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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
isochronism
2,893 posts
 
Mapman, Your last paragraph which Swampwalker has pointed out, was very perfectly put:) I grew up very close to, and still visit very often, "The Great Swamp" in NJ.
A special place.
photon46 OP
1,087 posts
 
Frogman, your commentary is very insightful. We've all heard Duke's "good & bad" take on the hierarchy of musical genres and it's a good maxim to keep in the back of one's mind. It becomes a very slippery slope when we start proclaiming this or that the cultural apogee. A meaningful artistic practice can't be a static set of principles, it has to be a living art that morphs and changes. Otherwise we end up with an ossified, ready for the museum art form.

For a moment, let's think about a few of classical music's attributes and why they represent the highest attainment of Western civilization in our minds. Obviously, giving musical form to the quest for spiritual understanding is a primary reason. The link between mathematics and music is another aspect. Counterpoint between music and the increasing complexity of human thought in the sciences, other art forms, and philosophy is another reason. Ok, it's obvious where this train of thought leads.

Problem is, this unending focus on the noble can lead to a place of static creativity. Like Mozart complaining in the movie "Amadeus," "I am fed to the teeth with elevated themes! Old dead legends! Why must we go on forever writing about gods and legends?" We know the noble retort of Baron von Sweiten to this sentiment, but the complaint is valid. Think of the state of visual arts in France right before the Impressionists. Since 1648, the French Academy had controlled the development of art and directed its expression of noble themes. By the mid 19th century, we had artists of supreme technical virtuosity in the service of centuries old themes completely dominating the official artistic landscape. An artistic revolt got started, gained traction, and has never relented in its constant pushing against the constraints of conventional taste.

Schubert's recounting of a soldier's toughness reminds us that life gains meaning in things other than rarefied contemplation. The exuberant energy of youthful passions given expression in musical forms other than classical music art are important to maintaining living art forms. Frogman's friend who was obsessed with James Brown's music wasn't dumbing down in my book, just focusing on something different. Think playing James Brown's music is easy? Ask a classical musician to play in his band and generate some steamy funk. It reminds me of the tension between the Jazz and Classical students in a university. The Jazz students give props to the Classical students for their technical chops and skills, but deride them for their lack of ability to express a full range of emotion, lack of improvisational skills, and limitations of rhythmic expression.

I don't know where today's diversity of expressive means will lead. In spite of the general level of cultural stupidity that dominates popular culture, I'm not ready succumb to resignation that the best is behind us.

onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,249 posts
 
Mathmatics is at the apex of human understanding. It offers insight to our place in the universe.
schubert
7,386 posts
 
Photon,
There is nothing good about being a soldier, I used that example only to say we all can relate to things difficult as a basic trait of our humanity.
My sole point is that relativism is dry rot of the mind and soul.
Some things are better than other things, you do not have to like the best, or support the best ,but you need to know it is the best.

James Brown IS dumbing down .So is Van the man, though I listen to "Brown Eyed Girl" at times for reasons best not described on here, I'm aware its appealing to my baser side.
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
*****Some things are better than other things, you do not have to like the best, or support the best ,but you need to know it is the best.*******

How does a person determine what is the best musicaL genre? What methodology??

*****There is nothing good about being a soldier*****

You just better thank the Lord we have them!

*****James Brown IS dumbing down******

Nope. Brown just went places you could not follow.

And speaking of going places, I think the posters on this thread are going places they are not qualified to go.

Cheers.
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