# What's your relationship with non-classical music like?



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

This is something that's been on my mind lately. I'm wondering if any of my fellow Classical Music fans feel a similar way that I do? Or maybe you have complete opposite feelings from me and can convince me of your point of view. I'm just curious about the ideas on this topic I guess. Maybe I should have posted this in the non-classical section of the forum, but I'll be completely honest, I want the most traffic on this page as I can get and will probably be more successful in this part of the forum. Feel free to move it moderators, if you so wish. :tiphat:

Anyway, here's my story: When I was in Middle School-Highschool I was super incredible snobby about my love of Classical Music, not to other people's faces, just in my head. Any other genre I thought was completely worthless and I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. A lot of this had to do with the social dynamics of a grade school environment. I have always felt like an outsider and learned to adapt by telling myself that my loner status was a badge of honor I should feel proud of.

When I got to college though, I met a lot of cool people that I respected as musicians whose main focus wasn't Classical Music. This convinced me to give another look at some non-classical genres. At first I was really into it. It was exciting that I had found even more types of music that I could explore and listen to. It felt really good to feel like I was able to listen to almost anything in the world. I was the ultimate consumer of music haha. But then, as I switched back and forth between listening to Classical Music and non-Classical Music, I started to notice something...

I realized that, in the majority of cases in which I found myself enjoying non-classical music, I was having to seriously lower my standards (maybe subconsciously at first) in order to enjoy it. To some of you, that might sound a little pretentious, but let me explain. I realized that when I listen to Classical Music, I am often completely left in awe by so many of the little details of what makes the music so great. When you listen to a great piece of Classical Music, nothing else is left wanting, for me, anyway. But when I listened to non-Classical, it's more like I'm diligently searching for things I can sort of like about it. "Alright...so this sound effect is pretty cool....yea, I can dig this. Those rhythms are kinda neat. YA this is pretty good for what it is"

Now, I'm not the type of person that would go around saying that most non-classical music is _bad_ per se. I go back to non-classical music a lot to see if I can't see it in another light somehow. But nearly every time I listen to it, the most accurate way to describe my feelings is *underwhelmed*, incredibly.

Sure some of it has some cool sounds and atmospheres, sure some non-classical singers have really unique vocal deliveries, sure the rhythms can be pretty cool sometimes. But the more I listen, the more I miss the mind boggling counterpoint. I miss the diverse colors of an orchestra. I miss the dynamic contrast. I miss the developmental nature of Classical Music (as opposed to the stagnant nature of most non-classical), I miss the harmonic complexity, I miss yadda yadda yadda, you guys probably know what I'm saying. I listen to non-classical and I find myself wanting so many aspects of Classical Music that make it so engaging for me. Yes that's the word. Much non-classical for me is maybe enjoyable enough, but not engaging enough.

For the sake of clarity, there is some non-classical that I find almost as consistently engaging as Classical Music. Mostly, some Jazz (Coltrane, Monk, some other stuff), most World Music, and some "Rock" groups or whatever you want to call them (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Thinking Plague and Gentle Giant come to mind).

So for some reason, I'm intensely fascinated that so many people find a lot of music fullfilling that, from my point of view, is missing so much of what makes Classical Music endlessly rewarding. As I said before, I'm curious as a cat if anyone else feels similar to me. Or different from me, or whatever.

Surely I can get some people who sympathize with my existential crisis, no?


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

That there's "less going on" in popular music can work to its advantage when it comes to delivering pleasure.

To choose a current example: the chorus of Adele's "Hello" is not sophisticated in terms of tonality, arrangement, or lyrics. You could say there's nothing to listen to except the sweep of the production and the timbre of her voice. But both are so emotionally affecting that...

Well, let's just say that Adele is richer than Diana Damrau.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

One of my other loves is traditional cante flamenco, usually a singer and a guitarist sitting closely together, perhaps a small coterie of friends and relations together around a table, able to offer encouragement, rhythmic clapping, _palmas_, as seems best, and to express their appreciation of particularly moving expression on the part of the singer. The idea is to convey emotion, or the simulacrum of emotion, from singer to the small world immediately around her or him. The guitarist, or _tocaor_, provides a constant sympathetic and complementary accompaniment to the _cantaor/cantaora_, often looking closely into the singer's face to ensure that the rapport is tightly maintained-- it's a remarkable pairing. The guitarists, who are seemingly numberless throughout flamenco Spain, are almost stupefyingly skilled at the technical aspects of guitar play, yet this amazing virtuosity is, in the best accompanists, kept in tight check to better "romance the stone" of the singer's utterances. The singers themselves most often do not have, and are not judged upon, the quality of their voices--by the standards of Western art song or popular song, their voices, and appearances, are rough, "untrained", ragged--but rather upon their knowledge of the various forms or _palos_ of flamenco, their mastery of many of them, and their ability to move their audience to empathy and/or admiration.

Sung flamenco, authentic cante, is an acquired taste. When I would play my flamenco albums in my room, my mother would ask when the chicken-strangling would be over. Yet the stories that revolve around the greatest singers of yesteryear--people like Manuel Torres, for example-- tell of people rending their clothing, crying uncontrollably, actually leaping through windows, while under the spell of his singing (such behavior often fueled by alcohol, to be sure). Anyway, what draws me into this world of cante flamenco is this experience of raw emotion, or often also of exquisite performance of the classical _palos_ by both singer and guitarist, even in those cases where the emotional component is subdued, and the goal is to render a piece in a more detached manner. I just love it, and have since about the age of 15.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I enjoy both classical music & folk but if I had to choose one over the other, it would be folk music. I *enjoy* a stunning piece of baroque music. I can *live* in a Scottish strathspey played by a skilled traditional fiddler. Or a Child ballad sung by a singer who can make the words into a conduit for her heart.

Folk music has its own idiom and there are subtle nuances that often classical players miss when they start playing it; or that an operatic singer would miss when tackling a traditional ballad. But it's probably true to say that there's less to it. However, as the two posters above seem to indicate, that can be a strength - there's a stronger emotional charge or feeling of awe at a particular ornament or other grace.

An analogy would be that someone who is a connoisseur of wine or of caviare wouldn't want to spoil his appreciation of a fine rare specimen by eating or drinking lots of other things at the same time.

Even within classical music, there are some who prefer solo pieces, sonatas, operatic arias etc where they concentrate on a single or simpler art taken to perfection. Do the fans of these forms of classical expression deserve the strictures of the OP?

I really think it's just a matter of taste, and that within each musical genre, there is the opportunity for great skill to be displayed and for depth of appreciation - which isn't to say that there might not be more examples of mediocrity within the non-classical genres, or more opportunities for dazzling achievement within classical music,


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I would be torn if I had to make a choice between the different music genres that I love - one of which is classical. I spend about the same time listening to classical and to pop/rock, in particular prog and prog related acts.

And at no point do I have the feeling that classical music is in any way superior to the other music that I love.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I'll resist the temptation to make a name-dropping of my favorite non classical musicians, but a big problem of the non classical world is also a representation that is mostly based on sales, so a lot of the most interesting things can be discovered even after decades of listenings for casual reasons.
The beatles are a good example of it. When you say "Now, I'm not the type of person that would go around saying that most non-classical music is bad per se. I go back to non-classical music a lot to see if I can't see it in another light somehow. But nearly every time I listen to it, the most accurate way to describe my feelings is underwhelmed, incredibly. ": well that's my reaction to their music. I certainly don't dislike them, but I wouldn't certainly put them on the same level of my favorite non-classical music. And still they are represented as they are the best of what the non classical world can offer and one of the first bands that one encounter listening pop music.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Like Ingélou I listen to both classical (baroque and early music) and folk (including country music). I can understand the feelings of the OP in relation to popular music but not in terms of folk.

One of the interesting things about folk - apart from the emotions and the links to popular culture - is the extent to which it is a playing community. Yes, they listen to their favourite artistes, but often in an attempt to understand their playing style and translate it into their own practice. It's very much like the earlier scene where the main way to hear music was to play it.

Part of the trouble nowadays is that Classical music has become Art music - like a painting stuck on a wall for people to admire rather than a living breathing tradition that people join in and play. Because some of the music has drifted off in a self-consciously "arty" way it has lost its connection with people and, perhaps, lost its own direction.

