The Side Of The Stage They Belong On

[arabicadabra]

In my years in the NEARfest Green Room I had the honor of some fascinating conversations with the artists while I was busily brewing coffee. One particularly interesting concept was raised by an artist who looked at the monitor screen piping the bands on stage in and said, "Most of these bands don't realize what side of the stage they belong on." At this artist's request I will NOT attribute the quote to their name. But I found it, in the context of our conversation about how composition is king in all music (we agreed on this), not a knock on the abilities of the other performers or even their sincerity; more like a lament that, in this individual's opinion anyway, much of our prog scene music would be non-life changing for the audience and not stay with us the way great music should as the years went on. I plead no contest for any song I'VE ever written, but can't seem to stop trying to do something lasting. But since so many of us here make music or at least fanatically appreciate what we listen to, I wonder how true this comment rings. Your thoughts?

[3RDegree_Robert]

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[arabicadabra]

LOL!!!!!

Hey, I was feeling philosophical and recalled his comment.

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[Sputnik]

...in this individual's opinion anyway, much of our prog scene music would be non-life changing for the audience and not stay with us the way great music should as the years went on. I plead no contest for any song I'VE ever written, but can't seem to stop trying to do something lasting. But since so many of us here make music or at least fanatically appreciate what we listen to, I wonder how true this comment rings. Your thoughts?

Life changing is an awfully high bar. As a composer, I write stuff I like and hope others do to. But I don't go into it with any expectation that the music be "life changing" for the listeners.

As a listener, I'm not sure any music I've heard since my teen years could be classified as "life changing." I suppose discovering Gentle Giant in about 1990 when I was in grad school rekindled my interest in Prog that had sort of waned during the 80s. This opened me up to discovering reissues on CD, and newer bands that were coming out in that period as well, and led to my desire to have my own Prog band. So I guess you can call that "life changing," but I don't think that's the way you meant it.

In the way I think you meant it, no music has resonated with me and changed my outlook like stuff I heard as a teen (or even some I heard when I was younger - see the "five albums that shaped your taste" thread). I'm not sure if that is me, or the music. In one sense, I don't think a lot of newer Prog stuff has consistently hit the heights of the 70s greats (there are possibly a few). But on the other hand, had I heard a lot of these albums in my teen years, I think I'd have had a similar reaction to them like I did with Yes, ELP, Tull, KC, etc. So I'm not sure it's really the music that is to blame, as the unnamed artist above seems to be implying. I think we all imprint on music we hear when we're younger (and this may well stretch beyond the teens), and nothing ever matches the intensity of that experience, even if it is musically quite similar.

Also, if you're a teen growing up in the 90s, very different music would be "life changing" for you than it would be for a kid growing up in the 70s. So I'm not sure the music is really at the root of it, but rather listener's subjective experiences with it.

Bill

[rcarlberg]

Bill, thanks for a great response. I think there's also a factor of history involved. Many "life changing" events are life changing only in retrospect -- at the time maybe nobody realized the import of what they were hearing.

Maybe.

[Baribrotzer]

Life changing is an awfully high bar. As a composer, I write stuff I like and hope others do to. But I don't go into it with any expectation that the music be "life changing" for the listeners......

.....So I'm not sure the music is really at the root of it, but rather listener's subjective experiences with it.

Bill

Some years back, I ran into a guy who'd seen my old band as a kid. We started talking, and it turned out that for him, WE were life-changing. He hadn't heard much music other than local punk garage bands and what was on the radio - but we were doing proggish stuff with lots of chords and time changes, and that showed him how much more was possible in music. So life-changing music doesn't necessarily need to be world-class. It just needs to reach the right person at the right time.

[JKL2000]

One album I remember feeling was "life changing" at the time it came out was KC's "Discipline." Probably it was just really good.

[Sputnik]

Bill, thanks for a great response. I think there's also a factor of history involved. Many "life changing" events are life changing only in retrospect -- at the time maybe nobody realized the import of what they were hearing.

Maybe.

I think there's a lot of truth to this. Thinking about the five albums that shaped my taste, I had to think about it a bit and several emerged only after contemplating in retrospect the imact they had one me. But a couple of music experiences, like spinning the Queen's Night at the Opera for the first time (I bought it for Bohemian, which I'd heard, but all the rest was new to me), or seeing Yes live in 1979... I could literally feel my head exploding. I knew at those very seconds, my life was changing, at least musically, and nothing would ever be the same. And it wasn't, for better or worse.

But those experiences are rare, and generally I'd agree that what one considers "life changing" is largely viewed in retrospect.

So life-changing music doesn't necessarily need to be world-class. It just needs to reach the right person at the right time.

This is exactly how I see it, couldn't have said it better.

Bill

[Fracktured]

I don't know if I could categorize any music as life changing for me but I would say perspective changing maybe. I'm sure that some here would disagree with me but I think that those who grew up in the 50's 60's and 70's grew up at a time when rock music was the most experimental and unique. Everyone can remember the first time they heard Topographic Oceans or Master of Reality but I think it was different when the albums were brand new music. I really miss the days when a friend would say "hey did you hear the new Black Sabbath album yet?"


