# It's us, not the music.



## Guest (Jul 2, 2018)

We are incredibly intelligent people. Collectively, we are hugely diverse in age, background and our stories and family histories are all incredibly unique. Everything that shaped us to become who we are today are different for each of us, and this is reflected in our personalities, views, the music we like and how we listen. What makes us so interesting is that we came to music from unique perspectives as a result of our unique lives and backgrounds. This is something I find absolutely wonderful about online communities such as this one.

In my earlier thread 'Tonality is Unnatural' a little side topic came up about 'atonality' somehow being unable to express or evoke exactly the same kinds of things that tonal music can. I saw interactions which went along the lines of:

*Person A* Can you give an example of an atonal piece expressing _x_ emotion/can you show me an atonal piece that does the same thing as _x_ tonal piece?
*Person B* Try *this* piece, to me it has that exact kind of emotion or something similar. [youtube link]
*Person A* Nope, this isn't the emotion/effect I am looking for.

What is wonderful about this is how clearly it illustrates that the subjective nature of listening to and responding to music is way more interesting, unique and important to us than anything objective at all. Arguments which try to equate one style of music as being better or better appreciated because of something inherent in the music itself will never be able to find universal support. Trying to make a point that one style of music is more universally accepted or understood, more accessible to a wider range of people, due to something inherent in the music is, in my view, quite sad. It undervalues our individuality. It undervalues our backgrounds and experiences in music. It undervalues our intelligent, creative and curious minds.

When it comes to music that speaks to us, music that moves us, music that evokes some kind of emotion or emotions.......it's _us,_ not the music. The way we listen to music makes the experience all the more special to us, all the more engaging, all the more moving.

At least, that's what I have come to believe based on my own experience.

Over the course of the last seven or so years I came across music that I didn't like or hated, music that did not speak to me, music that I was indifferent to. What I found really curious was that music that I previously did not like when I first heard it felt _different_ and perhaps even more enjoyable when I was in a different frame of mind later on. I'm now 21, but throughout my teenage years I certainly felt a whole range of different moods and emotions, as I obviously would, and grew to enjoy things that previously I did not. My interest expanded as I let it, I think. I really wonder if this is actually the same for everyone, or if there actually _is_ something I don't understand that makes certain styles of music (and certain harmonic languages) *objectively* evoke a more specific emotion. Many of you have decades more life experience than I, so I'd be grateful to hear your perspectives on this matter.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

You're 21; I'm 70, and I agree with everything you said. If all the members here realized that their musical preferences do not line up with any objective criteria, the put-downs of various musical styles would likely cease.


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2018)

Bulldog said:


> You're 21; I'm 70, and I agree with everything you said. If all the members here realized that their musical preferences do not line up with any objective criteria, the put-downs of various musical styles would likely cease.


I hope my post isn't taken as a complaint to put-downs that various styles of music may receive..............rather I am more curious about whether there is something more that I haven't yet understood due to lack of experience, something that gives more weight to the view that some music actually _does_ have inherent qualities that make it more 'understood' objectively, and how that is actually something important.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Congratulations. You have discovered something about the nature of music that I did not discover until was in my fifties. Bulldog and I are the same generation.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I essentially agree with your point and really like your post in general, but I think in only focusing on the subjective you do miss the fact that there is, in fact, much agreement about what any given piece of music means, emotionally speaking. It would be an odd duck, indeed, that listened to the the first movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, or Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk, and think them sad and depressing. On the other hand, there is much music that seems to elicit a much wider range of responses as well. Whatever theory one puts forth has to account both for the agreement and disagreement. 

Generally speaking, I like the idea that all human brains share certain fundamental similarities, yet there are enough differences so that our reactions aren't always the same. That's true of humans in general; you can just look at all humans and expect to see both universal similarities and unique differences. So in those terms, it's probably true that there is music that's good at speaking to the universal aspects, so that there's common agreement on meaning; and music that's good at speaking to the individual aspects, so that there's no common agreement on meaning. It's also probably true that there's music that speaks to both in differing measures so that there's degrees of agreement AND disagreement. Of course, this is so generalized that it probably doesn't say much; but I know there's research that's been done (and being done) in the field of neuroaesthetics to understand why brains respond how they do to art. 

I'm 32, so I only have about a decade of more life experience than you.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

With regards to the 2nd last sentence in the OP, emotion itself is not objective, so there can be no objective emotion that comes from any form of music. But obviously dance music is supposed to and makes people dance and with more energy. Slow music in minor keys will be more wistful, reflective or sad in general. But I wouldn't call it objective so, just so with generally more people. When it comes to atonal music, the emotions it triggers are generally even more divisive. I agree with Stravinsky where he said we can enjoy music more if we don't focus on emotion, but more on the music itself. Emotion used to be what I look for to relate to music, but later I could relate to music that doesn't produce any clear emotion to me, by listening to music on its own terms, not mine. (Subconsciously, we may still react negatively to music we try to listen to on its own terms, though, I find for myself at least)


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

shirime said:


> My interest expanded as I let it, I think. I really wonder if this is actually the same for everyone, or if there actually _is_ something I don't understand that makes certain styles of music (and certain harmonic languages) *objectively* evoke a more specific emotion. Many of you have decades more life experience than I, so I'd be grateful to hear your perspectives on this matter.


I wonder the same, and have wondered the same essentially since my start on TC. Some of my tastes have changed since I begun having interest in classical, sometime around five or six years ago. But I'll venture to say more have remained the same than have changed, and I ask myself, when combing through a lot of the discourse here, if my views are significantly skewed by my age and "inexperience". I hesitated a little to add quotes there, but not enough, I suppose.

