Self Improvement For Your Listening Experience - Music

creator

Age: 36
Location: chicago

Just listen, don't force it.

jeremylannister

Gender: Male
Age: 28
Location: hull

i could certainly improve my music attitude. a lot of albums i have never listened to is either because they've had bad reviews, i don't like the album art or name of the band which isn't giving it a fair chance, but i try my best.

at the end of the day though, music is music. not a racial or political thing, and having an arrogant and biased attitude to music isn't seriously bad and isn't going to harm or offend anyone.

besides, i think fighting over music taste is part of the spirit of music, even if the people who disagree with me are always wrong Laughing

Jasonconfused
If We Make It We Can All Sit Back and Laugh

Gender: Male
Location: Washington

jeremylannister wrote:

i could certainly improve my music attitude. a lot of albums i have never listened to is either because they've had bad reviews, i don't like the album art or name of the band which isn't giving it a fair chance, but i try my best.

at the end of the day though, music is music. not a racial or political thing, and having an arrogant and biased attitude to music isn't seriously bad and isn't going to harm or offend anyone.

besides, i think fighting over music taste is part of the spirit of music, even if the people who disagree with me are always wrong Laughing

I like you. If people didn't have biases, there would be no music scenes.
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undefined

Defago wrote:

Story time.

Great post Defago. You've inspired me to tell my own story.

I grew up in a mostly musical family. My mother sings opera and classical professionally, my grandfather was an accomplished pianist, my father played a variety of instruments, and both parents were avid music collectors. I grew up listening to whatever my parents listened to. From my mother I acquired a love for everything from classical to jazz to folk, and from my father I became familiar with classic rock, punk, psychedelic, and a variety of other genres. By the time I was ten, I had developed a fairly eclectic taste, but unfortunately I was still stuck with the baseless dogma of "all music made after '89 is complete shit" as well as "der all electronic music is made by pushsing a button ts all souless garbage no effor its all made by computers derrrr". Needless to say I was an annoying little prick who thought his tastes were superior to all his peers, and I thought listening to Mingus and Led Zeppelin at the age of 12 made me cool and smart and objectively better than the proletariat. So yeah, fuck past me. Anyway, after having just turned 12, I made a friend who had similar tastes to my own (and shared my ridiculous dogmas), but who was knowledgeable about the music he liked. We talked about music and shit and seeing how much he knew about dates of album releases and names of band members and whatnot encouraged me to really discover music on that kind of level. I slowly stopped despising the 90s when I discovered albums such as Nevermind, Automatic for the People, and OK Computer, the latter of which led me to discover Kid A, which was probably the most significant turning point in expanding my musical tastes. At first I thought that that wonderful band who crafted The Bends and OKC had sold out and become subject to the soulless electronic droning of the 21st century. Hmph. Makes sense that this bands first album of the new millennium would be this piece of shit. I put down the album for a bit, and before returning slowly started to become more comfortable with modern music. I still thought it was mostly shit, but I found a few modern bands I liked (mostly ones who took heavy influence from older generations). Eventually this path found me back at Kid A, which, for whatever reason I decided to listen to again, with much the same results, except I loved the track "Optimistic" (now my least favorite track on the album). Alright gonna jump a head slightly. Brief summary of following 2 years: Kid A was amazing but the exception to a rule. Familiarized myself with more modern music, and eventually lost my phobia of it, attempted to teach myself the ins and outs of software such as pro-tools and cubase, and realized that maybe more effort goes into electronic music than I had previously thought. Somehow found myself at "Music Has the Right To Children" (I believe I had just turned 14 at the time), and was captivated so totally and immediately by the album that I almost immediately dropped all objections I had towards electronic musicians, and adopted a new philosophy in which electronic music is just as artistically legitimate as any other genre. For the next year after that I delved into this strange new world of electronic music, and found more that I could connect with than ever before. This inspired me to revisit some of my parents' favorites that I didn't understand at the time, and I fell in love with Messiaen, Philip Glass, and any number of 20th century classical composers that my mom listened to all the time that I just couldn't "get". Anyway blah blah blah found Krautrock, post-rock, experimental rock, realized that not all dubstep is shitty brostep, aqcuired a taste for ambient and drone blah blah blah

And now here we are! I'm on this website with a bunch of like minded individuals who share my passion, and am discovering new music on a daily basis. If there's one thing I'm happy about all of that, it's that I no longer have any aversions to music simply based on its genre, era, popularity, etc. etc. All music gets equal chance. So yeah, music.

Anyway tl;dr ur all a bunch of plebs my music taste is teh superior cuz I listen to John Cage n shit and Defago ur such a noob lololol ur even more pleb tahn the others gtfo plz

meccalecca
Voice of Reason

Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Norman Bates wrote:

I think none of this matters at all. Enjoy everything you can, regardless of whatever.

My sentiments exactly.

Music appreciation is like all positive growth. It starts at shedding your prejudices. All of you high school kids, soon you'll be free of the cliques and prejudices that make high school such a drag for so many. And I feel like music is similar. over time, you free yourself and open up to exploration. What I like about BEA is that 99% of the people here are broadening their music experience and opening up themselves to things they may have not gotten to on their own.

I think you'll eventually figure out what you truly like about music, and that may change multiple times.

Respect your wise elders. Don't dismiss something on one listen. The audience hated the first performances of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring because they'd never heard anything like it before. That which is truly new to your palate hardly ever tastes great. But those things can be truly rewarding.
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http://jonnyleather.com

Jasonconfused
If We Make It We Can All Sit Back and Laugh

Gender: Male
Location: Washington

I'm jealous of all the people that grew up in musical families. All I heard until around 7th grade was shitty Christian music. Fml.
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Kiki

Norman Bates wrote:

I think none of this matters at all. Enjoy everything you can, regardless of whatever.

Are people "Enjoying everything" they can? I believe the questions can help find out and without looking down it their self some may fall into the trap of not liking all they can.

If we don't ask the questions, why may never know how free we actually are.

Norman Bates

Gender: Male
Age: 51
Location: Paris, France

an_outlaw wrote:

If we don't ask the questions, why may never know how free we actually are.

Does it matter? Is how you listen to music the only way to know how free you are?

meccalecca
Voice of Reason

Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Jasonconfused wrote:

I'm jealous of all the people that grew up in musical families. All I heard until around 7th grade was shitty Christian music. Fml.

hahaha. I have some close musician friends who grew up on Christian music only, and they still turned out awesome. I think it offers you a different unique perception. You've got a looong life ahead of you to find amazing music anyway.

I'm jealous of you kids with access to the speedy internet, spotify, mp3s, etc. It opens up your world immensely.

I was lucky enough to have older brothers who fed me the music they were discovering, but until the later years of high school, i could just say "I heard Sonic Youth is great, so I'll go download Daydream Naiton and see if it's as good as people say." Even when I got Napster, the download speeds were painful.
_________________
http://jonnyleather.com

Kiki

Norman Bates wrote:

Does it matter? Is how you listen to music the only way to know how free you are?

To me. Yes. Freedom of expression. If I unravel all the contraints of my mind, I could end up places I never been. I have an unattainable goal in my mind. There is a flashing light and through evaluating myself I can find greatness inside myself. Smile

At times I feel some put constraints on their musical experience. I must confess I feel bothered by it, as much as it shouldn't