The concept of a 'Taste Vocabulary'

I'm a dance newbie and didn't find Splaszh particularly "difficult" either.

Aw come on now. You know what side your Warp toast's buttered on, give yourself some credit.

I think you need to give general listeners more credit.

So much of this "Ooh, I had to struggle to develop a taste for X" just comes across like wanting to give oneself a giant pat on the back for appreciating music that the ~terrible hoi polloi doesn't get~ and you know, fuck that kind of elitism.

I don't believe that appreciating 'difficult music' precludes the appreciation of 'easy' music.

Or, seeing as I'm replying specifically to WCC here, I know that it doesn't, and if anyone tells you otherwise tell them to stuff it. On the other hand, please don't suggest that because some dudes are dicks to you that 'difficult' music is therefore not worthwhile.

it's funny but i think that open-minded metal fans are kinda perfectly set up to appreciate more genres of music than just about any other fan. folk, classical, bluegrass, polka, salsa, techno, all kinds of stuff. there are definitely more metal fans who dig electronic music than the other way around. virtuosity, repetition, rhythm, drama, emotion, there is a lot to love in the world for metal fans.

xp city

Somebody whose music isn't about emotional reactions, but other things

Can't really contribute here, aero; them composers who seek to divorce their writing from emotional content (i.e. Boulez), the listener will still infer emotional content.

Splaszh

Talking about Splaszh with people who have techno knowledge is really interesting. Even if the music does little for me in the house and less for me at a party, I'm always into talking about it-- listening to people talk about it, rather.

As for all the "don't tell me I'm listening to it wrong" rhetoric itt I just don't buy it. All music I dislike I just assume I'm listening to it wrong or haven't experienced it in the proper context. And please would you tell me how to listen better to it, etc.

No, emil.y it's more this kind of setup that there's something more inherently more ~worthy~ in driving oneself to appreciate "difficult" music. And that people who actually like or love "easy" pop music are somehow ignorant fools. I am just sick to death of that attitude, and want to punch it in its face.

So much of this "Ooh, I had to struggle to develop a taste for X" just comes across like wanting to give oneself a giant pat on the back for appreciating music that the ~terrible hoi polloi doesn't get~ and you know, fuck that kind of elitism.

it's not "elitism," it's people talking about their own experiences with enjoying music. if these experiences don't sound enjoyable to you, cool, enjoy music how you wanna, literally no-one is saying "that's bad!" to you. you are sitting here judging people for how they enjoy music, not the other way around. then you're calling them "elitist" for enjoying things. neat trick!

That I accept it's important, as a listener, to try to expand one's horizons and push oneself out of one's comfort zone and challenge your tastes. It's just really frustrating to me what gets kind of... worshipped (odd word to use I know) as "challenging but worth it" and what gets dismissed as too easy, too open.

It could be argued that "Challenging but worth it" and "Easy and Open" are both lexical categories. Some people like music that is "difficult but worth it", others like "open and easy", while many will appreciate the two depending on context. Some people are more accustomed to listening to "challenging" music and find other things too accessible - too easy, and vice versa.

xp My own polka example is Irish fiddle music. About five years ago, had a "you're listening to it wrong" moment with a Dublin friend, who set me up with a book on Planxty and a listening list. Like, the best music!

re: polka, though - and zydeco, and many other kinds of music - the elephant in the room here is dancing. we who live in the age of recorded sound, and of musicians wanting to make a buck by putting out records, often have this idea that we ought to be able to appreciate music by sitting and listening to it. we can, but polka's a great example of a music that's meant to be enjoyed in the context of dancing to it: specifically, dancing the polka. once you've done that, and experienced the communal joy of polka, the records will sound evocative of that experience. without the dance, there is no polka!

WCC, I agree that attitude is terrible. I kind of avoided the question of pop music when talking about 'easy' vs 'difficult', but... well, I don't think all pop music is easy, and I certainly don't think all easy music is pop. I think that whole idea is probably based on, well, the fact that because pop is by its nature a populist, mass vocabulary, more people can speak it, therefore it must be easier. Whereas actually Esperanto is much easier than English, even though fewer people speak it.

I think you need to give general listeners more credit.

― Shepton Mullet (White Chocolate Cheesecake), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 15:36 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really think you're casting aspersions that aren't there.

Ha! Had a similar moment back in '07 with Kentucky fiddle music.

xxp

sometimes appreciating something is work. most people don't want to work that hard.

― scott seward, Wednesday, August 15, 2012 1:36 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm calling this elitism.

You get to experience music however you like, but the moment you make decisions and judgements about what other people "want" or don't, you are somehow setting yourself apart from those people. Not Scott's call to make. Or anyone else's.

it's more this kind of setup that there's something more inherently more ~worthy~ in driving oneself to appreciate "difficult" music. And that people who actually like or love "easy" pop music are somehow ignorant fools. I am just sick to death of that attitude, and want to punch it in its face.