Even in the 19th Century, we had composer / performers. These are now incredibly rare and probably only exist in specialised niches like Baroque music groups. The industrialisation of the orchestra has also served to further distance people from the music.

Yes, the non-classical genres may be less "complex" in terms of structure but they are more accessible in the sense that they represent music that people can actually play or sing. It works in a different way, involves different skills and styles but is still as satisfying as Classical music. (Otherwise Classical music wouldn't be able to borrow melodies from it!)


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## Iean (Nov 17, 2015)

I really don't believe that classical music should be compared to other genres since it just a music genre, in as much as pop or rock or hip-hop are all genres. Saying that classical music is superior to pop music since the former has more "dynamic complexity" as compared to most pop music is like saying that calculus is better than algebra because the former requires deeper analysis than the latter (sorry for the math analogy - i breathe math). That is why I am sad that some people who are self-proclaimed classical music lovers looked down on people who enjoy the music of Katy Perry and Eminem. Another common comparison is that while classical music demands that its singers must have the necessary pipes, many pop singers resort to auto-tune to enhance their recordings. So, what is wrong with using auto-tune to make one's recorded music provide a more pleasurable listening experience? Just like what I've mentioned in another post, do ALL singers must really have to possess the pipes of Callas or Streisand or Pavarotti? Is it not a very colorless world if all singers sound like the aforementioned artists? I will be bored to death if I will be forced to listen to only one genre of music (may it be classical or pop ) for the rest of my life. I guess God did not create music with only classical music in His mind.:angel:


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

As classical began to take up much more of my listening I found that I too would have trouble adapting to popular music. But I realised I didn't need to lower my standards, just adopt different ones.
These days my standards seem to have levelled out somewhat and I'm much more able to switch between classical and non-classical.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

My relationship with non-classical music is healthy. There are some simple facts: I own much less non-classical music and I listen to classical more often. But I'm not a snob about classical and I listen to non-classical as diverse as showtunes, Celtic folk music, dubstep and trap, and even mainstream pop. I listen to what sounds pleasing to me--this can be almost anything. It just so happens that I appreciate classical music on a deeper level, but I have the potential to like all kinds of different music. For example, when it comes to much of the non-classical I listen to, I often listen for different reasons: the beat, the bass, the sound of a foreign language I don't understand...these are, for the most part, not the reasons I listen to classical. I'm in totally different mindsets depending on which genre I am listening to.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

redshift: receding into the background radiation as the universe expands

I've got a small, but significant (in relation to the size of my non-classical collection), jazz collection and I have quite a lot of old rock albums from my youth (now on CD, of course). I even have a handful of country albums  I don't spend a lot of time You-tubing non-classical music, except when some artist or group grabs me (hasn't for a few years).

My main focus is instrumental music and the typically repetitive pop song format with canned messages doesn't offer me much. Add to that that most of the music is written by people who could be my grandchildren-the subject matter is generally stuff I worked through 40 years ago. I'm just not whacked over the head by it. Mostly, I shrink and groan and try to ignore it. Like a lot of people my age, as much as I have often ridiculed them, my experience of non-classical music is the music of my youth.


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## Iean (Nov 17, 2015)

I dont understand why some people use the standards for classical music in judging the merits of pop music. It is like watching a Fast and Furious movie and expecting a spiritual epiphany, or reading a book on non-Euclidean geometry and expecting to learn the history of China.:angel:


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I had a similar experience. As a child my sister and cousins loved pop, I didn't care about Britney Spears, nor the Backstreet Boys.

After I found classical I also had the snobby "At least I listen to REAL music" BS phase that some kids go through high school, trying to find some aspect of their personality that makes them stand out as an individual, away from the crowd, and being "cooler" because of it. That was part of it, at least. The other half was defensive, because I would say I liked classical and such an alien thing to like at my school was enough that I had to justify why I listened to it [because back then you couldn't _just_ like something, that's not how kid minds work]

But I also got into some rock, pop, jazz, other genre. There was a weird phase where I was into metal but I didn't stick with it. Funny enough some metal head friends tried to show me songs they thought were "intense and epic", and none of them stood up to the epicness I found in Bach's organ works, or Rachmaninov's piano concertos. Like you say violadude, I was underwhelmed.

From the non-classical music I listen to, there are two "categories": fun and energetic songs that I can listen to for quick jam outs, and then very relaxed songs for when I'm just chilling. Though there are songs in both categories that do have little details that I can focus on like classical pieces, especially if we're talking jazz [for example, this Julee Cruise song I was just listening to this morning. Not jazz, but it falls in the chill category]


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Beside classical i listen to rock and its derivates like hard rock, metal, punk. From othwer genres i like ambient, some hip hop...


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

To answer the question posed, I would say it's pretty good thank you


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

Re. the OP, there are a few pieces that are acceptable, just like classical.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Iean said:


> I dont understand why some people use the standards for classical music in judging the merits of pop music. It is like watching a Fast and Furious movie and expecting a spiritual epiphany


fast and furious is a mediocre movie, but there are also great movies.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I don't expect other music to have the qualities I find and look for in classical music. If you can accept that other music can be (very) simplistic in certain areas, you may find appreciation for other aspects of the music that can't be found in classical music.

Next to classical music I listen almost exclusively to electronic/ambient/space music. Both things are holy to me and in my musical world these genres complement each other very well.
One is heavily based on composition, intellect and is entirely spelled out for you in great detail. It requires you to engage and it rewards close attention. 
The other is mainly for disengaging and is all about freedom and letting go. Worlds of sound created mainly by intuition, providing a sonic foundation for the mind and imagination to roam free. Some people may call it new age fluff (and that's true for the bad stuff). But it works for me so who cares.

I also like plenty of other music, but time is limited and life is short...


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

You just need to know who to listen to. Have you heard:

Weather Report, Unknown Soldier. A piece in sonata form but with an improvised development section:






King Crimson, The Deception of the Thrush. A kind of structured improvisation:






Oregon, Distant Hills:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=oregon+distant+hills+full+album

Henry Cow, Beautiful as the Moon, Terrible as an Army with Banners:


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

People like all sorts of music for all sorts of reasons, which is obviously fine. My brother is a really fine jazz musician who has made his living from it for decades. I tried to listen and like this music (some of which is quite esoteric) in deference to him, but in my mid-40s I decided I only had so many listening hours left to me (hopefully many thousands), and I was going to spend them without apology listening and relistening to music I love, and listening to music hitherto unknown to me from that genre (classical). I have never regretted that decision, and one cannot go through life without being exposed to other music anyway. 

It's like languages. It's not that one is "better" than another - I recognise that jazz has complexities, histories, styles and traditions that give it a richness similar to the classical tradition - it's that I am at home in one language and not another.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Ingélou said:


> I *enjoy* a stunning piece of baroque music. I can *live* in a Scottish strathspey played by a skilled traditional fiddler. Or a Child ballad sung by a singer who can make the words into a conduit for her heart.


Well said. I feel that way about jazz. I've studied and played jazz enough to know a lot of its ins and outs, and if I listen to too much of it, I get all tangled up in it, and it borders on obsession. In contrast, I've played a little classical music but not enough to get caught up into things like a violinist's spiccato. So for me, classical music is fascinating but not obsessive.

I also get caught up in soul/funk music, like James Brown or Tower of Power, with trying to follow all the polyrythms and instrumental interactions. It may be "inferior" artistically, but to me, it's just as engaging.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

For me, non-classical isn't the mad, all-consuming love affair it used to be but we still go to bed together on occasions.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

^  Well said. Same here.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I love lots of non-classical music including a fair amount of mainstream pop. It's not a question of lowering standards but of approaching music on its own terms.

In the American popular music tradition for example the music "works" in a number of ways: polyrhythms, shifting syncopation, effective use of repetition to establish a groove, contrasts of timbre, and especially the vocalist's subtle inflections of pitch and rhythm (blue notes, singing slightly behind or ahead of the beat). The extent to which a song works with or against the standard pop-song form can also be an important part of its effect.

I think all of the following are genius:


















I could do the same with Latin music, 80s new wave, reggae, etc.

Jazz doesn't generally need defending to classical listeners because it offers a lot of the same things classical music does.

I got into pop music later than classical music, but I wouldn't want to be without all kinds of music now.


