What Makes You Love Music?

[frag]

Phew...

[Ryosuke]

frag said:

On another, I commented, "You can see that baby's pepper!" (As a child, I apparently referred to dicks as 'peppers.') So my mom gave me Nirvana's Nevermind.

This is pretty awesome. How old are you frag? In your early 20s I assume?

I've made some lukewarm comments about Nirvana before, but there's no question they defined a generation, and their memory is pretty vivid for me. I know that this is stupid and wrongheaded (maybe a bit patronizing, even? - if so, then I apologize), but I still have difficulties fathoming that people who were barely old enough to remember Nirvana, those people are all grown up now, having sex, getting married, becoming fathers and mothers even. That's just like...impossible.

Which goes to prove that I've yet to come to terms with the fact that I'm growing old, I guess. Yikes.

[Kensterberg]

That's a great post, Frag. And that's seriously the kind of thing that I want to talk about on here. DED and I were just shitting around yesterday, in large part b/c this is a big topic to deal with and I really didn't feel up to posting my "answer" ("thoughts" would probably be appropriate) yesterday. I'm going to be posting some pretty lengthy observations myself here today, so glenn can rest assured that I'm gonna be baring a little bit o' soul here myself.

[Galactus]

I will post my top ten defining moments in my musical history later today.

[Kensterberg]

OK, here's my first stab at this ... defining my musical bottom line. This will be Part 1 of several posts throughout the day (and/or beyond).

First off, there's obviously no single thing that makes or breaks a piece of music for anyone, all the time. I'm no exception to this: there are things that I really like that seem to come out of left-field, and of course I don't look for the same things in all kinds of music. What I want from a classical piece is far different than what I want from a jazz trio, or from a rock band. So with all of the "usual caveats" expressed or implied here out of the way, let's get to what attracts me to music, and why.

Next up, I've got to disclose (again) that I'm not a big dancer. I am very much part of the generation and social class that defined itself in part by not being able to or simply refusing to dance by any usual definition of the term. When I was a younger man, I did sometimes dance at fraternity parties (amazing what the combination of alcohol and sorority girls can do), but I've never listened to music simply b/c "it's got a good beat, you can dance to it." Yeah, there are songs that will get me grooving behind my desk some days, or my foot tapping, or head bobbing (yeah DED, the Jackson's ABC could be one of those songs depending on my mood, etc.) but that's always a secondary concern for me. Having a great "groove" is a plus many times, but it's not why I listen to music.

From a purely musical standpoint, having some sort of melodic hook is a huge plus for me. In fact, if the melody is good enough, that can trump a lot of other negatives in a song. This was especially true for me in my earliest listening experiences, and so my first great musical love was Paul McCartney ("Listen to What the Man Said" was the first song I heard that clicked that special something in my soul) and from him, the Beatles. I was in fifth grade or so when I really began to discover music, and initially it was the melodies that captured my heart. Even today, memorable and creative melodies are one of the hallmarks of many of my musical loves. While I would never go nuts for a song simply b/c of the beat, melodies do catch my ears and can send me over the edge for a particular piece.

(to be cont.)

[Thorngrub]

I believe the human organism behaves in exactly the same fashion as electricity.
Electricity, in its natural state, flows w/an alternating current. That is to say, like
a stream flowing in one direction, only instead, it will turn on a dime and flow
the opposite way, and then turn on a dime and flow the opposite way again,
continually doing this. Therefore, I Sing The Body Electric!

What does this have to do w/the premise of this board?
Why, everything.

Were we NOT beings whose electrophysiognomic energy flowed in this alternating way (that is to say, were we some kind of Frankensteinian "Direct Current" monsters instead), then I'm quite certain my attraction to music would be altogether different than it is.

Because although I can't quite pinpoint what it is about the music that I love, I can honestly deduce that because we are beings analogous to living electricity, the alternating nature of our "flow" incorperates a vast ability to embrace all kinds of music.

Perhaps, it is merely the introduction of something "different", or never before heard, i.e, . . . never before sensed, that drives my singular attraction to all kinds of music.

Music is something my body electric has become ineffably addicted to, I'll tell ya that much.

[phil]

Or maybe it is the extraterrestrial DNA in our body ...


;D ;D ;D

[Mary]

phil said:

Or maybe it is the extraterrestrial DNA in our body ...


;D ;D ;D

ZING!!

Hey, I'm thinking about this one. Will post on it later... but not sure quite how to begin!

[Galactus]

My first memory of really having any active interest in music was listening to my aunts cassettes. She had Back In Black and before I'd ever heard You Shook Me or Back In Black I heard Hells Bells. To be honest I'm not sure I ever even listened to side 2 until years later.

My uncle got a CD player pretty early, I used to go in his room and make him play the Heartbeat at the beginning of DSOM, Money and Time over and over. He also had Whitney Houston and The Greatest Love Of All was my favorite song.

I used to pretend to be Marty Mcfly pretending to be Chuck Berry. It would be some time before I found who Chuck Berry was. At this point Huey Lewis my favorite.



The first cassettes I owned where Licensed to Ill, Whitesnake, Micheal Jackson - Bad (but I wanted Thriller which I had on LP but cassettes were much cooler) and Huey Lewis And The News - Fore!.

My Dad sat my brother and I down a played Stairway To Heaven and Nantucket Slayride on his record player.

My aunt and uncle gave us all their old 45s, my brother and I played them and my Dad's records a lot, it didn't matter that Kung Fu Fighting skipped. One of my favorites was Jeepers Creepers by Haily Mills. Itsy Bitsy Tiny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini scared the crap out of me, I thought the reason she was afraid to go out in the water was sharks or maybe a monster.

