The concept of a 'Taste Vocabulary'

I have a friend who plays in my band who listens to a fair bit of music and has, to all extents a well developed taste in music. One thing he can't abide however is 'heavy' music like punk and metal. It doesn't matter whether it's Converge or Baroness or Emperor or whoever - "All I hear is anger and aggression. It's just angry music", so he claims. If ever as a band we're jamming around and go into heavy metal territory/parody, his idea of playing in these styles is to maniacally thrash at his instrument in a brutal haphazard way.

It struck me that hard/heavy music just isn't part of his musical vocabulary. Like someone with a limited linguistic lexicon, he has a limited way of understanding things like heavy metal, hearing it indiscriminately as "angry" music, whereas I (as someone who was indoctrinated into that church several years ago) rarely hear "anger" in that music necessarily. Sure the music can be "raw", "visceral", "fantastical", "majestic", "technical", "nuanced" in many ways - but I only know this because I'm accustomed to the various styles, bands, themes and subtle variations within them, instead of hearing this default burst of uncontrolled rage as does my friend.

I guess I can appreciate the musical vocab theory, the idea that discovering new music is a bit like learning a language - adding words, grammar, customs and phrases slowly but surely until one becomes fluent in it. I can certainly relate when it comes to finding out about things like house music in the early 2000s when it took me a while to decipher and appreciate a style of music I'd previously written off as being too tame and commercial. I just hadn't allowed my musical vocab to encompass house's function/role in music and the possibilities within that.

I'm not sure what I'm asking here, but would you agree? Are there any other examples you might have?

Not sure that enjoying a kind of music and being able to analyse it are the same thing. After a few years of hanging out and talking music with metal friends as a teenager I could tell my Death from my Amorphis from my Krabathor, but I never really enjoyed it that much. At the same time, I love a lot of jazz but have only a tenuous grasp on the fundamental vocabulary.

Obviously enjoyment and vocabularly expansion are strongly correlated though, you're more motivated to learn more about music you enjoy.

Strikes me as a condescending way to rationalise someone else not liking something you like.

hehe, I can relate on the "knowing about metal but maybe not enjoying it as much as you might like".

I'm also thinking about those who say things like for instance "all reggae sounds the same" citing the emphasis on the off-beat but discounting the fact contemporary Jamaican pop consciously reinvented itself every 3-5 years since its inception in the early '60s. To people who say this, they're not lying - it really does sound all the same to them. Until they start exploring, via say a 100% Dynamite compilation, it will all sound the same.

I think there's a certain sense of musical vocab involved in enjoying music, but it's not that necessary or technical or objective - with jazz, for instance, I don't have a clue about the technical / musical side of how or what is being played, but I have learnt my own limited understanding of what aesthetics and signifiers and sounds I like over time. Same with many different idioms. I don't think you need to formally learn a specific vocab to 'get' an idiom, though.

I think it's also totally valid to have no interest in learning a particular vocab, either as casual listener or technical player; it's A-OK to just think metal sounds fucking horrible and ignore it, fvor instance.

I don't think a "taste vocabulary" is a helpful way of looking at it. But there is the idea that, in order to be able to appreciate new (to you) forms of music, you have to learn what things to pay attention to.

People are allowed to dislike what they dislike - and people come up with as many silly rationalisations for why they just don't respond to something, as people come up with silly rationalisations for why they *do* like something. I do think it's important, as a ~serious fan~ (whatever that means) of music, rather than a passive consumer, to interrogate those emotional reactions, and think about why you have them. (And indeed, if they can change.) And while exploring a new (to you) genre, it does help to learn about the signifiers of that genre, learning those signifiers will not always make you *like* something you are inclined to dislike.

Metal is SUPPOSED to be noisy and alienating though. The idea that more people would like it if they just sat down and learned how to listen to it is o_0

xxpost Matt DC - not sure I agree. The number of times I hear people say "heavy metal, it's just people shouting and going "GROAAAAAAAGGH!!" - I mean, it is and it isn't, isn't it? Same as all techno goes "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!". And all hiphop is violence and misogyny and bad language.

It springs from the subscribed idea (one that I've often used to champion music appreciation as a pastime) that the essential difference between sound art and visual art is that with sound, no matter who you are or what your background is, you can't ignore it without walking out of the room. With a painting or sculpture, you aren't forced into having a reaction - you can look away or stroll by and move on to the next one if it doesn't take your fancy. Music has to provoke some sort of reaction in the listener, for better or worse, and of course people will react differently to different kinds of music based on their tastes and experiences.

But I'm not sure whether the idea of a "taste vocab" kind of undermines this idea, because if you were to put a fan of Motown ballads in the middle of a drum'n'bass club, their reaction wouldn't be the same as someone who goes out clubbing every week and it's likely that once they've gotten over the initial culture shock, that they'd get bored, even if the DJ was playing the best and most cutting edge d'n'b set in the world.

So does unfamiliar music become like wallpaper to the uninitiated listener? There must be buckets of bland indie rock tunes from the last decade, beloved by certain types of people that would reduce me to a state of vapid, tearful boredom.

in order to be able to appreciate new (to you) forms of music, you have to learn what things to pay attention to.

this is OTM, and not far from the idea of the "Taste Vocab". What I mean here is not "I know a lot about metal and its bands and its history", rather "I know what to listen out for. I understand it. I have developed a modicum of fluency in it". The difference between hearing a spoken language as a bunch of gobbledegook, and then being able to make out the odd word and eventually being able to converse in it.

Sometimes the visceral reaction is the person's correct, authentic reaction. One just lacks the vocabulary to describe exactly what about it one dislikes. Stop expecting people to justify their dislike in language that will somehow suit you.

I spent 90 minutes yesterday interviewing a renowned professor of Art History and he thinks he won't have an anlogous word for 'listen' in relation to visual art; he thinks 'look' isn't strong enough. Which was an interesting idea.

we don't, not he won't.

I've heard probably thousands of deep house records in my time and I know exactly what to listen for and what it's supposed to do and I still by and large don't like it.

Not sure how much the metaphor necessarily implies this but I think these ideas often are founded on this idea that what the music is - in all its nuanced glory - is always objectively present, and it's just a question of whether the listener sees/hears that clearly (i.e. has the right vocabulary to decode the sounds).

But listening, like reading, is not "innocent" - I think the process also involves an encoding of the sounds via ideas, associations, parallels, presumptions about purpose or use etc. etc. Music is spongey in this regard, soaking all this stuff up.

I suppose my thinking of this comes from DJ culture where a DJ by virtue of selection/sequencing might demonstrate that they "hear" something in a particular tune that even the most learned listener had not (and help you to hear that too).

The idea that more people would like it if they just sat down and learned how to listen to it is o_0

I don't think they have a duty to or anything but I also don't think this is o_0 at all

Several x-posts now but...

I mean, I spent *ages* thinking that I was somehow ~missing~ missing something in metal, because so many of my friends and people whose musical tastes I otherwise appreciated were raving about it.

So I spent a lot of time trying to listen to it, and trying to work out the signifiers. And some people, because I was putting in that effort, thought that I was somehow going to become a convert to the ~one true music~ or fucking whatever. I didn't. And I eventually had to conclude that it was never going to click, and I should stop pretending to like it. And go listen to something that pleased me more. I still don't know what, exactly, it is about that music that I dislike or fail to respond to. (Though I do know a lot more what it is about the *culture* that turns me off.)

Learning the signifiers DOES NOT MEAN that someone will start liking something they have no predisposition to like, or specific reasons for disliking. And sometimes it just seems really arrogant for people to insist that if they somehow just "learned the vocabulary" they would somehow either 1) explain to them in ways that they could not dismiss why they didn't like it (impossible) or 2) suddenly start liking it (arrogant assumption).

Where it helps is where you *do* have an instinctual positive response to something, but don't know where to start or how to get into it.

Where it also helps is trying to distinguish between "I don't like the way this sounds" (fine) and "I don't like the kind of people who make/listen to/are associated with this music" (not fine and needs to be interrogated.)

I spent 90 minutes yesterday interviewing a renowned professor of Art History and he thinks he won't have an anlogous word for 'listen' in relation to visual art; he thinks 'look' isn't strong enough. Which was an interesting idea.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 11:24 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

woah many xxxposts - that's interesting too. there are loads of books called things like "learning to appreciate art" or "reading the classics". i think i saw one about classical music too. and then there's that book (which i haven't read) about the difference between Rothko and Stockhausen and why many enjoy the former, but only a select few appreciate the latter.

I think WCC is OTM throughout here though. But please, I'm not repping for any particular stance or disparaging people who dislike one style of music or another. Of course what one enjoys or dislikes is entirely down to them.

idk what sort of music dog latin's band plays but, going on the description, I don't think I'm being too presumptuous in suspecting that his bandmate is carrying a fair bit of cultural baggage wrt to his dislike of metal?

I have read that book. And although it is deeply flawed, you should probably give it a read before discussing the ideas in it.

ha! That sounded a lot more snarky than it was intended to, because I was trying to do about 3 things at once. Sorry.

idk what sort of music dog latin's band plays but, going on the description, I don't think I'm being too presumptuous in suspecting that his bandmate is carrying a fair bit of cultural baggage wrt to his dislike of metal?

― it's-a me, irl (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 11:32 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is another angle. Often there's a thing that will actually blight the concept of a genre and put whole swathes of people off it. Metal's a good example. I can imagine my mate growing up in a time where metal = Limp Bizkit, Korn, Linkin Park; bands who took the concept of teenage angst turned into rage and amped it up to almost comedic proportions. Taking that as your jumping-off point, it's easy to map those values and emotions onto every bit of heavy music one ever hears, be it Enslaved or Electric Wizard or Judas Priest.

