The Mellotron Group

In a message dated 2/17/2010 1:11:10 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
fourtytwominds@yahoo.com writes:

 
 
Hi everybody.

Busy semester, as per usual. Last of 'em too. I've got  a really BS class 
about "The World's Music" with is sort of a watered-down  ethnomusicology 
class that I've been required to take, even though for what it  applies to 
helping little kids become musicians, I could've just spent a  couple evenings 
in the local public library.

Any case, there's an essay  requirement about examining, from sort of an 
ethnomusicology perspective, a  music that we are already familiar with, 
because apparently..Any case, there's an essaynot be ..a.. research paper? (And I 
thought I was getting  an education.)

So I'm posting the prompt for the essay, followed by  what I wrote, which 
is 3 times as long as the meager 1000 words he was asking  for and not 
expecting to get from anyone. I'm asking that you correct where I  may be off 
base, saying things about prog that sound right but aren't, or  where I over 
simplified, entirely missed the point, or whatnot. Even though  the professor 
expects shit for an essay I'm going to give him a damned  good one in any 
case, because that's how I roll.

PS. Oh damn, I  forgot a few content areas, but I can correct that later. 
So now it will be 4  times as long...
_________

Music 171: Introduction to the World's  Music
Donald A. Henriques, Ph.D.
Questions

Writing Assignment #1  (1000 words)

Write an essay of 1000 words on a type of music that you  are familiar 
with.  This music may be for instruments, vocals or both.  The purpose of this 
assignment is to create your own narrative that addresses  the following 
categories.  You may address these in the order of your  choosing.  However 
remember that this is a WRITING assignment is NOT a  research paper and that 
your essay needs to be well constructed and clearly  written. Use Thinking 
Musically to support your responses, however refrain  from direct quotations.  
Specific guidelines will be forthcoming.   

The following are questions that should be addressed in some way  within 
your narrative.  

In what way(s) does this music have  meaning for you?  How is that meaning 
constructed? Provide the context in  which you experience the music and why 
that context has special  meaning(s).

Describe the musical instruments used in the making  of the music. How does 
these specific instruments contribute to the overall  sound? Do these the 
instruments themselves have special significance?   (gender-specific, ritual, 
spiritual associations, cultural status, etc.)  

Time: How is musical time reflected in this music?  Does the beat  tend to 
be "regular and constant?" In general, describe the rhythm of the  music.  
What is the "feel" of the rhythm?  Does the rhythm have  regular or irregular 
patterns?  Does the rhythm itself have any special  significance?      

Pitch: Does this  music have an easily recognizable melody? Describe the 
overall shape of the  melody in terms of pitch.  Does it cover a wide or 
narrow range of  pitches? Are there expressive reasons for this?  Describe the  
harmony.  Would you characterize it as generally consonant or  dissonant?  
Why?

Musical Structure: Describe the overall structure  of the music.  Are there 
improvised sections?  Are there dramatic  changes in tempo, rhythm or 
melody that indicate sectional changes in the  music?

How is this music typically transmitted among the  musicians?  Does it have 
a written tradition?   


_______

Sean Lowrie
16  February 2010

Progressive rock, boiled down, and made significantly less  interesting 
than it actually can be, at certain times, that  is.


The music referred to as "progressive  rock" is a music near and dear to 
me, one that I grew up with and became  intimately familiar with, never mind 
the fact the records of the music were  recorded anywhere from twenty to ten 
years before I was born. Since I've taken  up music and as I've become a 
musician in my own right I've gained more and  more insight into what is 
progressive rock, what it meant, and what its legacy  is.
First off, the term itself is fuzzy as fuzzy  can be(ditch this). What I 
will be  specifically examining is the "prog" of the 60s and 70s, which was 
mainly an  English phenomenon, but it did not bar Canadians and Americans, 
though to my  knowledge the phenomenon was at the time limited to those three 
nations (don't forget the Italians, Swedes, Germans, Japanese, at least  one 
or two Canadians and nearly all of the countries below the equator,  
especially nearly every country in South America.  Progressive rock was a 
sub-culture of the very dominant rock culture at the  time, and during the early 70s 
achieved something of hegemony in the rock  world, if only for a brief 
moment. I will not be talking about other  experimental rock music styles that 
were contemporary, not the folk-rock, not  the avant garde rock acts, nor 
jazz-rock fusions where they evolved from a  jazz idiom first. Of course, the 
edge of what is and isn't prog will always  remain very fuzzy (you should 
avoid, "fuzzy" if at all  possible. Perhaps you could exchange, "fuzzy," for, 
"subject to  debate," or something like that), for reasons soon to be  
revealed.
Again, note that prog evolved from the  psychedelic music of 1966-1969 (and 
perhaps a bit of  classical, neo-classical music and jazz.  Think, Miles 
Davis. 


