# Genre Fluidity; What I really listen to of an evening.



## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Sometimes I will listen to only classical, sometimes only jazz or folk or rock or whatever mood I’m in. But most often I mix and match. For example, today I listened to Act 1 of Parsifal (Vienna 2021), Scarlatti Sonatas played by Andras Schiff. A bit heavy handed for my taste even on a modern grand. Then Ian Anderson’s solo album, The Secret Language of Birds and finishing the evening with Sarah Jarosz’s Build Me Up From Bones. For me this is not unusual and I suspect I’m not alone. 

Anyone else of a similar mind? This would be the thread to share one’s eclecticism on.

Also it saves me posting on multiple threads. :lol:


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Old school electronic (80s house, early techno, etc) is what tends to be played when I'm in the mood for "fun"/rhythmic music right now. Probably gonna get back into a more pop/rock phase soon but these things go in cycles for me.


I mean, face it, classical is great at many things, but it doesn't make me want to move my ***, unlike a great house record.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I only listen to classical, but I actively seek to hear and greatly enjoy everything from 1100 to the present day, in all genres. Sometimes, for a listening session, I will purposefully try to pair up two polar opposite works, for example a while ago I listened to Corelli’s Concerti Grossi and Berg’s Wozzeck right after each other. Sometimes the exercise actually reveals some surprising similarities, like Palestrina and Penderecki, or Bach and Ligeti!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Yesterday I played Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, a French-Canadian prog rock album by Maneige, Rossini's Barber of Seville (complete), an Italian prog rock album by Locanda del Fate, and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in the orchestration by Gotchakov.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I couldn't do that, I'd get dizzy or would not be able to appreciate e.g. Rossini after Mahler. I rarely listen to any non-classical (if so, some Jazz and ethnic/world music; very occasionally folk) but even with classical I am usually not mixing so wildly within one evening. E.g. last night I listened to a disc with Villa-Lobos string quartets (3+8+14) twice and then to 3 Mozart piano trios and this was already a rather strong contrast for my habits. Admittedly, I put the Mozart on for a bit of relaxing; had I been in a more comparative mood, I'd have listened to either Debussy/Ravel quartets (because Villa-Lobos #3 seems very obviously inspired by them and I wanted to check these connections) or to some other 20th century chamber/quartet (e.g. Milhaud, Martinu or so), again to get some perspective. It would be different with music I am very familiar with already which is not the case for Villa-Lobos.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Today I listened to Allegri, Mozart, Bach, Enescu, Granados, Reinecke, Bacewicz, and Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I listen to more diverse stuff when I'm driving rather than at home. My car USB is split into 4 folders - orchestral, chamber, rock/metal/other and post-rock. I primarily play from the first two categories but sometimes I just want to play something noisy guitar-driven. For example, on the way home from work yesterday I was in the mood for sonething noisy. I looked through the USB and found Van Halen's first album. Nothing like the trio of Running with the Devil / Eruption/ Ain't talking bout Love to wake you up after a busy week at work. When I got in I played Judas Priest's Victim of Changes followed by Best Pessimist's Walking with Happiness and Mendelssohn's 6th quartet. It's rarer I do that these days but I can easily swap between genres I like.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I never mix classical with another genre, but I have a "30 random tracks" playlist in my music player that plays exactly that. With about 900 years of music to choose from, I think that's eclectic enough!


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Barbebleu said:


> Sometimes I will listen to only classical, sometimes only jazz or folk or rock or whatever mood I'm in. But most often I mix and match. For example, today I listened to Act 1 of Parsifal (Vienna 2021), Scarlatti Sonatas played by Andras Schiff. A bit heavy handed for my taste even on a modern grand. Then Ian Anderson's solo album, The Secret Language of Birds and finishing the evening with Sarah Jarosz's Build Me Up From Bones. For me this is not unusual and I suspect I'm not alone.
> 
> Anyone else of a similar mind? This would be the thread to share one's eclecticism on.
> 
> Also it saves me posting on multiple threads. :lol:


I am the same, although the specifics are different. I do enjoy *Sarah Jarosz*, but that is the only one we share among your other selections.