Think reggae is another very much misunderstood genre because often people think of it in terms of "well there's Bob Marley and UB40 and..."; either that or their worldview of reggae is informed by Shaggy, Aswad and Snow's 'Informer'. It's not that these aren't relevant facets but they are much more prevalent than a lot of other stuff.

Well, it's also another fallacy that people who have only heard a pop or "watered down" version will suddenly instantly convert if exposed to "the authentic stuff." Maybe that's not what you're saying, but there are assumptions behind what's considered "representative" and what isn't.

I mean, I'm not going to get into arguments about metal, but it seems that "angst turned into rage and amped up" is a pretty accurate description of the whole ethos behind much of metal. So maybe the turning point in your phrase is "teenage" or rather it's "all metal is not chart nu-metal with those specific sounds" but, at the same point, that is the point.

I mean, I'm not going to get into arguments about metal, but it seems that "angst turned into rage and amped up" is a pretty accurate description of the whole ethos behind much of metal. So maybe the turning point in your phrase is "teenage" or rather it's "all metal is not chart nu-metal with those specific sounds" but, at the same point, that is the point.

But really "angst turned into rage and amped up" is the equivalent of saying "disco is all people mincing around the dancefloor and pointing their fingers in the air". I don't honestly don't hear a lot of angst in the majority of metal bands i listen to. Is Black Sabbath "angry", "angsty"? These sound like inaccurate words where better words would do, but you can only apply those words if you know what to listen out for, otherwise you're going to use a vocab that's limited to "it's angry music".

I don't honestly don't

But really "angst turned into rage and amped up" is the equivalent of saying "disco is all people mincing around the dancefloor and pointing their fingers in the air"]

No it isn't. The equivalent would be something like "disco is queer/female desire ramped up and set to a beat you can shake your arse to." Which is also effectively true. ;-)

You're the one bringing in the cultural assumptions by using words like "mincing" and assuming that queer/female desire and dancing are negative things.

listening, like reading, is not "innocent"

this is OTM. having any response to music at all requires you to hone your ears, build some mental/aural apparatus. everything sounds shit on a tabula rasa. you can learn how to hear something like someone else does, whether it's through criticism, curating, developing an appreciation of context/lineage &c.; it is possible to adopt new methods/sets of tools w/ which to perceive & dissect the music (how you delimit music also part of this process). this can of course mean you develop a compellingly nuanced hatred of something much more appealing to you than any positive spin on the same music.

I think the dislikes ppl have are normally created/defined in the negative space left as they learn What They Like, which is often about choosing/valuing something at the expense of something else. i'm not sure whether you have to value something necessarily at the expense of something else, but if not it raises a question over how you discern quality or enjoy w/out discerning somehow (hehehe lil b amirite?)

delimit genre, rather

I guess. It's like when someone builds up a definition of "80s rock" that somehow doesn't include Siouxsie or The Pretenders, my response is "well, fuck *rock* then." When actually, it's "fuck those delimitations.")

No it isn't. The equivalent would be something like "disco is queer/female desire ramped up and set to a beat you can shake your arse to." Which is also effectively true. ;-)

What you've done there is describe disco in the kind of terms that someone who appreciates and knows about disco would use. Being neither queer nor female and still very much a disco fan, I would also disagree with that description, but that's neither here nor there. Similarly, boiling metal music down to "rage and anger" is wholly reductive, and many would argue inaccurate because there are many many metal bands who don't use rage and anger very much at all.

I'm sure I could find aggressive disco and "mincing" metal out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNesGpMG6Oc&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85c-P9hbmBg

The other word used was "angst" actually.

And now this is going to become "a defense of metal, part 2000" and I'm not really very interested in that. People are allowed to dislike what they dislike, and they do not have to explain themselves to you.

Actually for the most part metal can take a flying leap, I'm a DJ.

C'mon now WCC, that's not what I'm here for.

Well, this is what often seems to happen. I say "I don't like metal. I just don't." And then they ask "oh, but why is it that you don't like metal?" and whatever explanation you give, they try to turn it into reasons that you should like metal and somehow it is your genre descriptions that are inaccurate, rather than your emotional response.

And I think I've said what I need to say.

i completely understand why people don't like metal. it's not like i even want to listen to it all that often - i'll go months without putting a single metal track on, so no one's saying you ought to like it or that you have to like it or that you're wrong for not liking it.

going on the description given (again), there's prolly not much to be gained from getting dl's bandmate to like metal, but he could probably stand to be a bit less of a wang about it

And also, really, in my statement about Disco, I said *nothing* that implied a knowledge of Disco and its stylistic components (syncopated snare, 16th note hi-hats, octave-hopping basslines) - all I did was rephrase the idea that it contained -women -gay people -dancing in a way that was generally positive towards women, gay people and dancing.

It's repositioning the attitudes, rather than saying anything at all about the music and what constitutes it.

It might be more helpful for your bandmate (or you) to say exactly what they don't like in musical terms ("distorted guitars" or "loud/shouted vocals") rather than the emotional descriptors. But it sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what they don't like ("heavy") even if they don't have an ~acceptable~ way of phrasing it.

And also, really, in my statement about Disco, I said *nothing* that implied a knowledge of Disco and its stylistic components (syncopated snare, 16th note hi-hats, octave-hopping basslines) - all I did was rephrase the idea that it contained -women -gay people -dancing in a way that was generally positive towards women, gay people and dancing.

You do realise when I said "people mincing around and pointing their fingers in the air", that it was meant as an example of a base perception of disco formed from, I dunno, the front cover of the Saturday Night Fever album. By incorporating women, gay people, shaking your booty etc, you've unwittingly added three important and valuable vocab items to the disco 'definition' - items that will help towards the understanding of the genre, like learning the word for "hello" or "very well thank you" in Spanish.

You don't think the word "mincing" has any connotations at all?

Also, if "women, gay people, dancing" is part of your accepted definition of "disco" rather than "syncopated hi-hats, octave hopping basslines" then why is "teenage angst ramped up as anger" not considered an accepted part of the whole definition of metal? So who listens to disco is important, but who listens to metal is not? Come on.

Also, if "women, gay people, dancing" is part of your accepted definition of "disco" rather than "syncopated hi-hats, octave hopping basslines" then why is "teenage angst ramped up as anger" not considered an accepted part of the whole definition of metal?

Because it's reductive and inaccurate. As is "women, gay people, dancing" reductive and inaccurate of disco.

But you just told me that my reductive and inaccurate description of disco was evidence of knowledge of the "kind of terms that someone who appreciates and knows about disco would use."

I give up.

I feel like I'm being unwittingly steered into a conversation about social prejudices, rather than an exploration of how taste in music comes to us and how it develops which was the original intent of this thread. WCC - I do agree that no one ought to be forced to listen to a style of music until it clicks - that would be some bullshit and it's not my position to argue it. I understand why a lot of non-metal fans see that music as angry/angsty/ragey, either because of the abstruse textures of the music itself, or because of a pre-conceived notion of what that kind of music is trying to emote.

What I am saying is that metal (like any other genre), if the listener is willing to try it, can evoke certain emotions/reactions that other genres simply don't have a lexicon for. So while you might have a band, like Nile, trying to describe the terrifying majesty of an Egyptian deity through pummelling double-pedal drums, upward spiralling solos and and emphasis on high-speed but technically elaborate riff structures, the likelihood is that someone who is not versed in death metal will say "This music just sounds angry. It is music for angry people".

I feel like I'm being unwittingly steered into a conversation about social prejudices, rather than an exploration of how taste in music comes to us and how it develops

You say this like these two things are totally and utterly disconnected, and not intimately linked. Taste does not develop in a vacuum and cannot be addressed in a vacuum. This applies to everything, whether it's metal or disco or whatever.

...this is similar but not exactly the same as someone who only has a peripheral idea of what disco is all about might reduce it to "this is music for women and gay people to dance to". Let's assume that this example is being said as an observation, not a prejudice.

First of all, it addresses the fact that disco largely originated from the gay scene - this is accurate and also alludes to opening up a huge window into the history of disco and its role in the gay rights movement (for example). Similarly it also addresses the popularity of disco with females as often the lyrics relate to female desire - and this is often true as well. Most importantly, 'dancing' is integral to disco by definition. It is dance music and largely designed for dancing. But this is also a very narrow definition. Reducing disco down to "music for gay people and women to dance to" elides so much about disco that makes it interesting - its relation and influence over techno, house, funk and post-punk; the warm, dusty production values; the musical and technological innovations pioneered by Russell, Moroder, Rodgers and Edwards; the birth of the DJ beatmatcher and the rise of the nightclub...

However, mentioning women, the gay rights movement and the dancefloor to describe disco isn't a bad description - these are three ineffable factors contributing to disco music.

When we talk about metal, all too often the description boils down to "angry shouty music that begins and ends with rage", which is a thorough misunderstanding of metal as a genre. In fact most metalheads I have met are intelligent, reasoned and fairly calm people - not hyper-tensile brutes who go round picking fights and shouting at people. Why would someone like this want to listen to angry music all the time?

xpost

potentially interesting discussion here that's not really at all about what people "like" or "dislike" so much as the challenge of a musical terminology that communicates in the absence of a technical language or shared formal understandings

however I guess we'll be having a "well, I just don't like it!" discussion instead - terrific

For me a lot of the gradual changes in my taste have been the result of learning to pick up on the different components of a song, so I suppose in genre terms I’ve maybe noticed things that I might not have done before because I was too busy listening for something that was never going to be there in the first place. I remember when I was 11 we had a Casio keyboard and I’d try and play along to songs on the radio – I was usually able to work out the topline but the idea of forming chords was completely beyond me, I just didn’t understand harmonics at all. Polyrhythms would be another thing it probably took me a while to appreciate. A few nights ago I was playing bits of the first Goldie album, which I hadn’t heard in about ten years – it was one of the first five or six CDs I owned so I’d heard it plenty but hearing it back, even though the songs were familiar, there were so many sonic details I’d never noticed before, mostly harmonic stuff. It’s hearing individual elements in a piece of music as opposed to a big mass of sound. Whether all this means I’d been listening to things in the *wrong way* before is a different matter I think.