I experience my share of self-doubt and instances of cognitive dissonance when I read some of the well-constructed opinions I'm able to come across here, as I'm occasionally faced with the idea that my tastes will change with time and with more "intelligent listening." The former is sensible and I would feel so for anyone, but the latter concept still confounds me. I don't know exactly what to make of it. That's especially true given, when I read posts and come across users pushing for a more 'informed' or 'educated' approach to music-listening - specifically to atonal and modern music, as is apt - I usually can't discern the exact meaning behind descriptions of 'educated listening'. I feel like these concepts are given very abstractly. I find myself asking, "Ok, but where do I start improving my listening? What's the best method?" And if not the act of listening itself, I feel even more hopeless in the case that the user links some text or person as reference, and I am completely unfamiliar with the quoted person or perhaps even with their contributions.

Be aware that I'm writing this post more genuinely and in earnest than out of any other purpose - don't view this as a complaint but in the hopes to gain insight, a potential resolution. I feel highly out of the loop a great deal lately, when faced with threads on the 'nitty-gritty' of harmonics; of perception, learned and innate; the presence/absence of a tonal structure - and so starts a cycle of feeling highly discouraged from further exploration - I guess you could say, as more and more discussions are raised and exponentially as many users come out with all their provocative and diverse views, I no longer know where to start in my journey to be more a learned listener. I was asked once last year about the pieces I enjoyed listening to the most. I named off Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis, some Dvorak, Holst, Sibelius... my tastes were quickly written off as "easy listening," such things that become more complex with time. I'm told certain things are an acquired taste, and will be better 'understood' with time. I'm 16, so in no way do I doubt that my tastes are bound to change; I embrace that. I feel fortunate, even. So while I don't have trouble accepting that many changes and capacities for change come with maturity, I guess I remain skeptical of the ideas of "easy listening"; that some composers' music, more-so than others', have standards of refinement or intelligence that required for their comprehension... art is art, and art remains subjective, no?

When I think about solutions to my feelings of...'uninformedness' of my listening, I consider what I'm missing. The lurking conclusion always seems to be age, or the knowledge gained solely by admission of age.

I never meant to go on a tangent but I guess I'd propose my same question back to all of you. It indeed is us, not the music, but is it also age? Is it not? If it isn't age... is there fundamentally something I'm missing? These are questions I ask myself very often lately. Don't even pay immense mind to this comment, I never mean to be a thread-hijacker - AAMOF I wanted to post a thread of my own but I felt like my questions were a little simplistic or overwrought with insecurity...admittedly insecurity I won't deny I've felt lately, in the midst of my fears that I'm not matching the maturity levels to engage in discourse around here...


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Minor Sixthist said:


> I never meant to go on a tangent but I guess I'd propose my same question back to all of you. It indeed is us, not the music, but is it also age? Is it not? If it isn't age... is there fundamentally something I'm missing? These are questions I ask myself very often lately. Don't even pay immense mind to this comment, I never mean to be a thread-hijacker - AAMOF I wanted to post a thread of my own but I felt like my questions were a little simplistic or overwrought with insecurity...admittedly insecurity I won't deny I've felt lately, in the midst of my fears that I'm not matching the maturity levels to engage in discourse around here...


If you're just 16 and writing a post like that, I truly wouldn't worry about your maturity level.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I've posted this before, but it seems apropos here. Berlioz on differing opinions regarding "new music":
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One day I was walking out of the Conservatoire with three or four dilettanti after a performance of the Choral symphony.

– How do you find this work? one of them asked me.

– Immense! magnificent! overwhelming!

– That is strange, I was bored stiff. And what about you? he added, turning to an Italian…

– Well, I find this unintelligible, or rather intolerable, there is no melody… But here are some papers talking about it, and let us see what they say:

– Beethoven’s Choral symphony is the pinnacle of modern music; art has yet to produce anything comparable for the nobility of its style, the grandeur of the design and the finish of the details.

(Another paper) – Beethoven’s Choral symphony is a monstrosity.

(Another paper) – This work is not completely barren of ideas, but they are poorly presented and the sum total is incoherent and devoid of charm.

(Another paper) – Beethoven’s Choral symphony has some wonderful passages, but the composer was obviously short of inspiration. As his exhausted imagination let him down he had to devote his energies, sometimes to good effect, to making up through craftsmanship what he was lacking in inspiration. The few themes found in the work are superbly treated and set out in a perfectly clear and logical sequence. In short, it is a very interesting work by a tired genius.

Where is the truth, and where is the error? Everywhere and nowhere. Everybody is right. What to someone seems beautiful is not so for someone else, simply because one person was moved and the other remained indifferent, and the former experienced profound delight while the latter acute boredom. What can be done about this?… nothing… but it is dreadful; I would rather be mad and believe in absolute beauty.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

amfortas said:


> If you're just 16 and writing a post like that, I truly wouldn't worry about your maturity level.


Hey much appreciated!


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2018)

I don't really understand what 'educated/informed/intelligent listening' is or the alleged importance of it........

I have a strong feeling that as soon as we 'educate' ourselves to hear music in a certain way (as if that's how we are supposed to 'get' the music) then we have simply formed a habit that could potentially get in the way of enjoying music for the sake of it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A thing rarely mentioned in discussions of whether music expresses specific emotions is that our words for emotions are themselves vague and general. We may think that everyone knows the difference between "happy" and "sad," but your happiness and my happiness may consist of quite different feelings and perceptions which may be evoked by very different music, depending on our experiences and our physical and psychological constitution. All attempts to say whether music A "expresses" the "same emotions" as music B are thus quite hopeless.

That said, we can't but notice that there are large areas of consensus about the expressive meaning of certain types or works of music. There is a basic human nature beneath our differences, and most of us are sane enough most of the time to sense when primal aspects of that nature are being appealed to. There are no sad polkas, except the ones that remind you of that awful vacation in Germany when your husband told you that he'd just met a buxom Fraulein who was everything he ever wanted in a woman and that you'd have to fly home to Iowa by yourself.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

shirime said:


> I don't really understand what 'educated/informed/intelligent listening' is or the alleged importance of it........
> 
> I have a strong feeling that as soon as we 'educate' ourselves to hear music in a certain way (as if that's how we are supposed to 'get' the music) then we have simply formed a habit that could potentially get in the way of enjoying music for the sake of it.


