Pop music too loud, sounds the same

[Elis]

My sister has studied and played music for a long time. She'll often crank down on composers and tell me how disappointingly boring the scores they write are. I don't get that. If people appreciate and can attune to their music, what does it matter how advanced it is?

 

[Lerxst]

My sister has studied and played music for a long time. She'll often crank down on composers and tell me how disappointingly boring the scores they write are. I don't get that. If people appreciate and can attune to their music, what does it matter how advanced it is?

Imagine getting to the age in life where you can appreciate food, so you start dining in 5 star restaurants every day, every month, every year. Then, a few years later you visit a friend and they take you out to McDonald's for lunch... would you honestly not have a knee-jerk, "oh my god, kill me now and put me out of my misery" reaction to that dried up, paper thin burger and over-processed shake?

 

[ZcM4xzkjgzCjytBc]

Imagine getting to the age in life where you can appreciate food, so you start dining in 5 star restaurants every day, every month, every year. Then, a few years later you visit a friend and they take you out to McDonald's for lunch... would you honestly not have a knee-jerk, "oh my god, kill me now and put me out of my misery" reaction to that dried up, paper thin burger and over-processed shake?

It's your own fault for isolating yourself into some fake elitist position. But I suppose if you feel too old and left out of society, that's your problem.

 

[Awesome]

"Taking" music isn't "being" a musician. I took piano and trumpet for 12 years prior to picking up a guitar. It wasn't until I decided that it was what I wanted to do with my life that I actually became a musician - live, eat, sleep, breathe it.

Once your ear is trained to actually hear the little nuances in music (time signature changes, symphonic backups, the sound of an acoustic guitar string actually buzzing, the 5th string certain really good bassists use on their instruments, guitarists and bassists using harmonics mid-song, guitarists physically bending their guitar neck to get that extra bit of sound out, poetic lyrics, etc.), you can't simply go back to appreciating anything about simple thumping rhythms, timbre-deaf instruments and mindless lyrics.

You absolutely can, I do all the time. I used to go to school with a major in performance and education, I play jazz and fingerstyle guitar. While becoming educated in theory and harmony, like hearing how jazz musicians improvise over very basic forms was eye opening in terms of where it can go, music is just entertainment. No doubt a formal education gave me the ability to more specifically understand the mind bending genius of Holdsworth, Bach's command of the fugue, and gloriousness of 70's fusion, but what you and I are doing now is desperately trying to identify objectivity to something subjective. It is profound, yet technically meaningless. And there's no need to bring up the technical ability of playing an instrument to me. I transcribe classical music regularly and have built 3 acoustic guitars. Here was my last 2013 project, a hand built arch top acoustic with a removable pickguard/pickup.

Clearly, my musical penis is larger than yours.

 

[Lerxst]

It's your own fault for isolating yourself into some fake elitist position. But I suppose if you feel too old and left out of society, that's your problem.

Oh, Hell yeah, I'm a music snob. I've been called that dozens of times and I don't deny any bit of it. It's the occupational hazard of actually being a serious musician.

What pisses us "elitists" off to the point where we complain is when we have to listen to the radio against our wills and hope there's that 1 in 20 chance of hearing a good song, but have to listen to the other 19 pieces of total crap to get to that one good one. It's forced down our throats in every bit of pop-culture - Go to work, and what does the office station play? Watch TV and what does the soundtrack consist of? Even shopping in a grocery store, what do you get to hear?

You try to make a living out of being a musician and struggle day and night for years on end to "get discovered", only to hear some know-nothing, high-school drop-out get signed to a label and release a generic pop album that hits #1... tell me how tolerant you'd be of modern music.

I take that back... I don't blame the music, I blame the fans and industry. Their musical pallet consists of being fed crap their entire lives from an early age and being told it's "gourmet". No wonder there's no desire whatsoever to explore anything beyond that narrow margin of crap they've grown up listening to.

 

[ZcM4xzkjgzCjytBc]

Oh, Hell yeah, I'm a music snob. I've been called that dozens of times and I don't deny any bit of it.

Not me. I've seen your music tastes in the "What are you listening to" thread. They're all boring normie rock & roll songs from the past. Look, I like Rush just as much as the next guy, but believe me when I tell you, the quality you see in the music you like, is narrow and subjective. I've been through a phase of looking down at popular music. I still point out the formulated garbage that people tend to relate to, but the one very important thing that most snobs have in common, is their inability to take value from the expression of people they don't resonate with. Try to understand people who aren't you.

There's more to music than what you think makes it good.

 

[Elegant Winter]

It sounds like you are the kind of person who would assume I'm a demon IRL before you got to know me LOL. "Omg who is this popular and overly sexualized bimbo wench with fluid morals?!"

Hah, maybe. I can be a little quick to judge sometimes. That's not the case here though. I see a lot of humanness and character in your posts. You're very real to me and I admire you for your courage and willingness to live as you'd like.

 

[muir]

It's all about the dumbing down of society

Orwell outlines this process in 1984 and it is happening

 

[barbad0s]

Hah, maybe. I can be a little quick to judge sometimes. That's not the case here though. I see a lot of humanness and character in your posts. You're very real to me and I admire you for your courage and willingness to live as you'd like.

Success, I'm real!!! LOLs. Hey but everyone lives as they like... right? Don't you as well?

 

[Elegant Winter]

Success, I'm real!!! LOLs. Hey but everyone lives as they like... right? Don't you as well?

Sure.

 

[invisible]

"Taking" music isn't "being" a musician. I took piano and trumpet for 12 years prior to picking up a guitar. It wasn't until I decided that it was what I wanted to do with my life that I actually became a musician - live, eat, sleep, breathe it.

Once your ear is trained to actually hear the little nuances in music (time signature changes, symphonic backups, the sound of an acoustic guitar string actually buzzing, the 5th string certain really good bassists use on their instruments, guitarists and bassists using harmonics mid-song, guitarists physically bending their guitar neck to get that extra bit of sound out, poetic lyrics, etc.), you can't simply go back to appreciating anything about simple thumping rhythms, timbre-deaf instruments and mindless lyrics.

i think youve got a point. i did a lit degree cause i wanted to be a writer. when i finished i realised that the industry is controlled by publishers and university creative writing faculties rather than legitimate literary or artistic qualities. i get this feeling when i pick up a piece of that shit that i can recognise straight away that it was subjected to the group feedback process with a bunch of tools saying stuff like, "this part sounds jarring" and having little tea breaks where they tell each other "Jeanette Winterson is my hero" and "i havent read it, but Ulysses is all style and no substance".

but its more complex than that. i also read masses of generic fiction that is technically mediocre and is intended for no other purpose than to entertain. it fulfills its function admirably.

its interesting that you seem to think i dont have a very fine appreciation of nuance and depth and artistic qualities in music. ive never thought of it that way before. i think you might be making assumptions about me.

 

[sprinkles]

[video=youtube;leLY_m9TixI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leLY_m9TixI[/video]

 

[drummergirlbk]

Made by artists who got their start well before the turn of the century.

How's this for lazy. Pick up and learn to play an instrument, then learn a song with this time signature progression:

3/8 -> 5/4 -> 4/4 -> 4/2 -> 3/4 -> 5/8 -> 3/4 -> 7/8 -> 4/4

And no, I'm not making this up...

[video=youtube;i9dHL7GA1nk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9dHL7GA1nk[/video]

I can actually play every single one of those time signatures