I really hate it when people take *examples* and treat them as *the entire issue*. I thought the opening post was very interesting, and I'm not sure why people have read that and then thought the thread was about whether or not people should like metal.

jungle is a big one where at some point at about month two into listening to it heavily the actual sound of the music (to my ears) seemed to change. At the early stages I didn't really draw any distinctions b/w the stuff that was rhythmically intricate and more straightforward material.

I sorta wish I could go back and hear it through my pre-"click" ears so I could properly measure the shift...

The thread isn't about metal. Metal was the example used. Disco was another example used. But as soon as you start actually picking apart what it is one dislikes about another person's particular chosen thing, it stops being about "I don't like syncopated basslines" and starts being about the assumptions that people bring to their chosen genre.

I don't think that having more specific technical musical language to describe what it is one just fails to respond to is going to help if the bone of contention is actually about the set of assumptions floating around.

(Also my negative experiences of passionate fans who refuse to take "I don't really like genre X" as an end of the conversation, and keep demanding "well, what don't you like?" until, casting about, I say "well, I don't like specific quality Y" and then they immediately bombard me with a dozen examples of Genre X without Specific Quality Y. When they flat out blankly refuse to listen to genres that I deeply love and appreciate, because they "don't like genre Z" but I'm not going to push the issue.)

^^^^that doesn't even have to be metal. It has also been Jazz, and the Grateful Dead, and several other things over the years.

I find these days that my dislike of a particular piece of music is more often down to the absence of 'good' qualities rather than the presence of 'bad' ones, like I'm just waiting for *something* pleasing to my ear to occur in the song and it never does and I might as well be listening to silence.

So in terms of a vocabulary I think I've at least expanded my personal the list of 'good'/pleasing qualities might be.

Gavin, that is actually a v v salient point.

Crap. "...my personal list of what the 'good'/pleasing qualities might be" I mean.

For me a lot of the gradual changes in my taste have been the result of learning to pick up on the different components of a song, so I suppose in genre terms I’ve maybe noticed things that I might not have done before because I was too busy listening for something that was never going to be there in the first place. I remember when I was 11 we had a Casio keyboard and I’d try and play along to songs on the radio – I was usually able to work out the topline but the idea of forming chords was completely beyond me, I just didn’t understand harmonics at all. Polyrhythms would be another thing it probably took me a while to appreciate. A few nights ago I was playing bits of the first Goldie album, which I hadn’t heard in about ten years – it was one of the first five or six CDs I owned so I’d heard it plenty but hearing it back, even though the songs were familiar, there were so many sonic details I’d never noticed before, mostly harmonic stuff. It’s hearing individual elements in a piece of music as opposed to a big mass of sound. Whether all this means I’d been listening to things in the *wrong way* before is a different matter I think.

― Gavin, Leeds, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 13:33 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is absolutely spot on.

In a way I wonder if this is part of the reason people bemoan the death of the album cover, because often the cover gives the listener a jumping-off point regarding what to listen out for. I'll use Nile again as an example. If I were to play Nile to someone who was not conversant with their style of music, without telling them anything about the band or showing them a picture of them or giving them a lyric sheet or a band photo, it's likely that person will ask "Why are they so angry?". The answer here is "They're not - you are simply interpreting this sound as anger because your musical lexicon isn't accustomed to what is actually being denoted here." You might then show them an album cover and a lyric sheet and explain that "Nile's music is of the death metal genre - a style that explores lyrical themes of death and the occult much in the way a good horror movie might, except with this particular band they specify a romanticised view of ancient Egypt as a main source of creative inspiration. Although the music is loud, fast and the singing is characterised by the trademark "Cookie Monster" growl, "anger" is not what is being expressed here - the actual emotions and themes are those of power, auspiciousness, fantasy, dread etc - all descriptors that you might have trouble finding in other styles of music outside of the classical realm."

After that, whether the listener gets it or not is entirely down to them. Something that made me laugh when I was trying to get my mate to find a jumping off point in metal, he asked "is there any metal that isn't (powerful, auspicious, fantastical or terrifying)?" and I said "What you're asking for here is something that isn't metal".

I don't think that having more specific technical musical language to describe what it is one just fails to respond to is going to help if the bone of contention is actually about the set of assumptions floating around.

There is no "bone of contention" - you seem to be thinking of discussing music you don't like in an attack/defend mode? I don't doubt that you've had many experiences of that sort in talking about music, who hasn't, but descriptive language is what "taste vocabulary" seems to mean, or that's how I take the initial post & the thread concept. "Failing" to respond isn't an issue at all - it's about being able to talk about what it is musically that is or isn't doing the trick for a listener & fleshing out those ideas. Not necessarily even why - there's a certain harmonic range that I just am hard-wired to not enjoy, so the Beach Boys just sound terrible to me. I wondered whether it was something about them I disliked until I heard the Four Freshmen - who I do like better, but those same ranges: it's almost like they're in a specific Hz pocket that sounds like cats to me. Having a specific vocabulary/terminology won't "help" anybody like anything they don't like, but who cares what anybody likes? That isn't what's at issue afaict, this is a much more interesting question than x person does or doesn't like y music.

nb I like cats just fine though

That was actually my "way into" whole realms of music which I previously hadn't got. That I used to always say that I was all about "texture" and "harmonies" and I had a lot of trouble finding something to sink my ears into when I was listening to music which was focused mostly on "beats" or "lyrics." I'm never going to be that bothered about "beats" but finding textures to hook my ears into while learning to spot the subtle differences of rhythms helped me explore music that had previously passed me by before.

x-post to Gavin

Another analogy could be used with food - you might dislike aniseed until you taste it in a meal that just happens to be served at the right time with the correct flavour combinations and suddenly "wow, I actually LOVE aniseed". Next you find you can eat it pretty much all the time, and you might even start actively seeking out aniseed-flavours in other areas whereas before it was anathema to you. The same could be said for a musical descriptor, say, "majesty" - you might not have thought you liked music that sounded "majestic" until you heard Emperor - later on you might find that this is the quality you appreciate in another style such as, I dunno, trance for example. Up until then "majesty" wasn't part of your musical lexicon - you'd have heard something else or had difficulty processing it.

You said it better here: "What you're asking for here is something that isn't aniseed".

I hate aniseed btw. Have you got anything that doesn't make your mouth feel all weird and like you've got three thin tongues instead of just one regular sized one?

I just think, WCC, you're reading the issue as 'you should expand your taste vocabulary because you should like genre x' (apologies if I've read this wrong - it's what it seems like to me). Whereas the people who are defending the concept are talking more as 'taste vocabulary is a tool that means you can gain access to genre x, at least potentially'. Gaining access doesn't mean you have to like it, and the tool being available doesn't mean you even have to use it...

dance metal break!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZedLgoZospo

okay, continue.

I understand all that, emil.y though thanks for explaining it so eloquently.

My point is, that there are some things to which one has such an immediate emotional visceral "no!" reaction to (e.g. the taste of aniseed or the sound of cookie monster vocals) that no amount of understanding the musical vocabulary is going to make you appreciate. And it's perfectly fine to have those reactions. (Though in some cases one might want to interrogate the assumptions behind them to make sure it's "I hate disco because I loathe hi-hats" rather than "I hate disco because I am suspicious of stuff gay people like.")

but there are so many cases where knowing more and being educated about something - like jazz or opera or classical or lots of other things - really can help you like it and get over initial distrust or even distaste. there are loads of musical sounds that aren't going to sound appealing at all to you if you aren't familiar with how they work.

Yeah, that is true, and is actually quite interesting - aerosmith brings up the idea of having a particular frequency that he cannot stand, and I wonder if there is something to the individual physical side of hearing that affects this, or if this is still somewhat culturally formed. (Probably a bit of both, as these things often are.)

xpost

sometimes appreciating something is work. most people don't want to work that hard.

sometimes appreciating something is work. most people don't want to work that hard.

This is total bullshit IMO. And the ways in which it gets trotted out, and in support of whom, make me really, really suspicious of anyone who uses this line.

i think it's true. the vast majority of people on earth don't want to take a lot of time learning about things that they don't immediately enjoy or are interested in!

or have an interest in. need more coffee.

you should be very suspicious of me though. at all times.

I do think it is true for a fair number of people. But I think it is highly dodgy to attempt to apply on an individual level rather than the macro level.

most of the things I like best are things I had some resistance to initially - my yes-I-like-this-right-away centers are less interesting to me than the places that're about what feel, to me, like more complex reactions. Mahler for example is probably my favorite composer, but he's not immediately exciting a lot of the time like Beethoven or bracing like Mozart - it's music I had to absorb, which at first to me sounded like film soundtrack for a film I hadn't seen. And then once I locked in, whole worlds opened. Glad to know that my way of enjoying music makes me a totally suspicious person though, it's like getting a rep without having to work for it

it took me over 30 years to truly appreciate polka. who would attempt to appreciate polka - on and off - for that amount of time? me. that's who. because i realized that i wasn't really hearing it. and that i needed to really listen to it. and hear it in different circumstances. and get over my initital distaste for accordion-based musics. fortuitously, i moved to an area with two excellent local radio shows that played many different styles and eras of polka music and THEIR enthusiasm for the music coupled with the stellar polka history lesson they were giving me (hearing the music change from the 50s to the present day) opened my eyes and ears in all kinds of ways.

long story short: i never gave up on polka. i would hear it for years here and there and groan and roll my eyes. not anymore! decades of paying attention paid off.

sometimes appreciating something is work. most people don't want to work that hard.

