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When writing or listening to music, do you go for a more Progressive feel or more mainstream? If you write progressive, can you describe the song for me? And, for either, can you give a reason? Is it just how you feel the music? Or what.

By progressive, I mean alot of odd time signatures. 11/8, 9/8, etc.
Mainstream would be the typical 4/4, 3/4, and extended 6/8 (at times).

My own example of this

I, personally, try to be more progressive. And it comes without trying sometimes. I just wrote a song that starts in 9/8 and changes to 12/8 then goes back and forth between the two before settling on 9/8. Then to 4/4. And then to 11/8 for the verse.

I like writing progressive because it expands my playing abilities. The ability to play in more than one rhythm is very important!

It's one of the best songs i've ever written :]

i'm more of a progressive guy myself.
i personaly just like not being chained down to one and only one time/key signature. i also love style changes like in the liquid tension experiment the song "universal mind" how it goes from an a dragonforce-like guitar riff to raggae to prog metal to circus music. lol briliant.
also i like having long songs that are almost like 3 songs in one. more musically interesting, in my opinion.

I go for more of the progressive style. I like being able to make my music shift, grow, breath, and evolve. The only problems I come across while writing in this style, is that it is very easy to loose the center point and over play in the song. I try to get a simple memorable riff, but let the song consume it.

and that is how some of the best songs are writen. wink

I've always tried to go for a more progressive approach, but I can't seem to get out of a 4/4 time signature. I jsut struggle with weirder ones.

But progressive isn't just defined by the time signature. When I jam, I like to make songs about eight minutes long, because I like eight, but sometimes we shoot for a longer song. I jam with a keyboard player too and we get a more eclectic sound out of that.

The thing is, it's hard to get a song that people can remember, I always think. The song kind of morphs over time. There's rarely ever just one riff to it, and I find that songs generally crescendo, whether intentional or not.

I know a lot of people say prog to sound a bit weirder because everyone lieks to be in the minority, but sometimes it's not really very prog. I think I do that too though.

The thing is, mainstream music is just kinda boring. I don't understand why bands like 30 Seconds to Mars are classed as prog rock. What do they have in common with Pink Floyd, The Mars Volta and King Crimson? I really like Mars Volta, and when I jam, I always go for a more Mars Volta type sound. It's a shame that I don't record jams. It's rude to record other peopel palying without asking. They'd say no anyway, I guess.

Yeah, my music myspace sucks.

Why not have both? All you need is love, Beatles most famous song, 7/8 for the majority of it.

I do like to experiment with time signatures and key changes, but I think if you focus to much on that you take away from the song. For instance, say I took a week out of my life and wrote a ******** technical masterpiece with a million different time sigs and perfect transitions between keys. Anyone who listened to it would go "Wow, that guy is a really good musician..."

But if I showed it to someone who doesn't know much about music, they might recognise the talent, but they wouldn't listen to it. I'm more interested in making music people love, and if I can do that without using 4 chords in 4/4 repeated 8 times before tedious inevitable cheesy chorus than so much the better.

That's a mainstream progressive song. I'm talking about mainstrem feel. Like just typical 4/4. I know of some songs that are prog, or have some prog times that are mainstream.