# A nice new challenge



## Guest (Jun 23, 2013)

Having for years watched conversations go for dozens if not hundreds of posts without anyone ever naming anything specific, I have a nice new challenge for anyone who has ever engaged in a conversation about music:

Next time you find yourself saying or even just thinking "I hate [broad category]" or "I hate [vague category]" do everyone including you a huge favor and make yourself a little list.

That's right. A useful list! There is such a thing.

Make yourself a list of all the particular pieces you have heard that (you think) fit into the broad or vague category. Then ask yourself, are these pieces enough for me to have drawn a valid conclusion? Are these pieces typical? (Are there any pieces in the category that are genuinely typical?) Are there other pieces in this category that might be pleasing to me? Are there pieces in other categories that I like that have similar characteristics to the pieces I think I don't like?

Share your lists with others, too. That could be very instructive. You hate "modern" music. You find someone else who also hates "modern" music. Why, you could be best buds for life. You could get married and raise a whole family of modern hating music lovers, yippee!! Well, not so fast there, buckaroo. Take yer ol' list out and give it a quick compare to your compadre's list.

What? The lists contain none of the same pieces. "Modern" for your best bud (for life) means Janáček and Bartók and Stravinsky. Those are three of your personal favorites, yikes! "Modern" for you means Stockhausen and Boulez and Babbitt, which your bbfl has never listened to. I know, you've both heard of John Cage, though you've neither of you heard any of his music. There's your basis for a long and happy relationship--a mutual hatred of John Cage.

But seriously, folks. Specifics. Get down to them. Use them. Base every general thing you say on them. It's the only way. Truly.


----------



## Guest (Jun 23, 2013)

Here's my list of works in my collection I actively dislike:
- Bartok - String Quartets #1, #4, and #5
- Bartok - Piano Concerto #1
- Britten - Phaedra
- Britten - Nocturne for tenor, etc
- Messiaen - Turangalila
- Milhaud - L'homme et son désir
- Tveitt - The Turtle
- Widor - Sixieme Symphonie
- Ysaye - Sonatas for Solo Violin

and my all-time least favorite (excluding numerous works I have avoided):
- Bartok - Duke Bluebeard's Castle
I have Peter Eotvos' version, which I read recently is considered particularly gruesome.

It wouldn't surprise me if some people find some of their favorite works on this list. But then again I've always known that aliens walk among us. 

It also wouldn't shock me if I decide later that I like some of these. Mental decay can happen to anyone at any time.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

BPS said:


> Here's my list of works in my collection I actively dislike:
> *- Bartok - String Quartets #1, #4, and #5
> - Bartok - Piano Concerto #1*
> - Britten - Phaedra
> ...


Well, at least now I _know_ I'm inhuman....


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, at least now I _know_ I'm inhuman....


well, at least highly unnatural, and perhaps like the simple dog of the pack, need looking after by the better equipped of that community.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

It would have been great, since this is a forum where people just love the ____ out of lists, to mention those lists were simply for the individual list maker's use 

To clarify, in verbal thinking, why one does or does not care for things within the spectrum of the non-verbal media of music, art, especially, is invaluable. It leads to less instant dismissal of things worth investigating, whether you care for them not much or not at all. 

That investigation can lead to more acceptance and liking of pieces an individual first thought were not for them, and also allows far greater recognition of what is good vs. what you merely favor. Then you're also more set to less likely genuinely be able to say to another music lover, "How can you listen to that garbage / noise, etc."

The fact I do grapple with pieces I did not care for, while recognizing them as terrific writing and truly great works, led to my seeing a general pattern, developed from my liking / loving this music and that from composers spanning at the least eight centuries, is that my overwhelming and overriding personal preference is for works which in one way or the other have an underlying and predominant classicist aesthetic -- that in almost any of the arts. 

That's handy, and does leave more of music which is "other" easier to understand, respect, admire, and possibly enjoy.


----------



## Guest (Jun 24, 2013)

Another use for lists of works we don't like...

Sometimes, when you expect something to be good, you can be disappointed when it's not as good as you expected. On the other hand, when you expect something to be painful, you are more mentally prepared to be presently surprised. 

In my case, for example, if I re-listen to Bluebeard and find two or three sections to be not that bad, then maybe that brings me one step closer to liking the work some day.

So, for some people at least, making a list of works we don't like can help us learn to like those works later. 

By the way, I'm being a little flippant, but that's because I don't take my current likes and dislikes too seriously.


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

A K-pop song annoyed me today because it had a single melody line repeated over and over and over again, probably twenty times in a row. It wasn't something subtle in the background, it was the singing, not even the lyrics changed, and it happened over and over and it got on my nerves. 

This is not typical of K-pop. Although it's not music that I usually enjoy, most K-pop at least doesn't do that. 

Sorry for taking such an easy target, but it's so unusual for me to really not enjoy music that I figured I'd better get in while I can.


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

PetrB said:


> It would have been great, since this is a forum where people just love the ____ out of lists, to mention those lists were simply for the individual list maker's use
> 
> To clarify, in verbal thinking, why one does or does not care for things within the spectrum of the non-verbal media of music, art, especially, is invaluable. It leads to less instant dismissal of things worth investigating, whether you care for them not much or not at all.
> 
> ...


There's one particular composition that sums this up neatly for me. (I won't say what it is because it could well lead to various irrelevant "OMG how can you not like that" posts.) Anyway, I never cared for the work, and I wondered if this was because I never really heard the right performance of it. Several listening sessions later, no good. Ultimately as I listened I realised that I didn't like the work because I really like the music of composer X, and this was composer Y, and he wasn't doing what I would expect composer X to do. Obviously there's little point in disliking music for not being written by someone else, so I made my peace with that work. I still don't actually like it, but at least I know why.


----------



## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

A few years ago, there was a popular 'self-help' book intended to free [women] from obsessing over why some [man] didn't reciprocate their desire to date/continue dating. It was entitled "He's Just Not That Into You." 
So I decided "Composer X, I'm just not that into you." 
Works for me.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

_River Flows in You _by Yiruma. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE that piece! D:<

I can't think of that many other pieces I really don't like o3o I don't really think about music I don't like, and I like so much X3


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> _River Flows in You _by Yiruma. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE that piece! D:<
> 
> I can't think of that many other pieces I really don't like o3o I don't really think about music I don't like, and I like so much X3


Teaching kids piano, by any chance? Member of Yahoo Answers when the Twilight series, then the movie, were at the crest of their populairty?

Ha Haaaa Haaaaa. BTW, Yiruma is a better pianist than many would care to say, the music -- for me, emphatically "no thank you."


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

some guy said:


> Having for years watched conversations go for dozens if not hundreds of posts without anyone ever naming anything specific, I have a nice new challenge for anyone who has ever engaged in a conversation about music:
> 
> Next time you find yourself saying or even just thinking "I hate [broad category]" or "I hate [vague category]" do everyone including you a huge favor and make yourself a little list.
> 
> ...


I have taken you up on your challenge. By next month I will have devoted over 100 hours of listening to Feldman and Lizst each. So thank you.


----------