I go through periods. Right now I am spending time catching up on new recordings from the *hip-hop/rap* genre. I haven't listened to that music for twenty years (wow, time flies!). Also *New Orleans Brass Bands*. These are added to my regular fare of *classical chamber music* and *solo piano*, *new classical music* (21st century), *bluegrass*, *neo-folk*, *old time*, *acoustic blues*, and *jazz*.

Spotify has playlist folders and I will clump several playlists from all of these genres into one folder and set it on shuffle.


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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

I also change genres a lot during the day.

These are what I have listened to today.

Mravinsky’s various Schubert #8’s in the morning. That’s where I was up to in figuring out the fakes and the duplicates for my Mravinsky discography survey. This was attentive listening in the unusual sense that I was skipping forward and backward and looking for the same cough in multiple recordings.

Malcolm Arnold’s Symphony No. 1, this week’s SS. The only “real” attentive listening of the day. I thought the quiet melodic passages sound a bit like, er this probably sounds strange, John Corigliano’s music.

“Fate/stay night Heaven's Feel III. spring song” soundtrack, while I was doing my routine reading of the news on the web.

Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 6. I forgot what I was doing while this was playing. After that I put on Aimer’s album “Walpurgis” for a change.

Myung-Whun Chung’s Brahms #4. What a performance! I was pleasantly distracted by it while kneading my taro dough, but I had to stop the music, since I really had to get the dough done quickly and then left it in the fridge long enough for deep frying.

“The Fountain” soundtrack, as I was doing nothing meaningful while waiting for a football game to start. Should have skipped that horrible game. That would have saved me time for a full Mahler symphony! :lol:


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Barbebleu said:


> Sometimes I will listen to only classical, sometimes only jazz or folk or rock or whatever mood I'm in. But most often I mix and match. For example, today I listened to Act 1 of Parsifal (Vienna 2021), Scarlatti Sonatas played by Andras Schiff. A bit heavy handed for my taste even on a modern grand. Then Ian Anderson's solo album, The Secret Language of Birds and finishing the evening with Sarah Jarosz's Build Me Up From Bones. For me this is not unusual and I suspect I'm not alone.
> 
> Anyone else of a similar mind? This would be the thread to share one's eclecticism on.
> 
> Also it saves me posting on multiple threads. :lol:


I'll often put iTunes on Random Play, so I'll have Leon Russell, some 50s, some singer/songwriter introspective acoustic song, a novelty song, a movement from a Haydn Symphony, then a random movement from a Bruckner Symphony, some cheesy early rock, some late Todd Rundgren, a song from a musical . . . .


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## Skakner (Oct 8, 2020)

The genres I listen to, are Classical (70%), Jazz (30%) and Prog Rock (10%). I almost never mix them. When I am in Classical mood (usually months), I listen only Classical. The same happens with Jazz mood (usually weeks) and Prog Rock mood (usually days or few weeks).


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

In my car I've been listening the past 2 weeks to nothing but Bach's French Suites played by Peter Watchorn on the Music Omnia label. For me, Bach is a better option than eclecticism.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Skakner said:


> The genres I listen to, are Classical (70%), Jazz (30%) and Prog Rock (10%). I almost never mix them. When I am in Classical mood (usually months), I listen only Classical. The same happens with Jazz mood (usually weeks) and Prog Rock mood (usually days or few weeks).


That's 110% percent  I guess it works out in the end.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I'm started with classical in the early 1980s as a young teenager, and I'd say it took me about 25 work my way into the outer reaches of the standard repertoire; so composers such as Schoenberg and even the Neo-Classical works of Stravinsky came late to my understanding and my enjoyment.

During my college years and into my early 30s there was a very pronounced jazz stage, the only genre that ever came even close to rivaling my interest in classical; but now I rarely purchase a jazz CD, though I do revisit my jazz music collection occasionally.

