How much music do you like ?.

[6stringbassist]

Odd question, but I was wondering how many people were like me.

I like what I like basically.

I hate 99.99% of popular music played on the radio, so I don't listen to the radio, in my car I play CD's, and at home I play CD's, I don't have a TV, so I tend to listen to lots of albums and read.

I had a discussion last night, the same one I've actually had many times before with various people..............how can I be a musician when I don't like most types of music.

I won't play covers of songs that I don't like, and most of what I do like others don't, so I don't play covers, I did a few dep gigs earlier in the year for a couple of function bands, and hated it.

I play in a jazz group doing standards, that's as far as it gets for doing covers.

New music that I 'discover' and like is usually via word of mouth from people who I know have similar taste to mine, Porcupine tree for example, I discovered them last year after reading about them on the Steve Lawson forum.

I listen to lots of jazz, I love stuff by Michael Manring, Steve Lawson, Steve Reich, Talk Talk, Jonas Hellborg, Peter Gabriel.

So am I weird ?.

[The Funk]

[quote name='6stringbassist' post='299895' date='Oct 5 2008, 02:31 PM']Odd question, but I was wondering how many people were like me.

I like what I like basically.
[...]

So am I weird ?.[/quote]

You sound perfectly logical to me - but that doesn't mean you're not weird.

[Tait]

i can listen to almost anything (no R&B or Rap or those awful pop songs like kylie or britney spears or stuff like that) but i only really like one genre of music.

[Jase]

I hate the radio too, never have it on in my car. I complain at the TV whenever there's music on..doesn't matter what it is!

I can manage to play covers of songs I hate because it pays. Same as you again...any covers I fancy, other players generally don't like them. I don't play albums very often.

You're not alone

[stacedabass]

I like most music, you can find interesting music in every genre, i think that the best musicians are the ones that take a bit of insperation from all sorts of music. I agree that the radio and tv play quite alot of crap 'pop' music, but every once in a while they do play something great. plus i really like radio 6, plays a very wide range of music. I have loads of cd's all very different genre's of music, people do find it weird sometimes when i say i listen to pantera and the fratellis!

[ahpook]

[quote name='stacedabass' post='299956' date='Oct 5 2008, 03:57 PM']plus i really like radio 6, plays a very wide range of music.[/quote]

plus the one

radio 6 is the only radio station i listen to...stuart maconie's show on a sunday is amazing.

[OutToPlayJazz]

LOL! I thought I was strange, but I'm very much like you. I'll put on things I want to listen to on CD's or my iPod, but I listen to a lot of Radio 4 in the car. I suppose it's a bi-product of living, eating & breathing music for a job that makes you want a rest from it. I find that after teaching it all day (and at times all evening as well) and performing all evening, I don't want to hear any music. I find my mind analysing it all the time, so that's when R4 comes in handy! (Apart from the theme to the Archers which makes me want to scream!!!)

Rich.

[JimBobTTD]

It comes and goes. Sometimes I can't stand some kinds of music, other times I can appreciate something for its structure (or something along those lines). But all in all, I listen to a lot of music, but there is a lot more music I do not listen to.

[Mr. Foxen]

I get bored of hearing the same track loads of times generally, exceptions are Bolt Thrower, I've been listening to them solidly for several weeks, and all their albums are essentially the same. Any, point being radio gets annoying super rapid when I am forced to listen to it, another TV free household here too, so music comes from the internet, I'm a member of a couple of music forums, which for fan sites, have people with a very broad range of taste, so I am pointed in the direction of some quality stuff. Of those things I check out, theres very little I'd bother listening to again.

Whats most annoying is when people reccomend me bands because they sound the same as another band I like. Defeats the point of listening to a different band.

[fumps]

I'm not as closed in as you guys.

As a rule i dont like pop (Just has a plastic feel i cant get my head around) but i will give anyone a chance.

I love listening to music & i love new ideas so i think were all weird in our own way.

Apart from the elf that wispers in my ear............. i ignore him

[Bilbo]

I have been here before on this forum. Music is like anything else; too much of one thing and you get bored. Doesn't matter is you are talking about beans, books or music. I agree that you can find interesting things in most genres but the problem is that you can find many MORE interesting things in some genres and very few in others. If you like bird watching, would you go to Trafalager Square or the Wetlands around Norfolk? Yes, pigeons can be interesting but you wouldn't go out of your way, would you

So your choice to listen to jazz is perfectly natural; it has more to excite you, to inspire you, to interest you. The stuff on mainstream radio is mostly candyfloss, bubblegum and fluff and hardly worth the effort.

