If you didn't catch the Purcell reference in the title, then you can just ponder how I don't have much time to discuss this, having spent most of my lunch hour at a going-away potluck for a coworker. One thing that has always puzzled me is how others decide what a person's taste in music should be. For example, right now I am listening to Pandora, an online station. Today I am listening to my salsa station; I also have stations dedicated to flamenco, old-school R&B, and New Orleans-style jazz. Pandora works on a fascinating premise: you type in the name of the station (in this case, El Gran Combo Radio), and it finds music by that artist and plays similar things. It works really well... if you are vigilant. For reasons I cannot explain, if I am gone from my desk for an hour, say at a meeting, and cannot say which songs I like and don't like, every one of these stations will have gone nuts and started playing alternative rock music. Huh???
Since Pandora rates songs on certain qualities and guesses whether you will like them by how many of these qualities it has, allow me to give all three of my faithful readers a quiz: what do the following songs have in common?
"Rapture" by Blondie
"Concerto in A Minor for Four Violins" by Antonio Vivaldi
"Cowboys from Hell" by Pantera
"Azuquita pal' Cafe" by El Gran Combo
"Didi" by Khaled
This is where I find things getting very interesting. To me, it is not strange at all that I would love every one of these songs. They are all minor key, fast-paced, and the words are either in Spanish or Arabic, totally incomprehensible anyway, or there aren't any. Because that is how I like my music. I am not a lyrics-focused person by any means. Let me just state two things here: I can totally understand that people do love music that is about the words, or country music which is major key and has a very basic rhythm; and I do not understand why people would think that I would like music that does not fit my style because of "genres." Now if genre is really specific, say Baroque music or New Orleans-style jazz, then you can make a pretty safe guess I would like it. "Classical" music as a category is meaningless to me. Where is it written that, because I love Vivaldi, I must also like Beethoven and Schubert, or even more mystifying, that I must hate Pantera? To me, Baroque and heavy metal music have much more in common, with their tight structure, than the meandering piano concertos of Beethoven or the schmaltzy sound of Schubert. Of course you might love those composers, and that is fine. But if you are really into Beethoven, my guess is that Vivaldi would seem too simplistic for your taste.
My question, then, is what do people listen to music for? Some people clearly listen for the words. I listen for the purely aesthetic quality of the sound. I can understand both of these, but what are people listening for when they categorize music not by actual characteristics of the music but a vague category like "Classical" or "jazz"? I am extremely curious to hear from someone who loves both the simple, fast-paced Baroque composers and the Romantic composers but then does not like any non-Classical music. Or someone who likes both Prohibition-era jazz and the free-form stuff but doesn't like anything non-jazz. I have never understood this, but I am certainly willing to learn!
Famous Hat
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I am not certain what those 5 pieces have in common. I would say I like all classical music from say Baroque to the Romantic. I am less enamored of Renaissance and ultra modern classical (e.g. the more dissonant type of music). I dont particularly like lyrics and really dont care for opera, lieder, but will listen to classic rock and oldies. Lyrics that I can at least understand. Screaming heavy metal is incomprehensible to me. I was raised on classical and a bit of Dixieland jazz and really had no clue that other music existed til I went to college and was introduced to rock and roll. I played piano as a small child and then switched to violin and 15 yrs discovered the hardanger fiddle (a Norwegian violin with sympathetic strings - hence my username, hardingfele) I also discovered folk music, but again I dont care for simplistic folk songs but go more for the complex harmonies of bluegrass, Celtic Scandinavian folk/rock. I listen to music mostly as a background, have no time to actually sit and analyze what I am listening to. My family complains i hardly listen to my vast CD collection. I am being held hostage by my 7 yo who blasts anythying from Hannah Montana to the Beatles to Garbage. I feel really old because I am frequently shouting "turn that DOWN." It is not that I dislike the music, but I hate anything at ear splitting volume. My few forays into nightclubs, I can count on the fingers of my hand, were miserable. Loud music, impossible to understand the lyrics,impossible to carry on a conversation with friends. It was a nighmarish experience. I dont know if that answers any questions, just gives you a general idea of what my musical tastes are. Lately I have not been much into music. I feel the world is going to hell in a handbasket and playing the violin or the hardanger fiddle just does not seem relevant.
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