 
Sean, this is a broader topic that you can really begin  to cover in a 
thousand words. Good luck,
 
Frank

Being that the rock culture was highly individualistic there was  no 
consensus and no one way to push the psychedelic fad beyond the norm and  into 
something else, there was only consensus that something else was very  
desirable. This individualist culture is one of the social givens that shaped  the 
progressive genre for the musicians, the audiences, the consumers at the  
record stores, and the perceptions of the genre by the general public, they  
who were probably wondering Oh God, what drugs've these lads taken this  time?
This individualism enabled a very wide range of  music influences to 
coexist and inform the performances of differing bands,  and the same goes with 
life views and all the other baggage of the progressive  rock era. There was 
Yes and their many imitators with their extremely  intricate metrical 
madness, their love of choral harmonies, and their penchant  for strange 
Indian-flavored metaphysics. There was Rush with their much  heavier near-metal sound 
and their penchant for Libertarian politics and Ayn  Rand's objectivist 
philosophy. (And outright lifting of her novels into  rock-album format.) There 
were entirely symphonic outfits such as Renaissance  who created all 
original romantic-era compositions for orchestra and rock  band. There were even 
such organizations as my personal favorite, the ever  schizophrenic and 
unstable King Crimson whom ranged from electrified Gustav  Holst, to jazz-rock 
compositions (with a strange medieval fairy-tale quality  to it), to African 
music and the occult, and finally to proto-metal before  disappearing off the 
face of the Earth for seven years, before re-emerging as  a rock-gamelan, 
and disappearing off the face of the Earth this time for over  a decade, 
before re-emerging as something almost, but not quite,  alternative-idualism 
enabled a very wide range of  music influences to coexist and inform the 
performances of differing bands,  and the same goes with life views and all the 
idualism enabled a very wide range of  music influences to coexist and inform 
the performances of differing bands,  and the same goes with life views an
This is the reason why  prog has such fuzzy edges. How would one exactly 
say that King Crimson is in  (well, I guess they did start the whole shindig) 
while Frank Zappa and the  Mothers along with Captain Beefheart are out? Is 
Pink Floyd progressive, or  space-rock, or just plain old psychedelia? These 
doubts mean, at least to  suspend disbelief of the entire premise, we've 
got to examine what united the  disparate acts of progressive rock.
They all can be said  to share similar instrumentation. At first this seems 
like one big "duh." If  they all descended from mainstream rock of the 60s 
then they should all have  rock instrumentation, and lo! there it is, they 
all have an electric guitar or  two, an electric bassist, and a drummer! 
Well, it should be also noted that  almost all prog bands relied on keyboards to 
a degree never before heard of in  rock music and certainly not shared by 
contemporary rock music. Rick Wakeman  of Yes and Keith Emerson of Emerson, 
Lake, and Palmer made their keyboard  skills the heart of the "sound" of 
their respective bands. Hammond Organs,  pianos, and Mellotrons popped out of 
every possible musical corner, and I must  confess, the bands with lesser 
discretion usually included these instruments  even in the places where they 
harmed the musical content of the moment. The  Mellotron especially, and 
especially the bloody "three-violins" sound on it  (my all time favorite sound in 
the world) became the sound of progressive  rock, that is, when mixed with 
inordinate gobs of reverb. In its the day the  instrument was despised for 
its unreliability (which resulted from these dudes  not wanting to do any 
maintenance at all on the contraption) and has since  outlived the progressive 
rock era and achieved cult status amongst some.  (Yours truly gives 
supplications and gentle praise at the Temple of the `Tron  every Saturday evening, 
and has joined a Yahoo! group full of people who were  young when the `Tron 
was young, are now old, haven't gotten rid of their  `Trons, and still act as 
if they are somehow relevant in the year 2010. Some  members actually are 
still building them in the original factory in England,  and from all these 
people who were there in that progressive moment I've  gotten much insider's 
