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Originally posted by Leniu I saw a documentary recently about an English woman with synaesthesia - a rare disorder which merges your senses together. She was a really rare case because she had two forms of synaesthesia, sound -> vision and sound -> taste. It was fascinating, but unfortunately I can't find any videos (it was in a show on the Science Channel). She described what she saw as lines of different sizes and colors, size corresponding to loudness and colors coresponding to notes. When she went out to clubs, she saw big dark boxes for bass, and a variety of colors surrounding her for different notes. What's even more amazing is that she could actually taste music: for example, a song in C# major would sound sweet, E minor would be bitter, etc. They monitored her brain and indeed, exposing her to music showed a lot of unusual activity in the vision and taste portions of her brain. Watching that documentary made me change my perception of music. It definatley goes beyond just the way we perceive it - its universally beautiful patterns that are hardwired into all of us.

i forgot where i read about this, but, from what i understand there are patterns (especially in nature) that, for whatever reason, are just more appealing to the eye, ear, or mouth. for example, visually, things that have "balance" are just pleasing to the eye. we dont know why, they just do! its just one of those funny mysterious things about the universe. such as feng shai or however you spell it, where how furniture or decorations are placed well in a room just evokes a better reaction from people compared to when they are not placed well. red wine just goes better with darker colored food, white wine goes better with lighter colored food. music that has sound frequencies that span a larger spectrum (from the low bass to the mids to the highs) are more fulfilling. music that has a balanced pattern or structure will generally sound better to people. these are all just the safe bets when you want to please people. of course there are the exceptions, those weeds growing in the cracks of sidewalks of society, the squeak in the door or normalcy, but thats part of the whole package of everything in the world.

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Originally posted by winston well, i'm not trying to be pretentious. more like playing devil's advocate, there is nothing wrong with listening to tiesto or paul van dyk, in the end, both are artists that create sound, melodies, call it what you will. they are popular because they attract an energetic young crowd, from that crowd there are many kinds of people. similar to you, me and everyone who frequents night clubs, concerts, etc. if there were no sound and you would take a snap shot of some parties, certain corners are not too different than others, without sound the trance scene resembles any other scene (when there are no glowsticks involved) at that point in time, when there is no sound, you can't tell the difference. they are there because they enjoy these vibrations, which we are configured to interpret. how much of this is conditioned, how much of this is natural? pretentious is to think that what you listen to is real and better, when it could not even be there, how are you sure? are you so easily offended? well, i didn't mean any offense.

System J has a deep inferiority complex and gets offended if someone posts something smart. Don't take it personally.

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Originally posted by stevö i forgot where i read about this, but, from what i understand there are patterns (especially in nature) that, for whatever reason, are just more appealing to the eye, ear, or mouth. for example, visually, things that have "balance" are just pleasing to the eye. we dont know why, they just do!

I've always wondered if isolating someone to nothing but dissonant, atonal music for their entire lives would condition them into appreciating it and legitimately enjoying it, but when being exposed to diatonic, "normal" music it would be hard on their ears and they wouldn't enjoy it. And I don't mean enjoy in the sense of those weird introverted high schoolers who listen to atonal shit or extratone because they "appreciate" all music.

I always think it wouldn't because dissonance and atonality are legitimately unsettling, but again, that might just be because everyone's so conditioned to I IV V chords and non-experimental musicality for the most part. Maybe dissonance and atonality sound bad to our ears because it's something we generally don't get exposed to enough. But then again if you hurt someone every day for their entire lives they probably wouldn't grow to enjoy it.. I don't know.

I'm really going deeper than the initial discussion of genres, but it's something interesting to think of, if our perception of music as a whole is one giant chunk of conditioning or if people are hard wired to be drawn to certain types of music regardless of what they've been exposed to.

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Originally posted by Existo22 System J has a deep inferiority complex and gets offended if someone posts something smart. Don't take it personally.

Plenty of smart people have posted smart things in this thread and I didn't take offence. You'll have to go back to the drawing board to figure out why I think you're an idiot.

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No idea, but I'm positive that growing up a video game addict had a big effect on my music tastes.

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i have always been a snob about a lot of things in the art spectrum, so you might be right.

