100 Albums You Would wish for...from a Genie

First we cannot replace our musical tastes favorites by other musical choices , especially for example in classical vocal music if we dont like it in general...

Second we must stay open heart and listen to some one dat that can open this closed door for us which is vocal classical music... No doing so this new vocal classical music will not change our basic tastes... They will only improve it by enlarging our scope and deepening our relation with our innate tastes choices...

Third we cannot learn how to listen to "sounds" which are annoying for us...But in all the vocal classical there is songs thar are in now way exagerately annoying... Miracles of naturalness exist... Miracles of expressions that transcend vocal classical to manifest the art of pure expression and not mere singing even beautifully...

I will give 2 examples...

If you dont cry listening that you need a heart...It is no more singing...Because she pray really, she dont merely sing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7K2hJBzTm0

The number of singers able to sing like this are more numerous in heaven than on earth 😊

Now the same in his prime younger years :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GksRp42s3S8&list=RDGksRp42s3S8&start_radio=1

Deep river:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bytFrsL4_4

Crucifixion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiFEOhZ8Jb4

MarIan anderson never studied too much formally and being black opera and lied singer goes up to the top of the world by his voice power alone ...

She can sing ANYTHING, jazz, spirituals, operas, lieds or Bach and be the best there is... It is my favorite singer.... I was shoked when i listened to her the first time... By the way as you i dont like vocal music so much... But there is exceptions... These are some of the exceptions...

Now another contralto;Aafje Heynis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3a9QXnRHK4

 

Another contralto sublime: Kathleen Ferrier...on par with Marian Anderson , which is a feat almost impossible to do...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3J2e-L62bY

 

now another register : Elisabeth Schwarzkopf soprano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs0vSC9DUhU

 

And a modern opera to help you....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR33bL5aNTk&t=2192s

And now serious thing with only celestial voices:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei88J4lERbk

 

 

Now my favorite choral music album of all time :

I listened to it really more than one thousand evenings, i had  counted it really ...😊

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnZQ0EPuNqk

Schutz was coming back from Italia...He combined styles and created for me his most astounding work, with a rythmic expressive power putting him beside Bach who admired him... This music is like a " drug" , it move us creatively by stimulating enthusiasm....

Close the door, listen and it will not change your taste... It will open your mind to voices from another realm...

 

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 don’t mean to "pick on" Classical singers but this just happens to be one of the genres most affected by the limiting aspects of my taste.

@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. 

Thanks for your interesting and surprizing story ...

@mahgister Quick fix:
Qualifying statements like,
- “music is about visible architecture and rhythmical times”
- “music is not about tonality versus atonality”
- “music is about feeling, willing and thinking”
- “in serialism music is disconnected of the natural rhythms of human metabolism”

with a simple statement of “in my opinion,” or “in my experience” cures such statements of their erroneousness.

Everyone’s opinion is valid. One may be better at arguing the usefulness of their opinion than another, but this has no bearing on the validity of a person’s opinion.
Thusly, if you were to qualify those statements of yours in such a way, they would be entirely valid statements.
When such statements are made without that qualification, their validity is dubious at best, non-existent at worst.

8,000,000,000 people here, each of them with a definition of what music “is” and what music “is about,” each of them perfectly valid.
There is no practical definition for “music” other than “created sound.”

For many people, music is indeed all of the things you said it is not, and is indeed none of the things you said that is. They, just as you, are entirely valid in those definitions.

Many people pick a streaming station and let the algorithms decide the sounds their speakers emit. Music for them is something of a utilitarian aid to daily modern life.
For many people, music is indeed “about” tonality versus atonality.
Many people are non-plussed with music that presents traditionally “beautiful” harmonic and rhythmic content. Something else excites them, music with less traditional harmonic and rhythmic content, something that would likely cause the former person to cover their ears and promptly turn the music off.
Many people are in love with something like Schubert, Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov or, in modern terms, Mancini, Bacharach, and Wilson.
Shoenberg, Boulez and Ligeti, or Beefheart, Can, or late-era Scott Walker won’t do much for them.

Again, beyond “created sound,” there is virtually no practical definition for what music “is” or what it “is about.”

I will add that we are in the same situation with the question of what a "sound" is...

There is no scientific consensus about sound and hearing... what is a sound perceptive quality and information and how we access it ...

There is no practical definition for “music” other than “created sound.”

We know though a little bit more than what you just said here... This is your opinion indeed but not a fact...

First one thing is sure, music created by man is a "sound" production related to the human body/brain/ears ... This is not my opinion here... But a fact...

Then there exist a root of this created "sounds" in the human body...Music and language are born together and are coming from the same root which is the body tripartite basic systems.. ...This is also a fact...

Must i add that this is my opinion to calm you ? ... 😊

Music is not about our taste only , music must be learned the same way in which we must learn how to act our body , that was one of my point; then there exist some different music with different healing and informative power...All is not purely relativistic and about our given "tastes" here as you seems to suggest ... Music grounded in a tradition has not the same value for me than commercial music... And yes the line delimiting them is not clear at all... This is a fact and also an opinion here... 😁

Sorry but there is a value hierarchy that cannot be imposed but is easily spotted by musicians learning their trade... A yoruba drummer for example know this, he know the difference between meaningful rythm which "speak" and rythm which did not "speak" in his language ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZOg4xIiulw&t=741s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oQJZ2TEVI&t=7s

( the best book on music i read is about yoruba drum and sound perception and meaning by the way ) 😋

 

 

As in litterature, harlequin litterature is not Dostoievsky or Mark Twain...

i will add that is is my opinion for sure ...

Who s opinion could it be ? mine...

is it the absolute truth ?

No...

But i bet i am not alone here with this OPINION.... 😊

 

In litterature as in music we MUST LEARN how to understand and appreciate, because our innate taste means little, it is a beginning not an end ...Comic books are not Kafka...

By the way each musical traditions contains an history of consciouness through the way the spirit/body relate to sound in a specific way , extending in millenia sometimes...It is a fact not my opinion ...

Do not say then that in your opinion, all opinions about music are equal, because they are not...

No more in music than in litteratrure and science.... Music is not only a consumers leisure tasteful choice... It is way more IN MY OPINION... 😊

Again, beyond “created sound,” there is virtually no practical definition for what music “is” or what it “is about.”

 

By the way my statements are not " erroneous" they are incomplete .... Calling them "my opinion" or not had nothing to do with their POSSIBLE meaning has you suggested in your own unsatisfying and at the end erroneous relativistic perspective...

Music express sacredness and values not only esthetical arbitrary meaningless choice as a consumer purchasing a product instead of another...

 

Music also contain a part of our consciouness history which is hidden in sounds and rythms...

This is why all musical traditions of the world matter and why we must learn from EACH OF THEM... This has nothing to do about tastes...

@mahgister Quick fix:
Qualifying statements like,
- “music is about visible architecture and rhythmical times”
- “music is not about tonality versus atonality”
- “music is about feeling, willing and thinking”
- “in serialism music is disconnected of the natural rhythms of human metabolism”

with a simple statement of “in my opinion,” or “in my experience” cures such statements of their erroneousness.