illumination into what was progressive  rock.)
Prog attempted to leave behind traditional rhythm  and meter to as great as 
extent as they could get away with, and still sell  records. Asymmetric 
meter was definitely in, and incidental polyrhythm was not  uncommon in certain 
passages. Deliberate polyrhythm was a bit more rare, at  least until King 
Crimson returns in 1981 with Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew  playing the part 
of a gamelan ensemble on their guitars, but that's after the  death of prog 
in any case. There usually is no good musical reason why  differing metrical 
patterns were used by these acts, only that anything that  was difficult to 
perform right and not normally heard in rock circles was a  great thing, 
whereby a band could show off just how "liberated" they are from  the 
restraints of conventional thought. As base as this sounds this summation  
accurately describes the metrical reason to be for a good two-thirds of the  prog 
music one can run across on record. There is that other third that may  have 
actually gone weird for musical or philosophical sake, and they should  not be 
discounted, but they are equally the exception to the rule. Also  remember 
that prog rock is still rock, and as such you just can't escape the  
"tyranny" (as one guitar idol of mine put it) of four-on-the- Prog attempted to 
leave behind traditional rhythm  and meter to as great as extent as they could 
get away with
Progressive rock is also unified by  almost all the musicians being of the 
highest skill. Virtuoso ability on your,  one, two, or six, different 
instruments is not really an option in progressive  rock, it is a demand. Virtuoso 
ability became the common vehicle for very  exciting musical moments, which 
was more or less the point of progressive rock  in the first place. There 
was often absolutely no distinction between what  would otherwise be 
considered "normal" and "extended" techniques. If you could  make your guitar sound 
like an enraged elephant, and then could find a way to  musically use it, 
then you could assure your next album and tour would be a  smash hit. Don't 
get me wrong, the virtuoso aspect was also commonly abused as  the interesting 
thing in and of itself, but "fret-wanking" has always been  present in rock 
music, and in that regard it doesn't serve as a distinction  between what 
is and isn't progressive rock. It should be noted though, that I  mentioned 
instruments and not voices. The vocalist (or vocalists) for any  mythically 
average progressive outfit would be of no greater skill than any  non-prog 
rock outfit, and the deviation from wretched to sublime was  comparable to 
that of regular rock music. Why there was never much premium  placed on singing 
I have never rightfully known, but safe to say, in prog, one  will 
encounter 10-12 instrumental tracks for every a cappella  piece.
The structure of most of the tunes is alien to  the rock world but should 
be very familiar to any fan of romantic  compositions. An awful lot of 
progressive rock came in movements as opposed to  three-minute ditties one would 
expect out of a rock band. The vinyl record  itself became something of a 
storybook, and concepts, storylines, and motivic  material would appear, 
reappear, and recombine throughout the length of an LP  in very much a romantic 
idiom. This was rightfully viewed by most outsiders,  and a lot of fans on the 
inside, as quite a bit pretentious, but it fit in so  very well with the 
entire world of prog rock. For the mother of all examples,  one has to listen 
to Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" album, erm I meant song,  erm I meant… 
The one song on the album fills both sides of the LP! Granted,  band leader 
Ian Anderson meant for the entire thing to be a bit ridiculous as  he was 
taking the piss on the music critics of the time, but it still is  mighty fine 
music with excellent classically- The structure of most of the tunenation of 
the various motives and feels of the epic tune. This is the  nature of 
progressive rock.
This fascination for the  Wagnerian concept album, and most everything else 
these people did resulted  from a philosophy of what they were doing. 
Almost all of the bands and people  involved in prog-rock doggedly ensured that 
everything they did would have a  unified approach about it. Their music, 
their stage demeanor, their creative  process, their cover art, and their 
interviews all had to spring from a single  source. Quite often this source would 
