Why Progressive Rock is the Best Form of Rock.

Rock is a huge genre of music, which covers everything from death metal to power pop. It's vastness can be compared to the atlantic ocean, not the pacific, that my friends is reserved for Jazz. But on that note, ill state me thesis, so here we go. Prog rock is the best form of rock because it comes closest to emulating the theory and playing used in jazz. To understand how it comes close to jazz, you need to understand music theory and how it works. Then you need to look at the comparisons between prog and jazz. All 3 are integural parts of prog rock, which can not be denied.

Music theory is the thing that makes the musical world go round. It is the force in starwars, the foundation in a house, space time in our understand of how things work in the universe. I have been blessed with a great music instructor and a acute brain. I have NEVER in my life taken a music theory class. This is all from one on one instruction and my experiences. Theory teaches us 3 basic components to music; harmony, melody and timing. Ill start with Harmony. In essence music all math at the heart. Frequencies, pitch, neck length, these are have to do with math. You may be asking "What does harmony have to do with math?" The answer lies with this concept for a tritone. If you look at a piano there are 12 black and white keys between an octave. You plit that in half and you my friend have a tritone. Play a tritone on any intrument, you get this unstable 'terrible' sounding chord which most people can't listen to. I don't like the term 'terrible sounding' cuase in reality, i don't think it sounds so bad, but on the contary is sounds good if used in a proper context. My guitarist once tried to use a tritone to end a musical phrase and i kept telling him, no can't end a phrase on a tritone, it does work. It's literally like trying to drive a car without wheels. Rather, you may start a phrase with a tritone, but you must end the phrase on something else that finishes out the phrase. But Harmony works base on tritone, the father away from the base note you get, the more 'negative' or 'dark' feel you get. Tritone splits the octave in half so in theory, once you get past tritone your getting to dark or minor, in the proper sense, territory. Melody is simple to explain take you favorite song and sing it. Congrats you've just sang a melody. Melody along with harmony forms the bases of the sound you hear out of a song. Artist use melody and harmon to create the atomosphere for a song. The timing of the song though it what really makes it music to us as human. Anthropoligcally speaking, the beat of a songs is what makes it music to most humans. We move to a beat, if songs didn't have timing or beat then there would just be a nice melody, which hardly anyone would like. Now that you have a basic understanding of music theory lets look at jazz. Beware this isn't for the feint of heart, these 2 are married and can't live without the other.

Jazz takes music theory and puts it on steroids compared to other genres. Jazz you need to understand music theory and how it works on a muc deeper level than normal. Jazz knows how to make PROPER use of locrian mode, which up until the 1950's was thought to be only a theoritcal mode and had no practical uses because of the lovely minor7 flat 5 chord it uses. Going back to tritone, that is in essence what a minor 7 flat5 is, a tritone. Now jazz artist are great at improvising, which is impossible if you don't know theory. They move with the chords, lets say they are using minor 9th, well they put emphasis on the notes in that chord, which just so happen to be d, f a, and c. So you can see with every change, they better know where to go and how to slove an musical anamolies that appear. Jazz musicians are very smart people. Combine this with their techincal ability and you have the destruction of all other musicians. Lets just say jazz sweep kill people. So taking this knowledges, let look at prog rock.

Prog rock takes all this jazz (pun is intented fyi) and applies it to rock. The tritone, is basically omar rodriguiz has know his whole life, and he is constantly using it in the proper context. Why does the Mars Volta sound so unique, cause omar rocks the tritone. He is albe to use the tritone and correctly finish a phrase everytime. Normal rock artist aren't able to do that kind of thing. Mr. insanely fast, aka John Petrucci, is the master of changes keys and modes, while playing insanly fast. 1 example is all you need, Contstant Motion. He changes keys atleast 3 times. Who has heard of that in rock? Now to most people, they simply don't care about my theory, but ill give you an example of perhaps the best know prog rock. Pink Floyd. They didn't uses the more modern forms of progr rock, with unique song structure, keys changes, and tritones, but rahter what they did pioneer, was long improvised solos and deep lyrical meaning. Long improved solos are self explantory and need no further mentioning. But Deep lyrical meaning, everyone memorizes song lyrics. Pink Floyd would often write songs outside of the normal rock box, of love, sex, and rock and roll. Pink Floyd explored social issues, philosophical issue and all that good stuff. Argueably this is what sets prog apart from everything else. Nothing else explores these topics because they are hard to work with and as a human being, you are more likely to like something better that you can relate too. See love, sex, and dancing as an example.

These are all reasons why i think progessive rock is the best. Concept albums, like 2112 from rush are expiences to listen to a whole, something normal music just can not offer you. Ideally id like to say the progessive rock takes from classical music and jazz then makes them one awesome piece of music, but it doesn't draw as much from classical as it really should. If i were to compare progr rock to something most people know, it is rather simple. The matrix, was a great movie that explored many different meanings in it. Are we in a matrix, how do we know if we are, and if we are, then what is the outside world like. All philospohical question posed. Progressive takes, music theory, jazz, and rock and poses questions on how they should be viewed and their role in music. Sadly prog isn;t popular for all of these reasons, which is a sad thing. I hope that the people of the future realize its greatness. I urge you as a read to go listen to 2112 or dark of the moon and see what it used to be about, then take a gander through some modern king crimson, or mar volta and see the present and the future hold in this once great genre.