When it comes down to music, it is a vast horizon with much more than meets the eye. Music can define an entire period of an era and culture. From the dawn of the stone age until the modern time that we are living in 2022, there has always been some record of a rhythm, melody and some sort of music has always existed in one or another form. This form is what with time was defined as a genre. A music genre is something that holds the mood, style and certain signature patterns or other musical characteristics are present in music pieces which they share with each other.
As of 2022, generations have seen and heard tremendous changes in music. Some are born and raised and lived on as legends, some are still alive and some have already died. Regardless of it, there have always been some listeners or enthusiasts who appreciate or find themselves awestruck by particular periods of music. If you are one of them and kind of venturing old school music genres, you should certainly dive into classic progressive rock genre.
The nature of progressive rock as a genre
Progressive rock is a genre which incorporates magical and unpredictable time signatures, changes in rhythm, harmony, scale which might be difficult to predict. As you can imagine, there it can sound experimental and the play with the tune goes to the extent when it might even go in dissonance.
Most of the band members playing in the genre of progressive rock have a sharp musical virtuosity which is actually required for creating outstanding pieces of music sounding progressive. Progressive rock differs from regular rock-n-roll genres quite a lot since progressive rock is built on a combination of various styles of genres. Giving the progressive track a new horizon, it can become almost unstoppable.
A crucial feature of the songs written in this genre is the fact you cannot just get into the constant rhythm thus easily as while listening to the music typical for regular hard rock, metal, disco, pop or the majority of other music genres. Getting on a progressive rock track is like preparing for a journey on a roller coaster. It will throw you up and down the universe and you never know where you will lend this time.
The evolvement of progressive rock
The progressive rock genre arouse around 60’s and reached its peak in 1970s. A typical line up for instrumentation in this genre consists of the same elements which can be found in a typical rock band. There are guitars, drums, a bass, a vocalist as well as keyboard/synthesizers. What varies the genre and made each band from the past unique with strong differences while compared to the regular rock band instrumentation was the fact progressive rock bands frequently used various other instruments. The diversity of the instruments was enormous starting from the ones typical for the ancient periods of humankind to absolutely modern instruments such as theramin, analogue synthesizers and percussion.
Performance and albums
Another popular feature of progressive rock was a particular way of performing the music. Many bands playing in this genre had glamorous, theatrical outfits and stage performance capturing the audience in trance like state with their lyrical content. People would describe experiencing their live performance as “other worldly”, mesmerising and particularly capturing. Even listening to their studio albums, you could get absolutely stoned. Often, such albums were concept albums or the songs were linked to one another therefore creating a movie-like experience.
The most outstanding bands of the progressive rock genre
There have been many progressive bands since the dawn of this genre. The most noticeable bands that made this genre to the top and out on the surface were certainly such legendary bands as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Rush, yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Camel, Mike Oldfield and others.
According to the early reference and music journalists, this genre first appeared in Canterbury, England. With the bands like Caravan and Soft Machine there was a set off of this genre which would later give a birth to the bands mentioned above.
Pay your attention to the fact that even The Beatles were progressive later on as they pushed their boundaries beyond their pop, blues rock-oriented music with the album like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. If you want to immerse into a steep magical turn of musical history, dive into these bands and prepare to escape from the reality with the experience waiting for you.