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Good thread. I wish I hadn't been away from my computer for the last few days, so I could have participated more. I'll comment on a few things where I think I have something to contribute.
My musical heritage: I play drums, I'm pretty good. I currently own a Tama 5 piece and a Yamaha 7 pad digital, plus an assortment of latin percussion. I'm pretty mediocre on the latin stuff. I play acoustic guitar (a decent Yamaha), I'm fair on that. I play keyboards (an old Casio, probably the same as Eating Lemur(I think it was)), and I'm poor on those, but writing melody is easier on that than on the guitar for me. I played cello and violin in junior high school/high school. Cello is the french horn of the orchestra. I couldn't get instruction on the violin until I started figuring out the violin part and playing it on the cello. My being out of sync with the other cellists bugged our conductor enough. I was first chair cello, but I still felt like I was accompanying too often...
Prog music, by my "definition", is typically more complex than "straight rock", so I suppose a musical education may help one appreciate that technical factor more. I don't believe it's necessary though.
Keithie, singing definitely qualifies as an instrument. I wish I could sing more than cheezy backing vox.
As far as discordant music goes, I'm always suspicious. I allow for the possiblity that they're playing something orderly, but too complex for me to grasp. But deep down I feel many or most artists who play that type of music are trying to be complex without truly understanding composition or orchestration. Don Cab wanders off into that territory at times, but at other times I get exactly what they're doing, so who knows?
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