This is total bullshit IMO. And the ways in which it gets trotted out, and in support of whom, make me really, really suspicious of anyone who uses this line.

― Shepton Mullet (White Chocolate Cheesecake), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 14:39 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can you explain why this is total bullshit? IMO of course appreciation of art and music takes work, or else it would all be easy listening. There would be no concept of "difficult" music. Once you get to a certain point as a listener, have the fun is the pursuit of new tastes and experiences, but you do have to get off your butt and seek them and challenge yourself, and not everyone has the will to do so.

*have = half

I think "vocabulary" is completely the wrong term for what we're talking about but I'm struggling to think of what it is we're getting at. With someone like Mahler it's about finding a way in and by and large you have to *want* to find that way in or at least be open to the possibility.

Someone telling a sceptic they have to acquire the right way of listening to Mahler (or metal, or someone like Actress or whatever) is pretty much guaranteeing they'll resent it and dig their heels in. But still, you can study as much Mahler as you like and still not actively enjoy it - if it doesn't work for you emotionally it doesn't work for you.

This link I just came across seems nicely relevant (a new thing for me, I know):

Elliot Schwartz from Music: Ways of Listening

Well, again, it's just the way that it's always the guys who are always trying to lecture me about how I haven't ~developed my taste centres~ enough to appreciate metal, or IDM, or noize rock or whatever super-specialised thing they like - are exactly the same ones who refuse to develop their taste centres to appreciate 90s R&B, or the girl group sound, or bubblegum pop, or, y'know, disco or "commercial" house or whatever. If the "stuff that requires appreciating" consists of all canonised straight white dudes then I give that shit the side-eye.

But this is just becoming fucking robotic posting at this point and is even boring me blah blah blah and there are about a billion x-posts now

I think "vocabulary" is completely the wrong term for what we're talking about but I'm struggling to think of what it is we're getting at.

capacity?

it would be like if you picked up a book when you were a teen - a book that was supposed to be "great" or an author who was highly thought of - and you did't like it and for the rest of your life you never read that author again. because of that one experience. maybe you would always not enjoy the author/book. but its silly to think that you don't grow/change/open up to things that you initially didn't like when you were younger.

and again for MOST normal people liking a small narrow range of stuff is a happy and comfortable situation and that's how they roll through life. i get that. but for fanatics enough is never enough.

Someone telling a sceptic they have to acquire the right way of listening to Mahler (or metal, or someone like Actress or whatever) is pretty much guaranteeing they'll resent it and dig their heels in. But still, you can study as much Mahler as you like and still not actively enjoy it - if it doesn't work for you emotionally it doesn't work for you.

...maybe? I mean, with Mahler, that's emotional music for me, so I'd agree, but take, say...where's Owen he'd be able to come up with a good example: Donald Martino, maybe? Somebody whose music isn't about emotional reactions, but other things. Music is vast, and the assumption that it's specifically about receptive pleasure-centers that it either touches or it doesn't: that's an assumption worth interrogating a little, which is I think part of what we're talking about. Enjoyment is a vast continent, there are many ways to enjoy a thing and they're not all rooted in the emotions.

That's wrong to me as well because, if you're talking about someone not having the "capacity" or "vocabulary" for anything you're basically talking down to them.

and i'm not telling anyone what they shouldn't or should attempt to appreciate. just saying that not everything in art is an immediate pleasure!

Sorry Scott - that was an xpost to How's Life.

scott and me are on the same page I think and should totally have a listening party some time

I'd go to that party, were I invited.

"Finding a way in" is much more the way that I like to think about this.

There's that whole didactic WELL YOU JUST DON'T LISTEN TO THE MUSIC PROPERLY!!! LET ME SHOVEL MORE EXAMPLES ONTO YOUR EARS thing which is a complete turnoff and actually makes one resentful both about the music and person trying to force you to listen to it - and then there's something like discovering a magical key by which you find the path to understanding it.

xxxpost Matt DC - bashing people over the head and insisting that they'll like something eventually will have limited results, yes, but it's also not exactly what is being discussed here. The idea is that as listeners we develop and build upon a lexicon that can be applied throughout the musical landscape. In many cases, if an entry in that lexicon is missing then it will be difficult to navigate around this landscape. Actress is a really good example, as much of his work is meta-textual. He references Prince, b-boy hip-hop and Detroit techno, but deconstructs all these into fairly difficult compositions. You wouldn't really give it to someone as a jumping off point into electronic music - in fact I'd go so far as to say that Splaszh is electronic music's equivalent of an Advanced Masters degree, using an academic analogy.

as far as the initial post goes, i don't even really bother with the people who say stuff like: all metal is... or all rap is...

it just reminds me of being a little kid when other little kids would say that punk was kill your mother music. i left those arguments on the playground.

and i would say that there is no point in trying to get people curious about things that they have no interest in, but i've kinds spent my life making people curious about music that they thought they had no interest in. its a gift. and i think people sell themselves short when it comes to art. they become afraid of stuff. or afraid of not knowing enough. i just tell people - all the time and every day at my store - to dig in! the listening station is over there. go for it. here's a good one you might not have heard. try this. no judgements though. never an unkind word.

it took me over 30 years to truly appreciate polka

this is a really interesting idea. i'm curious about why you felt such a need to pursue it tho. was it out of a sense of 'dilettant's duty'? are there other styles of music you were more comfortable about abandoning? i always liked the idea of trying to appreciate everything but now i'm more relaxed about not doing so (in several cases just to figure out exactly why i didn't like something was somehow enough).

i'm seriously thinking of giving people a free classical record with every purchase now. i just feel like people don't give it a shot. my store is filled with some of the most glorious sounds that people have ever created and 95% of the people who come in never so much as glance at it. plus, it just sounds great on record. i think i'm gonna do it. like johnny appleseed. but with bach. instead of seeds.

That's wrong to me as well because, if you're talking about someone not having the "capacity" or "vocabulary" for anything you're basically talking down to them.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, August 15, 2012 2:02 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, you're right. Maybe it's more like "settings". Like on a stereo, if your treble and bass and volume are in certain positions, certain frequencies and tones would be inaccessible to you, but if you were to be able to alter them, you'd hear new things in the music that were appealing.

"Finding a way in" is a better way of putting it because it implies it's something you do yourself on your own momentum, there has to be the belief that the work actually rewards the effort it takes to get there, which is what keeps people going through Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow or whatever. With pop (loosest definition of the term) music its much easier to get into that "you don't understand it - but there's nothing to understand" exchange.

Actress is a really good example, as much of his work is meta-textual. He references Prince, b-boy hip-hop and Detroit techno, but deconstructs all these into fairly difficult compositions. You wouldn't really give it to someone as a jumping off point into electronic music - in fact I'd go so far as to say that Splaszh is electronic music's equivalent of an Advanced Masters degree, using an academic analogy.

See this is exactly the sort of thing that would put me off going back to Actress. FWIW I don't find Splaszh particularly difficult - it sounds great but those sounds are put to fairly dull use.

That's wrong to me as well because, if you're talking about someone not having the "capacity" or "vocabulary" for anything you're basically talking down to them.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, August 15, 2012 2:02 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't see this as "talking down". It's merely accepting that the mind isn't just a bunch of receptors passively waiting to be stimulated, same as no human being can understand every language on Earth without learning it first.

it's weird to me that "vocabulary" is off-putting to people - to me, learning new vocabularies is liberating, if I don't have the word for something I don't feel like somebody's judging me - I feel like there's something exciting for me to get hold of.

like people are mad defensive about saying "I don't automatically understanding everything placed in front of me immediately." Neither does anybody else!

i kept trying to hear polka - really hear it - because millions and millions of people love it and live for it - in pennsylvania and south america and austria! - and i just couldn't get the appeal. for a long time. and a lot of it had to do with the sound of the accordion. which i think i never took as seriously as an instrument for some reason. because its hokey? i never was a fan of zydeco or french accordion music or mexican folk music heavy on accordion (via germany, i believe) and i think its always just a challenge for me to embrace things that i've had a hard time embracing. i never ever listened to salsa and thought i wasn't a fan and thought it was boring and all the same (!!) and at some point i took my time and brought salsa records home and lucked into some great stuff that ran the gamut from 50s puerto rican records all the way up to the 80s and i educated myself. little by little. it took years. i became a huge fan. but it doesn't happen overnight.

x-post

Actress is a really good example, as much of his work is meta-textual. He references Prince, b-boy hip-hop and Detroit techno, but deconstructs all these into fairly difficult compositions. You wouldn't really give it to someone as a jumping off point into electronic music - in fact I'd go so far as to say that Splaszh is electronic music's equivalent of an Advanced Masters degree, using an academic analogy.

See this is exactly the sort of thing that would put me off going back to Actress. FWIW I don't find Splaszh particularly difficult - it sounds great but those sounds are put to fairly dull use.

But Matt, you're a paid-up and conversant member of the electronic music club - in fact I know of very few people who know more about electronic dance music than you. So of course you're not going to find Splaszh a particularly difficult or stimulating listen.

i kept trying to hear polka - really hear it - because millions and millions of people love it and live for it - in pennsylvania and south america and austria! - and i just couldn't get the appeal. for a long time. and a lot of it had to do with the sound of the accordion. which i think i never took as seriously as an instrument for some reason. because its hokey? i never was a fan of zydeco or french accordion music or mexican folk music heavy on accordion (via germany, i believe) and i think its always just a challenge for me to embrace things that i've had a hard time embracing. i never ever listened to salsa and thought i wasn't a fan and thought it was boring and all the same (!!) and at some point i took my time and brought salsa records home and lucked into some great stuff that ran the gamut from 50s puerto rican records all the way up to the 80s and i educated myself. little by little. it took years. i became a huge fan. but it doesn't happen overnight.

x-post

― scott seward, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 15:19 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I love accordion music, but I don't own much of it. Might have to dip my toe in some polka.

definitive declarations that you dislike [machine gun snare/the timbre of paul simon's voice/sexist lyrics] rely on neither you nor the thing you single out being mutable. the epiphanies when things you've heard before suddenly sound righteous/barren (what's a reverse epiphany?) seem to suggest otherwise

it is really fun to say things are categorically terrible tho, i'd never want that to end

I grew up with polka, occasionally on the hi-fi at home, but more often at wedding receptions. Didn't like it at the time, but I credit Brave Combo with making me appreciate giddy dancing to accordion. Polka,, I think, is really about the dance experience. I still don't have much of a vocabulary to describe the difference between a schottische and an oberek, but that was the gateway for me to zydeco and the other styles Scott references.