No-one here is saying anything like this, by the way. There is no such "set-up."

@ dog latin you should ask your friend to listen to Neurosis "Times of grace", some real metal dudes will have their own opinions, but that was a major "oh I see" moment for me at age 21, I don't think I'd be into any heavy music were it not for that album

Like anybody gives a shit but it took me forever to really get into jazz music that wasn't traditional big band stuff (and even that I mostly dismissed as hopelessly square and outdated), and it involved a lot of homework on the historical context, growth and development of the various styles, biographies of the players, etc. I'm not sure it's possible to "appreciate" or even like Coltrane without knowing a little about who he was and what he was doing, but it's worth it once you do. To me, anyway. If other people don't like him, that's cool, too.

I don't think all pop music is easy,

Yeah, like it would take me forever AND A DAY to figure out why anyone in their right mind would listen to and enjoy LMFAO (e.g.). Probably because I don't/can't dance. To me, that's "difficult" music that isn't worth the effort to enjoy, although I love plenty of pop stuff.

Also, I mean, the guys here are talking about polka - that's not meant to be difficult music. It isn't difficult music. It's folk music, dammit, it's pure and simple and made for frolics. The difficulty isn't in the music, it's in personal history and context. Talking about how long it took to 'get polka', that's not talking about the worthiness of difficult music, that's talking about a personal journey into a style of music.

I sort of think with something like polka there's a load more to be gained by going to a polka night and having a few drinks and experiencing the music in the environment in which its meant to be experienced than there is in buying a load of polka records and dutifully trying to get into them without much success.

We're also skirting round the issue of people who hear music on drugs and suddenly have a eureka moment.

Some people who love music are content to enjoy things within their particular parameters. Other people who enjoy music (and a smaller number of these people to be sure) like to explore types of music outside of their parameters. We aren't assigning value judgements to either group of people. We are just exploring the nature of these parameters and trying to define and assign meaning to their existence.

xps at WCC

I'm not sure it's possible to "appreciate" or even like Coltrane without knowing a little about who he was and what he was doing

Seriously?

This thread is a lot like arguments I used to have with people who hated hip-hop (before I got tired of having those arguments). "That's not music," someone would say. And I would say, "If you go to China and people are making weird noises that you can't understand, do you say, that's not language?" And on we would go. I did one memorable evening finally get a friend of mine to say, "OK, fine! Hip-hop is just a language I don't understand." Which did not prompt him to then go try to understand it, but I counted as a small victory.

All this talk about "easy" vs. "difficult" but not enough specific examples to tether the conversation. What are we talking about here?

Polka is totally difficult music to appreciate! (Conversely so-called difficult music such as Shostakovich is way easier for kids to get into than Beethoven.) Ironically the music I've found most "difficult" has been British campy-or-witty-or-louche-or-satirical stuff, i.e. Pulp

XP I guess I should say it wasn't possible for me to appreciate/like Coltrane w/o etc. etc.

Vocabulary seems like too objective normative a term to be very useful, I'd think it's more that we have some kind of set of frameworks (obviously plural, maybe vocabulary is also too universal - suggesting that if only we knew all the terms we'd be able to enjoy everything), all mutable, some of which we put effort into developing (even if we have no notion of the shape they'll take, like aerosmith's mahler example), some of which just happen to develop over time), with which we approach anything we hear. Part of the framework would be to do with the specific signifiers of a genre and the like, but when it comes to actually enjoying things rather than ~understanding~ them in some abstract way musicological way it's a lot more personal and probably more or less ineffable. Like I have some friends who don't listen to that much music but what they do listen to is pretty diverse, and sometimes I can hear this peculiar resonance between the disparate things they like that neither you nor they can distinctly define, but i guess is some kind of ghostly outline of their framework(s) of enjoyment rather than the scientific framework of understanding. The difference between the ILMer nerd and whoever else would probably be a matter of the ILMer having more frameworks with which to approach things, or maybe... no, not more nuanced frameworks, cuz then I'm getting judgemental again.

I don't really know how this fits with those situations when music that sounds very alien to your perceptions is nevertheless immediately striking to you, though. And striking in a pleasing way - obviously various avant-garde movements have sought to exceed or break frameworks of musical thought, but they're not really meant for 'enjoying' in that same way.

erm a million xposts, not sure if I was replying to anyone in particular there.

this thread is like when you're talking to someone in a hallway and they start to describe an argument they recently had with someone. in telling the story the gradually shift into a mode where they're impersonating the argument. then they get really into it and you, as a listener, are morphed into the person that they recently had the argument with, and pretty soon you're just getting yelled at in a hallway

Nbd

New board description, not no big
Deal

You aren't hot about it, dl?

