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How about the Who? Townsend's work is full of 2nds and 4ths! Yes? Led Zeppelin? Queen - they were music students? Coldplay?
There's plenty of "popular" music that uses more than the 3 "standard" chords. It may be true that they don't write music by scoring a stave, but then I doubt Beethoven did. I'd also suggest that most established guitarists could transpose a work written in a major key to a minor key. Many modern songwriters use Dorian and Aeolian modes regularly. They may not even think in those terms, but they definitely make conscious choices about using, say, D & E major or minor when writing a song in Am.
Kids making a group might not know the theory of music and composition, but their ears lead them to make choices. They probably start of by moving existing chord shapes around to different positions or changing one note of a chord (either by accident or as an experiment), but I can virtually guarantee that they move on from your basic 3 chords pretty quickly.
I agree that pretentiousness can creep in. I call it "Emperor's New Clothes" art, whether it's a potato sack in the Tate or someone chucking an augmented 4th into a piece of music (unless maybe it's a music score for a movie, used to indicate a threat), I don't get it. Maybe I'm a Philistine (pun intended!). You mentioned Stairway, it starts with an AmM9th - now there's a weird chord! Musical sophistication doesn't have to be pretentious.
Finally, I don't believe that Punk started out trying to eradicate "pretentious prog rock" groups or Disco. The kids in the groups were doing what they wanted using what they knew how to do. The audiences for Progressive Rock and Punk probably had little overlap, except for music geeks like me. I think that the "intellectualisation" of Punk came later, largely from pretentious Punks like Malcolm McLaren.
Final point: Progressive Rock is still about. It isn't mass market, but then it never was. Disco is also still around in a sense (as observed by another poster in this thread), it's just changed it's name. So if the aim of Punk fans was to destroy both, they rather failed! 
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Well, in fact the Who are one of the greatest rock bands, if not the founders of rock and are the group I learnt to cut my teeth on playing guitar, and uniquely, Townsend used a lot of chords, in fact a mind blowing number, played in quick sucession. I cant think of any other mainstream guitarist like him for that.
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At last we have some convergence!
The first single I bought was My Generation and I maintain that Who's Next is a must have album. I've always said that one of the things that define a musician as great is having a distinctive style. Townsend owns this style, playing lead guitar using mostly chords rather than riffs. He especially likes his 4ths and 2nds. There are others who are continually changing harmonic structure on guitar, but doing it as aggressively as him, it's hard to bring one to mind. A lot of Jazz guitarists do.
As far as founders of Rock. There are many who predate the Who that I can name, I'd only have to use Link Wray, a 50s rocker who was way ahead of his time, to win the argument (listen to Rumble)!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Calexico isn't Rock, in the same way as rock and roll isn't.
The first rock music is by the Kinks, You Really Got Me, and All Day and All Night. The Who are very close on their heels with Cant Explain and My Generation. In fact so far ahead were they that they were almost the first Punk band with Anyway Anyhow Anywhere. Just watch it, its amazing[^]
Yes there are the Beatles, Stone, Yardbirds, but they are all blues or RnB based. These two bands were the first to totally distance themselves form the Blues chord progressions and thus to me are the true founders of Rock.
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She Loves you ends on a 6th!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Yeah, the Beatles then went into pop music.
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Munchies_Matt wrote: Yes, I could tell you about dorian, phrigian, mixalodian and all that crap. But I am sure its only used by pretentious prog rock artists!
Actually, modes are mostly used by traditional folk musicians.
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Not so, Jazz makes extensive use. It's true that some folk instruments are simple modal instruments (e.g., bagpipes, the Apalachian Dulcimer).
As mentioned in my reply to Matt, popular music frequently uses Dorian or Aeolian modes (as opposed to "harmonic minor") for songs in a minor key.
The point I was trying to make is that as soon we start talking about comparing one musical genre versus another, you are one of: not knowing what you're talking about; trolling or maybe you have a valid point (i.e., don't bring a knife to a gunfight!)