Educated listening is just listening that's become more aware of what music contains. Nothing to worry about. Promise! :tiphat:


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

shirime said:


> I don't really understand what 'educated/informed/intelligent listening' is or the alleged importance of it........
> 
> I have a strong feeling that as soon as we 'educate' ourselves to hear music in a certain way (as if that's how we are supposed to 'get' the music) then we have simply formed a habit that could potentially get in the way of enjoying music for the sake of it.


I feel in a similar way! Like making such an 'attempt' was almost counter to the idea that I experienced natural enjoyment. After all if I had to try so hard...did I really enjoy it in the first place?


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2018)

Minor Sixthist said:


> I feel in a similar way! Like making such an 'attempt' was almost counter to the idea that I experienced natural enjoyment. After all if I had to try so hard...did I really enjoy it in the first place?


When I come across this feeling I tend come back another time and try again. Happened to me with Elgar and Sibelius, of all composers! The music itself didn't change one bit, but I stopped making myself listen out for things that aren't there. It helped me to listen _without_ being 'informed.'


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Minor Sixthist said:


> I feel in a similar way! Like making such an 'attempt' was almost counter to the idea that I experienced natural enjoyment. After all if I had to try so hard...did I really enjoy it in the first place?


You young folks are so anxious. Maybe it's school shootings, rising sea levels, a falling standard of living, and automation taking your jobs...

Music is for pleasure! Don't "educate" yourself. Just listen, and listen some more. The truest musical education is the kind you don't know you're getting because you're having too much fun.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> You young folks are so anxious. Maybe it's school shootings, rising sea levels, a falling standard of living, and automation taking your jobs...
> 
> Music is for pleasure! Don't "educate" yourself. Just listen, and listen some more. The truest musical education is the kind you don't know you're getting because you're having too much fun.


I like this direction. I could live with this!... and hopefully I could live with just one more year of HS as well but you're right about the daunting stuff in our present and future. Politics are scary. American politics have been something of a scary circus act for a long enough time...


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Generally speaking, I like the idea that all human brains share certain fundamental similarities, yet there are enough differences so that our reactions aren't always the same.


in terms of appreciation/reaction of/to music brains don't share that much.
While we discuss endlessly about tonality/atonality, out there in the world we can find people who live without music, take my wife: if music disappeared she wouldn't notice, she could live happily aver after without music, the same goes for her family, her mother's side and her father's side share this same trait, their brains don't care about music. And I have met a lot of persons wired that way (an interesting case was the owner of the record store in my hometown, it was a cultural shock to discover that he had no interest at all in music, there wasn't even background music in that store, the guy couldn't stand it).
So I have no doubt that the assumption in the title of this thread is correct: it's us.
Then there are millions of ways to be "Us" - having a brain wired in a way that makes us reactive to music is only a common starting point that we share, in my experience the roads we take from that point are so numerous and different to make that point almost irrelevant (some fierce discussions here prove it I guess) - even in cases when music becomes an addiction indeed (everyone who has read Sacks' Musicophilia will know what I am talking about) our reactions are individual and not group ones.
And these many roads regard not only our tastes but our entire approach to music, in another thread BaronScarpia has written that if you do something else while listening to music then you aren't really listening, I believe him, but at the same time I know that my personal situation is quite different, I am always listening to music - not as a matter of will but as a matter of fact, my brain is constantly alert/reacting to sounds and rhythms, there is nothing I can do about it, I even spend weeks without listening to records/radio/etcetera, I don't need external stimulus to listen to music, actually the most ecstatic musical experiences I've had in my life were in my dreams (the funny thing about these dreams is that in most cases they involve Bach's music, when I am awake I am not a Bach addict at all, I have only occasionally read some score of his music).


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2018)

Bulldog said:


> You're 21; I'm 70, and I agree with everything you said. If all the members here realized that their musical preferences do not line up with any objective criteria, the put-downs of various musical styles would likely cease.


Oh dear, Bulldog, I hope you've not set the wheel in motion _again _


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Madiel said:


> in terms of appreciation/reaction of/to music brains don't share that much.
> While we discuss endlessly about tonality/atonality, out there in the world we can find people who live without music, take my wife: if music disappeared she wouldn't notice, she could live happily aver after without music, the same goes for her family, her mother's side and her father's side share this same trait, their brains don't care about music. And I have met a lot of persons wired that way (an interesting case was the owner of the record store in my hometown, it was a cultural shock to discover that he had no interest at all in music, there wasn't even background music in that store, the guy couldn't stand it).
> So I have no doubt that the assumption in the title of this thread is correct: it's us.
> Then there are millions of ways to be "Us" - having a brain wired in a way that makes us reactive to music is only a common starting point that we share, in my experience the roads we take from that point are so numerous and different to make that point almost irrelevant (some fierce discussions here prove it I guess) - even in cases when music becomes an addiction indeed (everyone who has read Sacks' Musicophilia will know what I am talking about) our reactions are individual and not group ones.
> And these many roads regard not only our tastes but our entire approach to music, in another thread BaronScarpia has written that if you do something else while listening to music then you aren't really listening, I believe him, but at the same time I know that my personal situation is quite different, I am always listening to music - not as a matter of will but as a matter of fact, my brain is constantly alert/reacting to sounds and rhythms, there is nothing I can do about it, I even spend weeks without listening to records/radio/etcetera, I don't need external stimulus to listen to music, actually the most ecstatic musical experiences I've had in my life were in my dreams (the funny thing about these dreams is that in most cases they involve Bach's music, when I am awake I am not a Bach addict at all, I have only occasionally read some score of his music).