be some half-baked philosophy that  everyone but the band members 
themselves thought was quite kooky, but that's  okay, everyone had their own brand of 
kooky. In this regard progressive rock  is not an insular thing but a 
direct product of the societies in which these  people were living. As the common 
narrative goes, the 60s were a time of great  doubt in all 
Western/democratic social institutions, and young people  especially (that's the rock crowd) 
were trying to find alternatives, any  alternative to a Western tradition 
that had totally failed them. As exoticism  has long been a trait of the 
West, many looked towards India and towards the  teachings of the Hindu and 
Buddhist faiths. Many, of course looked elsewhere,  or flat out invented their 
own, but everyone was fairly adamant that they were  going to take stance 
against the insanity of the West by behaving very  self-consistently once 
they'd found their wellspring. (In this regard I have  to look admiringly towards 
the members of Rush, those crazy Canucks, who said  The West has failed 
you? Hell, you don't even know what Western civilization  would taste like, so 
completely has modern society left behind the classical  liberalism of our 
grandfathers. This fascination for the  Wagnerian concept album, and most 
everything else these people did resu
This leads to the ultimate synthesis point for  prog-rock, one that 
wouldn't seem all that spectacular at all had I mentioned  it right off the bat. 
Prog-rock was meant to be exceptional art for art's  sake. This is not to say 
that rock is not an artform, but rock had an entirely  different aesthetic, 
did not hold itself to ridiculously high expectations,  and to speak basely, 
still had a lot of room left for plain old fun. Not so  with prog-rock, 
which is not to say that prog-rock was meant to be dull and  dreary and 
entirely cereberal. Instead prog-rock is intellectually fun, it is  fun in the same 
manner as many people get a kick out of going to the Lourve to  look at the 
paintings. Prog-rock must be recognized as an elitist phenomenon,  and yes 
that brought out all the typical pompousness in some participants that  any 
elitist phenomenon does, but there were many in the prog world as  
performers or listeners that weren't going to take their own selves that  seriously, 
even if it seemed like everyone else was. Prog-rock was meant to be  
challenging, stimulating, emotional, and self-consistent, in a way that rock  music 
never had been before. It was, to date at least, the ultimate marriage  of 
romantic sensibilities and rock-n-roll aggression. As has been stated on a  
page dedicated to telling the history of prog in as crude and humorous of a  
way as possible, "Progressive rock is all about seeing how many musical  
orgasms can be achieved in a thirty-minute period." Vulgar? YES! Still, it is  
quite possibly the best truism about prog-rock I've ever run  across.
By circuiticious route all this examination and  mincing of words leads 
back to me. Prog was dead and rotting by the time I was  born in 1987, 
certainly nothing remained of it by the time I was capable of  remembering anything, 
that being around 1995. (Excepting of course King  Crimson, the band 
curiously infamous for never holding together and never  going away either. Oh 
that, and they're the hacks responsible for launching  the prog era with their 
1969 debut In the Court of the Crimson King.) My  father has very eclectic 
musical tastes, ranging from hard-bop to blues to  Wagner to spirituals to 
the Beatles to contemporary- By circuiticious route all this examination and  
mincing of words leads back to me. Prog was dead and rotting by the time I 
was  born in 1987, certainly nothing remained of it by the time I was capable 
of  remembering anything, that being around 1995. (Excepting of course King 
 Crimson, the band curiously infamous for never holding together and never  
going away either. Oh that, and they're the hacks responsible for launching 
 the prog era with their 1969 debut In the Court of the Crimson King.) My  
father has very eclectic musical tastes, ranging from hard-bop to blues to  
Wagner to spirituals to the Beatles to contemporary-<WBR>jazz. Progressive  
rock was at its zenith during his jr. high school years, those being the mid 
 70s. It was th
Rather it was The Moody Blues  that eased me into a true love affair with 
prog-rock. The Moodies have always  been on the very edge of what might be 
prog, but they're more of a proto-prog  outfit. In `68 and `69 they were 
