Has education expanded your listening tastes?

Along the "music is hostory" lines, the current information revolution going on, where anyone has acces to almost anything anytime if they so choose, represents a BIG event in music history. PEople are more swamped with information and sources of entertainment than ever before. The smoke is far yet from clearing, but it is the best time ever to be a proactive music fan.

I say proactive in that the fruit is there for the taking but only for those with teh initiative to do it. Living by the norms and standards of even 10 years ago is a bottleneck.

If another new composition were not created for another 10 years, I would still probably be over my head in potential things to listen to that I would never have had access to before, that also happen to sound very good.

Its overwhelming to a certain extent, and I think that is a reason why things might seem so stagnant creatively these days.

But with just a good pair of earbuds attached to a computer, using youtube alone, the treasures to be found by amateurs providing their own source material alone is mindboggling. Screw the record companies. WHo needs them really anymore? Know what you seek and you will probably find it, and it will probably also have better sound quality than ever before for a price that even a young child music lover might afford.

If you can find a way to save it and then play it back on your SOTA reference home system, then you are truly in audiophile heaven.

So I guess what I am trying to say is a little education along the lines needed to locate mine, and enjoy all the good sounding music, both old and new, out there today via various channels, will go a long way. An appreciation of history and how music correlates to it is just one dimension of learning that helps, A LOT!!!!

No, education I feel has had little to do with expanding my music tastes.

I go on most Sundays to a place called Spin in Cambridge MA. People from all walks of life and different ages also go there. We play 2 selections each of whatever music we like then sign up to play 2 more till 8:00 pm when live bands start playing.

I have listened to and started to enjoy music I thought I would never like and purchase some also. I think if you have an open mind and enjoy music then your choices of music will expand by the experiences and people you meet through out your life.

Before my experience in England I had heard Handels Water Music many times but never really enjoyed it. It was to frilly for me. However when I was in London and went into a record store and asked what local music he would recommend(those are my souvenirs when I travel)I got an enjoyable 5 minute history lesson on Handels Water Music. Then later I was on the banks of the Thames and saw the setting(I am sure has changed over the years)where this music was designed to be played. With that experience I now appreciate and do really enjoy that music with that setting in my mind and knowing about a royal caravan wafting down the river. Increasing my appreciation for music. The more I know about most music the more I enjoy and appreciate it. To me music communicates and most of the time the more I know the more it can communicate, or at least I can enjoy deluding myself that it does.

Hevac1, sounds like education to me, trust you meant the formal version.

Marqmike, thanks for the great story. I have a good grasp of the "History of Western Civilization" if I do say so myself.
I'm positive I would not enjoy Classical music nearly as much without it.

Like Rok2id and Schubert's comments best--suspcious of music that has to be explained, and only I know who I want to call.

Some truth in all of the above posts, but there might be a fine distinction between music appreciation and what one really really likes.