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

The OP asked: "So for some reason, I'm intensely fascinated that so many people find a lot of music fullfilling that, from my point of view, is missing so much of what makes Classical Music endlessly rewarding."

I find that interesting too. I am always half disbelieving when somebody who is obviously my intellectual, literary, artistic, scientific etc superior ... claims to have a passion for some rock musician and their music (as did an author I admire in an interview I just read.) 

Hand on heart, I was 15 the last time I was really enraptured by a pop song.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

When I was in Middle School-Highschool I was super incredible snobby about my love of Classical Music, not to other people's faces, just in my head. Any other genre I thought was completely worthless and I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. A lot of this had to do with the social dynamics of a grade school environment. I have always felt like an outsider and learned to adapt by telling myself that my loner status was a badge of honor I should feel proud of. 

I could almost have written violadude's exact words. I too had to learn to see the goodness in what my contemporaries naturally enjoyed. I grew up during the Beat era, and did find some of the popular folk-influenced music (Joan Baez, P,P&M, Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel) pleasant enough, if not very exciting. I remember being able to admire some of the early Beatles tunes ("Yesterday," "Eleanor Rigby"). But I had no use for real rock 'n' roll or its descendants, and was indifferent to most jazz except when my high school choir director, a jazz pianist, accompanied one of the senior girls at our concerts (she was a great singer, they had an affair, he was fired, and I lost the best music director I ever had). I discovered a lot of the popular music of my own generation when it was already decades old, by which time it was sort of "classical" in its own way, but I've never learned to like most of it. Jazz and some world music attracts me more, though I have very little in my collection.

My present relationship with non-classical music is cordial (the good stuff, I mean ), though I almost never listen to it. Much of it, certainly, is unsubtle and obvious and doesn't hold my interest for more than a few minutes, since I enjoy the intellectual side of music as much as the emotional. But I do recognize the richness and sophistication of jazz, and the direct, deeply felt nature of a lot of ethnic music is moving to me (for example, I love Portuguese _fado_ as sung by Amalia Rodriguez, and Hungarian gypsy music in small doses, as well as some traditional Scottish and Irish melodies and Appalachian folk tunes). Some Asian music fascinates me, and I like occasionally to enter a sound-world unlike western music's (Balinese gamelan, Japanese koto, Indian classical sitar and sarod). I even like a little "new age" stuff when I want to meditate rather than concentrate (Jon Serrie's space music is a trip). Still, none of this music is likely, especially at my stage of life, to mean as much to me as Western classical music.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> My present relationship with non-classical music is cordial, though I almost never listen to it. Much of it, certainly, is unsubtle and obvious and doesn't hold my interest for more than a few minutes, since I enjoy the intellectual side of music as much as the emotional. But I do recognize the richness and sophistication of jazz, and the direct, deeply felt nature of a lot of ethnic music is moving to me (for example, I love Portuguese _fado_ as sung by Amalia Rodriguez, and Hungarian gypsy music in small doses, as well as some traditional Scottish and Irish melodies and Appalachian folk tunes). Some Asian music fascinates me, and I like occasionally to enter a sound-world unlike western music's (Balinese gamelan, Japanese koto, Indian classical sitar and sarod). Still, none of this music is likely, especially at my stage of life, to mean as much to me as Western classical music.




I second to the above quote with the exception of fado, simply don't like it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

helenora said:


> I second to the above quote with the exception of fado, simply don't like it.


I only care about it when Amalia Rodriguez sings it. Extraordinary voice and soul.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I only care about it when Amalia Rodriguez sings it. Extraordinary voice and soul.


I see....with an accent on voice and personality, not a genre


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

helenora said:


> I see....with an accent on voice and personality, not a genre


Sometimes a certain artist can make attractive to us a kind of music we wouldn't ordinarily listen to. I find this true even in classical music. For example, I'm not a fan of the operas of Bellini and Donizetti. I don't dislike them, but wouldn't be motivated to listen to them without the persuasion of a great artist like Maria Callas, who can make their music seem positively profound. I think this may hold even truer with popular music and other genres.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I only care about it when Amalia Rodriguez sings it. Extraordinary voice and soul.


And Yma Súmac also :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Yma Sumac is one of a kind. I'd like to hear from Balalaikaboy what "fach" she fits into!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Yma Sumac is one of a kind. I'd like to hear from Balalaikaboy what "fach" she fits into!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

This damned forum has turned me into a classical fanatic. But I'm mainly a 20th century music listener. I've always had classical music in my collection, but never any operas or string quartets, or music of obscure composers. Now I have loads of this stuff, and I wish I could be violadude's age again because I'll be dead before I absorb all of this music.

I just follow my muse and enjoy the journey. It was progessive rock back in the 70s that got me listening to more accomplished, classically influenced musicians. I then got into jazz, which consumed me for a few decades listening to everything from Duke Ellington to Pat Metheny. But Frank Zappa is the musician that got me into modern orchestral music. Frank might have been a long haired rock star in the public's eye, but in reality he was a highly knowledgeable and serious composer/arranger who had a deep understanding and passion for not only blues and rock, but Stravinsky, Bartok, Webern, Varese, Boulez, Takemitsu, Ligeti, etc.. In fact, on his last major tour in 1988, his eleven piece band was playing Bartok's 3rd piano concerto, and Stravinsky's Royal March.

So nowadays my older ears don't yearn for a lot of loud rock music, so it seems like 70 percent classical and 25 percent jazz, and 5 percent rock, blues, acoustic guitar music.

As far as simplicity verses complexity in music is concerned, it's really a matter of inventiveness, and how it's put together. I've heard plenty of complex and simple music that bores me to tears. Some of this currently popular minimalst classical music doesn't do anything for me, but I can listen to some simple R&B like Booker T. and the MG's, and I don't get bored. I'm not sure what the magical ingredients are? And I'm astounded at the level of musicianship of the younger modern jazz players, but for my ears, much of it doesn't have that soulful feeling I'm looking for, so I go back to Monk, Bill Evans, and Horace Silver.


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## Fortinbras Armstrong (Dec 29, 2013)

I was brought up listening to a lot of different types of music. My mother is from Vienna and loves Mozart and the Younger Johann Strauss, she is also a fan of Broadway musicals. My father would listen to Verdi operas and Gilbert and Sullivan by the hour.

I used to be a good friend to an (alas) now deceased Catholic bishop who introduced me to ragtime, stride piano and boogy-woogy (in my mind's ear, I am hearing him playing "Scott Joplin's New Rag", which my wife and I agreed should have been played at his funeral) -- I think I own every CD Stephanie Trick has put out.

I like what Bob Seeger calls "That Old Time Rock and Roll", but a lot of rock leaves me cold. I don't like hiphop, and absolutely loathe heavy metal.

I listen to a lot of folk and even some country (_Tender Mercies_ is one of my favorite movies.)

I have a difficult relationship with jazz -- I tried for years to appreciate Miles Davis, but never could. If I never hear Sun Ra again, it will not break my heart. Hubert Laws, on the other hand, is a favorite of mine.

I am prepared to listen just about anything -- except, of course, the Second Vienna School.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Not exactly a blossoming one... Pop music I care little for, except I like classic rock especially from the 70s (Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Three Dog Night are my favorites). Anything made later than about 1990, I never have been able to stomach. Modern pop music tends to be excruciating for me to listen to. 
I LOVE jazz and ragtime though. I could spend all day playing Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton on the piano. I also love listening to Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong. Classical is easily my favorite genre, but jazz/ragtime is an easy second.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

My relationship with non-classical music is very healthy. I've found that listening to classical music, in addition to composing my own music, has in fact made me take a more analytical approach to listening to other kinds of music. In some cases this reveals hidden depth, in others it only serves to highlight a certain shallowness. This doesn't make me like or dislike the music necessarily ─ after all, Ramones is one of my favourite punk bands despite having little to offer in terms of depth or variety compared to bands like Rudimentary Peni or Minutemen ─ it just gives me more to think about than the immediate superficial qualities of what I'm hearing.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

What's your relationship with non-classical music like? _Violadude_, my relationship is quite satisfactory - which doesn't answer your question.

First off, I am a kick-back-and-listen guy. Complexity per se is of no interest to me, because I ain't analyzing. So...