[chris_b]

Why do you bother to [i]hate[/i] anything? Like what you like and ignore the rest. There's too much hate!

[fumps]

[quote name='chris_b' post='300321' date='Oct 6 2008, 10:29 AM']Why do you bother to [i]hate[/i] anything? Like what you like and ignore the rest. There's too much hate![/quote]

I agree with that whole hartedly.

Dont really care about things i dont like enough to hate them

[jakenewmanbass]

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='299987' date='Oct 5 2008, 05:15 PM']LOL! I thought I was strange, but I'm very much like you. I'll put on things I want to listen to on CD's or my iPod, but I listen to a lot of Radio 4 in the car. I suppose it's a bi-product of living, eating & breathing music for a job that makes you want a rest from it. I find that after teaching it all day (and at times all evening as well) and performing all evening, I don't want to hear any music. I find my mind analysing it all the time, so that's when R4 comes in handy! (Apart from the theme to the Archers which makes me want to scream!!!)

Rich.[/quote]
Another R4 listener here, but when it comes to music I have a very wide pallette. Basically if something is good I like it, an exception is opera although even some of the great performers touch me with their passion skill and musicality. If I can detect heart and care in music I will probably like it.
eg:
I love some country, I love the pussycat dolls song stickwitchu, I love Frank Zappa, I will listen to and sometimes enjoy some weird contemporary classical on R3, I can listen to Coltranes most manic output, I love all kinds of jazz, rock (especially english 60s 70s) I love all the early american songbook, I like some musical scores, I love some film score writing,.......
in fact music is my air.... without it I would suffocate. I constantly have headphones on so as not to drive my family mad, I have my bass in my hands for up to four hours a day (more if I'm gigging) Whenever I'm on basschat I'm listening, I can listen to one song for weeks, months I listen to and become totally absorbed in every part on a track, I always know all the string lines, BVs melodies counter melodies, JEEZ I even spot edits.
I think if I didn't do music I would be a mass murderer anyone want to book me for a gig

[mcgraham]

[quote]I can listen to one song for weeks, months I listen to and become totally absorbed in every part on a track, I always know all the string lines, BVs melodies counter melodies, JEEZ I even spot edits.[/quote]
Exactly the same. People grossly underestimate the play count on my 'most played' songs (thanks iTunes )
In essence, if something sounds good, I like it. Hence I have a very eclectic music collection. Although I struggle to find new stuff to add to it, as the music that is most readily available is material that I really don't like or connect with or any level.

On a slightly bizarre note, my friend at school (went to Berklee to study guitar and music production) was an avid metal fan. Looking through his iPod there was one category for most genres, 'pop', 'funk', 'classical' etc, and a few more subdivisions for 'rock', like 'hard', 'soft', '70s', '80s' etc But his metal subdivisions were just nuts! He had about 8 or more different subdivisions for metal. I can't even name 8 subdivisions of a given genre, let alone tell you the differences between a few of them!

Mark

P.S. For jazz, does anyone else find it a little bit pretentious/infuriating/confusing when someone says they are into 'jazz', and they're simply using it to describe music that they can't think which category it fits in to? It's not heavy, it's not poppy, it sounds odd, therefore it must be jazz?

[Bilbo]

I have no problem with the ethos of LIKING loads of stuff.

I like Jazz; that's a given.

But I also like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, The Dixie Chicks, James Taylor, Nektar, John Mayer, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Holst, Prokofiev, Genesis, Yes, It Bites, Earth, Wind & Fire, Steely Dan, Astor Piazolla, Marisa Monte, Michael Tippet, System Of A Down, Javier Navarette, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Flook......

But, because, like all of us, I am up to my eyeballs in life, I have to prioritise and make choices about what I go to first and last. I don't only like jazz and then hate everything else. I just like more music under the 'jazz' umbrella than I do classical, blues, HM, funk.....etc. etc...

I think this hate thing doesn't come from the music's content but from the over-representation of bubblegum in the mainstream media. I was saying to my wife on Saturday, its an appalling situation when the programme on mainstream UK TV with the most admirable ethos regarding a wide range of live music of differing genres is 'Strictly Come Dancing'.

Those of us who 'hate' pop music don't 'hate' it, we just view it with contempt, bred by familiarity.

