@stuartk
I definitely recognize that I’m limited by my tastes -- as time goes on, I’m finding less and less music that I want to buy. As mentioned above, I’ve never enjoyed the sound of Classical Vocals. It’s not the music. It’s what I experience as an overall highly exaggerated, unnatural and off-putting quality of the sound.
It’s not clear to me how one could "learn to listen" to a sound that one finds inherently unpleasant/annoying. Care to expound further?
I know this post was not aimed at me, but since I was part of the conversation with @mahgister , I will reply.
Concerning your 2nd paragraph, my entire evolution in listening to music, has been one case of "learning to listen" to music I initially found "unpleasant".
When I first got into prog (Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, PFM, Banco, etc), which for the most part, is full of music that is pleasant sounding. Someone recommended the band Gentle Giant to me. When I tried to listen to them, I was initially taken aback by the dissonances they use, and it made no sense to me. It sounded wrong to me. So, I put their recordings on my shelf and ignored them for probably close to a year. Fast forward many months, and after listening to many other prog bands, I decided to take them off the shelf and give them another listen. It was like a light went off in my brain. What made no sense just months before, was brilliant now. They almost immediately became one of my favorite bands, and remain so until this day.
It happened again with entire avant-prog subgenre of prog. This is an entire subgenre that, as described by ProgArchices.com, as:
Avant-prog is generally considered to be more extreme and 'difficult' than other forms of progressive rock, though these terms are naturally subjective and open to interpretation. Common elements that may or may not be displayed by specific avant-prog artists include:
- Regular use of dissonance and atonality.
- Extremely complex and unpredictable song arrangements.
- Free or experimental improvisation.
- Fusion of disparate musical genres.
- Polyrhythms and highly complex time signatures.
Most avant-prog artists are highly unique and eclectic in sound and consequently tend to resist easy comparisons.
I did not like anything in this subgenre for years, but then, after spending more time getting used to what these bands were doing, it just started making sense.
And once again, it happened with atonal and avant-garde classical music, and a big part I think was brought about by love for the aforementioned, avant-prog. I guess my mind was already prepped to hear atonality and dissonance of avant-prog, the same attributes in classical music just made sense.
I guess, I didn't really explain how it happened, except to say, that it happened over time, and usually in quite small increments.
At first, it was small bit of 'unpleasantness', maybe like a musical section that is supposed to represent war, death, or madness*, that, despite being 'unpleasant', in context to what the music is portraying, sounds 'right', and loaded with emotion. Then, overtime, those dark and atonal bits, start to have their own sorts of beauty.
*For example: the instrumental middle section of 'Gates of Delirium' by Yes. It is meant to represent a battle.
Or, 'Plague of the Lighthouse Keepers' by Van Der Graaf Generator. The 23 minute piece represents a lighthouse keeper slowly going mad, and suicidal, from loneliness and abandonment.
It's hard for me to imagine representing either, without using dissonance and atonality. Which some hear as unpleasant, but I hear as loaded with emotion.