Ok I'm not totally gone; advice and Philosophy of Musical Tastes

[Hababi]

Yeah I thought about totally leaving but I still feel like posting--not too frequently, but every once in a while--when the spirit moves me. Oh, and I absolutely, positively, will NOT discuss gay marriage or Israel, as I've spent way too many threads on the matters. Of course you can always IM me about that.

btw I'm not regretting resigning at all; it's actually quite relieving to not be in a position to have to deal with Chad. Easier to dedicate myself to reading, too--just got Things Fall Apart from the library.

Anyway, some passing advice from reading some threads:
1) Don't flame Wotan off the board :p I don't agree with his views on heritage (which actually share a lot in common with widely held beliefs amongst Native Americans), but it's an interesting POV and he expresses it well enough to warrant being in here. So stop the "your Hitler" stuff (Amit :evil: ).

2) Don't feel the need to 'pwn' people. You don't win for being the loudest or most obnoxious. Actually you don't win at all :p Come here to share ideas and learn, not to assert your superiority or anything of the such.

Ok I can only think of two for now.

On to a spur of the moment list of PWI users who I think consistently contribute the most to threads they participate in, and who I hope to see maintain their presence on mx (or expand it):

1) Smokey D
2) Dropper
3) Siva Chair
4) Zoroaster
5) Scythe
6) PerpetualBurn
7) SOP


Of course that doesn't include fellow ex mod Med; he's #1 :thumb:

Ok, and on to the final part of my thread (I'm consolidating to avoid multiple posts):

How do you think we develope our music tastes? What are your own and how did you come to experience and favor it? Ok, you probably can't say why you do, it's just something intrinsic. But why do you think that is? Is it based on what you experience when you're young? Or what your parents like? Or some other genetic factor? Or is it just sheer, absolutely unquantifiable happenstance?

Most all of us have one or two genres that we like above all else. IE, I listen to jazz, country, bluegrass, classical and the such, but what I listen to the most, and enjoy the most, is rock, and within that wide genre, blues rock and folk rock. Neither of my parents are huge on blues rock, somewhat into folk rock. But my dad is a big fan of old pop stuff from the 50's through the 70's, which tends to emphasize melody and harmony, and I like most everything with a harmony, so I can see some influence there. Your thoughts?

[Refl]

On this board 50% of music taste is peer pressure.

[Against Miik!]

I'm sure its some code in our DNA that makes some sounds more favorable to us than others. However, its by sheer chance that we may or may not come across these sounds in our lifetime.

I know my first real obsession was classic rock, which came from my dad. So that may have something to do with it. Now though, I listen to literally anything, with no real favorite genre, just whatever i'm in the mood for. My playlist has genres ranging from Middle Eastern sounds to punk to rap to metal to indie to Kelly Clarkson. Literally everything. I think that reflects my views on just about everything, pretty open.

edit: or what refl said. But just because you listen to something because its cool doesn't mean you really like it. I think if you can listen to a band regularly for a few months and still like them, then thats really what you are into.

[ratsinthecity403]

I'm sure a lot of it is what we are exposed to and what we have access to. On the occasions that I have heard Eastern European music or music that has been influenced by it, I really like whatt I hear. But I honestly have no idea what bands to listen to, where to get a CD or any sort of information.
I know that some people listen more just for the music and ignore the message, and vice-versa.

[PerpetualBurn]

1) Smokey D
2) Dropper
3) Siva Chair
4) Zoroaster
5) Scythe
6) PerpetualBurn
7) SOP

Unexpected. Thanks.

How do you think we develope our music tastes? What are your own and how did you come to experience and favor it? Ok, you probably can't say why you do, it's just something intrinsic. But why do you think that is? Is it based on what you experience when you're young? Or what your parents like? Or some other genetic factor? Or is it just sheer, absolutely unquantifiable happenstance?

My music tastes have been quite strange in their development. In fact, until I was about 13 I would've said that I didn't like music. The change for me came when I realised that music wasn't actually about pop culture, of which I have always evaded somewhat unintentionally.