Examining the difference(s) with my relationship with classical, one significance is that I am much more accepting of vocals. In folk music (old style) the vocal is the thing, instruments a useful but nonessential accompaniment. In bluegrass (old style), vocals and instrumental runs are of approximately equal importance. In jazz the instruments are usually more important to me than the vocals, with a few exceptions. The exceptions are for individual voices, so jazz is little different than classical that way.

Other forms of non-classical are of no interest to me.

[Cante flamenco often works for me, as folk music. Being ignorant of Spanish doesn't matter.]


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## Guest (Nov 29, 2015)

My roots are in non-classical music. But those roots are getting fewer nutrients every year...


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I discovered 2 rock bands that whacked me senseless about 4-5 years ago: Baba Zula and Rammstein.

The former, many will not have heard of. They are a psychedelic Anatolian Rock sensation. Now, 5 years on, I still like them and I love their sound, but it's kind of locked in it's ethnological trappings, so it ends up all sounding a lot the same.

The latter, you will almost certainly have heard of. I can't believe I didn't discover them until long after their apotheosis! They have everything I love in rock music: noise, metal, beats, lyrics, charisma, shock &c. It just all comes together... but, again, once one has absorbed their sound, the magic loses lustre and it all sounds the same.

I still like them both—and my old favourites, too!—but the music just doesn't have the depth to hold me in its thrall like classical does.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

My relationship to Non-classical music is quite healthy. I enjoy Jazz (mostly bebop and some swing and avant-garde like Coleman, Marion Brown), Reggae (mostly Rocksteady I grew up with), a little R&B here and there, and a nice Beatles CD a good friend of mine gave me a while (I love Eleanor Rigby). Another close friend of mine introduced me to some rock, like music from the Grateful Dead, when I was in college (some many twenty years ago) and I got to appreciate some of what I've heard. 

Classical is my bread and butter at the end of the day. But the Non-classical music mentioned above is very much a part of me also, and I am thankful for and proud of that.

Thank you for posting this thread.

:tiphat:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I like most music without any trouble, and I suppose I'll always find it odd that so many other listeners struggle with so much music in such melodramatic ways.

I have a great relationship with jazz, which I love about as much as I love classical music. In both genres, I consider myself more of a student than a judge: my job is not to evaluate anything, but to figure out why other people love this music so much. Anyway, IMO, great jazz has _many_ of the interesting characteristics of great classical music, although there are differences in values with the emphasis shifted from composer to performer. (IMFurtherO, bad jazz and bad classical music have a lot in common too....) I intend to get to know the music I have very well, and I hope to get to know a lot more too!

But with other genres, the values are just completely distinct. What makes a great blues song is a totally different set of things than what makes a great composition. It's not that blues is trying and failing to do what classical music does, or vice-versa; they are just different traditions with different values. Of course from the POV of the values of one tradition, the other tradition's music must appear inferior, but IMO it's _morally_ wrong to judge a tradition by the values of a different tradition. It's not the most serious sin out there, but it's a sin. It is, however, perfectly ok to find ourselves a part of one tradition and not another one. It's just that our attitude has to be more "live and let live" than "I'm better than you."

I've made some forays into "world music": on the traditional side, I like what I've heard very much and I intend to explore more of that as I find time and money, but the pop-fusion sort of things doesn't interest me as much. At some point I hope to spend a year or two really getting to know South Asia's traditional/classical music. And I just want to hear everything Nonesuch ever did. Someday I'll spend a lot of time with this. (I also don't think this should be a genre. It's a genre the way "non-western" is a culture. But WTH I'm stuck with these categories.)

The electronic music field would probably appeal to me as much as jazz and classical if I ever got into it. I've heard a few albums.... Maybe someday I'll get more into this too. I guess it'd be a big deal for me.

New Age music is a field of great temptation for me, and often great disappointment. I'm not even sure that this genre exists anymore, but John Diliberto's _Echoes_ was a big thing for me once upon a time. Someone here once said that the best "New Age" music gets reclassified as classical music, and there is quite a bit of truth to that. If I live long enough I might try to hear more of this.

I really enjoy the blues, just not enough to spend a lot more money getting into it right now. I'll probably continue to get a new album or two a year....

In hip hop and R&B I'm mostly just ignorant; I like a lot of what I have heard, but not so much that it's a high priority for me right now.

In country music, I really like Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Ralph Stanley, a bit of Waylon and Merle and George and lots of Willie, and even quite a bit of Garth. I don't care for much from about 1990, but I do like a bit of Garth. I don't think I'll be exploring this genre much more than I already have.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I don't badmouth non-CM behind its back and it doesn't badmouth me behind mine. We respectfully and nervously nod to each other when we pass by in the street. Not a very good relationship, I'm afraid, and I don't feel any need to make it better.


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

Well, my relationship with Classical music derives from the one with Non-Classical.
In fact, my first conscious exploration of music began in my teenage year with alternative rocks. That was the starting point that led me very fastly away from all kinds of mainstream music and even classic rock (which I now mostly avoid), towards all kinds of contaminations with other styles. I spent my college years listening voraciously to a lot of different genres within the "rock" domain (psychedelic, industrial, waves, post-punk, noise, shoegaze, post-rock, sadcore, lo-fi etc), and eventually started exploring other "domains" such as electronica and jazz. As it turns out, I was never attracted (with a few exceptions) to metal, rap and world music. 
However, my exploration of these genres quickly embraced a "historic" approach, which inevitably led me to wonder: what was there _before_?
And that's where it all began.

So I guess my relationship has been healthy and fruitful.
And it still is, even though I now find myself resorting to "conservative listening" in the Non-Classical realm (i.e. I mostly listen to things I already know) while my spirit of research and exploration is now focused on the Classical realm.


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## Gouldanian (Nov 19, 2015)

I like techno and Jazz... And if forced to listen to pop I go for the 80's and 90's stuff. Is that a weird mix?

Oh and I hate rock...


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Gouldanian said:


> I like techno and Jazz... And if forced to listen to pop I go for the 80's and 90's stuff. Is that a weird mix?
> 
> Oh and I hate rock...


No Alannah Myles for you then, eh?


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## Gouldanian (Nov 19, 2015)

Morimur said:


> No Alannah Myles for you then, eh?


Just because she's Canadian? No.

Unfortunately for me I guess...


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Gouldanian said:


> Just because she's Canadian? No.
> 
> Unfortunately for me I guess...


No Rita MacNeil (RIP)? She was da shiznick.


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## Gouldanian (Nov 19, 2015)

Morimur said:


> No Rita MacNeil (RIP)? She was da shiznick.


Ha! No.

Based on looks, I would have been a fan of Shania Twain.

Based on talent... GG, Marc-André Hamelin and Bryan Adams (yes you read correctly).

If you dare mention Celine Dion I will vomit.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Gouldanian said:


> Ha! No.
> 
> Based on looks, I would have been a fan of Shania Twain.
> 
> ...


Yeah, not a fan of the Québécois Vulture either.


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## Gouldanian (Nov 19, 2015)

Morimur said:


> Yeah, not a fan of the Québécois Vulture either.


Thank goodness. Her music is for the Walmart ladies... (no offence to Walmart).

Now tell me, Sir, should I correctly infer from your in depth knowledge of Canadian folk and pop music as well as your use of the e-acute (é) that you're a fellow Canuck?


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Gouldanian said:


> Thank goodness. Her music is for the Walmart ladies... (no offence to Walmart).
> 
> Now tell me, Sir, should I correctly infer from your in depth knowledge of Canadian folk and pop music as well as your use of the e-acute (é) that you're a fellow Canuck?


Sure am. Living in the ol' USA now but if this place gets any crazier, I am going back home. After three years here I've suddenly started to miss Toronto.


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## Gouldanian (Nov 19, 2015)

Morimur said:


> Sure am. Living in the ol' USA now but if this place gets any crazier, I am going back home. After three years here I've suddenly started to miss Toronto.


I've always resisted _moving_ to the U.S. (love visiting though). There's nothing like home...