[Bilbo]

[quote name='mcgraham' post='300361' date='Oct 6 2008, 11:21 AM']P.S. For jazz, does anyone else find it a little bit pretentious/infuriating/confusing when someone says they are into 'jazz', and they're simply using it to describe music that they can't think which category it fits in to? It's not heavy, it's not poppy, it sounds odd, therefore it must be jazz?[/quote]

If you try and put a circle around what people think is 'jazz' someone will try to cross it. Its a very broad church.

[fumps]

[quote name='mcgraham' post='300361' date='Oct 6 2008, 11:21 AM']P.S. For jazz, does anyone else find it a little bit pretentious/infuriating/confusing when someone says they are into 'jazz', and they're simply using it to describe music that they can't think which category it fits in to? It's not heavy, it's not poppy, it sounds odd, therefore it must be jazz?[/quote]

I have to be shy here & put my hand up....i really dont get Jazz. Although i think the style is complex & subversive.....i honestly dont understand it......i have tried listening.

But to my plebby ears it's just noise to me i'm afraid.

[BassMunkee]

The range of music I listen to is considerably greater than the music I like to play or buy.
I like to play darkly-ambient whiffly stuff or Post-Rock-esque 8 minute long pieces where very little actually happens at all - which is just how I like it.
However I don't spend all of my time listening to Boards Of Canada and Explosions in The Sky.
I do listen to a lot of ambient, post-rock, post-punk, industrial, trance - all that kind of thing, but then I'll equally quite happily go through anything from Elvis Presley, Bjork, Bob Dylan to SunnO))) and Lustmord.
I'm quite the fan of Wagner, as well.
I listen to a lot of Radio 1 and watch a lot of MTV2, Kerrang, VH1.
Even if you only like to play a certain sort of music, I don't believe you should only listen one type of thing and write anything "mainstream" off - there's a lot of good stuff out there, some of it in very unlikely places and I believe that as a musician I am a lot more well-rounded and creative because I listen to a very broad range of music than I would be if all I ever listened to were CDs of music that I had picked because they are the bands I specifically follow.
I think that there is a largely unfair degree of snobbery with regards to radio-friendly mainstream music, as applied to it by so-called "musos", I have extremely niche tastes in what I choose to buy and play but I think it would be very detrimental to my development if that was all I chose to listen to.
Decrying the likes of - I dunno - The Enemy or Alphabeat as being irrelevant because they are pop and/or on radio 1 is dangerous ground imho.
I'm not saying we should all go out and get "Hi Ho Silver Lining" as a single and there is a lot of dross that I do really dislike - Cliff Richard, Celine Dion, Victor Wooten - but I know I dislike it because I've listened to it, not because I feel that in some way that it's beneath me and therefore I dislike it because it does not become me as a musician to countenance it.

[Lfalex v1.1]

+1 on R4!

Otherwise, I side with OTPJ in that I over-analyse music that I'm exposed to.
There's a cure, though;
Work out [i]why[/i] you don't like a given band or song (in strictly musical terms), then the process becomes a more positive one.
At least you can rationalize your dislike of said music.

This, unfortunately, cannot defend against radio stations which play the same choons all day (or in my case, night)

[mcgraham]

[quote]I have to be shy here & put my hand up....i really dont get Jazz. Although i think the style is complex & subversive.....i honestly dont understand it......i have tried listening.[/quote]
Good for you! I'm pleased to see you've got the humility to stand up and be honest about what you think. Whilst jazz is a very broad category (as Bilbo has rightly pointed out), the more standard jazz (jazz standards etc) is quite tame compared to more avant garde jazz, but I myself didn't even get this 'tamer' type of jazz until a few years after being exposed to it. I bought the Matt Garrison Live DVD a few years back, and the tunes are really listenable, quite straightforward for virtuoso jazz in fact. But I just could not stand the guitarist when I listened to him. I was physically repulsed by most everything he played. However, I stuck it on again about a year ago and was mesmerised by some of his lines. In this instance, it definitely didn't grow on me cos I didn't actually listen to it for several years, but my tastes still changed radically from then to now just by growing as a musician.

I'm not saying you [i]need[/i] to 'get it', or even get used to it, just know that you are not alone and I [i]definitely[/i] appreciate where you're coming from.