An interest in our own American composers developed I'd say in the past twenty years. I already knew the likes of Ives, Copland, Barber, and some others but now the subset that are the American composers in my classical music collection is relatively small fairly prolific. This was largely due to the NAXOS American Classics series which I think has done more than anything to popularize our rich American classical music heritage. Though as I understand it the NAXOS headquarters is stationed in Hong Kong and owned by a German; which shows you interested Americans actually are in celebrating their own cultural heritage outside of silly reality shows.

Since reaching my 50s, I've developed a strong and surprising interest in Country music. I'm too old to start add a Country music collection to my library, so most of it is on Download, and unlike classical and jazz I'm nowhere educated as I could be on the sub-genres and the history (though I may watch the Ken Burns documentary at some point). Moreover, I like to _sing_ Country music, and my wife even says that I might have a good voice for it if I took some singing lessons. But I just like the way that Country music is so expressive of the human condition, the lyrics are deep, and every song tells a story; like every good symphony tells a story.

No, I don't mix and match genres, as classical, jazz and country are too dissimilar. It's like my holy trinity of ethnic cuisine: Italian, Mexican, and Chinese; each are great on their own, but mixing them would clash and become an implosion where the foundational spices would collapse upon one another: Cheese may go with Italian and Mexican but not with Chinese. Salsa goes with Mexican but not with Italian or Chinese. And can you imagine putting soy sauce on your spaghetti or tacos? As with music, there is some overlap, or cultural diffusion, as the Italians getting their noodles from Marco Polo and China, and the tomato sauce from the Spanish explorers who found tomatoes among the indigenous people of what is now Mexico; but like "crossover" music, these culinary genres shouldn't be blended without being mindful of maintaining the inherent character of those culinary genres.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

My most recent extended listening session featured the following:

Grateful Dead - "Workingman's Dead"
Palestrina - Missa Papae Marcelli
Lassus - Psalmi Poenitentialis *
NOVA - The NOVA collection Vol 2 (compilation of Brazilian / bossa nova covers)
Cage - "Sixty-Eight" *
Schumann - Oboe Romances, op. 94
Bach - Keyboard Partitas nos. 1 and 2

(* = New work to me)

Unlike others here, I revel in mixing the "unmixable". It's where the spice of life is found!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I think it would be more accurate to say 'unlike _some_ others here'.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

"unlike others" = "unlike some others"

And I'm not even making any assumptions; people in this thread have stated that they do not prefer to mix genres.

That kinda rubs off like a desire to maintain ethnic purity, but... whatever.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I certainly didn’t make such a statement and neither did Art Rock, Merl, Malx, SanAntone or Bulldog.

Some people don’t like to mix and match but some of us do.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

I grew up 100 percent western classical, total classical nerd. OK, plus Broadway musicals and tin pan alley. Since then, jazz, classic rock, classic delta blues, R&B, doo ***, folk, bluegrass, and a number of other things recently, such as traditional Chinese folk music. For a few years, I got heavily involved in barbershop quartet singing, to the point of flying to competitions. The barbershoppers didn't know what to make of me, most of them couldn't even read music. They were amazed at how I could look at a song on paper and sing it right away. But the idea was to memorize the songs asap, as in the barbershop tradition everything must be sung from memory. Some great talent and great ability to learn music by ear. Those at the highest level have my deep respect.

True, one of my music professors, a well-known modern composer who grew up in the Midwest, called barbershop the lowest form of music. But in the last 30 years it's become much more sophisticated and eclectic.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Barbebleu said:


> I certainly didn't and neither did Art Rock, Merl, Malx, SanAntone or Bulldog.


I never said you did. "Unlike others" =/= "unlike everyone else".


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

You said some others here did you not? Not just the gen. pop.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

I said "unlike others here". By which I meant, others who have posted in the thread. SOME others, not all other posters. That's what I've always taken "others" to mean. Maybe I'm wrong; sorry about the confusion.

I guess I am expressing a sentiment about the general population of TC; too heavily focused on segregating CM from "non-classical". But I think that's an accurate sentiment and I stand by it.