My argument is that Matt's point is not valid, but he does appear to know what he's talking about. Trolling might be an over-statement, but he's definitely trying to yank my chain! 
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at, but I never said that only folk music used modes. Yes some folk instruments are non-chromatic and suited for modal music, and much folk music was originally composed on such instruments (flutes and pipes in particular), which is one of the reasons folk music tends to be modal, but even when composed on chromatic instruments like the fiddle most traditional music is still modal.
Folk music has been using modes for thousands of years. Keep in mind that by traditional folk music I'm not talking about 1960s singer-songwriters. How long has Jazz been using modes, and where did the influence come from? Traditional music is the foundation of most of Western music, that's been true since ancient times. And it's especially true of popular music.
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My apologies, I had read your statement as claiming that modes "weren't used" elsewhere. This particular sub-thread started by me poking fun at Matt for his incidental claim that Punk (given to the world by his generation) had destroyed "pretentious prog rock" and Disco. I think Matt sees himself in a super-hero cape ridding the world of evil which apparently includes Genesis and ELP. I'm still not sure where he stands on Yes, King Crimson and Curved Air.
I certainly wouldn't want to deride folk music in any way. I was once both a member of the English Folk Dance and Song society and a Morris Dancer! (don't let Griff see this!) Of course, most (all?) modern popular music has come from folk roots. Much, of course, has come from Afica, via the US and Blues. Jazz and some classical music can be the furthest away from traditional music. The use of dissonance and "breaking the rules" is what moves these genres away from traditional modes.
Of course modes are, and always have been around us. The "modern" major key is the Ionian mode. While simple melodies might be expressed in modes, it's subtle and, at times irrelevant and hard to detect (hard-line theorists will probably disagree!). As soon as we move into harmonies (without dissonance) we are very much in modal turf.
I've never played the Pipes, although I believe they can be chromatic. The Apalachian dulcimer is definitely (I had/played one of those which got lost in my move from the UK to Canada), but both are played using a drone (drones) and a melody. It is the relationship between the drone and the melody that most simply defines and identifies the 7 modes, although reading up music theory on the subject can very quickly cause blood to ooze from your ears!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Haha, you were a Morris Dancer? I'll try not to picture that
PhilLenoir wrote: I've never played the Pipes, although I believe they can be chromatic.
Certain kinds can be, for instance the uilleann pipes with the addition of a chromatic key. But mostly not.
The theory is actually a lot easier to understand than it may seem. Suppose your instrument can only play in one key. To vary the scale you can simply move the base note (tonic) and voila, you have a different scale with a different sound, while staying within the notes your instrument can play. Hence modal music, where you vary the note the tune resolves on based on the mode (drones are usually related to the tonic as well).
Anyway, back on (much-needed de-rail) topic: I agree with you that Matt is a bit mistaken about punk rock. First of all, when he says his generation gave us punk I hope he means he's Generation Jones and not Gen X. Also, the original point of punk was not to kill other genres, although it did turn its back on complex, over-produced music in favor of bare essentials. But that was mainly to facilitate the idea that anyone could play and get their voice heard, not so much a rejection of other forms of music. The real point of punk was this message: the youth have no future, and they're angry about it. Once that was said there wasn't anywhere else to go except evolve, and so punk gave way to New Wave, post-punk, alternative music, etc.
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I have no issue understanding the theory, although make a quick search on Dorian mode and you'll find variations (which genus!!!!) When I learned this stuff, Dorian in D was DEFGABCD. My point about simple melodies being esoteric still stands. If you say a given melody is in E Major and wanted transposed to E Dorian, I can do that, but to say what mode any given melody is in .... sure if a melody is all white notes and As and Ds predominate you'd say it was Am and if Cs and Gs predominate it's CM, but with good coverage across the whole scale ...?