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

I've been listening to mostly non-classical for months. Jazz, Art Rock, Experimental Electronic... They all fill a peculiar itch. But that is what's cool, you see - they can't fill the place of Classical, but neither can Classical fill their place. And I have a big enough space to enjoy all these places.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

I'd love to answer at length, but having just been sampling the Billboard Hot 100 I can't trust myself to keep within the Terms of Service.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

Non-classical music has so many good qualities that I am baffled that this is even a question. A few things I like about it are the different instrumentation options (guitar, drums, keyboards, and fiddle are all used in classical, too, but to much different effect), brevity (2-5 minutes and get out), lyrics that are fun to sing and/or true to life, and the voices of various singers.

Science: Since you like Merle Haggard, try out some Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, Brad Paisley, or Vince Gill. They each have some similarities in their sound and songwriting to him.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

In non-classical, I really like classic 70s rock, there were excellent musicians there - Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin, etc. - also blues, I really enjoy B. B. King. Folk music (for eg. Celtic, Russian, etc.) and jazz are also music forms I like. In pop, I 'listen' to it probably only through the prism of 70s rock. I don't listen to any hip hop right now. I like some metal once in a while too. That's basically it .


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

bharbeke said:


> Non-classical music has so many good qualities that I am baffled that this is even a question. A few things I like about it are the different instrumentation options (guitar, drums, keyboards, and fiddle are all used in classical, too, but to much different effect), brevity (2-5 minutes and get out), lyrics that are fun to sing and/or true to life, and the voices of various singers.
> 
> Science: Since you like Merle Haggard, try out some Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, Brad Paisley, or Vince Gill. They each have some similarities in their sound and songwriting to him.


Yeah the one thing in which Non Classical beats Classical by a country mile for me is vocals.

I am one of those who cannot get to like Opera or vocal music in general mostly because of the singing style. 
I find it so terribly inexpressive as compared to the non classical singing.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

To respond to the OP.

All the musical genres I listen to regularly, push similar 'buttons' for me. Not any particular order: musicianship, complexity, depth, emotion, beauty, long forms are what I look for in music. I also love music that is somewhat of a challenge. Not all of these are needed at all times in every piece. 

Classical (almost exclusively 20th century and contemporary), progressive music (prog-rock, avant-prog, prog-metal, technical-metal), jazz (avantegard, fusion, jazz-metal, ECM style "chamber jazz") are pretty much all that I listen to. And they all have the above listed attributes at varying degrees. 

I have tried other forms of music: pop, rock, rap, country, blues etc and I am completely uninterested in what I hear. I am bored by the "verse, bridge, chorus" format which almost all these use.

There is some world music that I've heard that I find pretty interesting, and I may explore it some day. But for now, discovering new classical composers and pieces, new prog and new jazz is more than enough to keep me busy and happy.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

violadude,

Your journey is similar to mine.

I have very few non-classical recording in my collection.

Performing in the various groups I am involved with satisfies my appetite for non-classical music. About 40% of the music I perform is non-classical.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

Xaltotun said:


> I don't badmouth non-CM behind its back and it doesn't badmouth me behind mine. We respectfully and nervously nod to each other when we pass by in the street. Not a very good relationship, I'm afraid, and I don't feel any need to make it better.


Oh dear. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but non-CM is really quite negative about you. You never call, you never text, you never email.... Non-CM is starting to say some quite rude things about you....


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I listen to a lot of non-WCM music and my relationship with it is exactly the same. It's a frustrating fact of my personality that I tend to focus exclusively on music whose impact with regards to pleasure is extreme, so I end up ignoring most of the given genre or tradition and become something of a disrespectful musical parasite. Sometimes I wonder why I'm on TC when a lot of the standard repertoire and music by otherwise important and often-discussed composers just doesn't reach me at all.

Now editing this post, I realize the reason for this is because I used to be very dedicated to writing music and wanted my music to have an extreme beauty and inescapable impact, so it made very little sense to absorb the qualities of music that didn't strike me as being high-octane enough. Since I stopped composing, the manner of listening has largely maintained itself but I think I'm getting better at being a more appreciative listener.


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## worov (Oct 12, 2012)

Crossover music is good too. Listen to musicians which mix classical with popular music. For instance, this recording is a jazzy version of Spanish classical repertoire :






Ever heard of Emerson, Lake and Palmer? It's progressive rock band. They have used extensively classical pieces in their work : Bartók, Bach, Copland, Gershwin, Mussorgsky. Here's their album : Pictures at the Exhibition :






If you enjoy rock, check out the work of Frank Zappa too.

Check out the Latino American composers if you haven't yet. Folk music is very strong influence in their pieces. Actually folk music and classical music has always been linked. The classical composers very often borrowed from folklore (look at Brahms' Hungarian Rhapsodies).

Villa-Lobos :






Ginastera :






Revueltas :






Leonard Bernstein has often used crossover in his compositions. Listen to his Mass : it includes the classical liturgy but also blues, rock, dodecaphonic stuff, street musicians, it's got it all.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

I try to be faithful to classical music. It takes care of the housework, pays the bills, and supports me emotionally. But every now and again I'll spend the night with the Rolling Stones on a dirty vacation in Vegas. I feel guilty, but I can't help myself.


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## worov (Oct 12, 2012)

Blancrocher said:


> I try to be faithful to classical music. It takes care of the housework, pays the bills, and supports me emotionally. But every now and again I'll spend the night with the Rolling Stones on a dirty vacation in Vegas. I feel guilty, but I can't help myself.


Why feel guilty ? There's nothing wrong with that. Leonard Bernstein loves pop and rock music as he demonstrates in this video. I'm sure he's not ashamed of it.






If you love it, there's nothing to be ashamed of, because it's good music.

Another great musician, Duke Ellington once said : "There are two kinds of music : the good music and the bad music".


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

worov said:


> Ever heard of Emerson, Lake and Palmer? It's progressive rock band.


Who?
The band that has sold over 30 million records?
No, never heard.
Man, try with less obscure artists please...


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

worov said:


> Check out the Latino American composers if you haven't yet. Folk music is very strong influence in their pieces. Actually folk music and classical music has always been linked. The classical composers very often borrowed from folklore (look at Brahms' Hungarian Rhapsodies).


We have a whole thread about this now


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I just moved my non-classical into another room :lol: to make more space for classical in the living room.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

worov said:


> Why feel guilty ? There's nothing wrong with that. Leonard Bernstein loves pop and rock music as he demonstrate in this video. I'm sure he's not ashamed of it.


As I recall, Lenny later disavowed his short-lived interest in Rock. I could tell (psychic ability!) that he was trying to hop on a new bandwagon during his period of initial perceived enthusiasm for the music, but the love really wasn't there and he was easily talked out of it by his high-falutin' composer friends.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I grew up listening to both classical and popular music styles. When I started choosing for myself I stuck more towards the latter, until my early-20s when I really spent some time listening to pieces and was blown away. There was still always a balance, though the scales tipped towards classical music (and especially opera) around five years ago, coinciding with a move to NYC and buttressed by the rise in availability of streaming music.

I agree with what several other posters have said, in that different forms of music have different things to listen for, aspects to appreciate, and so on.

I listened to a good deal of electronic music for a while but that has faded. I got into progressive metal and progressive rock for a while, but that has faded, in part because it seems wanting in comparison to classical styles. I explored many other different shades of metal - doom, black, melodic death - but I don't listen as much as I'd like because it's so different from most of the rest of what I listen to and I rarely think to have an extended period of listening to metal.

By comparison though free jazz is also well out there I more frequently choose to listen to Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman, and so on. I listen to a good deal of jazz, funk, soul, r&b, hip hop, Broadway, pop, country, and blues, but all of these are dwarfed by more rock-based music (though it of course often has influences from previously mentioned genres).

I probably listen to classical music about two-thirds of the time. I probably attend slightly more operas and other live classical music concerts than I do more rock-based concerts (which has been a huge shift).

And, of course, I should clarify that by "classical music" I mean everything from Ambrosian chant from over one thousand years ago to recently composed pieces in a wide variety of styles, from solo instrumental pieces to grand opera. I'd bet music from the actual Classical Era accounts for a small portion of my listening time.