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One major taste that I would say is correlated to music taste would be style of dress. People that like a certain style of music tend to all dress alike.

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My belief, supported by some research and personal life experience, is that music tastes are genetically encoded along racial/ethnic lines. Not specific genres, of course, but big picture-wise.

It's no coincidence that Lady GaGa writes disco music that harkens back to her Euro roots, or that Pitbull's music is steeped in Caribbean beats. Music preferences, and music traditions, could be as genetic and biological as skin color. People tend to like music that is genetically close to them.

A lot of people who live on the East Coast of the US, in cities like Boston, NYC, and Philly, are descendants of Eastern-European (non-Anglo) immigrants, from countries like Poland, Italy, Russia, etc. It's no surprise, then, that these people have some appreciation for Euro-style sounds and anything close to it, such as techno or techno-influenced pop, even if they were born in this country.

The rest of the US' white population is Anglo-Saxon. It has a totally different musical tradition (and hence genes, perhaps?). People with Anglo or Scandinavian genes have little in common with the continental-Euro genes discussed above, and have their own sound. Taylor Swift, country and folk music, as well as Rock, even the Beatles and the Stones, are all examples of a slightly different musical tradition of people carrying non-continental-Euro genes.

Africans, of course, have their own musical tastes, as do Latinos.

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Last edited by HardTranceProd on Nov-17-2009 at 19:52

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Originally posted by HardTranceProd My belief, supported by some research and personal life experience, is that music tastes are genetically encoded along racial/ethnic lines. Not specific genres, of course, but big picture-wise. It's no coincidence that Lady GaGa writes disco music that harkens back to her Euro roots, or that Pitbull's music is steeped in Caribbean beats. Music preferences, and music traditions, could be as genetic and biological as skin color. People tend to like music that is genetically close to them. A lot of people who live on the East Coast of the US, in cities like Boston, NYC, and Philly, are descendants of Eastern-European (non-Anglo) immigrants, from countries like Poland, Italy, Russia, etc. It's no surprise, then, that these people have some appreciation for Euro-style sounds and anything close to it, such as techno or techno-influenced pop, even if they were born in this country. The rest of the US' white population is Anglo-Saxon. It has a totally different musical tradition (and hence genes, perhaps?). People with Anglo or Scandinavian genes have little in common with the continental-Euro genes discussed above, and have their own sound. Taylor Swift, country and folk music, as well as Rock, even the Beatles and the Stones, are all examples of a slightly different musical tradition of people carrying non-continental-Euro genes. Africans, of course, have their own musical tastes, as do Latinos.

That's because music, much like the image of 'race', is an inherently social thing. People tend to act according to their racial camp because it's simply safer and easier to get by that way. This means exposure and familiarity with certain types of musical phenomenons that utilize a specific language or culture, typically geocentric. It's not solely genetic, though there is the Linear Time Phenomenon to consider if you analyze human development in proximity to the equator and how the improvisation instinct could obviously effect music production.

But I think that most everyone is naturally attracted by syncopation, the breadth or type of this most often being determined by individual, social circumstance, not to mention the sexual incentives for scene subscription given the popularity of a musical type in your corner of the world.

Ascribing depth to things just because you like them seems like more of a handicap than 'taste'; but that's not to imply I am necessarily opposed to wanton snobbery.

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Originally posted by RoBDaWG One major taste that I would say is correlated to music taste would be style of dress. People that like a certain style of music tend to all dress alike.

I like Trance, Eurodance, classical music, Humppa and some cheesy vocal House. Tell me how I dress.

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Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On That's because music, much like the image of 'race', is an inherently social thing.

That's the thing though... race is NOT 'just' a social thing... it is very much a biological, profound thing with consequences, even though this may sound controversial in today's PC society... A lot of people underestimate the role biology plays in our lives. Recent studies have all overturned the social-science ideals that were in vogue in the 70s and 80s, and now emphasize the genes, rather than the environment, in shaping our lives.

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People tend to act according to their racial camp because it's simply safer and easier to get by that way.

There's one possibility you haven't considered, it's that people act that way because they are genetically predisposed to doing so. I know, sounds so extremely simple you would never have thought of it.

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Last edited by HardTranceProd on Nov-17-2009 at 19:51