Excellent! This convinces me. There are indeed many people who, even when raised in a "musically rich" environment, never get to find anything in music for them. And that extreme but also common case does demonstrate that it is us and how we are wired rather than the music that makes the difference. You've shifted my opinion several notches with a fact that I knew but hadn't given sufficient weight to.

I also think I listen to music in a way similar to you and do certainly consider it "proper listening" ... but I know others do it differently and fair enough. To me too much concentration can sometimes even harm my enjoyment, especially if the music is very new to me.


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## les24preludes (May 1, 2018)

shirime said:


> Trying to make a point that one style of music is more universally accepted or understood, more accessible to a wider range of people, due to something inherent in the music is, in my view, quite sad. It undervalues our individuality. It undervalues our backgrounds and experiences in music. It undervalues our intelligent, creative and curious minds.


All kinds of things in this world can be turned into data showing majorities and minorities, and this won't change. Majority opinions also influence societies in various subtle or not so subtle ways. Minorities get oppressed, misunderstood and even worse. In a subtle way even personality traits have effects. If a majority of a population are tidy and organised, people will be told "tidy up your life and manage your time better", even though a lot of creatives are spontaneous and impulsive and can't time manage. If a majority of a population are extroverted, people will be told "get out and meet more people, it'll be good for you", even though a lot of creatives are introverted and like to be alone.

We are using a forum on the Internet and thanks to this we get the "long tailed effect". Thanks to this the Global Village we now live in can shift away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. The long "tail" of personal interests, hobbies, fads etc allows minorities within their actual physical societies to turn into global "tribes" where they can share their points of view and get some kind of understanding and even leverage.

It's fascinating and very healthy. But it's not about the "objective" quality or value of whatever we are discussing - music or anything else. It's about population distribution and about communication. That's what we need to look at.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Yes, it is us and not the music. And no it isn't.

I do believe that there is better music - even great music - and lesser music. I guess we all agree about this at the extremes of good and bad. But I also believe that I can detect when music is great. I trust that what a certain piece of music does to me is something to do with its worth and is not just me. At least, I trust this when I love something: I trust it much less when I don't get much out of the music (although I do trust my impressions when they tell me something is crude and facile). But, generally, I trust my enthusiasms more than my doubts. I know my doubts could be just me and I can think of a lot of music that I think is almost certainly great but that hasn't worked for me yet. This has often led me to keep trying at such music and many times it has clicked with time and I have eventually heard "the greatness". But there is lots more that this hasn't happened for me yet.
But when I like music and it does amazing things to me I cannot think that that is just me. Nor do I think it is just me that leads to my feeling that one piece is doing things (to me) that is somehow "profound" while other music that I also like is somehow a bit less "profound" but is still special in some way. Music can do so many different things.

But I do also agree that much music that is loved - and what a wonderful thing it is to find yourself loving a piece of music! - by many and that I actively dismiss as not for me is still very worthwhile. If it is moving people that is great. I may feel it is less than the music I love but that doesn't invalidate what other people get out of it. So I feel both: that my loves and boredoms are merely personal and also that I am right. How can this be? I must be confused.

My feeling of being right comes down to a sense that my own conclusions and experiences are close to the critical consensus. I feel I am tapping into something that others who value the same things as me have felt. I take heart in that fact that those I am agreeing with have been recognised as knowing what they are talking about.

But my feeling of this being merely me, and my taste, comes down to my love of variety in music combined with knowing that comparisons between, say, genres is hopeless and meaningless. Given this then it is no leap to also think that there is joy and other powerful feelings in music that merely bores me.

When it comes to new music it is like new territory without a map. There is no "received opinion" to trust. _*There is only my knowledge/memory of what great music can do to me *_and a search for new music that does things to me that are as powerful. Why bother otherwise? The only music I can reject is music that seems to rehash what has already been done but without the wow (and even that is based on me and my experience). The rest is something that might one day do amazing things to me but so far has left me cold. I do love the exploration, though, and the discovery of the new. When that new has an effect that is as powerful for me as the best of the old and known then that is … well, it's amazing.

What remains is what music does (for me) over time. Some music delivers, it seems, forever. There is a lot of, say, Mozart and Beethoven that I have known for 50 years and it still astonishes me. There is a fair bit of Schoenberg and Webern and Berg that I have known for almost as long and the same thing applies. And there is newer music that I have known for less long - 15 years, 10 years, 5 years - that I feel sure will do the same. And there is music that is still quite new to me but which I sense will be delivering for me for as long as I live. Maybe I'm wrong but I think you develop a sense for these things. And all this is also true of some jazz and rock. But there is other music that, with familiarity, seems much less to me than it did for a while. It loses its ability to surprise and uplift. It may be just a mood thing. Or it may be permanent and when it is permanent I do get the sense that the music in question is less great. This is _me _arriving at a _judgment _of the music. I appreciate what it was for me but feel that ultimately it was a lesser thing than some other music.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Edit: will try again later.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

On our ages

One thing this thread has thrown up is confessions of age from various regular posters. So many surprises! As an oldie it is good to see so many other oldies who haven't stopped exploring and amazing to see such perceptive and _experienced_ thinking from people who turn out to be so young! What difference does age make? I suppose as an oldie I have had a lot longer to get to know a lot of music than younger people might have done and I might have taken many more wrong turns (turns that didn't work out for me). I know that my capacity to digest and get to know music really quite well has grown along with my experience but of course this is a change in me and not necessarily a difference between me and other, younger listeners.

I would have expected that more of us oldies would have stopped exploring, would have sat back and polished our repertoires of "music we love" but that this isn't the case for many of us once again suggests that the music marketers have got things wrong and may be neglecting to give us the experiences we crave.