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## PJaye (May 22, 2015)

My brother and I were avid record collectors, so I guess as a kid, music became a sort of way of knowing the wider world for me, and a way to kick back at home after school. You just stumble onto stuff at garage sales that’s cheap enough to take a chance on and you’re off all over the place. I was attracted to the obscure and unusual much of the time (For a kid anyway) I think now it was sort of a precursor to my love of history that I would find later, though it was an experience of discovery utterly unique in its own way as well. I had so many obsessive phases – Rock/metal: lots of stuff, Folk/country music: Carter Family, Woody Guthrie, Bill Monroe, Simon & Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, and so on. Blues: Charlie Patton, Lightnin Hopkins, Skip James, Jazz: Thelonious Monk, Vince Guaraldi, and other popular stuff like Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, Rickie Lee Jones, Joni Mitchell. And then of course there was classical. I remember being mostly into Mozart, Chopin and a few others at the time. Now I do tend to listen mostly to classical, but I have a pretty steady ongoing thing with Simon & Garfunkel/Paul Simon, Gordon Lightfoot, Loreena Mckennitt, and Richard Thompson, to get by on. It felt good to go over that stuff actually. “Old Friends” to quote Paul Simon.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

It's the same as it is with Classical music. I listen to what I like and I don't listen to what I don't. Simple!


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

LOVE it.

In your case you're probably underwhelmed because other types of music are not as complex and don't stimulate you the way CM does as you approach it analytically. Often times I have to stop listening to CM fr a few days to fully be able to appreciate pop otherwise you're always in danger to get bored.

Seems like this issue is particularly pervasive among kids who were raised on a steady diet of Classical music. Anyway, I tend to switch things up when they get boring as I listen to a lot of different genres. CM is not a 24/7 focus for me, so I guess my mind is "empty" enough and my musical tastes wide enough to keep myself somewhat engaged at least.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

My relationship with most non-classical music is normally tepid at best. It is lukewarm, with an abstruse, musky bouquet. Not altogether bad but not anything to write home about, either.


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2015)

brotagonist said:


> Now, 5 years on, I still like them and I love their sound, but it's kind of locked in it's ethnological trappings, so *it ends up all sounding a lot the same.*
> 
> The latter, you will almost certainly have heard of. I can't believe I didn't discover them until long after their apotheosis! They have everything I love in rock music: noise, metal, beats, lyrics, charisma, shock &c. It just all comes together... *but, again, once one has absorbed their sound, the magic loses lustre and it all sounds the same.*
> 
> *I still like them both-and my old favourites, too!-but the music just doesn't have the depth to hold me in its thrall *like classical does*.*


I think in my case, I'm finding this to be true of both classical and non-classical. It matters not whose music I'm listening to, once I've sucked it dry, I cast it aside. I return to the music of The Beatles periodically and the lustre can be revived - so that's a relationship that has lasted since I was 6 and I'm now 56. I'm sure I will return to the music of Sibelius too, but that relationship is unlikely to last as long!


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I can't say that I have worn out any classical yet. The composers I discovered in my late teens and early twenties are still going strong, as are the biggest of the big name composers. I haven't been able to "suck it dry." I just don't have a musician's memory: I simply cannot keep a whole piece in my brain, so there's always more for me to hear, while I generally digest non-classical music very easily. Often, just the first note of a well-known song and I immediately know the whole thing. I cannot do that with classical.


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## schaitelh (10 d ago)

Though I routinely listen to classical music (it's my #1 choice), I also enjoy jazz piano and/or orchestra (including a lot of instrumentals for songs that are decades old), gospel (more or less Gloria Gaither style), and Windham Hill Records-type music (newer Will Ackerman, Brian Crain, Masako, etc.), and some bluegrass. (I do not care for the electric guitar, though. I am autistic and I personally do not find it very soothing.) Check out Chick Corea's Piano Concerto No. 1 (of which the 3rd part is my favorite) if you're interested in something less classical and more contemporary.


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## schaitelh (10 d ago)

This is one of my favorite songs right now that's not classical:


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## AaronSF (Sep 5, 2021)

I rarely listen to popular or folk music or jazz any more. On reflection I realize I've listened to a lot more non-classical music than I thought.

I'll admit I liked the Beatles, some of the Stones, some Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, and later Fleetwood Mac, U2, REM, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel. Elton John and Billy Joel (Mr. Piano Man) wrote many good tunes, but I can hardly stand their piano playing (bang, bang, bang). 

I don't get Taylor Swift at all...most of her songs use only 5 notes and her voice is ephemeral (i.e., weak), but then I'm not her audience! Her music sounds like dumbed down minimalist stuff to me. I think maybe it's more about lyrics for Swift.

I've never really liked rap, though sometimes I like the rap attitude (Lizzo comes to mind). I've also never been a fan of "divas" like Judy Garland (her stage presence scared me), Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Cher, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Britney Spears, et al. I don't get Beyoncé at all. 

Jazz also eludes me, though there are a lot of great jazz pianists like Evans, Hancock, Brubeck, Tatum, Peterson, Corea, Monk, Jarrett. I admire their abilities tremendously even though the music often leaves me cold. Jazz singers are a different story; I love me some Billie Holiday, Ella, Sarah Vaughn, Mel Tormé, Nat King Cole...but not Sinatra, don't quite know why.

Oh, and I really don't like country music. I like Willy Nelson and Dolly Parton as personalities, but country doesn't speak my musical language at all. ...Though I make an exception for Patsy Cline who inhabited the songs she sang like Fischer-Dieskau did Schubert. Go figure!

Still, given a choice, I'll always choose to listen to classical.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Reviving an oldie here!

Classical was my first love in music, and that has remained since the time I when I was teenager in the 1980s buying LPs from CBS and RCA budget lines until now at age 54 with a 2000+ CD collection. My tastes in classical run the full spectrum. In my youth and young adulthood my favorite was Beethoven for the heroism. Around age forty when a middle-aged man starts to think existential thoughts, I liked Bach for the religion and spirituality. Now in my fifties, I've come to enjoy Mozart just for the seamless sense of craftsmanship. 

During my college years and until my early thirties I went through a very pronounced jazz stage that came to rival my interest in classical. It was a good time for that to happen because being the late 1980s and 1990s, I chanced to see some of the great old jazz legends in concert: Lionel Hampton, The Modern Jazz Quartet, David Brubeck, Chick Corea, Ray Charles, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Sun Ra, and others. After accumulating about 500 jazz LPs and CDs, I've long since deemed my jazz collection more-or-less complete.

In very recent years my musical sensibilities have turned somewhat to the country genre which is surprising as one would think that Nashville and Carnegie Hall just don't seem to go together very well. I don't have that many country CDs because now I just download most of the music on my Amazon music account for about $8 a month. While I know I missed out on seeing most of the classic country stars such as Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride in concert; I did recently get to see Willie Nelson (age 89!) at a local "Outlaw Country Festival"; and while it was fun, it was not your classical music wine-and-cheese crowd, for sure! I think I like country because every song tells a story. There's a lot of passion in the lyrics, and it's all about the human condition, and the heart of it seems very sincere to me. 

A parallel relationship may also exist between Jazz and Country because both are very "American" art forms that come from the ground up, invented by way of the anonymous masses, originating from beer-joint and night clubs, and both with a strong basis in Baptist and Pentecostal church meetings and in Gospel music. Not like classical, which is based more on a hierarchy, coming from the patronage of nobility and royals; and the European church models which are more hierarchical as opposed to congregational. 

Along this line, I also have a deep affection for our own American classical composers which except for Ives, Gershwin, Copland, Barber, Bernstein, and Glass; can't really compare to the European counterparts. Even so, there are dozens of American composers such as Edward MacDowell, Amy Beach, Florence Price, William Grant Still, Ulysses Kay, Walter Piston, William Schuman, Roy Harris, Roger Sessions, Randall Thompson, Virgil Thomson, Adolphus Hailstork, Ellen Taaffe Zwillich, Lou Harrison, Alan Hovhaness, John Cage, and Elliot Carter (to name just a few) who have tried in many different ways to say something new and interesting.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

schaitelh said:


> Though I routinely listen to classical music (it's my #1 choice), I also enjoy jazz piano and/or orchestra (including a lot of instrumentals for songs that are decades old), gospel (more or less Gloria Gaither style), and Windham Hill Records-type music (newer Will Ackerman, Brian Crain, Masako, etc.), and some bluegrass. (I do not care for the electric guitar, though. I am autistic and I personally do not find it very soothing.) Check out Chick Corea's Piano Concerto No. 1 (of which the 3rd part is my favorite) if you're interested in something less classical and more contemporary.



