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Music tastes and wider tastes (pg. 3)
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| SYSTEM-J |
| You really are a pretentious twit, Winston. |
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| Ridexer |
| quote: | Originally posted by winston
This.
Remember Music is nothing but vibrations. What if you couldn't perceive these vibrations and assimilate such as 'sound', then that 'sound' becomes something else. Perhaps looking into this would be of great interest to do research on. The synaptic connections and the interpretation of noise and sound into music, etc. What if these vibrations could be seen instead of heard, or even both...
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That sounds like some intro from ASOT yearmix:D |
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| 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. |
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| winston |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Another one of those conceptual MD threads.
Basically, I've been thinking about how our music tastes fit into to our wider tastes, and whether tastes in other areas influence what we enjoy in music.
I'm sure plenty of exceptions will crop up in this thread, but for me it seems there is a general correlation between the kind of things people like overall and what they like in music. Specifically with how lowbrow/highbrow their tastes are. I can't, for instance, imagine someone who has generally highbrow tastes, reads Proust, watches Bergman movies, likes abstract visual art and then listens to happy hardcore. Where as your stereotypical college student who likes touchy feely liberal things generally seems to gravitate towards blog rock, and your no-nonsense trash-TV loving folks love their disposible, digestible pop music.
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See, right here, this is completely biased. There is no mold and people can't be entirely put into categories without other things brought to the equation. Music surpasses the intellect, i think nefardec said this. Well, i think it's very true, music is made up of vibrations. Unlike other means of art such as literature and visual art, music is based on sound. some people develop preferences to what tonalities please their senses, etc. These might or might not be influenced by their other tastes, I think most of these are conditioned and are dependent on demographics and standard of living as well as nurture. someone who is taught to play the piano from a young age might have a wider or more narrow selection, and it might even play a more personal role in his/her life. This doesn't mean that someone who is not well read, has no interest in literature, etc cannot make or listen to more difficult genres. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
Pretentious is to have pretensions. Few people try to be pretentious. They try to achieve what they're straining for. In your case, it's something profound to add to this discussion.
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
also, i think philosophy certainly comes down to taste. there have been countless fashions in philosophy. maybe you personally are so objective that this isn't a part of your own experience, but the rest of the world, for better or for worse, runs on trends.
anyways, philosophy was only one example. one could easily compare jk rowling to seneca or tom clancy to hesse. |
Well, speaking personally, I don't like or dislike philosophy based on its beauty, but rather its logic. I understand it was just an example, but it does raise the question of what exactly defines "taste" and where it ends.
As for where the discussion goes, I'd rather avoid straightforward Marxesque explanations that it's all about social/cultural/economic background. It's not that I disagree, because it's obvious that upper class kids will have more highbrow tastes than lower class ones, but it's only a partial and simplistic explanation. I grew up in the same house in the same part of the world to the same parents and the same education as my brother, but our tastes are markedly different and have been all our lives.
There's something about a person, divorced from their surroundings, that defines their tastes. And it interests me. |
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| Domesticated |
Music, art, fashion and other aesthetically-defined areas definitely have large cross-overs. Though I think meat187's assertion that people have an image of themselves and uphold it by liking certain music or movies has merit, I don't think it's quite correct. Commodity culture tells us that people express themselves through their possessions - what they wear, drive, eat and drink, but I tend to think that appreciation of music, movies and art are less motivated by how we wish to be viewed by others.
Rather, it seems to me that these things are characterised by an individual's personality. By this I'm not talking about whether they are a hipster or a gangster, but rather whether they're energetic, mellow, introspective, extroverted, et cetera.
I have to go to work so I'll write more about this later. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Well, speaking personally, I don't like or dislike philosophy based on its beauty, but rather its logic. I understand it was just an example, but it does raise the question of what exactly defines "taste" and where it ends.
As for where the discussion goes, I'd rather avoid straightforward Marxesque explanations that it's all about social/cultural/economic background. It's not that I disagree, because it's obvious that upper class kids will have more highbrow tastes than lower class ones, but it's only a partial and simplistic explanation. I grew up in the same house in the same part of the world to the same parents and the same education as my brother, but our tastes are markedly different and have been all our lives.
There's something about a person, divorced from their surroundings, that defines their tastes. And it interests me. |
Right, I guess what I was trying to say is that some people find good logic attractive or important, and some people couldn't give a as long as it gets them through another day of waiting for their cheating husband to come home and their kids to get back from baseball practice.
I agree with the obviousness of the social critique, but as for the 'something' question you've raised - I tried to answer this earlier by suggesting that the 'something' is basically curiosity and level of exposure. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by winston
Music surpasses the intellect, i think nefardec said this. |
don't mean to single you out here, but just for the record, i don't think i said that... |
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| couch-potato |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
But I agree that this theory is true for most people. Maybe that's because a lot of them model their taste after an image they have of themselves. |
I agree.
However, it could be more than people wanting to create an image - it could be simply because it works. For instance, if I'm reading Nietzsche or Schopenhauer chances are I'd pick soft classical music in the background. Any other music would simply be too distracting for me to grasp abstract thought, as say death metal or psytrance.
Of course there are exceptions - chances are a vagrant, womanizing drunk wouldn't have the sophistication to listen to Mozart regularly, but Bukowski did it, wrote about it, & it heightened his fame (or better put image). The man stood out for it. |
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| Ivand |
| quote: | Originally posted by karanicleaves
What music you like depends on what drugs you do or have done in the past.
Of course there are exceptions but this is what I came up with:
1) If you dont do drugs - you like top 40 .
2) If you smoke weed and nothing else - you usually like classic rock, maybe some reggae
3) If you like to smoke weed and eat shrooms and/or take acid - you usually like jam bands and some trip hop / chillout
4) If you like to do coke - you usually like hip hop. Maybe some house.
5) If you like to roll - you like trance / house/ EDM.
If you do a combination of drugs, you enjoy a wide spectrum of music.
Remember, it also depends if you have done these drugs in the past becuase just because you stop doing your d.o.c doesnt mean you stop listening to the music. |
so much bull in one post, lol. |
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| 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. |
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