Re: metal, even though I have enough 'taste vocabulary' to know hammer-ons, or blast beats, or dropped tunings or whatever, it hasn't helped me find a way in, and that's fine with me.

I'm a dance newbie and didn't find Splaszh particularly "difficult" either.

But I also really reject this whole argument that there is something inherently worthwhile about "getting" difficult music. And this canonisation of listening and learning to love music as a rugged struggle. Fuck that.

That I accept it's important, as a listener, to try to expand one's horizons and push oneself out of one's comfort zone and challenge your tastes. It's just really frustrating to me what gets kind of... worshipped (odd word to use I know) as "challenging but worth it" and what gets dismissed as too easy, too open.

But I would think that, as someone who genuinely *loves* and has spent a lifetime trying to learn to better appreciate pop music, what makes it pop, what makes it immediate and compelling etc.

So much of life is a freaking struggle. Why does listening to music have to be represented as this epic struggle, too?

Re: metal, even though I have enough 'taste vocabulary' to know hammer-ons, or blast beats, or dropped tunings or whatever, it hasn't helped me find a way in, and that's fine with me.

Of course the "vocab" might stretch further than technique or instrumentation. I don't think one necessarily needs to know about the way metal's played to enjoy it; but there might be something in its imagery or values - something rarely heard in other styles - that one might really enjoy (or equally dislike).

I'm a dance newbie and didn't find Splaszh particularly "difficult" either.

Aw come on now. You know what side your Warp toast's buttered on, give yourself some credit.

I think you need to give general listeners more credit.

So much of this "Ooh, I had to struggle to develop a taste for X" just comes across like wanting to give oneself a giant pat on the back for appreciating music that the ~terrible hoi polloi doesn't get~ and you know, fuck that kind of elitism.

I don't believe that appreciating 'difficult music' precludes the appreciation of 'easy' music.

Or, seeing as I'm replying specifically to WCC here, I know that it doesn't, and if anyone tells you otherwise tell them to stuff it. On the other hand, please don't suggest that because some dudes are dicks to you that 'difficult' music is therefore not worthwhile.

it's funny but i think that open-minded metal fans are kinda perfectly set up to appreciate more genres of music than just about any other fan. folk, classical, bluegrass, polka, salsa, techno, all kinds of stuff. there are definitely more metal fans who dig electronic music than the other way around. virtuosity, repetition, rhythm, drama, emotion, there is a lot to love in the world for metal fans.

xp city

Somebody whose music isn't about emotional reactions, but other things

Can't really contribute here, aero; them composers who seek to divorce their writing from emotional content (i.e. Boulez), the listener will still infer emotional content.

Splaszh

Talking about Splaszh with people who have techno knowledge is really interesting. Even if the music does little for me in the house and less for me at a party, I'm always into talking about it-- listening to people talk about it, rather.

As for all the "don't tell me I'm listening to it wrong" rhetoric itt I just don't buy it. All music I dislike I just assume I'm listening to it wrong or haven't experienced it in the proper context. And please would you tell me how to listen better to it, etc.

No, emil.y it's more this kind of setup that there's something more inherently more ~worthy~ in driving oneself to appreciate "difficult" music. And that people who actually like or love "easy" pop music are somehow ignorant fools. I am just sick to death of that attitude, and want to punch it in its face.

So much of this "Ooh, I had to struggle to develop a taste for X" just comes across like wanting to give oneself a giant pat on the back for appreciating music that the ~terrible hoi polloi doesn't get~ and you know, fuck that kind of elitism.

it's not "elitism," it's people talking about their own experiences with enjoying music. if these experiences don't sound enjoyable to you, cool, enjoy music how you wanna, literally no-one is saying "that's bad!" to you. you are sitting here judging people for how they enjoy music, not the other way around. then you're calling them "elitist" for enjoying things. neat trick!

That I accept it's important, as a listener, to try to expand one's horizons and push oneself out of one's comfort zone and challenge your tastes. It's just really frustrating to me what gets kind of... worshipped (odd word to use I know) as "challenging but worth it" and what gets dismissed as too easy, too open.

It could be argued that "Challenging but worth it" and "Easy and Open" are both lexical categories. Some people like music that is "difficult but worth it", others like "open and easy", while many will appreciate the two depending on context. Some people are more accustomed to listening to "challenging" music and find other things too accessible - too easy, and vice versa.

xp My own polka example is Irish fiddle music. About five years ago, had a "you're listening to it wrong" moment with a Dublin friend, who set me up with a book on Planxty and a listening list. Like, the best music!

re: polka, though - and zydeco, and many other kinds of music - the elephant in the room here is dancing. we who live in the age of recorded sound, and of musicians wanting to make a buck by putting out records, often have this idea that we ought to be able to appreciate music by sitting and listening to it. we can, but polka's a great example of a music that's meant to be enjoyed in the context of dancing to it: specifically, dancing the polka. once you've done that, and experienced the communal joy of polka, the records will sound evocative of that experience. without the dance, there is no polka!

WCC, I agree that attitude is terrible. I kind of avoided the question of pop music when talking about 'easy' vs 'difficult', but... well, I don't think all pop music is easy, and I certainly don't think all easy music is pop. I think that whole idea is probably based on, well, the fact that because pop is by its nature a populist, mass vocabulary, more people can speak it, therefore it must be easier. Whereas actually Esperanto is much easier than English, even though fewer people speak it.

I think you need to give general listeners more credit.

― Shepton Mullet (White Chocolate Cheesecake), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 15:36 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really think you're casting aspersions that aren't there.

Ha! Had a similar moment back in '07 with Kentucky fiddle music.

xxp

sometimes appreciating something is work. most people don't want to work that hard.

― scott seward, Wednesday, August 15, 2012 1:36 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm calling this elitism.

You get to experience music however you like, but the moment you make decisions and judgements about what other people "want" or don't, you are somehow setting yourself apart from those people. Not Scott's call to make. Or anyone else's.

it's more this kind of setup that there's something more inherently more ~worthy~ in driving oneself to appreciate "difficult" music. And that people who actually like or love "easy" pop music are somehow ignorant fools. I am just sick to death of that attitude, and want to punch it in its face.

No-one here is saying anything like this, by the way. There is no such "set-up."

@ dog latin you should ask your friend to listen to Neurosis "Times of grace", some real metal dudes will have their own opinions, but that was a major "oh I see" moment for me at age 21, I don't think I'd be into any heavy music were it not for that album

Like anybody gives a shit but it took me forever to really get into jazz music that wasn't traditional big band stuff (and even that I mostly dismissed as hopelessly square and outdated), and it involved a lot of homework on the historical context, growth and development of the various styles, biographies of the players, etc. I'm not sure it's possible to "appreciate" or even like Coltrane without knowing a little about who he was and what he was doing, but it's worth it once you do. To me, anyway. If other people don't like him, that's cool, too.

I don't think all pop music is easy,

Yeah, like it would take me forever AND A DAY to figure out why anyone in their right mind would listen to and enjoy LMFAO (e.g.). Probably because I don't/can't dance. To me, that's "difficult" music that isn't worth the effort to enjoy, although I love plenty of pop stuff.

Also, I mean, the guys here are talking about polka - that's not meant to be difficult music. It isn't difficult music. It's folk music, dammit, it's pure and simple and made for frolics. The difficulty isn't in the music, it's in personal history and context. Talking about how long it took to 'get polka', that's not talking about the worthiness of difficult music, that's talking about a personal journey into a style of music.

I sort of think with something like polka there's a load more to be gained by going to a polka night and having a few drinks and experiencing the music in the environment in which its meant to be experienced than there is in buying a load of polka records and dutifully trying to get into them without much success.

We're also skirting round the issue of people who hear music on drugs and suddenly have a eureka moment.

Some people who love music are content to enjoy things within their particular parameters. Other people who enjoy music (and a smaller number of these people to be sure) like to explore types of music outside of their parameters. We aren't assigning value judgements to either group of people. We are just exploring the nature of these parameters and trying to define and assign meaning to their existence.

xps at WCC

I'm not sure it's possible to "appreciate" or even like Coltrane without knowing a little about who he was and what he was doing

Seriously?

This thread is a lot like arguments I used to have with people who hated hip-hop (before I got tired of having those arguments). "That's not music," someone would say. And I would say, "If you go to China and people are making weird noises that you can't understand, do you say, that's not language?" And on we would go. I did one memorable evening finally get a friend of mine to say, "OK, fine! Hip-hop is just a language I don't understand." Which did not prompt him to then go try to understand it, but I counted as a small victory.

All this talk about "easy" vs. "difficult" but not enough specific examples to tether the conversation. What are we talking about here?

Polka is totally difficult music to appreciate! (Conversely so-called difficult music such as Shostakovich is way easier for kids to get into than Beethoven.) Ironically the music I've found most "difficult" has been British campy-or-witty-or-louche-or-satirical stuff, i.e. Pulp

XP I guess I should say it wasn't possible for me to appreciate/like Coltrane w/o etc. etc.