Me too, I love some variety and for sure I will check out that concerto, welcome by the way to the forum.


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

Can't even think of the last time I played a cd.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

What is my relationship with non-classical music? Well, right now, it's pretty much non-existent.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Mostly indifference. I occasionally listen to some jazz, folk, world/ethnic, even less to 1920s-1960 popular music but I deeply care almost only about classical music and it's >95% or my listening and collection. I actively dislike quite a bit of the popular music blasting from cars or in public places like some malls, stores etc.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

The things I am drawn to in music are (no particular order):

Very high levels of musicianship, deep and broad emotional, artistic and intellectual content, complexity, avoidance of verse>chorus>bridge>repeat song structure, avoidance of a 'hook'.

Once the above criteria* are met, I am somewhat agnostic as to the 'style' of music with the above criteria.

Therefore, the types of music that meet most or all of the above criteria most consistently, are:

Jazz - post bop, fusion, chamber jazz, M-Base, avant-garde.
Prog - Canterbury, avant-prog (sometimes known as Rock in Opposition), Zeuhl, prog-metal, classic prog.
Classical - atonal, serial, avant-garde, spectralism, contemporary, new complexity.

I would say, on average, I listen to about: 35% classical, 35% prog, 30% jazz.

*It's not as if I made a conscious decision to only like music with those parameters. I just found as time went on, I found myself listening to less and less music that has those attributes.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I grew up in a musical household with my dad playing drums to rock radio (most everything/anything from the 70s to 90s) and my mom playing piano and listening to pop and R&B. I listened to quite a variety of music growing up, but I only discovered classical in my teens when I got access to the internet and began discussing music with people with much broader experiences. From that I also discovered jazz, folk, metal, experimental/avant-garde/alternative, prog, etc., and many years later I came back around to pop music as well. I never felt a compulsion to limit myself to one genre; rather, I simply explore whatever is striking my fancy at the time, and if I get bored with it I will explore something else. I still regularly switch between classical, rock/metal, jazz, prog, and pop, with other genres making occasional guest appearances. I've yet to really explore country or hip-hop/rap, mostly because most of what I heard hasn't intrigued me enough to explore further, but it's certainly possible it will in the future. I also find myself consistently intrigued by electronic music, especially with artists like Bjork and Brian Eno. 

I'm very much of the opinion that different genres focus on different aspects of music and that it's pointless trying to pit them against each other. I appreciate the improvisational, "conversational" aspect of jazz; the complex harmonic and formal/structural approach of classical; the lyrical "storytelling" aspect of folk; the sheer energy of much rock and metal; the catchy hooks/melodies and "genre blender" nature of pop. I can also appreciate virtuosity and craftsmanship in any of these genres. My listening is probably split something like 25% jazz, 40% classical, and 35% everything else, but it's really hard to measure. I simply go through periods (sometimes weeks, sometimes months) where I only listen to one of them, but I always find myself wishing for a change eventually, and that helps keep things fresh.


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## Viajero (1 mo ago)

As a Classical Guitar performer, I live in two worlds: Classical and Jazz/Bossa. I listen to each genre equally. My focus in Classical is 19th/early 20th Century Romantic and Spanish-Latin Composers. In Jazz/Bossa: early Coltrane/Miles, Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons, Chet Baker, Jack McDuff, Monk, Johnny Griffin, etc. . . . then, Gilberto, Jobim, Eliane Elias, Baden Powell, Yamandu Costa, Rosa Passos to name a few. I feel like a man with two lovers . . . not that there's anything wrong with that . . . 
Viajero


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

So, this video is pretty instructive for me, and why I don't like basically any currently produced pop music:






I'm sure there is just some basic age-induced ossification of my opinions with respect to rock, pop, EDM, etc. (rap can fall off the face of the earth for all I care) I have music from my teens and twenties on my music player, and I do still on occasion buy a new album from one of my old standbys (e.g. Coldplay, Adele, Lady Gaga). But at least 80% of my listening is classical music, a significant chunk of the rest is jazz, and then the rest is nostalgic pop/rock from my adolescence. I just don't want to listen to people "saying" things all that much any more. I want music to help me escape the doldrums of this world into a feeling of beauty and truth. Classical does that for me. And, since I didn't do a huge deep dive into it until 2018 (despite enjoying it casually prior to that time), there is so much new-to-me music to explore.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

I like lots of non-classical music. From jazz to pop, rockabilly, blues, world music, folk.. etc. I can't see any reason for restricting myself to only classical even if it is a large part of my listening. I also have phases when jazz might sit on the turntable more than classical or or even something else.

Classical superfans seem weird to me.I don't know what they're trying to prove.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Cyclical. There are weeks where I listen to nothing but classical music, and weeks where I just listen to electronic dance, or certain rock genres, or hip-hop et al. Not sure how it happens this way, I just get in moods.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Chat Noir said:


> I like lots of non-classical music. From jazz to pop, rockabilly, blues, world music, folk.. etc. I can't see any reason for restricting myself to only classical even if it is a large part of my listening. I also have phases when jazz might sit on the turntable more than classical or or even something else.
> 
> Classical superfans seem weird to me.I don't know what they're trying to prove.


I am what you would probably call a "classical superfan" as 95% of my listening is to classical music. 

I am not trying to "prove" anything. I just listen to the music I like/love...and the the music I like/love, overwhelmingly, is classical.

Do you listen to music you don't like?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Haydn70 said:


> Do you listen to music you don't like?


That's loaded question. Number one, it has nothing to do with genre. There is some classical and popular music I don't care for. The other aspect is that I don't always like something at first and it may take a couple more listens or a couple more years for a piece of music to click with my brain and ears. For about 30 years I thought I didn't like opera, and Renaissance music, but after taking the time to listen, I now enjoy both.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

They are not trying to prove anything. There is some merit in having broad tastes and an "open mind" but this only goes so far. (Because on the other hand there is also an inability to distinguish, a liking everything that would be close to actual indifference.) I am pretty sure that for almost everyone there is some music/art/literature/etc. he ignores or does not like (and not only stuff one has never heard of for practical reasons). And usually people don't feel they have to defend that they never heard or don't like Persian classical music or Swiss Alphorns or German Rap or whatever.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

myself, I started playing in the big city rock clubs downtown in Houston when I was 14. By 16 I was playing jazz and sitting in with the old guys around town. When I was in my 20s, I was paying rent by playing gigs. Since I didn't want to have to turn down any kind of paying gig, I learned to play alot of styles and also learned some doubles, which are other instruments besides your main axe. For example, I played alot of rock and blues gigs as a bass player, too.

The main "genres" I have personal relationships with outside of classical music are jazz, blues, rock, and folk music

with rock and roll and popular dance genres....I prefer to play bass in these styles, but when the opportunity is there, I'll play solid body electric guitar. I do not practice or work on rock and roll. There's no real need to and I'm not looking to get into any band right now, so I just play rock at jam sessions. This is just "funsy" stuff for me. I dont work on it, so I must not take it that seriously. I'm just having fun with the boys

The blues....I used to play with a real blues man names Tom "Pops" Carter. Me and Pops were pretty close, and now that he's gone, when I play the blues, I play the way that we did with Pops. I'm from Texas and play an authentic Texas guitar style, so wherever I go, I feel that I am an authentic Texas blues player. This style is my roots. Before jazz and before I was playing classical music, it was Lightning Hopkins, Muddy Waters and Elmore James that I drew my style from as a kid.

jazz....this is the music that saved my life. I was around alot of drugs when I was a young kid playing in clubs downtown, but I knew I was doing wrong when I was too strung out to play jazz. Sad, but true. Face it, its hard to spell a D flat minor 9th chord when you're hopped up on goofballs. This is the music that inspired me when I was a young man to be a performing musician. These days, my feeling toward jazz is a little more muted. People dont really listen to jazz anymore, and the old generation that I learned the style from are all gone. I dont really like playing jazz with young musicians anymore. They all sound the same to me. I still get together with the bass player from my old trio, though, but I'm not as "on fire" for jazz as I was when I was younger.

folk music ....I'm from Texas and I can flat pick a cowboy guitar like nobody's business. So I can play bluegrass, but my favorite is what they call Old Time. I used to go play with some Mennonite friends that didn't have electricity. Sitting on the back porch playing and watching the children dance barefoot in the yard at a real old fashioned hootenanny is pretty cool. If you haven't done it, I do recommend it. But its Irish music and particularly Irish fiddle that is really close to my heart. I learned the deedly music from my old Irish grandma. I play those tunes just for myself


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Kreisler jr said:


> They are not trying to prove anything. There is some merit in having broad tastes and an "open mind" but this only goes so far. (Because on the other hand there is also an inability to distinguish, a liking everything that would be close to actual indifference.) I am pretty sure that for almost everyone there is some music/art/literature/etc. he ignores or does not like (and not only stuff one has never heard of for practical reasons). And usually people don't feel they have to defend that they never heard or don't like Persian classical music or Swiss Alphorns or German Rap or whatever.