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

shirime said:


> What is wonderful about this is how clearly it illustrates that the subjective nature of listening to and responding to music is way more interesting, unique and important to us than anything objective at all. Arguments which try to equate one style of music as being better or better appreciated because of something inherent in the music itself will never be able to find universal support. Trying to make a point that one style of music is more universally accepted or understood, more accessible to a wider range of people, due to something inherent in the music is, in my view, quite sad. It undervalues our individuality. It undervalues our backgrounds and experiences in music. It undervalues our intelligent, creative and curious minds.
> 
> When it comes to music that speaks to us, music that moves us, music that evokes some kind of emotion or emotions.......it's _us,_ not the music. The way we listen to music makes the experience all the more special to us, all the more engaging, all the more moving.
> 
> ...


Thank you for starting this thread, and for the positive and generous spirit in which you've given introduced it. I share your sentiment wholeheartedly and I agree with much of what you've said. There is so much here we could talk about! I'm fairly new to this forum, but I've often thought we should have a section dedicated to the 'philosophy of music', and I think this thread would fit nicely. I'm no expert in philosophy, so this may end up being a rambling post, but I'm going to give it a try.

I've also given thought to the dualistic objective/subjective nature of music that you've brought up, and I think this is actually a very ancient dilemma. I takes me back to the old familiar question of if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? In many ways, I think this is the fundamental question of all philosophy, and it is at play here too. Music, like the sound of the falling tree, has both an objective and a subjective element to it - the objective being that which resides within its own nature - the part that it separate from us, which exists and endures apart from and independent of our own perception or experience, and the subjective being what we consciously experience of it - that which is individually our own. But because of the simple fact that we live in communities with others, we can't all create our own realities and we have to come to agreements as to where to separate these and to draw the line between the two, and I think the discussions and arguments come when we try to do this. I think that is perhaps what is meant by the 'aesthetic' element - I hear people talk about the 'objective beauty' or 'greatness' of a piece of music or work of art - it's the clearly agreed upon objective components of something that we all agree are good and true and beautiful, and which are not subject to individual opinion.

Rather than make a clumsy elaboration on this topic that could go on much too long, I'll recommend a wonderful book that is both a very moving story and also a fascinating meditation on this dilemma, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ by Robert Pirsig, which I'm guessing many people here have already read. I'll just say here that one of the ideas he discusses is that the subjective and objective cannot exist apart from each other - that the subject, or the one who perceives, and the object or the one being perceived, rather than being separate things and in a relationship, and it is from the nature of that interaction between the two that truth and beauty emerge. It's a thought that has remained with me and played out in my mind over many years and I think it's central to the subject you've brought up here.

Your thread title is _It's us, not the music_, but I think it's both - after all, you've said 'it's *us*' and not 'it's *me*'. The music doesn't exist without *us*, but it also brings something to each of us that is from outside of ourselves as well as from within.

I'll leave it at that for now as food for thought and discussion but will eagerly follow this thread and look forward what others have to say.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

shirime said:


> Person A: Can you give an example of an atonal piece *expressing x emotion*





shirime said:


> Arguments which try to equate one style of music as being *better or better appreciated* because of something inherent in the music itself





Eva Yojimbo said:


> in only focusing on the subjective you do miss the fact that there is, in fact, much agreement about what any given piece of *music means, emotionally speaking*





Enthusiast said:


> I do believe that there is *better music - even great music* - and lesser music


One reason why the concept of "objective qualities" has been treated with such suspicion in the last several decades, especially when it comes to something as nebulous as music, is how instinctively notions of emotional reactions, musical content, beauty, and greatness are all conflated with each other. There isn't any necessary connection between any of these things, but the above shows how easily we start talking about one when we're ostensibly discussing one of the others. Whether music's emotional content is objective or subjective ought to be a separate matter from whether its greatness is objective or subjective (unless, of course, we think music's greatness is partly a function of its emotional content, which would corroborate what I write below). Beauty, it seems to me, is the main "culprit" in blurring the lines between content and greatness.

As Thomyum2 writes above, the objective/subjective debate is an ancient one in the world of art, but in most formulations it has been a debate about art's meaning or content. (And of course one could easily debate whether even those two things are the same.) It seems to be only relatively recently that the debate has come to encompass the value judgments that are implied. I know many of us have grown a little tired of the extreme relativism of the present day, where seemingly simple aesthetic matters are inevitably seen as "political"; but as long as meaning and greatness are so easily elided, as they seem to be in discussions of music, I have to side with the relativists on this one.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eschbeg said:


> One reason why the concept of "objective qualities" has been treated with such suspicion in the last several decades, especially when it comes to something as nebulous as music, is how instinctively notions of emotional reactions, musical content, beauty, and greatness are all conflated with each other. There isn't any necessary connection between any of these things, but the above shows how easily we start talking about one when we're ostensibly discussing one of the others. Whether music's emotional content is objective or subjective ought to be a separate matter from whether its greatness is objective or subjective (unless, of course, we think music's greatness is partly a function of its emotional content, which would corroborate what I write below). Beauty, it seems to me, is the main "culprit" in blurring the lines between content and greatness.
> 
> As Thomyum2 writes above, the objective/subjective debate is an ancient one in the world of art, but in most formulations it has been a debate about art's meaning or content. (And of course one could easily debate whether even those two things are the same.) It seems to be only relatively recently that the debate has come to encompass the value judgments that are implied. I know many of us have grown a little tired of the extreme relativism of the present day, where seemingly simple aesthetic matters are inevitably seen as "political"; but as long as meaning and greatness are so easily elided, as they seem to be in discussions of music, I have to side with the relativists on this one.


Good observations, but as for siding with the relativists - are the relativists all on the same side? How many sides are there?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

shirime said:


> I don't really understand what 'educated/informed/intelligent listening' is or the alleged importance of it........
> 
> I have a strong feeling that as soon as we 'educate' ourselves to hear music in a certain way (as if that's how we are supposed to 'get' the music) then we have simply formed a habit that could potentially get in the way of enjoying music for the sake of it.