I could just as well have said "like others here".

Maybe you're right; adding "some" might have been more accurate.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

It varies. Some evenings it will be all one genre, say, Doo-***, cante flamenco, Moroccan Gharnati or Malhun, CM, or Israeli Kibbutz/"folk" song--Shoshana Damari or the Oranim Zabar Troupe. Other evenings it will be a mess of anythings. But it boils down these days to roughly 40% CM, 30% Rock/Pop, 20% cante, and 10% Other. Just like in reading where I re-read a lot, I re-hear a lot of my favorite stuff. Good once, better twice, thrice, etc.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I also like many styles and genres. Today is not very typical since I have been practicing guitar (Albeniz) and playing with my music software (destroying Webern remix). I like to explore music I haven't heard before and right now it's "Krallice", avant garde black metal from New York. They use synths! In my car I have Winterreise by Schubert on repeat.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I guess I am expressing a sentiment about the general population of TC; too heavily focused on segregating CM from "non-classical". But I think that's an accurate sentiment and I stand by it.


I agree that there is that tendency but I suppose it is primarily a Classical forum so you can see why that might happen. Some of us are clearly not absolutists when it comes to our musical taste!


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## thejewk (Sep 13, 2020)

The nebulous world of 'alternative music' was my first home, and I love a great deal of band based music from pretty much all time periods. I didn't get into jazz until much later on, and classical much after that too. I'll quite often spend periods of time binging on one type of music, but I always have a variety of things in the rotation. 

Today it's been Bach's Orgelbuchlein, Mahler's first and second, a playlist of The Fall, some 60s pop and rock I was flicking through and some Autechre.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

People might want to check out Shape Note (Sacred Harp) singing. Quite powerful.....

https://www.talkclassical.com/64390-shape-note-russian-choral.html?highlight=Sacred+Harp


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

All the music, and various genres and subgenres, I listen to have many attributes in common. 

Those being (in particular order): very high level of musicianship, complexity on various levels, broad range of emotional content, (usually) long form structure, creativity, boundary pushing, non-repetitive. Not all of these have equal importance to me, but they are all very important.

Music that does not have all, or a majority of those attributes, bores me. 

With that being said, the music I listen to, is made up of, about: 

35% classical (almost strictly 20th century, mostly post 1950's, to the present) 

35% progressive music (mostly the following subgenres: avant-prog, Zeuhl, Canterbury, and classic prog). Sure, familiar bands such as: Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, PFM, Banco, but also edgier bands like: Thinking Plague, Univers Zero, Aranis, Magma, Henry Cow, and more. I also like a fair amount of progressive-metal, like: The Contortionist, Tesseract, Cynic, Thank You Scientist, etc. 

30% jazz (mostly: fusion, post bop, avant-garde, M_Base, chamber jazz). 

These all compromise artists like: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Panzerballett, Alex Machacek, and others in the fusion realm. Art Ensemble of Chicago, Tim Berne, Matt Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, many others in the avantgarde realm. Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Andrew Milne, and many others that are part of the M-Base Collective. And chamber jazz, like: Oregon, Keith Jarrett, Michael Formenak, Art Lande, Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, and of course, many others.

So, in a single listening session, I have no problems going from a Magma recording, to Elliott Carter, to Cynic, to King Crimson, to Penderecki, to PFM, to Weather Report. Since my love for these various genres, is all based on similar attributes (listed above), and not their style, they do not sound out of place in a single session.