You wrote: “There is some merit in having broad tastes and an ‘open mind’...”

I will have to respectfully disagree.

I have been involved with music for 56 years, with classical music for 50 years.

Ranging over almost five decades I have had hundreds of discussions regarding classical music versus popular music, “open-minded” versus “closed-minded”, musical egalitarianism versus musical elitism, etc., etc., etc.

I can’t tell you how many people have admitted to me they felt/feel an obligation to like music which they don’t really like. They couldn’t/can’t bear the thought that they could be considered close-minded. Being “close-minded” is, of course, a cardinal sin against the prevailing political/cultural mores.

For someone to claim and aspire to have broad tastes and being “open minded” simply for the sake of being perceived in those ways and so they can feel themselves virtuous, versus ACTUALLY LIKING what they listen to, is ridiculous. They may eventually give up trying to convince themselves they like it but take a very long time to do so.

As for the definition of being “open-minded” I will address in the context of being “open-minded” to various styles of music, i.e., classical, jazz, rock, etc.

My idea of being open-minded musically is I am open to LISTENING to a piece of music or a song that a friend or acquaintance or even a TCer might suggest. But after I listen, I feel absolutely NO OBLIGATION to:


Like it
Respect it
Pretend/state that I like/respect it so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings and appear “open-minded”
Refrain from criticizing it and saying exactly what I think of it, no matter how negatively my criticisms might be perceived. If I think it is a piece of junk, I will say so.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

@Haydn70. I mostly agree with you. Note my sentence in brackets. I agree that there is social pressure for an (often shallow or dishonest) kind of "openmindedness". But I think there is also real parochialism and closemindedness, even if this is more often used as strawman.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Kreisler jr said:


> @Haydn70. I mostly agree with you. Note my sentence in brackets. I agree that there is social pressure for an (often shallow or dishonest) kind of "openmindedness". But I think there is also real parochialism and closemindedness, even if this is more often used as strawman.


I respect and appreciate this response.

My question is this, and I do not ask it in a confrontational manner: can you give me an example (let's say in the context of this classical v. non-classical music discussion) an example of what you consider close-mindedness?


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

It's funny, but I've noticed that alot of you are talking about listening to music.

I wrote what I did from the perspective of playing the music. As a musician, there are genres and even individual tunes that you have a relationship with because you play them through many years of your life. Its different. I'll listen to anything. Honestly.... even Mongolian Folk Metal. But what will I actually spend time working on? that's a different matter


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Haydn70 said:


> My question is this, and I do not ask it in a confrontational manner: can you give me an example (let's say in the context of this classical v. non-classical music discussion) an example of what you consider close-mindedness?


I am not going through this whole forum for examples but I know people (virtually) in other fora that have a very narrow taste even within classical music and while they respect a lot of the remaining classical music, they e.g. detest a lot of "modern" music (or others who don't care for anything older than Mozart and think "early music" is a fad). They can also be similarly parochial about the "best" or correct way to e.g. play Mozart. Sometimes they entertain conspiracy theories about modernist and controversial stagings trying to destroy CM and the remnants of the bourgeois etc.) They are usually quite old (around 70 or older) and rare nowadays but they do exist.

I agree that today (and probably more in the anglophone world and even more in the internet) the opposite case of both, broadly speaking "reverse snobbery" (i.e constant charge of "elitism" and harping that "classical is just another genre, nothing special" and who dares to disagree is an "elitist" who mainly wants to appear distinguished or even has some exclusionary agenda) and demonstrative "openness" and broadness of taste (including for "campy" stuff) is more frequently encountered.

What puzzles me is that often the same people who strongly deny that there is anything more in aesthetic appreciation than personal preference are so concerned about these personal preferences not being "narrow". If it was irreducible subjective preferences, it would obviously be as futile to convince someone to have different preferences as it would be to get me to like Brussels sprouts.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Kreisler jr said:


> What puzzles me is that often the same people who strongly deny that there is anything more in aesthetic appreciation than personal preference are so concerned about these personal preferences not being "narrow". If it was irreducible subjective preferences, it would obviously be as futile to convince someone to have different preferences as it would be to get me to like Brussels sprouts.


I wouldn't say there's nothing more to aesthetic appreciation than personal preferences (I'm not even convinced most "personal preferences" are all that personal in nature or origin), but even if there was I don't think it would be futile to try to get others to change their preferences. Personal preferences aren't immutable. Maybe the attempt to get people to change (or at least broaden their tastes) isn't always successful, but I'd wager most people have had their personal preferences changed in some way over the course of their life. I grew up hating opera, but came to love it once I finally decided to sit down and give it a fair chance.


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## Viajero (1 mo ago)

A brief comment: I respond to stimuli that are pleasurable. Life is short. 
Viajero


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

Haydn70 said:


> I am what you would probably call a "classical superfan" as 95% of my listening is to classical music.
> 
> I am not trying to "prove" anything. I just listen to the music I like/love...and the the music I like/love, overwhelmingly, is classical.
> 
> Do you listen to music you don't like?


I don't think 95% of classical listening necessarily qualifies you as a 'superfan'. The people I referenced are those who hammer the point that they can't live without classical music, that it is vastly superior to any other genre, that this fandom has to be made known...etc. There is a sense of having something to prove and quite often it is a notion of greater intellectual/emotional/moral capacity.

I don't listen to music I don't like. I don;t really understand the point of that question.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

First of all: like most people, I have grown up in a culture where there is lots of different kind of music. Not all of it is classical. So it is inevitable that I have always had a connection with music other than classical and I still do. We are surrounded by such music.

Secondly: despite playing classical piano and singing in choirs from an early age, as a teenager I was mostly interested in artistic rock and progressive rock. Only when getting closer to adulthood did I really get into and fall in love with classical music.

For the past 20+ years I have been keeping both progressive rock and other "artistic" music as my second favourite genres, right beside classical music.

It is only recently that I have really admitted to myself that western classical concert music is the dearest genre to me and that I also want to compose only western art music. The genre just gives me the most. For me it has the greatest width, height, depth and weight. For me as a composer it allows the greatest freedom imaginable.

Still the values I hold the highest in music are not limited to classical music. Great music is not limited to some genre. How could it? There is so much in common, too, between the genres!

Still I listen to rock and prog when I am at the gym or clean the house. Still I listen to atmospherical classics from the 70´s. Still I go to the occasional jazz or folk gig. Still I listen to whatever interesting music my better half has found from around the world.

The only genres I subjectively dislike are Opera Buffa, rap, R&B and death metal/speed metal/prog metal (with the unending takataka from the drums, mixed to the very surface).


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

One of these days I will get into song cycles/lieder. That's my classical genre bete noir.


e) unless you count like, Kurt Weill, whom I love


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

I'll answer the OP's question in this way:
I'm divorced - but still meet up for the odd illicit weekend which gives me a lot of pleasure.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

violadude said:


> *What's your relationship with non-classical music like?*


Tepid. 

I had no exposures to classical music in childhood, teen years or most my adult life. 
I always made an effort but looking back, just buying a classical album here and there is not what it takes to understand and love classical. That only works in pop/rock/stage music. 

I was always the greatest music fan from toddler till now it's just that other music now sounds hollow and trite by comparison.

So, although my current relationship with non-classical is tepid, pervious to discovering classical, I was as totally stepped in non-classical as I am in classical today.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Malx said:


> I'll answer the OP's question in this way:
> I'm divorced - but still meet up for the odd illicit weekend which gives me a lot of pleasure.


Gee, I could have posted the same just not as colorfully.


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