4) Length of a song determined by the logic of the piece rather than the commercial 4-minute radio slot (this may mean songs 90 seconds long or 20 minutes).
5) Extensive use of vocal harmonies rather than a single lead singer.
6) The above done with an otherwise recognizable rock band setup (electric guitars and bass, keys, drum set, etc).

But yeah.. capes. Definitely. Gotta get me one of those.

[Richland123]

This - Gentle Giant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK4cuXJa7QE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI8dB...eature=related

[Against Will]

A lot of indie bloggers are starting to use "prog" to describe any band that uses odd time signatures, rhythm changes, obscure key changes and weird lyrical content. Groups like Lightning Bolt, Boredoms and The Decemberists have all been described as prog, even though they have very little in common with the classic prog scene. Though they do tend to have some things in common with krautrock (i.e. German Prog-rock) bands of yore. For some people its just a short hand way of saying "weird, off-kilter but technically brilliant". Same way "pop-punk" or emo is used to describe power-pop bands with bad vocals and funny hair.

[oniman7]

My current band we're trying to take in a progressive metal way.
As a listener of many prog metal bands, I'll try to define it.

1: influence by more "sophisticated" or non-used styles such as jazz, classical, world, etc.
2. Experimentation in odd meter.
3. Emphasis on entire band. This means solos for most of them, and complex parts that don't always line up. This means bass may play something different from guitar (in some cases, even a different time signature) but usually with care taken to make them line up at certain points.
4. Delivery of a certain story, theme, or motive. In this way, they're closer to poetry and writing (in my eyes) than a lot of bands. Examples often include concept albums, where the entire album (or sometimes more than one album) tells a story.
5. Depending on the band, there is a lot of experimentation with unorthodox methods of playing. Pick slides, harmonics, changing tuning mid note/song, switching pickups, stuff like that.
6. Some bands tend to be a fair bit more ambient, giving an environmental feel to suit the music. Bands like The Sword and A Perfect Circle are good examples, though some people would argue that these aren't quite progressive.

[Unrepresented]

Originally Posted by 5StringBlues

Capes.Gotta have capes.

+1.

To borrow liberally from the Jeff Foxworthy playbook:

If you compose a concept album intended to be performed live with ice skaters in period medieval garb, you might be a prog rocker.

[Jazz Ad]

The way I (and most people) see it, a music is prog (progressive) when it has the 2 following elements :
- A wish to push the boundaries of its style by incorporating elements from other styles and using unusual sounds and compositions.
- Song structures with parts that morph (progress) into others, typically making for rather long pieces of music.