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## Chilham (Jun 18, 2020)

Yesterday my listening was, in the morning:
- Janáček: Sinfonietta (my personal Saturday symphony)
- Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
- Mozart: Clarinet Quintet

In the afternoon:
- The dulcet tones of the BT Sport rugby commentary team

In the evening:
- The Lighthouse Family: Ocean Drive & Postcards from Heaven
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 4


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I generally don't mix classical with other genres and if I switch from one to another during the day I tend to stay with the genre I switched to (unless it wasn't working for me). But within a genre I tend to like a lot of variety and will often want to listen to avant garde, Romantic or Classical and earlier music in the same day. But sometimes I deliberately stay on a single track and might even want to hear the same piece in different performances (I do that quite often). I do listen to quite a lot of jazz (bop and post-bop, including electric), a little folk. I tend to bunch everything else as Rock (including the punk, Hip-Hop and pop that I actually like) but it's all restricted to the performers and albums that I actually like - and there is an awful lot that I don't like. I don't like that "rock" music enough to divide it into all sorts of genres and sub-genres and don't even know what most of the terms mean. As I grow older the list of what Rock music I like is shrinking and the list of classical and jazz that I like is growing.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I listen to a wide range of music, classical from the 14thc til today, Jazz, prog rock, Indian classical. But most of my music time is spent composing or practicing piano, guitar, and voice. I play and sing the blues and prog rock (currently grappling with guitar parts from King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic), Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, Prokofiev, Scriabin, etc. What I play is as eclectic as what I listen to. I mix genres indiscriminately.


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## Skakner (Oct 8, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> That's 110% percent  I guess it works out in the end.


:lol:
Indeed it does!!


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

I listen to whatever takes my fancy at the time - some days I can mix & match, others exclusively classical, rarely do I have a day playing entirely non-classical but I'll never say never. At the end of the day its all music and if you like it and it gives you pleasure - why not?

Whilst my main interest over the last thirty years has been classical I am not ashamed of what I listened to in my youth and a wee dose of nostalgia does no harm at all.

Question - Are there really any dental floss farms in Montana?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Here's what I'm listening to today - these are all playlists or folders of playlists gathered together in one big folder and played on shuffle mode:

Gypsy Jazz
Fado
Maestros del cante Flamenco
Acoustic roots music from 2021 & 2020 
Egidus Kwartet
Haydn piano trios
Joanna MacGregor playing a variety from Bach, Satie to Messiaen
Neo-Soul
New Orleans Brass Bands
Romantic Era Piano Sonatas (Brahms, Schumann & Chopin)
Satie: Complete solo piano works by several pianists
New Orleans Style Jazz, 1920s-30s
Hip-Hop, the annual top song from 1979-2020
Duruflé Requiem from dozens of different recordings
Bach's instrumental works (keyboard and string) collected from dozens of recordings


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Barbebleu said:


> Sometimes I will listen to only classical, sometimes only jazz or folk or rock or whatever mood I'm in. But most often I mix and match. For example, today I listened to Act 1 of Parsifal (Vienna 2021), Scarlatti Sonatas played by Andras Schiff. A bit heavy handed for my taste even on a modern grand. Then Ian Anderson's solo album, The Secret Language of Birds and finishing the evening with Sarah Jarosz's Build Me Up From Bones. For me this is not unusual and I suspect I'm not alone.
> 
> Anyone else of a similar mind? This would be the thread to share one's eclecticism on.
> 
> Also it saves me posting on multiple threads. :lol:


I can listen to Beethoven 9th then follow it up with Waylon Jennings.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

i actually started out playing classical music until the age of 16, and for a long time grew to hate it, which will happen when you force a kid to practice the cello for two hours daily. 

after that, I got into the stereotypical stuff a college kid would get into- classic 80s/90s indie, contemporary dance and hip-hop, i.e. basically the stuff Pitchfork would have liked back in the day. 

that kinda got me into electronic music generally, especially late 80s acid house, and 90s techno. dislike "IDM" but some of the more adventurous electronic artists (Auterche, mainly) were really rewarding. 

at some point I had a mercifully short prog phase, though I'll always like King Crimson.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I am fairly genre fluid, within some limitations.

I do not like music that does not have all or some of the following attributes to some degree: high level musicianship, complexity, broad range of of emotional content conveyed, some pushing of boundaries, (usually) long form. With a few exceptions, I am not a fan of the verse>chorus>bridge format.