I think the breakthrough for me was actually Korn, a band who I talk about with a hint of nostalgia despite being unable to sit through a record of now. Really, as trite as I now find them, they were the first band I ever drew some sense of emotional parallel from. I understood the anger; the protest. I'm not even sure of how I developed from there. I guess I just started to see bands on MTV2 and started to follow with a newfound interest. The absolute revolution came for me when I was maybe 14/15 and I saw a video of Iron Maiden playing Fear of the Dark live at Rock in Rio. I knew I wanted to play guitar as soon as he launched into the guitar solo. And, after some deliberation, I bought a guitar. There was no nagging or anything like that, my sister's always had singing and acting lessons (never pressured, natural urges) and while my parents were somewhat surprised at the "academic child" (which is ironic, as due to chronic laziness she's always outperformed me) wanting to play guitar, they were happy to get an entry level guitar and let me save for an improvement.

I guess that when I started as an actual musician, I found that there was more depth to instruments that had, until then, been backing work. I soon lost interest in vocals, and found myself turning to hard rock and metal. Iron Maiden, Metallica, RATM, and a big punk influence to boot, were listened to in detail, trying to absorb every riff and every solo. Pretty soon I found riffs limited in their expression. I'd skim through and album listening to a few seconds of a guitar lick before moving on. And so I got into shred. Joe Satriani was my new idol. Satch, Vai, and surprisingly, never Malmsteen.

From here, again, the progression was somewhat logical. Along with the shredders, I found jazz. I found Coltrane, Davis, bits of McLaughlin. Never much, I was lost in the genre, but over time I've picked up more and more.

I'm not entirely sure where the other influences of mine have cropped up. It's just that every time someone I know has expressed an interest in an artist, I've responded with "What would you recommend? What can you lend me?" and I've just built up an eclectic music collection.

Nowadays, I have just about every type of music you'd care to mention. And I don't mean it in the way that whenever you ask someone who has no idea about music and they say "Oh, everything really" and they mean "everything in the top 10". The only thing I don't have much of is classical. And I'm working on it.

The only reason I ever listen to a piece of music is because I have some emotional connection with it. Sometimes that's because it invokes some feeling of sadness, tenderness, or anger in me, sometimes its envy for the musicianship of the writer. I tend to think that everyone is like this. Even if they only relate the happiness of dancing to it in a club, its still an emotional connection. It's quite bizarre in ways, music is one of the only things that I can be open about. I'm otherwise quite recluse in talking about myself. It seems that most people are the other way round: they like to talk about their feelings but don't want the huge range of music which could reflect it. I suppose when it comes to music I'm just a hopeless romantic, always searching for new love. /End Cain-esque 2000 word post.

[Herbert]

Well I used to be influenced from the radio and as a child didn't actually realise that there were people outside of the radio that made music.

The most drastic change would have been joining up here. Band names and artists fly around so I check them out and stick with what I like and tend to evolve from it. I kind of went pop > pop rock > rock > metal. But then after a while I came to not enjoy metal as such to listen to all the time, there was a time a place for it. So through my guitar teacher I entered the world or folk and jazz. I just listen to everything but my main genres would probably be rock and metal. I like to jump around my room and stuff.

As for why... I have heard that more reserved people listen to heavier music. I've never been a very open person and sometimes I find listening to heavy music lets me just get angry and all that crap in my head through the music rather than turning to other means such as grumpiness or violence.

I've never really been influenced by parents but my family are seriously not musical. I dunno.

[Ghoul Hunter]

My parents both are huge music lovers, and my mother is/was an artist. I believe that those facts greatly influenced my interest and general acceptance of music. My main type of music i've always enjoyed is metal. No matter what phases I go through, it's always been my closest and favorite genre of music. Nothing else evokes the same emotion that it does in me.

Also, thank you for your mention in here about me :)

[Noku]

I think your music taste can be divided in two separate sections, individual taste and social taste...

Social taste being the music you want to be around when socialising. In my opinnion the social music taste has influence from your sexuality (what kind of appearance and behavior you find attracting), status and stereotypes. Individual taste is more mood and emotion oriented, evoking memories, seeking direction etc. defining yourself for you. Then there is also musical side of the music which goes through soundscape, songwriting and technique vise interesting music.

My social music taste is pretty much sexually oriented, some status value between friends... my individual taste is more "romantic" and beautiful and deep... musical taste... well I am mostly interested of soundscapes and songwriting... Vai vs. Satriani days are over for me... luckily