I began watching MTV nearly 24 hours a day.

This was approximately 1984- 1987.

[Kensterberg]

(Part 2 ... um, I don't know how many "parts" there will be in my exploration of this question ... I opened up this thread b/c there's a lot of stuff I want to talk about in this context, and so I'm gonna be putting up some lengthy entries ... feel free to skip any or all of it, of course ... now what was the point here? oh yeah! it's very likely that at some point (say, later this afternoon or tomorrow morning) I'll forget what number "part" I'm on, and it'll just say "cont." or some such at the top ... boy, that sure was a long run for a very short slide, wasn't it?)

Melodies really are important to me, and more than just the simple lead figure. I like catchy riffs, even from unexpected sources. The first instrument I learned to play was baritone horn (euphonium), which is a melodic instrument. When I shifted to tuba as a h.s. junior, I played it the same way as I played my euphonium -- sometimes literally playing the same pieces, sometimes even in the same octave (I had crazy range as a tubist). You can't have music without some sort of tempo, of course, but my love for music is founded not down in the beat but up in the melody.

My background as a brass player biases me a bit at times in regards to music. I'd rather hear an unaccompanied brass choir or an a cappela Latin vocal work than listen to techno or a percussion ensemble, for example, or almost any typical dance floor fodder. So at the purest level, I think it's fair to say that I far prefer pure melody over pure "riddim." I also tend to like the natural sounds of horns, winds, and strings over purely artificial noises. I find it much easier to suss out the human element in traditional instruments, and as we shall find later, that human element is one of (if not THE) biggest thing(s) I need to find in music that I really love.

I have, however, different desires and expectations when it comes to the use of melody in various types of music. When we're talking about jazz, I like to hear a "main theme" stated just enough to remind the listener what the song is, and for the soloists and interplay to go from there to ... well, wherever the musicians can plausibly link it to. A great example of how to take a simple melody and stretch it as far as possible is found in John Coltrane's breath-taking reading of "My Favorite Things," where he plays the simple melody line of this classic out to almost 14 minutes with only piano and drum accompaniment. Trane returns to the main theme periodically, as though to remind the listener what they're hearing, but some of the most beautiful moments of this work are found in chord progressions and phrases which are at most tangentially related to the proper melody.

Before turning to the question of the role of melody in rock and roll, I want to discuss a couple other general virtues in my vision of music. I'm quite a bright guy, even if I do say so myself, and find brevity to be a virtue (one that I strive for in my writing, but rarely achieve, alas!) -- say something once, why say it again? could practically be my motto when it comes to musical themes. When I'm listening to "pure" music (i.e. no lyrics or lyrics which are intentionally unimportant such as choral works) I really don't want to be pounded over the head with a repeated melody (unless it's a really, really good one, such as any number of Ventures or Dick Dale(?) singles). A song should be as long as it needs to be to make its point, no longer.

The best extended works in any genre require their entire running time to make their point (the perfect examples of this can be found in numerous Mozart pieces, and most memorably in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which is so essentially linked throughout that it almost pains me to listen to any one part of it without playing the entire work). It is rare that an artist has so much to say that they need to go for more than a few minutes on one song, IMO. I have this problem with many jazz recordings, but the great ones know just how long to extend their jams, and when to wrap them up. (See, for example, Miles Davis absolutely perfect bandleading skills on Kind of Blue, where each track is a fully realized idea which could not be edited down at all, and where any further exposition would have been redudant). So my apparent "obsession" with short song length actually is not a bias towards simplicity, it's a bias towards concision -- which is not the same thing.

Accordingly, I can listen to a great jazz band (or a great composer) expound upon a piece for significantly longer than I can a typical rock band. Why? Because the musical ideas in jazz and classical are almost always more complicated and sophisticated than those of a rock band. And that's the way it should be, because in my view rock and roll is, at its most fundemental level, folk music. As such, it is best when it is literally music for "folks" to listen to and live with.

What does this mean for my appreciation of rock (and scorn of jam bands?), stay tuned for the next part ... whenever I get around to writing and posting it.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

What Makes You Love Music?

Pain. I need something for the pain and I don't like drugs.

[Thorngrub]

Nice answer.

[JACkory]

It's a spiritual thing. Hard to explain.
Music has always been the best friend I've ever had.
Now that my mind and ears are open to other kinds of music I see the relationship deepening and I have no doubt that I'll love it till the day I die.

[kool]

skvorisdeadsorta said:

What Makes You Love Music?

Pain. I need something for the pain and I don't like drugs.

Agreed, that was an excellent answer. Short, and to the point.

I think it was Mick Jagger who once said something along the lines of "no matter how fucked up your life can get, the only friends you can always rely on and will always be there for you, are your records".

That's so true and pretty much sums up why I love music so much. It's helped me through some awful times in my life, and made the good times seem even better.

[Ryosuke]

kenholzman said:

I'm quite a bright guy, even if I do say so myself

Okay, I think this may be the root of some of our disagreements on music. I'm quite stupid, unfortunately. But I'd rather be stupid and have good taste than to be a genius with crap taste.

Melody alone won't do it for me. It needs to be accompanied by an appealing rhythm. Good musicianship and creative, unpredictable arrangements are also pluses. I probably value musicianship now more than I did when I was younger. I wasn't the die-hard punk that some others here are, but I did consider myself to be a fan of the genre, and I think I fell into some of the traps - overtrivializing (is that a word?) good musicianship, being too quick to cry wankery etc. Which of course isn't a problem of punk itself , just the attitudes of some (not all) of its adherents. I'm glad that punk happened, and still stand by it wholeheartedly.

To be continued at a later time.