Shakespearean approach to art

I agree that there was not a single type of PMG fan and that makes me very happy. But there was thought and tradition put into that as well. I always believed in the Shakespearean approach to art. I could over-simplify that by saying Shakespeare taught us to first make it sound good. Then make sure to put things in that would appeal to EVERY strata of society, from the deepest scholars to lightest soap opera fans. Anybody could find a way into our music one way or another because all those people were given something they could relate to. The claps at the beginning of “First Circle” was my “Alas poor Yorick…” or something like that. When Shakespeare wrote that beginning to scene five in Hamlet he created an Elizabethan sight gag, got a laugh (back then holding a skull was roughly like making a fart noise today) and got the attention of even the knuckle-draggers in his audience. 

The claps (for those who learned them) even became an audience participation moment in our concerts, albeit at a fairly sophisticated level. The Japanese excelled at those claps, and hearing thousands of people clap a complicated rhythm in unison is astounding. But my metric model for the claps in the first place came from contemplating the beautiful art of M.C. Escher and his explorations of figure and ground. In “First Circle” the theme has a clave (in Afro-Cuban terms) of 3-2-3-2-2-3-3-2-2. That’s the figure. The ground is all the other notes not played by the downbeats in the figure (or the clave). So by thinking in an Afro-Cuban way, about 22/8, filtering that through Escher which gave me the completely stolen idea of making the ground into the figure, and listening to the voice of Shakespeare in my head saying, “Make it sound good, make it deep but make it fun too” I wrote the clap intro to “First Circle.” When I say there’s a classical backbone to the PMG music I am not referring to only classical music, but all classical thinking. You can’t fake that.

I would say that the classical elements may or may not have had anything to do with our popularity at the time, but predict it will have EVERYTHING to do with our popularity going forward. The classical influence in the music is not “stylistic” in that I never wanted to imitate a classical style of any period, but rather functional in that I copied the structure of what had worked in many art forms of the past. 

Shakespeare is open to everybody too and he was an almost perfect embodiment of that egalitarian ideal. But to appeal to everybody, you also have to appeal to the very brightest. One has to actually be deep to appeal to the deep. One has to know a lot of shit to speak to those who know a lot of shit. There I have expressed the Shakespearean ideal in the loftiest terms and the most vulgar terms in one email. 

I am at least consistent, and I think I proved my admiration for Shakespeare through my music. The PMG, at it’s best, was dramatic as hell, yet deep and fun. It spoke to a vast audience in the past but it still speaks to new listeners daily. 

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.

This couldn’t have happened accidentally.  My “Highland Aire” couldn’t have perfectly conformed to Sonata Allegro form by accident or coincidence. The Way Up could not be viewed as a symphony by accident or coincidence. It was all designed, including the parts designed for the very simple as well as the parts designed for the very deep. We were thinking about all of it.  - LYLE