Mark

[lowhand_mike]

[quote name='JimBobTTD' post='299988' date='Oct 5 2008, 05:16 PM']It comes and goes. Sometimes I can't stand some kinds of music, other times I can appreciate something for its structure (or something along those lines). But all in all, I listen to a lot of music, but there is a lot more music I do not listen to.[/quote]
+1
i go through phases of not listening to anything to listening to stuff all the time, sometyimes i'll have a cd on or my itunes at work other times i can go for days without listening to a thing.
i hate dance music unless i'm in a club (can't remember the last time i was) then its bareable. lost interest in rap after de la soul. love metal and rock. like a bit or proper r&b. bit of jazz. most stuff really apart from the churned out pop crap.

[fumps]

[quote name='lowhand_mike' post='300392' date='Oct 6 2008, 12:07 PM']lost interest in rap after de la soul.[/quote]

Just try MC 900ft jesus, quaanum & Jurassic 5.

you will love them........Hip Hop is like any other music nowadays there is some amazing hidden Gems but is over shadowed by the [size=4]"Me- money-Me-Money-me-bitches-me-bitches-Me-Hoes-Me-Hoes-Me-Cars-me-Cars-ooo-Did-EYE-TELL-YOU-I-HAVE-....repeat"[/size]Crap....grrrrr

[Balcro]

[quote name='6stringbassist' post='299895' date='Oct 5 2008, 02:31 PM']Odd question, but I was wondering how many people were like me.

I like what I like basically.
I hate 99.99% of popular music played on the radio, so I don't listen to the radio, in my car I play CD's, and at home I play CD's, I don't have a TV, so I tend to listen to lots of albums and read.
I had a discussion last night, the same one I've actually had many times before with various people..............how can I be a musician when I don't like most types of music.

I won't play covers of songs that I don't like, and most of what I do like others don't, so I don't play covers, I did a few dep gigs earlier in the year for a couple of function bands, and hated it.
I play in a jazz group doing standards, that's as far as it gets for doing covers.
New music that I 'discover' and like is usually via word of mouth from people who I know have similar taste to mine, Porcupine tree for example, I discovered them last year after reading about them on the Steve Lawson forum.
I listen to lots of jazz, I love stuff by Michael Manring, Steve Lawson, Steve Reich, Talk Talk, Jonas Hellborg, Peter Gabriel.

So am I weird ?.[/quote]

Nope. I don't think you're weird, just sensibly discriminating like most of us.

I've got a lovely hi-fi but I hardly ever turn it on for my own benefit, so to some extent I'm lucky enough to miss out on most radio playlist output. I'm prepared to listen to most things; rock rock-pop, jazz, classical, early music, world music, organ music, film-scores, even commercials etc,. Everything from Al Kooper to Mott the Hoople, Dave Grusin, Beethoven and Motorhead but I draw the line at rap & its derivatives. That's a defininite switch-off.

The other "what in the hell is that" reaction is usually reserved for what I call academic/pretentious jazz, classical or rock. When I was flush with the cash I would treat myself to 3 jazz albums every Christmas, but I've bought a few lemons over the years. Stuff like the supposedly famous Cologne concert with Keith Jarret, Jack de Johnette etc.. Pass. Can I have my money back? Likewise Jaco.P and McCoy Tyner. I downloaded Victor Wooten and wished I hadn't bothered. Stockhausen, Harrison Birtwistle and John McLaughlin all get the delete button. Where's the dividing line between brilliant technical prowess and musicianship?

Come to think of it, I wouldn't want to play that stuff, anyway. Since there's so much other stuff you do find worthy, just relax and don't worry about. You're still a musician. Would Paganini have like the Sex-Pistols? I don't think so.

Balcro

[lemmywinks]

[quote name='fumps' post='300399' date='Oct 6 2008, 12:16 PM']Just try MC 900ft jesus, quaanum & Jurassic 5.

you will love them........Hip Hop is like any other music nowadays there is some amazing hidden Gems but is over shadowed by the [size=4]"Me- money-Me-Money-me-bitches-me-bitches-Me-Hoes-Me-Hoes-Me-Cars-me-Cars-ooo-Did-EYE-TELL-YOU-I-HAVE-....repeat"[/size]Crap....grrrrr[/quote]

I always loved De La Soul! There's something about Eye Know that makes it a joy to listen, it's one of the most beautifully simple tunes i've ever heard. Always puts a big stupid grin on my dish every time it comes on!
It's the same with Mr. Wendal, although i listened to Arested Development's entire back catalogue and didn't like anything on there apart from People Everyday

Edited October 6, 2008 by lemmywinks