There are different sorts of enjoyment from different types of listening, I think.

I am relatively new to classical music, having spent most of my life interested in songs and dance tunes from the folk tradition. I think I listen to these in the same way as I always did, immersing myself in the lyrics or the rhythm and appreciating it with immediacy.

I don't know enough about classical music to be an educated listener, but I am learning, and because of my experience I can now experience more subtle pleasures, such as thinking 'ah - that's a typically French baroque phrase'. But I haven't really gone much beyond the 'immediate appreciation' stage, and maybe I never will.

I know a bit more about literature, and so I'm going to interpret your post in the light of my experience there.

When I used to teach English at A-level, especially when it came to poetry classes, I used to start by exploring the nature of poetic devices - metaphor, simile, personification, alliteration and so on. I would try to link it to the students' creative writing to make it less dry, but then would come the day we started to analyse poetry in depth using the knowledge of poetic techniques that I'd taught.

There would always be some troubled students who'd come to me and say that they were afraid that that sort of analysis - they'd always call it 'dissection' - would spoil their enjoyment of poetry.

I can still remember feeling exactly the same way when I was sixteen (fifty years ago now!  ), so I would explain to them that perhaps for a while it might get in the way of their original intense fresh response. But that ultimately, seeing how the poet had crafted his/ her poem - or debating whether s/he had, actually - would lead to a different type of intensity of response which would be very satisfying.

I am thinking that may be the same with musical education - not that I'll ever know, probably, or be in the position of saying whether it's important to develop 'educated/informed/intelligent listening'.

I can only say that I appreciate the insights of those who have this educated response.

And I imagine that, just as one can educate oneself into a deeper but different appreciation of music, thus 'educating ourselves to hear music in a certain way', so you can go beyond that and strive for freshness and simplicity in one's response again, while not forfeiting the knowledge of music that one has gained.

I am thinking of the visionary poet William Blake's three categories: Innocence - Experience - and Higher Innocence.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

shirime said:


> I have a strong feeling that as soon as we 'educate' ourselves to hear music in a certain way (as if that's how we are supposed to 'get' the music) then we have simply formed a habit that could potentially get in the way of enjoying music for the sake of it.


This raises another perennial wrinkle in the objective/subjective debate: the surprising difficulty of defining what "music for its own sake" or "the music itself" means.

The view you describe above is one common way to define it: "music for its own sake" is what one gets when one eliminates as much as possible all the external, contextual stuff one has learned about music and instead experiences music "intuitively" or "directly." And yet in practice what this seems to mean is experiencing music in terms of its emotional or expressive content, which as everyone has pointed above is at least partially subjective in nature. What one considers intuitive or emotional or expressive is inevitably conditioned by all kinds of factors that will differ from person to person. So in this sense, "experiencing music for its own sake" ironically turns out to mean "experiencing music in one's own personally customized way."

On the other hand, the "educated" approach you refer to above is usually understood to mean things like theory and analysis, and the driving force behind most theory and analysis of the last hundred years or so has been the desire to get away from precisely all of that subjective, unquantifiable, external stuff like emotions or expression, and to focus instead on what is inarguably in the score: notes, chords, structure, etc. That these things are beyond the reach of laymen, according to this view, does not change the fact that notes and chords and structure are objective features of the music.

In other words, more than one camp has laid claim to "music for its own sake." I guess that's another point for the relativist team.



Woodduck said:


> Good observations, but as for siding with the relativists - are the relativists all on the same side? How many sides are there?


Fair questions. Lots of different things have been claimed under the banner of relativism. In my experience, what distinguishes relativist approaches from each other is not necessarily the degree of relativism itself but the moral implications, if any, of being a relativist. So on one end of the spectrum are relativists who claim simply that there is more than one valid way to experience music; toward the middle of the spectrum are the relativists who claim that one's aesthetic preferences are conditioned by, and therefore expressions of, one's personal, cultural, and/or political values; and on the other end of the spectrum (the "extreme" end I alluded to in my previous post) are the relativists who claim that since aesthetic preferences are expressions of values, promoting any particular approach over another is tantamount to imposing one's values on someone else, and isn't that a terrible, imperialist thing to do, etc.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> You're 21; I'm 70, and I agree with everything you said. If all the members here realized that their musical preferences do not line up with any objective criteria, the put-downs of various musical styles would likely cease.


I'm 70 too. Gosh, what a load of old fogies!

Of course music is subjective but doesn't stop us having the fun of disagreeing over it. I mean, where would the fun be in TC if we all agreed! :lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Minor Sixthist said:


> I wonder the same, and have wondered the same essentially since my start on TC. Some of my tastes have changed since I begun having interest in classical, sometime around five or six years ago. But I'll venture to say more have remained the same than have changed, and I ask myself, when combing through a lot of the discourse here, if my views are significantly skewed by my age and "inexperience". I hesitated a little to add quotes there, but not enough, I suppose.
> 
> I experience my share of self-doubt and instances of cognitive dissonance when I read some of the well-constructed opinions I'm able to come across here, as I'm occasionally faced with the idea that my tastes will change with time and with more "intelligent listening." The former is sensible and I would feel so for anyone, but the latter concept still confounds me. I don't know exactly what to make of it. That's especially true given, when I read posts and come across users pushing for a more 'informed' or 'educated' approach to music-listening - *specifically to atonal and modern music, as is apt - I usually can't discern the exact meaning behind descriptions of 'educated listening'.* I feel like these concepts are given very abstractly. I find myself asking, "Ok, but where do I start improving my listening? What's the best method?" And if not the act of listening itself, I feel even more hopeless in the case that the user links some text or person as reference, and I am completely unfamiliar with the quoted person or perhaps even with their contributions.
> 
> ...


