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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
frogman
7,475 posts
 
It is a leap and mistaken assumption that going from concertmaster in a top orchestra to a solo career is necessarily "moving up". As Brownsfan points out "a steady job in a world class orchestra may be a better fit" for an individual; this could be for a variety of reasons.

First of all, the life of a soloist is not all that it may seem to be. Constantly traveling is very difficult on the person and that person's family, and different individuals will have different levels of tolerance to these difficulties. As musicians, some have more of a team-player mentality (to their credit) and find a great deal of satisfaction in the role of leader of an ensemble with the special relationships that are established, not only with the other players and instrumental sections, but also as liaison between these players and the conductor; a particularly important role in our age of constantly changing guest conductors. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, soloists are often limited to performing certain solo works over and over again. As concertmaster a player can truly have the best of both worlds: playing in a top orchestra and performing all the wonderful orchestral repertoire, and also perform as soloist with that orchestra and (fairly regularly) as guest soloist with other orchestras; many do this quite successfully.
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
Brownsfan:
Judging by the lastest crop of players, in addition to personality, beauty does not hurt either. It never does. :)

Frogman:
Thanks for another point of view.

Cheers
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
Brownsfan:
Just so happens that two of my most recent acquisitions 'Beethoven's Piano Trios vols 1 & 2' feature Lynn Harrell, Itzhak Perlman and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Cheers
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
Rok2id, So true, and that crossed my mind when I ever so carefully chose to limit my comments to "charisma."
As for your recent LvB trios, that sounds like a winner of a combo. I've had the pleasure of hearing Lynn Harrell live twice. Best Dvorak concerto I ever heard, and I've heard a number of the big names including Ma.
photon46 OP
1,087 posts
 
Every time one picks up a copy of a classical music magazine and looks at the industry ads for new releases, you cannot help but notice how soloists have to have both talent and physical charms in today's competitive market. It's not just female performers who are subject to rising standards for appearance, male performer's appearance standards are also affected. Conductors don't seem to be so critically judged on appearance, but it doesn't hurt your career to look like Hogwood or Karajan. I suppose the growing pressure on classical artists to be hyper-attractive is an inevitable consequence to living in such image conscious times (as well as a diminishing market for classical music.)
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