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Has education expanded your listening tastes?

This point recently came up in another thread: a member was of the opinion (if I am paraphrasing them correctly) that critical thinking plays little role in what our tastes in music might be. We like what we like and that's it. So that begs the question for me, how many of us feel that our reaction to music is primarily rooted in the emotional centers of the brain and that rational analysis of musical structure and language doesn't potentially expand our range of musical enjoyment? I ask because I am not a professional musician, but I did take a few college level music history classes, learn to play guitar in my forties (now sixty,) learn to read music on a rudimentary level of competence, study a little music theory, and enjoy reading historical biographies about composers and musicians. I can honestly say that the in the last fifteen years or so, I have greatly expanded what types of music I enjoy and that I can appreciate music I might not "love" in the emotional sense that used to dictate what I listen to. Take Berg, Schoenberg, and Webern for example. Their music doesn't sweep you away with the emotional majesty of earlier composers, but I find their intellectual rigor and organization to be fascinating and very enjoyable. Same with studying the history of American roots music, I learned a lot about our cultural history and enjoy listening to old blues and country music now. How do other's feel about this emotion vs. learning to appreciate thing?
photon46
kleech
130 posts
 
An analogy can be made to food and eating. Some people are adventuresome, try new foods and may then develop a fondness for a particular cuisine or other. Others grow up with meat 'n potatoes and are averse to try anything else. I'm guessing most hear will answer yes!
sfar's avatar
sfar
1,771 posts
 
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Photon46 - I absolutely agree with your premise that intellectual
curiosity can lead to an appreciation and even affection for music that
you've been either unfamiliar with or thought you would never like.

And for me there is an element to that process that I'm not clear
whether is emotional or intellectual, maybe both. Reminding myself to
consciously put aside preconceptions about what I might like has taken
me down musical paths I would never have discovered otherwise and
that have been worlds, or at least continents, away from the music I
grew up with.

Serendipity plays a big part, as well, and I'm grateful for that. I had a
long-time companion who was a walking encyclopedia of the music of
southern Europe, where she grew up, as well as all the music that
preceded it, across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and all the
way to India.

To have gone from the country music, fundamentalist hymns and early
rock and roll I grew up with to Paco De Lucia, Ali Farka Toure and Ali
Akbar Khan has been one of the great experiences of my life.
tostadosunidos's avatar
tostadosunidos
1,198 posts
 
I'm a garage rocker who initially went back to music school (7 years more) to learn more about what's inside the music of Bartok and Zappa. I learned to appreciate so much that I did not "get" before (or had never heard or heard of). And I'm still learning, still finding composers I did not appreciate before.

Rok2id, I presume you've tried Berg's op. 1 piano sonata, his Lyric Suite and his violin concerto and found them lacking?
arnettpartners
312 posts
 
Who could argue with any of the above-all marvelous and cogent thoughts? Yes, music is said to be the most emotive of the arts--amen, Martin Luther.

I think of a music genre like a skeletal structure of a house inside which are infinite possiblities, and I hear rock in some classical music; I hear classical and jazz in rock; and the lines blur.

But I can't discuss classical music like all of you because I don't have the interest. I lean into rock and jazz. I agree--there is more to it.
schubert
7,386 posts
 
I never heard a lick of Classical Music growing up or even knew what it was,or went to school past 8th grade and that in a hick town to be kind about it.
I was in the Naval Hospital in Oakland after being wounded in Korea, which was condensed hell. One day some USO ladies came around with tickets and transportation to the San Francisco Symphony for the "walking wounded" .

I really did not even know what that was but anything was better than being in there. The program was Ravels Bolero
and a Tchaikovsky symphony.
The contrast between evil I had seen,and done, and the light was so great it literally flipped my soul 180 and lead to a totally different life than I otherwise would have led.
Humans are integrated beings, you can come to things emotionally as I did or/and intellectually .What Martin Luther said about Music are some of the wisest words ever uttered.
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