My love for music with those attributes I mentioned above, does keep out many forms of music from my enjoyment. Pretty all forms of pop, mainstream rock, vocal music, rap, hip hop, blues, country.

I am willing to give any musical genre an open minded listen, if is has the above attributes. In most ways, the actual style the music is presented in, is not a deal breaker in itself.

With that being said, the genres I listen to most, are classical (35%), prog (35%), jazz (30%). The reason again, is because these genres have the above attributes I crave in music.

The vast majority of my classical listening is music from the 20th century, especially the 2nd half of the 20th, up until the present era.

Unlike *fbjim* above, my prog phase has been ongoing since the late 70's, and hasn't much abated. The thing is, I get the idea that the vast majority of people that have a passing knowledge of prog think of: Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, and a few other well known bands from the 70's, and those bands (and their sound) is the extent of prog.

But, prog has many subgenres, that sound almost nothing like those bands, and nothing like each of the other subgenre. And there has been an ongoing evolution of prog since it's late 90's revival.

For example:

*avant-prog* (Thinking Plague, Aranis, Far Corner, Henry Cow, Univers Zero, etc). These bands are influenced by classical composers from the the late 20th century. None of these band sound anything like the bands most people equate with prog.

*Zeuhl* (Magma, Eskaton, Happy Family, Kōenji Hyakkei, Setna, etc). Again, an entire prog subgenre that sound nothing like Yes, King Crimson, etc.

*technical-metal* (Cynic, The Contortionist, Tesseract, etc). Progressive in an entirely different way as other subgenres of prog. Ridiculous complexity and musicianship.

And a few other prog subgenres, Canterbury, Krautrock, prog-folk,

And Jazz (fusion, chamber jazz, post bop, M-Base, avant-garde, some free jazz, jazz-metal, etc). Just like with my love for classical, I tend to listen to later jazz and contemporary jazz.

Along with these main genres and subgenres, I like a bit of blue grass, and Indian classical music. The problem I have, is it is tough enough to keep up with all the great new music being made in all of the above genres, Adding even more genres to try to keep up with, is even more daunting.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Funny enough, I sort of roundabout got back into prog via electronic music- since if you go backwards you invariably encounter krautrock (and oddly enough, guys like Xenakis and the weirdo French musique concrete dudes- and of course, some of the great minimalists like Reich/Riley). 

i'll confess that I mainly developed a strong distaste for the bombastic ELP-esque stuff and (what I saw as) a general emphasis on complexity and virtuosity for its own sake, rather than for any constructive musical purpose (probably explaining why King Crimson was always my favorite group from that classic period- whatever they did, they always had a musical idea for doing so, even if it didn't work).


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## Mark Dee (Feb 16, 2021)

I listen to classical at some point every day, but I also listen to CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) almost every day too. I am very old fashioned in a musical sense, so if those two genres are not included in my daily listening, it's usually Van Morrison or classic era Stevie Wonder.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Yesterday I played Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, a French-Canadian prog rock album by Maneige, Rossini's Barber of Seville (complete), an Italian prog rock album by Locanda del Fate, and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in the orchestration by Gotchakov.


Decent shift Art


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

fbjim said:


> Funny enough, I sort of roundabout got back into prog via electronic music- since if you go backwards you invariably encounter krautrock (and oddly enough, guys like Xenakis and the weirdo French musique concrete dudes- and of course, some of the great minimalists like Reich/Riley).
> 
> i'll confess that I mainly developed a strong distaste for the bombastic ELP-esque stuff and (what I saw as) a general emphasis on complexity and virtuosity for its own sake, rather than for any constructive musical purpose (probably explaining why King Crimson was always my favorite group from that classic period- whatever they did, they always had a musical idea for doing so, even if it didn't work).


Have you ever given the subgenre of avant-prog a good listen?

Most of the bands within this subgenre, I believe, fit your like for music with complexity and virtuosity to serve a constructive musical purpose.

You should check out some clips of bands like: Thinking Plague, Aranis, Far Corner, Miriodor, Yugen, and dozens more, from the classic period, and up through the present era.


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