As an old guy who has been listening to classical music for the last 55 years never be ashamed of your tastes. I am quite unashamed to say that I find much atonal and avant-gard music to be the musical equivalent of a visit to the dentist without anaesthetic. Music for me is enjoyment. If other people enjoy 'music' that sounds like a cross between a piano being thrown down the stairs and a vacuum cleaner, then good luck to them. But I don't feel the least bit inferior and uninformed. Like I do not feel inferior to a guy who has a cold shower in the morning in the middle of winter. 
Music (as Beecham said) is to be enjoyed and made enjoyable. of course, it is good to broaden our tastes. I think mine are pretty catholic (small c) and have developed over the years. But if I dislike something I simply don't listen to it. Why should I? I listen to music for enjoyment not penance.
Having said that, everybody's tastes are different. But being different is not being inferior! 
Well done on your post btw! :tiphat:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

How are people alike in their experience, and how does this contribute to our reactions to music?

1. Big things make big sounds. If a sound is in the bass range, and if it is loud, then chances are it was produced by a large resonating object. In primal human terms, this could be a bear or a large animal, or thunder; something bigger than us. This primal experience of loud, bass sounds triggers in us a sense of awe, or even fear; at the very least, it gets our attention.

2. Small things make small, higher-pitched sounds. This is why flutes sound like birds.

3. Rhythm comes from movement, such as walking, a universal human experience. Rhythm is of the body, and evokes dancing. The body is sensual, and this is where 'sex' is located, and sexual movement. Dancing often emulates the sex act.

4. Harmony is the sound of spirit, not body. 

5. Sudden sounds startle us. This could mean an attack. This triggers surprise and gets our attention.

6. Smooth, soothing sounds can relax us. This is the 'soft' way we talk to babies our loved ones.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^This nice enumeration of some of the most basic ways in which music evokes human experience is a pleasant entry into a subject which easily becomes confusing and contentious when broached in purely abstract terms. What subject? The representational nature of music.

We all know that painting and literature can represent physical objects that we perceive through our senses, and most of us know that music, except in rare instances of outright imitation, doesn't do that. But there is more to the world around us and within us than physical objects. Energies, forces, actions and events, including mental and emotional ones, are as real as the physical objects they're manifestations of, and they have structure, structure in time, just as physical objects have structure in space. Psychic phenomena such as ideas and emotions have not only temporal form but abstract form such as the hierarchy of concept formation, wherein a general concept (e.g."society") sits atop a metaphorical "pyramid" of concepts (e.g., "relationships," "institutions") which in turn rest on a broad "base" of experiences at the bottom.

Music's forms are predominantly abstract and don't describe the shapes of objects, but that doesn't mean that they're non-referential. I think they refer to the forms and patterns created by the movement of entities, physical and nonphysical, and by the dynamic relationships between them. For example, the movements of the human body are the most obvious referents of music as heard in the pulse or beat, but rhythm - the way in which time is structured - is exhibited by phenomena throughout the universe, and varies according to the specific nature of those phenomena. By articulating time with rhythm, tempo and accent, music can evoke these phenomena in enormously varied and subtle ways, conveying sensations of physical movement, mass and space, and evoking emotional states associated with them.

It's fine to observe that human responses to music are personal and indicate a wide variety of cultural and personal differences. That's easy to see. What's harder is to realize the enormous scope of common physical, mental and emotional experience that makes us what we are in the universe in which we live, and to perceive the complex ways in which music can represent the dynamic structure of that experience. It is just not true that music is not "about" anything, or that the widespread conviction that it _is_ about things - often very powerful and significant things - is merely a product of "conditioning" or private fantasy. The question, "what is this music saying?," may not be answered identically by any two people, but asking it is far more than an exercise in solipsism.

The "objective/subjective" debate fails to do justice to the experience of music. When art holds a mirror up to nature, it shows us a reality greater than our own reflection, and among the arts music is not an exception to this.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Madiel said:


> in terms of appreciation/reaction of/to music brains don't share that much.
> While we discuss endlessly about tonality/atonality, out there in the world we can find people who live without music, take my wife: if music disappeared she wouldn't notice, she could live happily aver after without music, the same goes for her family, her mother's side and her father's side share this same trait, their brains don't care about music. And I have met a lot of persons wired that way (an interesting case was the owner of the record store in my hometown, it was a cultural shock to discover that he had no interest at all in music, there wasn't even background music in that store, the guy couldn't stand it).
> So I have no doubt that the assumption in the title of this thread is correct: it's us.


I think we're merely talking about different things. I was talking more about there being common emotional interpretations of music in terms of tone (happy/sad/etc.) while you seem to be talking about the fact that some don't value music at all. Even among those that don't value music, I doubt you'd find many that would think Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was sad. However, your point about different valuations of music at all is equally a subject worth exploring; why certain brains seem to respond strongly or weakly to art to begin with.

As I said, I essentially agree with the thread title myself. I do believe that all opinions on, valuations of, and (emotional) reactions to music are, in the end, subjective ("it's us"); but it's worth exploring the causal role of music in creating those opinions, values, and reactions. In another thread, I made an analogy to getting shot. The pain of getting shot is subjective, even though most would agree that the bulk of the pain's cause is objective. In the case of music/art I think the causal factor is much more of a mix, even if the end result is subjective.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

KenOC said:


> I've posted this before, but it seems apropos here. Berlioz on differing opinions regarding "new music":
> ----------------------------
> One day I was walking out of the Conservatoire with three or four dilettanti after a performance of the Choral symphony.
> 
> ...


I love this so much I think I want to marry it. Berlioz is showing a lot of self-awareness here. Not many reach a point where they know there's no rationally escaping subjective variability, but knowing that they find the prospect so dreadful they admit they'd rather be mad and still believe in a Platonic ideal!


