Progressive Rock

From psychedelic rock crystallized progressive rock, or prog rock for short. The musicians who created this genre wanted to take it to a "higher level" therefore their songs are very polished and complex. They were often very long, up to 20 minutes long, had intros and coda's and were often sonata-like in nature. The music was instrumental or vocal-instrumental, and the lyrics were complex and often dealt with topics of philosophical, religious, mystical, fanciful content. Performers in progressive rock were true virtuosos of their instrument, and included people with musical training such as Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, Irmin Schmidt, Holger Czukay, Jozef Skrzek, Jordan Rudess, John Petrucci. There were also many masters who were self-taught: Jimmy Page, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Mike Oldfield, Apostolis Anthimos, Jerzy Piotrowski.… Read more