This email made its way to me from the keyboard of Jason Ewing and I’m sure you’ll agree Jason’s makes some interesting comments which add even more substance to the challenge of exposing progressive rock to a wider audience. With his permission I’m sharing it with you.

_____________ Hi Jerry,

Jason from Australia here. I very much enjoyed your essay "The Mystery of Music." It made me think of my own experiences with playing prog rock to "newbies". Your essay reminded me of a great program broadcast over here on a radio station called ABC Radio National, where the host of the show interviewed a composer and a university professor on the topic of the decline of young people listening to classical music. The central idea they expressed was that people are simply not exposed to classical music much any more, with the exception of music in movie soundtracks. They hypothesised that the key to becoming a listener was mainly about (1) repeated exposure and (2) having some means of interpreting what you hear - through a mentor or teacher or another classical fan sharing what they get out of the experience. I think the same applies to prog.

The composer also brought up another very interesting point: there are two kinds of listeners - melodic listeners (nearly everyone) who focus on the melody (i.e. vocals) and harmonic listeners (mainly musicians and serious music fans) who are able to listen to the music on a multiple number of levels, and get much pleasure listening to how the music interplays on a harmonic level. Nothing wrong with a melody, of course - and I believe that a strong original melody line is the hardest thing to actually write - but it seems that the majority of people simply aren't equipped with the cognitive interpretive skills (and I really don't mean this in a condescending or snobby way!) - its just that they don't have the exposure and background to make a lot of sense of what they hear (which is your argument). It's like me being dragged to a football game (yuck!), struggling to understand why all these people around me are so exited by a bunch of guys kicking a bit of inflated leather around. I can't see what those who have the cognitive structures to enjoy the game see - it's simply not there for me.

I'm a psychologist by training, with a background in educational and developmental psyche, and I see a similar phenomenon in children with learning problems - somewhere along the way they have missed or lost track of a key idea in, say, maths or reading, and they lack the cognitive structure to understand material at a different level. It's kind of like trying to complete a building without putting enough scaffolding in place.

I agree that people certainly do react in an "eyes glazed over" manner when you first play them a piece of prog, but if I'm sneaky (and the piece isn't too obnoxious, ala Magma :-p ) and play the piece unobtrusively when they come around next time, and the time after that..... (LOL). I have noted that they, like your daughter, beginning to tap along to a bit of it, or express some interest in it. Exposure really seems to be the key. In the same way, I have come to like a whole bunch of music that I initially would have been too prejudice to even try. Recently I had the wonderful experience of cleaning up an old vinyl copy of Mancini's "Peter Gunn" for my old man (it's his favourite album). Because I had to listen to the album a number of times as I de-popped, de-clicked, and re-mastered it for CD-R, I became familiar with the songs. Wow! What an amazing album! Who would have guessed?

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I just thought you might be interested in some more thoughts on why prog is so difficult for listeners of pop to get into. Thanks for your essays on ghostland, I enjoy reading them, as I did your book. I would like to write more about the psychological dimensions of music one day - it's an endlessly fascinating topic, don't you think?

All the very best,
Jason Ewing
Melbourne, Australia
_________________

You know it’s such a pleasure to feedback like that. You’ll have to excuse the fact I left in the plug for my book!

So there you have it. Exposure is the key. If people hear something, including progressive rock enough times there is a good chance that they’ll come to enjoy some aspect or even all of it. Bear in mind that even the simplest of progressive rock still tends to be more challenging that the pabulum most folks are exposed to, we still may have our jobs cut out for us. You didn’t think it was going to be easy didya?

Till next time, I await your response!

About the Author:
Jerry Lucky is the author of the book The Progressive Rock Files, now entering its 5th edition. Please feel free to send feedback to Jerry at www.jerrylucky.com.