First of Most Recent Posts about Music
I was listening to my ipod this morning and rediscovered beauty in music. Sometimes I go a while without, I'm not sure why, but I just won't have the urge to listen. It doesn't mean I don't love music, I just want a break from or something. But then whenever I do take it to work or something, it just completely changes the day. It's a lot more bearable.
Music brings out emotions and feelings, it must touch certain parts of the brain, that nothing else does. I think other arts are more for observation, like visual stuff. When you hear music you perform it in your head, maybe similar to how you will hear the song playing in your head if you're just humming or singing a tune. And your mind, conscious or subconscious adds to it, so that it's different each time. Even if it's not so much different, it just requires some kind of participation from your mind. Even if you're not really thinking about it, your mind is processing the music. Which is probably why we like it, it's doing something in there that just makes us feel good.
Listening to the radio the other day, there was a typical 2002-to-present song, and to be honest, it's not like the music is necessarily less complex than a lot of songs I like, but I hated it anyway. So I wondered if it's fair for me to think that. I hear the guy's voice, it fits into a certain category and I don't even give it a chance. Apparently some people like the guy's voice/music if he's richer than me, so I guess the lesson here is don't make fun of anyone's music. Someone reacts positively to that music, so who am I to assume my taste is better.
If I heard any guy sing one word, I can tell you if I'll either hate the band and all its music, or possibly give it a chance. And it's easy for me to be confident that my taste is in the higher-percentile of musical tastes. I know a lot of my friends feel the same and it's really annoying.
Bottom line, that song seriously does suck. Musically it sucks. Lyrically, probably in just about every way it sucks. And mostly, to me, the reason that it sucks is that it does nothing to interest me, consciously or sub-. It's not creative, style, music, or lyrics, and I hate it. My mind does not have anything it wants to add to the music. It does not want to perform it, because my mind and all my senses are unimpressed. BUT...somebody likes it, for some reason, and they're not claiming all those things about it, they just like it. So I can live with that. Which is why we all have to try harder not to look down on anyone's tastes.
Music brings out emotions and feelings, it must touch certain parts of the brain, that nothing else does. I think other arts are more for observation, like visual stuff. When you hear music you perform it in your head, maybe similar to how you will hear the song playing in your head if you're just humming or singing a tune. And your mind, conscious or subconscious adds to it, so that it's different each time. Even if it's not so much different, it just requires some kind of participation from your mind. Even if you're not really thinking about it, your mind is processing the music. Which is probably why we like it, it's doing something in there that just makes us feel good.
Listening to the radio the other day, there was a typical 2002-to-present song, and to be honest, it's not like the music is necessarily less complex than a lot of songs I like, but I hated it anyway. So I wondered if it's fair for me to think that. I hear the guy's voice, it fits into a certain category and I don't even give it a chance. Apparently some people like the guy's voice/music if he's richer than me, so I guess the lesson here is don't make fun of anyone's music. Someone reacts positively to that music, so who am I to assume my taste is better.
If I heard any guy sing one word, I can tell you if I'll either hate the band and all its music, or possibly give it a chance. And it's easy for me to be confident that my taste is in the higher-percentile of musical tastes. I know a lot of my friends feel the same and it's really annoying.
Bottom line, that song seriously does suck. Musically it sucks. Lyrically, probably in just about every way it sucks. And mostly, to me, the reason that it sucks is that it does nothing to interest me, consciously or sub-. It's not creative, style, music, or lyrics, and I hate it. My mind does not have anything it wants to add to the music. It does not want to perform it, because my mind and all my senses are unimpressed. BUT...somebody likes it, for some reason, and they're not claiming all those things about it, they just like it. So I can live with that. Which is why we all have to try harder not to look down on anyone's tastes.
posted by shawn @ 8:13 AM
3 Comments:
At 9:19 AM,
Jason Zito said…
Yeah, I think we have to go through times of figuring out what is good for us in order to come to a more open perspective. Initially, I approached music like I was trying to find something, like I wanted to find that one good style that was better than all the other styles and all other styles were stupid. I still am a bit stuck up about it, but I try to hear good in everything. I went for a long time not listening to the radio at ALL, but more and more I find that I can begin to understand something good about some of the songs (a small minority, though). I get frustrated when people say that they "don't like country" because odds are, they don't even know what country is, they are probably categorizing it without understanding it.
I think it is more frequent that I get annoyed that people DON'T like a certain style or a certain group than that they DO like something I hate, especially when I get the impression that they haven't given it a fair chance or approached with with an open mind. It's really easy to approach things with uninformed or apathetic biases and I am trying to learn not to do that.
This, even going beyond music into food, ideas, people, etc., allows for many "flavors" to be much more "tastey", which helps us to be excited about and at peace with life's varied beauty rather than complacent about or averse to it.
At 9:26 AM,
Chris Trumble said…
I'll just tune something out that hits me a 'sucking' at first, then go back to it later. Other music just hits me right away, including some songs that can be classified as too catchy to not like, but 'good taste' rules too uncool to listen to.
A lot of the stuff I don't like at first soon become my favorite stuff, as if it was just too good or stirs to complex an emotion the 1st listen, but you start 'getting' it later.
At 8:54 AM,
Jason Zito said…
"A lot of the stuff I don't like at first soon become my favorite stuff, as if it was just too good or stirs to complex an emotion the 1st listen, but you start 'getting' it later."
I like that a lot. Here, here.
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