making such lush and symphonic noises with  their very mellow British R&B 
sensibility and the spacious and dark sounds  of Mike Pinder's self-modified MkII 
Mellotron. (He was a quality control  person in the Mellotron factory before 
he joined The Moody Blues in 1965.)  That's what got me hooked on "the 
sound" in my jr. high years, and as I went  through all the emotionality of my 
teen years the strong emotionality of The  Moodies seemed ever the perfect 
fit, and so my early romances, my growing  sense of pride as I could do more 
and more things, and my transformation into  a man is all wrapped up in the 
wistful beauty of The Moodies. (It should also  be noted that the same beauty 
of the Moodies seems to have spoke to the  members of the commercial-flop 
outfit Giles, Giles & Fripp in 1969, as  they replaced a bassist, got a 
multi-instrumentali Fripp in 1969, as  they replaced a bassist, got a 
multi-instrumentali<WBR>st with MkII Mellotron,  got a very bizarre lyricist, and 
changed music forever under the band name  King Crimson.) Showing that the 
universe is a very ironical place, in my 2nd  year of high school, while I was 
hunting for more Moodies CDs I temporarily  exhausted the supply of Moodies in 
Tower Records Fresno, and had money enough  to purchase one more CD. Well, 
there was King Crimson's 2nd album In the Wake  of Poseidon which had a cover 
painting very much like those of Moody Blues  albums, and I (correctly) 
figured if the artwork is similar then the music is  similar. (I was already 
learning the unwritten rules of progressive rock.)  I've been on a downward 
spiral in
Inside of what I means to  be, me, prog is special as it feeds so many of 
my interests. I'm a musician by  trade, and have spent twelve years learning 
to play in the Western classical  tradition. Prog rock speaks to this very 
well, while at the same time being  undeniably rock music, whereby I never am 
too far from my personal roots. It  is also very situated in my life, as I 
go through the momentous years of my  teens and my now my 20s, as I have 
seen incredible history, as I have studied  to come to know our forgotten 
classical liberal heritage, as I fear the  current Marxist-lite worldview, and in 
general have come of age, prog-rock is  the bulk of the music I've been 
listening to in my free time. Granted, there  is not much ideological 
similarity between the prog-rockers and me, (with the  exception of Rush) but I can 
still accept their music and their kooky ideas  for what they are and enjoy, 
as Ian Anderson would say, the gift of  song.
I'm also becoming friends with some of the people  who were there during 
that time through that Yahoo! list I mentioned earlier,  the one with the 
aging Mellotron-fogeys. I can listen to their stories and  their banter and get 
an inside feel for what to me looked like a very  pretentious, yet cool, era 
in music. I've learned that these people don't  bite, they're not so kooky 
as they once seemed, and that many got into those  pretensions by the same 
means that anyone gets into anything. Pretense wasn't  so much a deficiency 
of character but a historical phenomenon, as the youth of  1970 didn't have a 
lot of quality information floating about by which to  inform their 
worldview. (I am not saying that somehow I am superior to them  for my worldviews, 
but exactly the opposite, that my worldviews are a result  of happy 
historical accident in exactly the same manner as the pretenses of  1970 were 
historical accident.) All of this learning and bonding only further  cements the 
central role of prog-rock in my life, and that in a nutshell is  the same 
individualist story that informed the creation of prog-rock. Every  prog-rocker 
of necessity will have their own unique take on what it meant. The  story 
of progressive rock is the story of the individual, no stronger  statement 
can be made about the context of prog. All we've left to do then, is  throw 
the first Matching Mole album on the turntable and wonder, what were  they 
snorting?

_____

Thanks everyone! FYI, the 1st draft is due  next Tuesday. Next Wednesday is 
my clearance hearing for my flute senior  recital, which, I am going to 
smoke. Doing the 2nd half of Bartok's Suite  Paysanne Hongroise, Bach's Sonata 
in Eb (BWV 1031), Chaminade's Concertino,  and finishing out with Robert 
Dick's Lookout! which I just performed for him  last Saturday as part of a 
masterclass, complete with Ian Anderson antics as  it is afterall, electric 
guitar music for the regular flute.