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[arabicadabra]

Man these are really good insights. The youth factor and the perspective changing both seem like what the artist was talking about. Barbrotzer I bet hearing that about your band made you feel great. And how I long for the days of all my friends waiting eagerly for the next album by the bands we loved. I want music that marries itself to my heart and soul, that not only is a companion on adventures but lifts me up when I feel low, makes me pump my fist from inspiration like watching a dazzling record-breaking feat at the Olympics - not technically amazing, more like amazing because of how it makes me feel. To be surprised that anyone could do that is a glorious, joyful feeling. And Discipline definitely had that effect on me.

[JKL2000]

Oh, DSOTM seemed pretty life changing, and so did WYWH.

[mogrooves]

....composition is king in all music....

In a word, no.

[arabicadabra]

Or more precisely, this person and I both felt that, as far as our enjoyment of music, composition was for us the most important thing. We had that opinion in common.

In a word, no.

[A. Scherze]

In the way I think you meant it, no music has resonated with me and changed my outlook like stuff I heard as a teen (or even some I heard when I was younger - see the "five albums that shaped your taste" thread). I'm not sure if that is me, or the music. In one sense, I don't think a lot of newer Prog stuff has consistently hit the heights of the 70s greats (there are possibly a few). But on the other hand, had I heard a lot of these albums in my teen years, I think I'd have had a similar reaction to them like I did with Yes, ELP, Tull, KC, etc.

MPGA

Make Prog Great Again!

[mogrooves]

Or more precisely, this person and I both felt that, as far as our enjoyment of music, composition was for us the most important thing. We had that opinion in common.

I take your point.

[arabicadabra]

My curiosity has gotten the better of me. If composition is not the most important thing, what is? Vibe? Feel? Attitude? Sleaze? Groove? Harmonic ambiguity? I'm just wondering what beats composition for not just mogrooves but any of you.

[Baribrotzer]

I can't speak for Mogrooves, but the part I disagree with is "....composition is king in all music...."

It just isn't, not in all music. For example, a fair amount of great jazz is built on pretty skeletal tunes - the blues, or a mode outlined by a few chords, or a borrowed progression. But in that music, improvisation is king, and that's what makes something great out of such a small start. In soul music, it's great vocal performances. In many traditional folk musics, it's great interpretations of old tunes everyone knows. Now skeletal compositions, or songs just as an excuse for a performance, or tunes you've heard a thousand times may not float your boat - they don't float mine. But those, and many others are legitimate genres that do a lot for many people. And they cannot and should not be discounted.

[mkeneally]

There was a tenet floating around in the Zappa band while I was there: "Timbre rules." It's a simplistic view, but often true, that the sound of an instrument can carry more weight than the notes it's playing (eg. Purple Haze on an accordion conveys a different message than Purple Haze on a distorted guitar). From this perspective, arrangement/orchestration can be as important as (or moreso than) composition. Certainly in modern pop, the texture of the recording and the quality of the sound is often of equal or greater importance to any notes being played/sung/programmed.

But as far as MY personal taste, yeah, composition is king. Figuring out what notes to put together is endlessly fascinating and I do think can be legitimately life-changing. Every song I put on a record is there because I'd never heard anything quite like it before and it gave me some sort of unique thrill at some stage of its construction, and I always feel that if it gave me that thrill, the law of averages suggests that it'll eventually do the same for someone else. That's always the hope anyway.

[rcarlberg]

Good points Mike. Also, to the original post's point, I don't think very many bands start out "life changing." They have to work up to it through years of woodshedding and playing gigs like NEARfest.

[Bob Drake]

Another way to look at live performances, rather than "the composition is king" is that it's the performance that matters. I've seen shows (and played my share) where everything went wrong but was somehow a fantastic gig because of how the performer(s) handled it.

[battema]

Another way to look at live performances, rather than "the composition is king" is that it's the performance that matters. I've seen shows (and played my share) where everything went wrong but was somehow a fantastic gig because of how the performer(s) handled it.

^^^ the bear knows of what he types

[Scrotum Scissor]

Another way to look at live performances, rather than "the composition is king" is that it's the performance that matters. I've seen shows (and played my share) where everything went wrong but was somehow a fantastic gig because of how the performer(s) handled it.

Absolutely. In other words: in-time execution. I'd say the "quality" of composition is far more relative and subjectively determined and judged than that of execution. This is essentially also why improvisation might be just as much (or more) of a challenge to express convincingly than composition is.

[kenschwartz]

Another way to look at live performances, rather than "the composition is king" is that it's the performance that matters. I've seen shows (and played my share) where everything went wrong but was somehow a fantastic gig because of how the performer(s) handled it.

for me, often it is the shows were things "go wrong" that are the best, depending on how the artist handles it. in the best of cases, it can be very humanizing...breaking down the performer/audience wall. i recall many years ago seeing thomas dolby doing a one-man show, and having to deal with one technical problem after another. rather than whine about it and get all bitchy, he engaged with the audience while the techs worked out the problem(s). by the end of the evening, i felt that we (the audience that night) saw a show very different than what everyone else saw on nights when things went smoothly.

[Mikhael]

Composition IS king. Whether the composition is pre-meditated or instantaneous, does it matter? Most improvisational artists do refer to it as "instant composition", so I'd say that composition is king. I know, semantics, right? But I just thought I'd throw that in there.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Most improvisational artists do refer to it as "instant composition"

True. Which it basically is. As is a drawing if you work from scratch, seeing as you compose it as you go along.