Vocabulary seems like too objective normative a term to be very useful, I'd think it's more that we have some kind of set of frameworks (obviously plural, maybe vocabulary is also too universal - suggesting that if only we knew all the terms we'd be able to enjoy everything), all mutable, some of which we put effort into developing (even if we have no notion of the shape they'll take, like aerosmith's mahler example), some of which just happen to develop over time), with which we approach anything we hear. Part of the framework would be to do with the specific signifiers of a genre and the like, but when it comes to actually enjoying things rather than ~understanding~ them in some abstract way musicological way it's a lot more personal and probably more or less ineffable. Like I have some friends who don't listen to that much music but what they do listen to is pretty diverse, and sometimes I can hear this peculiar resonance between the disparate things they like that neither you nor they can distinctly define, but i guess is some kind of ghostly outline of their framework(s) of enjoyment rather than the scientific framework of understanding. The difference between the ILMer nerd and whoever else would probably be a matter of the ILMer having more frameworks with which to approach things, or maybe... no, not more nuanced frameworks, cuz then I'm getting judgemental again.

I don't really know how this fits with those situations when music that sounds very alien to your perceptions is nevertheless immediately striking to you, though. And striking in a pleasing way - obviously various avant-garde movements have sought to exceed or break frameworks of musical thought, but they're not really meant for 'enjoying' in that same way.

erm a million xposts, not sure if I was replying to anyone in particular there.

this thread is like when you're talking to someone in a hallway and they start to describe an argument they recently had with someone. in telling the story the gradually shift into a mode where they're impersonating the argument. then they get really into it and you, as a listener, are morphed into the person that they recently had the argument with, and pretty soon you're just getting yelled at in a hallway

Nbd

New board description, not no big
Deal

You aren't hot about it, dl?

Wouldn't you be hot, dog latin, in that hallway?

lol ZS

i feel like i'm always that guy getting yelled at in the hallway. and that's why, even though this is a cool thread idea, i'm gonna leave it alone for now!

xp Also I ~love~ how everybody has adopted ~this~

http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs4/1166955_o.gif

this thread is like when you're talking to someone in a hallway and they start to describe an argument they recently had with someone. in telling the story the gradually shift into a mode where they're impersonating the argument. then they get really into it and you, as a listener, are morphed into the person that they recently had the argument with, and pretty soon you're just getting yelled at in a hallway

― Thanks WEBSITE!! (Z S), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 15:57 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think there is a mime-troupe-theatre-company dimension too, though, in which everyone is listening to & then reinterpreting the arguments mentioned. like eventually you are yelling right back at the hallway guy about something totally different.

i start somewhere similar to WCC in thinking that there are issues with not everyone wants to work that hard, because we're all drawn to things, & follow that allure, & whether that's to something immediate or to something slow-release and intriguing is symbolic of what you're into, what you're trying to get - a quick thing or something to chew over - more than it is of a quality of the thing itself. but i don't think anyone itt is using that as a badge of honour! & like i don't think anyone's dropped any bombs in terms of "guys check this i enjoy records which don't even have any singing". people are just noting the correlation between the enduring affections & material that took some unravelling; not necessarily patience or "work" - because if you're feeling compelled to figure something out i don't think it's work necessarily, you want to get to the bottom of it - but things that existed in the world & which there was a narrative in our coming to. i do like that shit because it reminds me that you change & that your opinions are subjective & that for everything there is a season, &c&c&c, & in the same way it can even be nice to stop liking a thing you used to love just because it doesn't connect with you anymore. it's rewarding not understanding metal, or w/e, & then 'getting it', not because you earn your metal badge & can thrust it in everyones' faces but because it's exemplary of how things change & connect & how there can be a rewarding unspent charge dormant in things that you hadn't expected.

fantastic post, schlump!

^^

btw i love the idea of yelling back at the person having the imaginary argument with you in the hallway - gotta try that next time!

Conversely so-called difficult music such as Shostakovich is way easier for kids to get into than Beethoven

Wait, I'm curious what this is based on. Was this your experience when teaching? Shostakovich can be quite accessible at times but I also don't think that e.g. the Moonlight Sonata or Beethoven's 5th Symphony are necessarily hard for kids to get into.

Work doesn't necessarily mean an emotional or intellectual investment, though! I mean, I don't think scott was kept up at night because he couldn't enjoy polka. Maybe he was, and the sound of accordions puzzled him to insomnia. It sounds like it was more about time and context, than anything, and people may not want or have the time to really try things.

Kind of reminds me, I have this natural aversion to raw tomato. It's crazy, if I have it with other things that throw the flavor profile (or pH, not sure) off, I can eat it. Salsa's great. But I think it turns my stomach in some way, or maybe I have a tomato digestion issue that is signaling my brain that it's not for me. Regardless, I try a bloody mary about once every year or two. I get what people like about them, and I love all the stuff you can put in one. But I can never drink more than about a third before I start feeling queasy.

Owen will sneak repping for Shosty in wherever he can, you have to watch him

he's a violinist, it's kind of a thing

Shostakovich can be very CRASH BANG NOISE! which I suspect appeals to kids quite a lot. Also a load of film soundtracks use Shostakovich as a reference point.

metal itself is only tangential to this discussion, but...

Like someone with a limited linguistic lexicon, he has a limited way of understanding things like heavy metal, hearing it indiscriminately as "angry" music, whereas I (as someone who was indoctrinated into that church several years ago) rarely hear "anger" in that music necessarily. Sure the music can be "raw", "visceral", "fantastical", "majestic", "technical", "nuanced" in many ways - but I only know this because I'm accustomed to the various styles, bands, themes and subtle variations within them, instead of hearing this default burst of uncontrolled rage as does my friend.

― Hey you look great, have you been working out asshole? (dog latin), Wednesday, August 15, 2012 2:28 AM (5 hours ago)

i'd say the same of punk, especially hardcore, and i'm comfortably familiar (at the very least) with all these genres. it's a cliche to say that angry, violent music allows an acceptable release for negative thoughts and emotions, but i think there's probably some merit in the idea. the visceral evocation of wrathful destruction is a big part of what what makes nile so thrilling. the catharsis one experiences after being dragged through extremes of anguish and brutality is what makes makes neurosis work.

anyway, perhaps this is a case where overfamiliarity blinds one to the essential and obvious character of something. screaming in a certain manner communicates anger. every child knows this. massive volume and battering sonics not only communicate or emulate violence, they actually are violent. not all metal is built on these things, but a lot of it is, and your friend is in no way wrong to notice this.

contenderizer contendin'

I don't even really think of Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden as angry though, although Sabbath was definitely angsty. Violent maybe.

I am a big metal fan and I think there's a lot more to metal than angry/violent - it is common to the genre but not essential imo

steely dan was kind of this for me

screaming in a certain manner communicates anger. every child knows this. massive volume and battering sonics not only communicate or emulate violence

Warhol's paintings communicated or emulated soup

the royal trux too, for the most part, but something made me want to stick with them and I feel like the experience of coming around to both was rewarding

i'd say the same of punk,

those angry, violent ramones

And, like, with contemporary black and doom metal I listen to, say, Corrupted or Krallice or Caina, I don't think anger is what I get out of it. Angry music is, like, Bruce Cockburn or something.

xposts to self

"Beat on the Bat" and "Blitzkrieg Bop" are kind of violent though.

steely dan was kind of this for me

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 16:38 (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am still not 'there' w/steely dan, so only have a vague idea of what those records sound like - they're super sheeny, nice sounding soft & country-tinged, right? - but it's funny & super useful to remember that some of the things one might work at are immediate pop things rather than abstruse noise records. i really like the fleetwood mac records i bought in the last couple of years, & that was def a process of shrugging off an aesthetic distaste for breezy fm production, separating from half-remembered-childhood-car-journey singalongability, listening to them anew, yielding to their melody, &c.

Wouldn't describe Steely Dan as country-tinged. Jazz-tinged maybe.

the royal trux too, for the most part, but something made me want to stick with them and I feel like the experience of coming around to both was rewarding

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 16:39 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

royal trux are always the thing that i enthuse to people about but have absolutely zero idea of where to recommend people start from; it is like you just have to already-be-used-to how their records sound

xp ty sund4r, i should probably youtube or something

3rd album w/ "Blood Blowers" is a good intro imo, its freak folk!

those angry, violent ramones

this is precisely why i've always been bemused by the ramones being called punk!

the ramones were plenty angry and violent, wtf.

xp Well there are two RTX fans, right? People who fuck with Accelerator and people who fuck with Twin Infinitives. (I refer people to that kid's song "Hero Zero" re: the former, US Maple warmup re: the latter)

Like three of these aren't angry and/or violent

1. "Blitzkrieg Bop" Tommy Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone Mickey Leigh 2:12 [14]
[49][72]
2. "Beat on the Brat" Joey Ramone — 2:30
3. "Judy Is a Punk" Leigh, Tommy Ramone 1:30
4. "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" Tommy Ramone Leigh, Rob Freeman 2:24
5. "Chain Saw" Joey Ramone Tommy Ramone 1:55
6. "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" Dee Dee Ramone — 1:34
7. "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Ramone — 2:35
Side B
8. "Loudmouth" Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Ramone — 2:14 [14]
[49][72]
9. "Havana Affair" — 2:00
10. "Listen to My Heart" Dee Dee Ramone — 1:56
11. "53rd & 3rd" — 2:19
12. "Let's Dance" Jim Lee — 1:51
13. "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You" Dee Dee Ramone Tommy Ramone 1:43
14. "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" — 2:09

the catharsis one experiences after being dragged through extremes of anguish and brutality is what makes makes neurosis work.