To demonstrate this concept I once took Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and transposed it to Dorian. It's remarkably sinister sounding
I did a concert at Christmas, with my wife on cello, which included Carol of the Bells. The original key was Em and pretty much features a "drone" on E all the way through My wife contradicted me when I mentioned it being in Em to someone ("no it was in G"). For her there is no difference, she doesn't compose and she only needs to know enough theory to follow a musical score and one sharp to her means G. She plays a pretty mean cello, but she can't tell minor from major (yet alone Dorian from Aeolian) nor does she need to!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Yes I see what you mean, the key or mode can be ambiguous depending on which notes are and aren't included in the tune. I've seen lots of arguments happen about this, but the fact of the matter is that a simple melody often doesn't have a fixed key or mode, at least until you start harmonizing. It's worse with written music, because you can write anything in any key with accidentals and not change a thing, something people tend to forget when they look at a key signature (it's there for convenience in reading/writing, not to "tell" you what key it is).
This is why melody players like cellists don't have to care much about keys/modes, but harmony players do
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Disco is still around, they call it house music these days.
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Munchies_Matt wrote: Because some people, like me, aren't interested in 'winning hearts'. We are interested in challenging
Congratulations. You succeeded. Sigs are turned off.
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What did I succeed at? I didn't intend for sigs to be disabled, just for CP to maintain its lively character. Chris asked the community what it thought and it said my sig was OK. Clearly Chris is planning something for sigs, perhaps enabling them only in SB and BR, perhaps something else. Perhaps he wants to punish the community for not agreeing with him and has thus turned them off completely. Don't know, what do you think?
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You succeeded in "not winning hearts" and "challenging the system".
Chris asked you to remove your sig. You changed it much later and we now have a lot of posts and threads.
What I think:
At the beginning I sympathised with you because I did not accepted the message deletions. But you still do not understand that a community requires backing down sometimes.
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Jochen Arndt wrote: But you still do not understand that a community requires backing down sometimes.
That's something he's not good at, but a personal smack on the hand is a better solution than the creation and enforcement or rules and processes.
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But the community is clearly in favour of allowing my sig if you look at the responses in this thread.
Anyway, I have changed it, since it was getting a bit old anyway (yes, I have had that sig for a long time).
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I remember seeing the sig weeks ago, and thinking "beh" (which is Italian for "meh").
It obviously pissed off the people you wanted to piss off, but, unfortunately, their method of responding was unacceptable.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Chris asked me to remove my sig a long time after the noise and discussion initiated between both camps. I actually changed it quite soon after he asked, and if you go back to ' is this a bug' you will see that is the case.
And then we cone to the 'community'. Chris posed the question here, and clearly the majority of people are un favour of allowing my sig, even if not agreeing with the content, so should I abide by the communities wish and reinstate it?
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If you had removed the sig when recognising that it makes problems we would not have these discussions. Insisting is often not the best choice.
I will now follow my own advice and back out from this discussion.
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I saw too much support from the community, that's why I didn't remove it.
Whoever runs the site, without members, without the community, CP wouldn't exist, so its always the opinion of the majority that should be considered.
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Ah - the "12 people voted for me and that makes a majority" argument again.
Just to summarise for those who are still reading:
1. Most people on the site don't care. The vast, huge, 99.9999% don't even know about Matt. Sorry.
2. Of those who expressed support, the majority expressed support for freedom of expression.
3. Of those who expressed an opinion I did not see a single voice saying "you should be able to post whatever you like in whatever forum you like regardless of the forum topic or rules".
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Chris Maunder wrote: 1. Most people on the site don't care. The vast, huge, 99.9999% don't even know about Matt. Sorry.
Why do you even have to say that? Do you really think I am looking for attention?
You are miles out. Really. I am surprised.
Chris Maunder wrote: Of those who expressed support, the majority expressed support for freedom of expression.
Which is what I said.
Chris Maunder wrote: Of those who expressed an opinion I did not see a single voice saying "you should be able to post whatever you like in whatever forum you like regardless of the forum topic or rules".
I never claimed they did. What I did say, as many others did, is that a sig is not a post and thus shouldn't be subjected to the same rules.
But anyway, I am bored with this. I have changed my sig so when you get it working again no one need have their tiny little world disturbed by a few words.
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