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Do You Understand Music?

First I want to describe something that repeats happening with me when I listen to the relatively new music to me.

There are a few examples that I want to describe:

1. I've acquired a rare CD of Cluster "One Hour" which contains one track that lasts exactly 1 hour. No matter how hard I've tried to listen to it as whole i was getting tired or just simply did not understand what's going on and was postponing a listening to the next session. Next session something similar happens and in curiosity I'm just trying to fast-forward to the last minutes of the track to hear how it ends. After few more trials to torture myself i quit and exchange this CD to the different offered by one of my best friend(Wobble-Parker). He digged in(meaning was able to listen the whole hour) from the third listening session and reviewed this music as one of the most magnificient projects created by Cluster for what I envy him to have a patience to understand.

2. Nearly the same thing happend with double CD album "Cobra" which is a project of John Zorn.

Some years ago I couldn't understand Ornette Coleman but now I realize that his music is like surrealistic art and has a divine presence. Same I can tell about Kronos Quartet.

Please share with me if you had a similar situations. Would you listen to the music that you don't understand? Would you try to understand it? Would you honor a "different" music and accept it as an art?

For me I'd rather listen to what I do not understand and try later-on to understand instead of just simply go to the Wiz and buy some Ricky Martin or Marc Anthony...
128x128marakanetz
duanegoosen
355 posts
 
Good thread. I guess it's pretty common not to be real absorbent or appreciative when initially exposed to unusual or brilliantly put together artforms.
IMO, the sense of discovery that comes when you really dig something that was previously inaccessable is hard to beat.
Can, Massacre(w/Frith), Herbie Hancock-Sextant, Miles Davis (Jack Johnson, On the Corner, Agharta), Present, Blast, Ruins, Squarepusher, most Van Vliet (Beefheart) and FZ's Uncle Meat taste alot better now than they did at first. Still can't seem to get through an opera without tripping the ol' gag reflex though.
kthomas
911 posts
 
I push my boundaries, but slowly. There's nothing better than putting on an artist you've never listened to before and being floored - that's at least as fun as the latest equipment "revelation". I will often not be as blown away as I would like, but I kind of have a token system - any new music starts out with some tokens (say 3) - every time I play it, if I don't like it pretty well, it (mentally) loses a token. When something gets down to 0, I probably won't play it again for a while. There are definitely cases where music or genres grow on me, and I try to never forget that. -Kirk
sjorgensen
34 posts
 
I once briefly lived in a home with a chellist who performed
world-wide, and I noticed that he had NO electronic equipment on which to play music. This was when the film "Amadeus" was released, and I rushed home excited that he & his wife (who was also his manager)go to see it. She informed me that he would not go because he would spend his time criticizing the performance. Ever since, I have felt so fortunate simply to be able to listen to and to enjoy music. It is, after all, very personal and touches each of us differently.
pbb
1,140 posts
 
To all Jackson Pollock fans: good evening. It takes all kinds. Some folks stick to what they know and only consume more of it. Some folks try different things when they get bored, only to convince themselves that what they are used to is way more likable, so they scurry back. Some folks will sample everything and rush to the most peremptory of verdicts. Some folks will give it their best shot and listen with their hearts and minds. I don't know that you have to understand a piece of music to like it. I am convinced no one actually is required to understand music, in the broadest sense, to like it. If this was so, a great majority of people who claim to like music but don't have a clue about it, would have given up long ago, and the recording industry would be in even worst condition. Sometimes the most hermetic, least approachable music turns out to be the most rewarding. Liking or loving and understanding are very different things. Part of the enjoyment of music is discovery, and the more run-of-the-mill music you know, the more you have to go off the beaten track to get that sense of discovery. Once you get there, I think you owe the music you find a good listen. One hour for a piece may be stretching things though, if the enjoyment is simply not there. I don't believe in suffering for art that much. Understanding is good, but may be harmful if swallowed. In the end, I fear that, as someone once told me many years ago, " to know a living thing is to kill it". Maybe that's what Sjorgensen means. Now where is that Anthony Braxton album...
mwilson
430 posts
 
Twl - I listen to alot of flung paint, and cast a very wide net. Some of the wildest: Magma: Their skin is to machines what machines are to man. Disharmonic Orchestra: Brain smelter. Os Mutantes: Everything is possible. Amon Duul: The priest, he's escaping! Flower Travelin' Band: Japfro. Esquivel: Whatchamacalit? Negativeland: I'm not naked, pal. Nektar: Elephants are very fond of oranges. Nik Turner: I have come forth by day, my name, my name is Decay-eth Not.

It never gets wierd enough for me. Music is one of the few places left where society is powerless to contain you. Go as far as you wish, and stay as long as you like.
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