See, even this doesn't necessarily seem related to anger to me.

emil.y OTM with this: The difficulty isn't in the music, it's in personal history and context. Talking about how long it took to 'get polka', that's not talking about the worthiness of difficult music, that's talking about a personal journey into a style of music. One of the most difficult-to-get genres for me for a long time was country.

I am a big metal fan and I think there's a lot more to metal than angry/violent - it is common to the genre but not essential imo

what are the essential aspects, if any? i guess i mean from a sonic perspective. isn't it what is most common within it that really defines genre? or rather what it has so much in relation to other genres? or maybe more what it doesn't have? e.g. what is happy metal? by the same token what is happy techno (while still being energetic and driven in the ways techno is typically thought of as being)?

it definitely seems unfair and problematic to link an emotion to a specific genre in this way and metal seems to me (wrongly maybe) to have attracted it more than anything else.

xp Well there are two RTX fans, right? People who fuck with Accelerator and people who fuck with Twin Infinitives. (I refer people to that kid's song "Hero Zero" re: the former, US Maple warmup re: the latter)

― Ówen P., Wednesday, 15 August 2012 16:48 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i think it's p diffuse, i think there is maybe an ILM thread w/totally varied favourites. accelerator doesn't totally encompass the messier - ie 3 song ep/you're gonna lose - or the tighter, funner stuff, like granny grunt, to me, & part of their appeal's in being in further-out territory. although it has stevie so sure just tell someone to go listen to stevie.

"it's rewarding not understanding metal, or w/e, & then 'getting it', not because you earn your metal badge & can thrust it in everyones' faces but because it's exemplary of how things change & connect & how there can be a rewarding unspent charge dormant in things that you hadn't expected."

this! and by "work" i didn't MEAN a boring slog or some epic amount of homework and drudgery. i meant fun work! but it does entail EFFORT. maybe i should have said a lot of people don't want to put in the EFFORT to understand things better. pop, rap, metal, opera, or anything. its just not worth it for them. and its easier to be dismissive of things. it really is.

but i thought i was talking to music fanatics and musicians and music writers here and not normal people? sorry for being so uh whatever i was.

i learn something new EVERY day about music. and i don't think i'm elitist or better than anyone. it makes me a better person though. of this i'm sure. art is my church and art's wonders are endless. so i'm endlessly curious.

i finally "got" exile on main street two years ago. i heard it for the first time, i dunno, 25 years ago? i would play it once or twice a year for over two decades. it never clicked. then it did! i could have just said: eh, its not my favorite stones record and ignored it forever. but i knew there was something there...i just had to be 40 to hear it! maybe i'm crazy. SO SUE ME.

another way to look at this:

we're all "right" in how we hear music and about what we perceive in it. it really does seem to us the way that it seems to seem. this echoes something tim f said upthread:

...these ideas often are founded on this idea that what the music is - in all its nuanced glory - is always objectively present, and it's just a question of whether the listener sees/hears that clearly (i.e. has the right vocabulary to decode the sounds).

But listening, like reading, is not "innocent" - I think the process also involves an encoding of the sounds via ideas, associations, parallels, presumptions about purpose or use etc. etc. Music is spongey in this regard, soaking all this stuff up.

with that in mind, while some musics are obviously more generally accessible than others, every given listener gets to discover for themselves what's immediately appealing and what takes more time. some people like extreme metal and/or avante-garde composers right off the bat, while others have to work their way in to an appreciation of such things. other others won't ever get there, lack the reason, the desire and perhaps even the capacity to do so.

i believe that we do have a moral obligation to interrogate and even fight our social prejudices, but while social prejudice can inform and distort artistic taste, they aren't the same thing. we don't have a moral obligation to push our artistic taste ever outward. broad taste is not a virtue; it's just a reflection of certain proclivities. while it's taken me a lot longer to understand some musics than others, and i would generally agree that what you get out of initially incomprehensible art forms is roughly proportional to what you put in, i would hope that we could say such things without suggesting to anyone that they ought to listen to music they don't like.

the catharsis one experiences after being dragged through extremes of anguish and brutality is what makes makes neurosis work.

See, even this doesn't necessarily seem related to anger to me.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, August 15, 2012 8:50 AM (17 minutes ago)

i get you, but "anger" strikes me as a sensible shorthand for a knot of related ideas and emotions that metal is often built around: fury, violence, contempt, angst, suffering, negation, etc. negative states and thoughts. of course, not all metal draws equally from these wells, or at all. hair metal was often often no more than snarlingly cocksure, more flirtatiously petulant than furious. power metal tends towards joyful, anthemic uplift, and the proggy stuff is often more bewildering than brutal. nevertheless, i perfectly understand why non-fans would call metal or punk "angry music", and i don't think they're really wrong to feel that way.

when there is so much music that immediately works for you throughout life, definitely see why people wouldn't want to work for it. many will feel that liking lots of different types of music (and i mean more than most people, in their own experience)...or i should say types of track, because the idea of having to get into a genre feels more like a thing to do just so you can say you like that genre, as opposed to identifying the things associated with it you like best via specific tracks and just being able to say you love those tracks...never really felt like effort despite the time and energy they may have put into it.

people have told me that they hate rap because they feel like they are being shouted at. one person left my store when i was playing rap because he said he felt like he was being "aurally raped". all valid racist reasons to not enjoy a form of music. hahaha!

maybe it was el p tho.

oh but i do enjoy aerosmith's beach boys thing for some reason. the idea that someone is being tortured by their beachy harmonies. hahaha! that's why i never push the dylan thing with people who can't take dylan's voice. i get it. it can be a love it or hate it kinda thing.

i get you, but "anger" strikes me as a sensible shorthand for a knot of related ideas and emotions that metal is often built around: fury, violence, contempt, angst, suffering, negation, etc. negative states and thoughts. of course, not all metal draws equally from these wells, or at all. hair metal was often often no more than snarlingly cocksure, more flirtatiously petulant than furious. power metal tends towards joyful, anthemic uplift, and the proggy stuff is often more bewildering than brutal.

Anger is a specific, limited emotion. You've described a much wider emotional range than "all I hear is anger; it's just angry music."

^^^ but that's what shorthand is! Some, but not all, rap does feel like being shouted at to me too. And "aurally raped" is not racist. That's my perception of cookie monster metal vocals.

I think the vocabulary concept is totally valid. But it's separate from taste. And I think people are overanalyzing the emotional side of things (anger, etc) when it's mostly an aural and strictly musical issue. For example with metal, someone who understands the vocabulary should be able to distinguish different bands or different subgenres from each other while somebody without that vocabulary might think it all sounds the same.

A while back I was talking to a guy who dismissed the Zombies Odysey and Oracle by saying that it all sounded like the Beatles "Flying". Which made absolutely no sense to me on so many levels, but most importantly the two bands just don't sound anything alike to me. But I also remember when I was a kid, I thought that every song I heard on the radio with an english accent was the Beatles.

Maybe vocabulary is the wrong linguistic parallel though. It's more like how there are certain sounds in chinese that english speakers can't even distinguish. What's the word for that?

Phonology, right?

I guess. It probably still makes more sense to call it "musical vocabulary" though even if the comparison isn't strictly accurate.

I think the vocabulary concept is totally valid. But it's separate from taste. And I think people are overanalyzing the emotional side of things (anger, etc) when it's mostly an aural and strictly musical issue.

Yeah, fwiw, in music theory, "vocabulary" mostly refers to the sorts of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic resources used in a sort of music whereas "syntax" refers to how they are combined and organized. And I do think that understanding these things is key to understanding a type of music.

i do sort of like the idea of a "taste vocabulary" (which mostly seemed to have been rejected upthread?), as it helps explain the acquisition of reference points and contextual comprehensions. the more we hear and understand, the more we can hear and understand. where criticism is concerned, there's nothing more dispiriting than reading/hearing someone trash a recording or artist simply because they don't like, respect or know anything about the genre from which it arises. and distaste is far less offensive than ignorance. rockism is simply the insistent, misguided application of one rather limited taste vocabulary to a much larger musical world. see also lex's participation in indie threads.

Yeah, I think there has to be a distinction between the musical vocabulary that a musician uses to create music, and the vocabulary that a listener needs to understand it, which I still think boils down to making distinctions between different voices and sounds. For example the person who thinks hip hop is a bunch of talking on top of beats, vs. somebody who can identify different MCs and producers when they hear a track they've never heard before.

I guess it's kind of like how audiences needed to become fluent in the visual language of film to understand what was happening when there's a cut. Which is different from the technical vocabulary that the filmmakers need to understand to make the film.

xp

always thought of it as being akin to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect
ie the less experience you have with a subcategory, the harder it is to discern the (to you verrrry) subtle differences within it

i never push the dylan thing with people who can't take dylan's voice.

See Dylan is a great example of an artist who I really, really tried to get into, given his importance to dozens of artists I love, and just couldn't, and no amount of "you should really listen to X album" or an expansion of my vocabulary is going to get me there. Neil Young, too.

I think that you can't develop the taste for a form without first having developed the vocabulary to understand it. But you can have the vocabulary to understand a style of music and still not have a taste for it, or have bad taste. Some people are extremely knowledgeable about certain subgenres of music that they're passionately interested in but they still have shitty taste.

Does the concept of a vocabulary work for individual artists though, or just for different forms and genres of music? I'm not sure.

I think there has to be a distinction between the musical vocabulary that a musician uses to create music, and the vocabulary that a listener needs to understand it

But I think the sort of vocabulary and syntax that I mentioned are important for listeners. It's not that important to know what the clarinettist is doing with his tongue when listening to the first movement of a symphony but I do think that it makes a difference to e.g. hear the sections of sonata form, to be aware of the key relationships between the different themes, even to recognize dominant-tonic resolution.

Does the concept of a vocabulary work for individual artists though, or just for different forms and genres of music? I'm not sure.

i think it probably works for everything. "artist" and "genre" are just among the most obvious categories to which we might apply it.