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Going from age 14 to age 21 is basically adolescence to adulthood. It surprises me none that you respond to things differently at age 21 than you did at 14. Imagine a half-life before that -- from age 10 to 14. Do you think you responded differently at 14 than at 10? Do you think you will respond differently another half-life down the road, say at age 30? Of course you will.

Classical music often takes a great deal of exposure to understand and enjoy, or even to tolerate. Some of it is simple and some makes an immediate impact. If you stay with it for 30 or 40 years and make a point to learn new music over the years you'll find your tastes, or your response to music as it is honed over time and exposure, to be much different than when you started, whatever age that may be.

I'm not sure that has much to do with the music, however. Furthermore, I don't think the only -- or even the _most important_ -- response to music is emotional. I think it is cerebral. It is clear from research that music helps improve decision-making and problem-solving. It is less clear how well it improves emotional life, or whether it improves it at all. The whole Mozart makes you smarter thing had nothing to do with good feelings via Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Prolonged exposure to music, and especially participating in music, changes your brain. But musicians everywhere have all the same emotional hang-ups everyone else experiences. I enjoy an emotional ride in a piece of music but I don't think that's why I continue to listen and explore and perform music. The addiction is in the head, not the heart, so to speak.


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

DavidA said:


> Music (as Beecham said) is to be enjoyed and made enjoyable. of course, it is good to broaden our tastes. I think mine are pretty catholic (small c) and have developed over the years. But if I dislike something I simply don't listen to it. Why should I? I listen to music for enjoyment not penance.
> Having said that, everybody's tastes are different. But being different is not being inferior!


This says a lot in just a few words! It's funny to hear you say this because it strikes me that in some ways I _do_ listen to music as a penance - perhaps not in a literal sense as an atonement for sins, but more in the sense of a 'no pain, no gain' way to expand my ability to listen. But in other areas of my life I certainly don't want to invest my energies in things that don't bring me enjoyment. I applaud that you point out that this doesn't mean one or the other way is inferior. After all, we each have our own unique priorities and callings in life, and with our limited time we must decide where to exert our efforts as well as where to turn for enjoyment when we need to recharge our spirits. But isn't it a remarkable thing that music can simultaneously play such radically diverse roles in the lives of very different peoples and produce a nearly universal positive effect in all of them.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Thomyum2 said:


> This says a lot in just a few words! It's funny to hear you say this because it strikes me that in some ways I _do_ listen to music as a penance - perhaps not in a literal sense as an atonement for sins, but more in the sense of a 'no pain, no gain' way to expand my ability to listen. But in other areas of my life I certainly don't want to invest my energies in things that don't bring me enjoyment. I applaud that you point out that this doesn't mean one or the other way is inferior. After all, we each have our own unique priorities and callings in life, and with our limited time we must decide where to exert our efforts as well as where to turn for enjoyment when we need to recharge our spirits. But isn't it a remarkable thing that music can simultaneously play such radically diverse roles in the lives of very different peoples and produce a nearly universal positive effect in all of them.


Oh agreed! Just what suits us personally. I mean, I like to go on gentle walks in the country for exercise. Some guys like to run up mountains with all the sweat that causes. I love luxury accommodation for a holiday - I knew a guy who loved nothing better than to camp under the stars on the hard ground. It's not right or wrong but what people find fulfilling and enjoyable.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

I agree..............


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

KenOC said:


> I've posted this before, but it seems apropos here. Berlioz on differing opinions regarding "new music":
> ----------------------------
> One day I was walking out of the Conservatoire with three or four dilettanti after a performance of the Choral symphony.
> 
> ...


And yet now most reviews in papers would say similar things about the piece. The friends may still differ but there is a convergence - for or against or either of those with reservations - over time. One of the things with new music is we don't know how views will converge. There are plenty of example of pieces that wowed their audience and critics when they were new and are now rarely if ever heard and the convergence has been towards a view that they are rubbish just as there example which went the other way. With new music it is just what it means to us now. Posterity is a strange judge: composers write for now (OK, they may also have posterity in mind, too) but perhaps posterity sorts things out for us if we are not interested in exploring (with all its disappointments and unexpected joys). But history trains us to not want to be one of those who loved a work that people now laugh at.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DavidA said:


> As an old guy who has been listening to classical music for the last 55 years never be ashamed of your tastes. I am quite unashamed to say that I find much atonal and avant-gard music to be the musical equivalent of a visit to the dentist without anaesthetic. Music for me is enjoyment. If other people enjoy 'music' that sounds like a cross between a piano being thrown down the stairs and a vacuum cleaner, then good luck to them. But I don't feel the least bit inferior and uninformed. Like I do not feel inferior to a guy who has a cold shower in the morning in the middle of winter.
> Music (as Beecham said) is to be enjoyed and made enjoyable. of course, it is good to broaden our tastes. I think mine are pretty catholic (small c) and have developed over the years. But if I dislike something I simply don't listen to it. Why should I? I listen to music for enjoyment not penance.
> Having said that, everybody's tastes are different. But being different is not being inferior!
> Well done on your post btw! :tiphat:


I've also been listening to and loving classical music for more than 50 years. I'm not sure about the pleasure-pain metaphor but agree that if something doesn't appeal it would be silly to subject yourself to it. I do think classical music takes "work" to get to the rewards but something has to be pulling you in. And, anyway, I don't think that the "work" involved is really work so much as merely being willing to spend some time listening. Of course, if that time is unpleasant you should move on. Anyone would, wouldn't they?

But I don't think that I have seen posts in this forum that try to shame those who aren't turned on by the new or a certain type of new. Mostly they are just "hey, I love this: you might, too". I find a lot of new music really exciting. Not all the time (it's a mood thing) but when I do I don't feel virtuous or superior and I don't look down on those who aren't on the same journey.


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