Wouldn't you be hot, dog latin, in that hallway?

lol ZS

i feel like i'm always that guy getting yelled at in the hallway. and that's why, even though this is a cool thread idea, i'm gonna leave it alone for now!

xp Also I ~love~ how everybody has adopted ~this~

http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs4/1166955_o.gif

this thread is like when you're talking to someone in a hallway and they start to describe an argument they recently had with someone. in telling the story the gradually shift into a mode where they're impersonating the argument. then they get really into it and you, as a listener, are morphed into the person that they recently had the argument with, and pretty soon you're just getting yelled at in a hallway

― Thanks WEBSITE!! (Z S), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 15:57 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think there is a mime-troupe-theatre-company dimension too, though, in which everyone is listening to & then reinterpreting the arguments mentioned. like eventually you are yelling right back at the hallway guy about something totally different.

i start somewhere similar to WCC in thinking that there are issues with not everyone wants to work that hard, because we're all drawn to things, & follow that allure, & whether that's to something immediate or to something slow-release and intriguing is symbolic of what you're into, what you're trying to get - a quick thing or something to chew over - more than it is of a quality of the thing itself. but i don't think anyone itt is using that as a badge of honour! & like i don't think anyone's dropped any bombs in terms of "guys check this i enjoy records which don't even have any singing". people are just noting the correlation between the enduring affections & material that took some unravelling; not necessarily patience or "work" - because if you're feeling compelled to figure something out i don't think it's work necessarily, you want to get to the bottom of it - but things that existed in the world & which there was a narrative in our coming to. i do like that shit because it reminds me that you change & that your opinions are subjective & that for everything there is a season, &c&c&c, & in the same way it can even be nice to stop liking a thing you used to love just because it doesn't connect with you anymore. it's rewarding not understanding metal, or w/e, & then 'getting it', not because you earn your metal badge & can thrust it in everyones' faces but because it's exemplary of how things change & connect & how there can be a rewarding unspent charge dormant in things that you hadn't expected.

fantastic post, schlump!

^^

btw i love the idea of yelling back at the person having the imaginary argument with you in the hallway - gotta try that next time!

Conversely so-called difficult music such as Shostakovich is way easier for kids to get into than Beethoven

Wait, I'm curious what this is based on. Was this your experience when teaching? Shostakovich can be quite accessible at times but I also don't think that e.g. the Moonlight Sonata or Beethoven's 5th Symphony are necessarily hard for kids to get into.

Work doesn't necessarily mean an emotional or intellectual investment, though! I mean, I don't think scott was kept up at night because he couldn't enjoy polka. Maybe he was, and the sound of accordions puzzled him to insomnia. It sounds like it was more about time and context, than anything, and people may not want or have the time to really try things.

Kind of reminds me, I have this natural aversion to raw tomato. It's crazy, if I have it with other things that throw the flavor profile (or pH, not sure) off, I can eat it. Salsa's great. But I think it turns my stomach in some way, or maybe I have a tomato digestion issue that is signaling my brain that it's not for me. Regardless, I try a bloody mary about once every year or two. I get what people like about them, and I love all the stuff you can put in one. But I can never drink more than about a third before I start feeling queasy.

Owen will sneak repping for Shosty in wherever he can, you have to watch him

he's a violinist, it's kind of a thing

Shostakovich can be very CRASH BANG NOISE! which I suspect appeals to kids quite a lot. Also a load of film soundtracks use Shostakovich as a reference point.

metal itself is only tangential to this discussion, but...

Like someone with a limited linguistic lexicon, he has a limited way of understanding things like heavy metal, hearing it indiscriminately as "angry" music, whereas I (as someone who was indoctrinated into that church several years ago) rarely hear "anger" in that music necessarily. Sure the music can be "raw", "visceral", "fantastical", "majestic", "technical", "nuanced" in many ways - but I only know this because I'm accustomed to the various styles, bands, themes and subtle variations within them, instead of hearing this default burst of uncontrolled rage as does my friend.

― Hey you look great, have you been working out asshole? (dog latin), Wednesday, August 15, 2012 2:28 AM (5 hours ago)

i'd say the same of punk, especially hardcore, and i'm comfortably familiar (at the very least) with all these genres. it's a cliche to say that angry, violent music allows an acceptable release for negative thoughts and emotions, but i think there's probably some merit in the idea. the visceral evocation of wrathful destruction is a big part of what what makes nile so thrilling. the catharsis one experiences after being dragged through extremes of anguish and brutality is what makes makes neurosis work.

anyway, perhaps this is a case where overfamiliarity blinds one to the essential and obvious character of something. screaming in a certain manner communicates anger. every child knows this. massive volume and battering sonics not only communicate or emulate violence, they actually are violent. not all metal is built on these things, but a lot of it is, and your friend is in no way wrong to notice this.

contenderizer contendin'

I don't even really think of Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden as angry though, although Sabbath was definitely angsty. Violent maybe.

I am a big metal fan and I think there's a lot more to metal than angry/violent - it is common to the genre but not essential imo

steely dan was kind of this for me

screaming in a certain manner communicates anger. every child knows this. massive volume and battering sonics not only communicate or emulate violence

Warhol's paintings communicated or emulated soup