But I think the sort of vocabulary and syntax that I mentioned are important for listeners. It's not that important to know what the clarinettist is doing with his tongue when listening to the first movement of a symphony but I do think that it makes a difference to e.g. hear the sections of sonata form, to be aware of the key relationships between the different themes, even to recognize dominant-tonic resolution.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, August 15, 2012 9:55 AM (1 minute ago)

i want to draw a clear line between "vocabulary of taste" and the sort of technical vocabulary you're talking about, sund4r. informed taste can be developed simply by listening, independent of any non-experiential education in musical terminology and form. therefore, maybe the term "vocabulary" is mistaken? i say that because it's not necessarily formalized or even linguistic. it can consist of things as simple as "i like it when the bass does that."

But I think the sort of vocabulary and syntax that I mentioned are important for listeners. It's not that important to know what the clarinettist is doing with his tongue when listening to the first movement of a symphony but I do think that it makes a difference to e.g. hear the sections of sonata form, to be aware of the key relationships between the different themes, even to recognize dominant-tonic resolution.

I don't know, I think that's an entirely different can of worms. But maybe it's safe to say that sometimes it's important and sometimes it's not?

I totally get off on the fact 'Ignition Remix' or 'Hey Ya' have unorthodox time signatures, in fact i might say it's these songs that helped to gain me a better appreciation of pop-r'n'b, but I totally get that most people like these songs because they're fucking cool catchy tunes.

i think it probably works for everything. "artist" and "genre" are just among the most obvious categories to which we might apply it.

Maybe. But I'm kind of struggling to see how it applies to say Dylan taken in isolation. An artist is always a part of a larger formal or stylistic context. The idea that there would be a unique "vocabulary of Dylan" that you would need to understand in order to appreciate his music implies that he sprung up totally unique, individual and fully formed.

If someone hates Dylan because they hate his voice that's understandable but then I would ask if they can understand his importance as a songwriter by appreciating other people's covers of his songs. If they still say no, and they actually dislike his lyrics and songwriting, then I would have to ask what familiarity they have with folk music in general, the songwriting of some of his contemporaries, etc. I don't think you're going to find somebody who truly understands the full context of the "vocabulary" that Dylan was working within but doesn't see why he's considered great.

Come to think of it, even Dylan's voice is part of a larger vocabulary of folk music. Somebody who can't stand the sound of his voice probably doesn't like Woodie Guthrie or Clarence Ashley either. I think our tastes can prevent us from developing vocabulary in certain areas. I personally hate cookie monster vocals, so I'm never really going to understand death metal or black metal or grindcore or what the differences are between all of those things, and I would never be able to pick any of those bands out of a lineup.

it can consist of things as simple as "i like it when the bass does that."

You know, this isn't necessarily that different from some of what I'm talking about, just without using the terminology. Something like dominant-tonic resolution is something that most people grow to recognize intuitively through hearing countless pieces of music in Western culture, even if they don't know the term.

I've known people into metal getting into dirgey/drone metal and then drone electronic stuff and on through that route. Listening to different artists added to their musical tastes and the overlaps or similarities can make someone want to seek out other sounds that they've heard. On the flip side, there are bands where certain songs don't appeal to me in that they're influenced by tastes that I don't find appealing.

Maybe. But I'm kind of struggling to see how it applies to say Dylan taken in isolation. An artist is always a part of a larger formal or stylistic context. The idea that there would be a unique "vocabulary of Dylan" that you would need to understand in order to appreciate his music implies that he sprung up totally unique, individual and fully formed.

― wk, Wednesday, August 15, 2012 10:10 AM (43 minutes ago)

i mean that like genres, we can be more or less ignorant about artists, judging them only by the surface qualities we think we perceive upon first encountering them. if we were to spend more time with their work, our response would necessarily become better informed - our "taste vocabulary" would become more sophisticated - though we might still dislike it.

i mean that like genres, we can be more or less ignorant about artists, judging them only by the surface qualities we think we perceive upon first encountering them. if we were to spend more time with their work, our response would necessarily become better informed - our "taste vocabulary" would become more sophisticated - though we might still dislike it.

But going back to Phil D, he said that "no amount of 'you should really listen to X album' or an expansion of my vocabulary is going to get me [to like Dylan]" So you're saying that if he did spend more time listening to Dylan, it would in fact expand his "taste vocabulary" even if he ended up still having an extreme distaste for Dylan's music? I don't get how that expanded taste vocabulary would manifest itself then, if not in an appreciation for the music. I'm kind of backpedaling and confusing myself now.

Do we need to understand the vocabulary of a particular music in order to develop a taste for it, or do we need to develop a taste for a type of music in order to listen to it enough to understand its vocabulary? I guess both ways are possible. But I still don't see how you can logically link those two concepts into one.

It depends if the vocabulary is the way you express your tastes, or if it's the words to describe music.

neither, the vocabulary should be inherent to the music

I don't get how that expanded taste vocabulary would manifest itself then, if not in an appreciation for the music. I'm kind of backpedaling and confusing myself now.

Do we need to understand the vocabulary of a particular music in order to develop a taste for it, or do we need to develop a taste for a type of music in order to listen to it enough to understand its vocabulary? I guess both ways are possible. But I still don't see how you can logically link those two concepts into one.

i questioned the word "vocabulary" a while back (after initially accepting it) because what i'm describing as a "vocabulary of taste" isn't necessarily linguistic. nor is it only expressed in liking things. we come to understand the working language of a genre or artist by immersing ourselves and listening carefully. that's one kind of metaphorical "vocabulary": the external structures around which bodies of work seem to be organized.

as we come to know those vocabularies, we necessarily increase the number of things we might possibly relate to in them. in this sense, we construct our own internal vocabularies of taste. if you've heard dylan only in passing, you might reject him simply because his voice annoys you. but if you were to spend time with dylan, you'd likely gain an informed understanding of what he was trying to do and what other people enjoy in his music, even if you still didn't like it yourself. having that understanding, that new "vocabulary" programmed into you by exposure, it might open you up to other music you might not have otherwise been prepared to enjoy. i guess that i'm only saying that personal taste is at least partially dependent on information, exposure and understanding.

the vocabulary should be inherent to the music

i would say that a vocabulary of taste must be inherent to the listener. taste does not exist in music, after all, but only in our relationship to it.

e.g. what is happy metal?

Andrew WK? Depending on what you consider to be metal, plenty of music that precedes Andrew WK that was considered metal at one time was happy (e.g. Kiss - "Rock and Roll All Night").

I still don't see the value in linking those two concepts, so I didn't mention taste. To me musical vocabulary is something inherent to the music, related to its form, history, and context. All of the subjective stuff about anger and violence has nothing to do with musical vocabulary. It sounds like you and mh are simply talking about the actual vocabulary people use to discuss music and musical tastes, but I don't think that has anything to do with what dog latin was talking about. It's not that his bandmate thinks metal is all just angry because he lacks a better vocabulary to describe what he's hearing. He isn't properly understanding what is going on musically, as evidenced by the fact that his attempted mimicry of metal is all wrong.
xp

Furthermore to what contenderizer just said, a taste vocabulary (or 'lexicon' or 'index') doesn't necessarily inform positive opinions. Being immediately repelled by a particular sound so much so that you never want to be in its presence again is a rarity (for me at least - I mean, dogs barking, alarm sirens and screaming babies, yes I have trouble with those noises, but music?). But there's stuff I don't like too. Like the Grizzly Bear album my housemates are playing right now. I can probably list the reasons why and make comparisons but these'll be much more influenced by how I think there are other bands who do that kind of thing a lot better.

To me musical vocabulary is something inherent to the music, related to its form, history, and context. All of the subjective stuff about anger and violence has nothing to do with musical vocabulary. It sounds like you and mh are simply talking about the actual vocabulary people use to discuss music and musical tastes, but I don't think that has anything to do with what dog latin was talking about. It's not that his bandmate thinks metal is all just angry because he lacks a better vocabulary to describe what he's hearing. He isn't properly understanding what is going on musically, as evidenced by the fact that his attempted mimicry of metal is all wrong.

i think that the violence and anger of metal are legitimate components of heavy metal's thematic/conceptual/cultural identity as a musical genre. they're different from but not less relevant or meaningful than traditionally & technically "musical" objective characteristics like like tempo, volume, timbre, tone, rhythm, arrangement, and so on. they're part of what we have to understand to really get heavy metal.

i agree that DL's point was that his bandmate lacks understanding, but this was reflected in his supposed errors of description as well as poor mimicry. DL rejects the word "angry" because he feels that it's inaccurate, while i just see it as imprecise (though still generally valid). anyway, this conversation concerns means by which we acquire familiarity with different types of music, and that must include subjective/conceptual/cultural stuff as well more objectively measurable qualities.

this thread seems dedicated to spiking stet's chart

i think that the violence and anger of metal are legitimate components of heavy metal's thematic/conceptual/cultural identity as a musical genre. they're different from but not less relevant or meaningful than traditionally & technically "musical" objective characteristics like like tempo, volume, timbre, tone, rhythm, arrangement, and so on. they're part of what we have to understand to really get heavy metal.

OK, I would agree with that. Subjective vs. objective wasn't the right way to frame it. But you're confirming what I'm saying about vocabulary having to come from the music rather than from the listener as opposed to mh's definition of vocabulary as "the way you express your tastes, or if it's the words to describe music." You're saying that a sense of "anger" in metal is an integral part of the language of the genre right? It's an emotion that's explicitly tackled in concrete forms like lyrics or album artwork so it's probably not too much to infer that some of metal's harsh sounds are sometimes meant to evoke that emotion as well. The idea of anger isn't something simply added by listeners who are making an emotional interpretation of abstract sound without any conceptual context.