As everyone knows, "In The Court..." was the first Progressive Rock album proper - therefore this is the album to listen to examine in order to discover what it's essentially all about. This does not mean that every Progressive Rock album has to sound like "In The Court..." - by implication, a Progressive Rock album must sound like itself.

“In The Court” has a concept running through it, the songs themselves pay no attention to 3-minute hit single formats – and chip away at standard intro/verse/chorus song structures (but not completely destroying them). The music is rooted in the Hard Rock of the Yardbirds and Cream with its tendency towards distorted guitar riffing, especially in 21^st Century Schizoid Man, but meanders off dangerously into territory as far away as it can get from Rock Music in the avant-garde explorations of MoonChild.

The latter is particularly remarkable in that it is a true avant-garde composition, rather than a simple impovisational experimentation, which characterised the more “far-out” aspects of Psychedelic acts of previous years, and the former is remarkable in that the jazz explorations are similarly tightly constructed, yet feel improvised – again, distinct from Psychedelic bands which used “jazz exploration” to mean noodle away using a pentatonic scale over two chords.

Going further, the title track is split into many sections, the most interesting of which is the Dance of the Puppets – on the surface a simple, jaunty little tune, but in context, a largely improvised strip-down and development of the main thematic ideas.

Analysis

The music is clearly showing us 3 things;

1.      Tight composition with a strong feeling of improvisation.

2.      Development of thematic material.

3.      Stripping away the notion of Rock music, leaving something else entirely.

One could easily extend this list, just by using the ears;

There’s something about the melodies; They’re longer than we’re used to in Rock music – the phrases are not stand-alone, short, repeated units, but conjoined in multiple phrases to make  bigger phrases, similarly to Classical music.

There’s something about the harmonies too – dischords and soft, jazz-flavoured chords are more prominent. The use of I-IV-V is almost redundant - completely redundant in “MoonChild”, where the sense of diatonic harmony and movement towards a cadence is completely destroyed.

And what about the rhythms? Aggressive, strident rhythms, soft, echoing rhythms, percussion rather than straightforward rhythm – there’s a wide mixture, and this is a difficult album to dance to without looking silly.

Timbre? An extreme range (for the time) is utilised – a mega-distorted guitar across to acoustic. Harsh-edged saxophone, soft, blurry Mellotron, crashing drums, subtle percussion and chimes, stops, starts and contrasting sections in the music, providing a hitherto unheard of range of dynamic in rock music.

Form, the most critical aspect when distinguishing Progressive music from non-progressive music, we’ve already covered, and found it to be destroyed utterly for a few tantalisingly brief moments.

Of course, there are albums with these qualities that preceeded it – as nothing is without precedent in music… as far as anyone knows – but these are mere qualities, elements, if you will. Nothing is ruled out, as the rules of music, while strongly binding like an elemental force, are not carved in stone, and the first Progressive Rock album can be whatever you like, really – as long as you have a good understanding of what it is. I hope I've assisted you in achieving such an understanding even, or particularly, if you disagree with everything I've said.

So what is Prog?

It’s Progressive Rock Music, music that defines itself, music that boldly goes, music that dares, music that creates, music that thinks as it creates, fuses left brain with right, music that allows itself to be influenced by anything and everything – the free-est form of rock music, yet the most tightly controlled, music that puts form over function, head over feet and soul overall.