Part question, part music rant, please read though?

M

minor7b5b9

New member
I'd like to start off by saying that I'm a very serious musician, and I listen to all kinds of music. I listen to classical, rock, jazz, country some rap (I used to hate rap, by now I'm warming up to some of it.) I listen to everything from Bach to Coltrane to REM to Radiohead to the Beatles the Bruce Springstein etc. As long as they're expressing themselves and they have something to say in their music, I'll listen to it. Now for the rant. Whenever I talk to adults about music (I'm 15) they seem to have a lot of assumptions about music. For one, they assume that the music from their generation is the best, because that's what they grew up with. While there is music from every time period that's good, it's dumb to think that your generation's is the "best." They don't actually say this, but they say things like "Music nowadays is terrible, it was so much better back in the 60's." Some music now is awful, but a lot of it is great, you just have to listen to the right stuff. Limitting yourself to only your generation's music is essentially the same as only listening to the new popular music nowadays. It also annoys me how these non-musical adults think they know more about music than I do, even after they find out that I'm a musician. For example, they get all surprised when I don't agree that the (fill in the blank) was the best band in history, but all this confidence has come from such a limited spectrum of knowledge. Do they have the musical attention span to listen to Tchaicovsky's 6th the whole way through without doing anything but focusing on the beauty and genius of his music? Did they ever listen to Beethoven's 4th while following along with the score, marvelling at his structural perfection and amazing thematic development? Can they even read music for that matter? Did they listen to Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" and fall in love with it so much that they transcribed and memorized every one of his solos on the album? This is what musicians do, and that's why we know more about music than non-musicians, it's that simple. I would never tell a dancer that Micheal Jackson was the best dancer ever (even if that's what I thought) because they would know so much more about than me, and I'd come off as arrogant. I'm not saying all adults are like this, but a lot of them never seem to realize that I have an understanding of music that is certainly surpassed by many professional musicians, but certainly not by casual listeners who haven't so much as played a C scale on the piano. Anyone who thinks music is a battle between the generations is closed minded. It's about the pure expression that can achieved with sound. I hate it when people condemn a genre of music. Saying something like "Classical music is boring." based on a very limited knowledge of the music is like saying "All black people are criminals" after you read about one drug deal that involved an African American in the paper. To me, they're both just as bad.
Oh yeah, the question: Why do people do this?
 
Yeah, people do this and it annoys the hell out of me. Why? I think because they just do it with everything, for some reason. How many times do you hear people say, for example, "My grandma's cooking is the best!!" - when, in fact, on the grand scheme of things, that person's grandma probably cooks like crap. People are too afraid of the unfamiliar, and too comfortable with what they have, even if it's mediocre at best, to open their eyes to new things.

As with classical and jazz, I don't think people understand it. And by "understand," I mean that in two ways: First off, I mean that those genres are obviously more harmonically and rhythmically complex than common time IV V I - I don't think most people can handle much more than that. But moreover, I think those genres are the pinnacle of expression - jazz being more of a "soul music" and classical being more its academic counterpoint (no pun with the word "counterpoint" intended here), and people can't handle that. People can only handle expression when it's through lyrics that literally say "My girlfriend broke up with me, it bad," or "I love my girlfriend, it good." People are soulless, mindless creatures.

Other than that, I don't have much.
 
Different people have different tastes. What some people think of as genius, other people think of as awful. Most people don't actually study music, they just listen to what they enjoy so they won't necessarily know about the structure of the music. They could be just as enraged about rap, for example, as you are about their preferences. Just because they don't read music, doesn't mean that they're not entitled to their own opinions and preferences.

Personally I can't stand a lot of "popular" modern music and it annoys me greatly that so many "singers" who can barely even hold a basic melody get recording contracts so easily because they "have the right look" or whatever. But that doesn't mean that I (as a musician) am going to interrogate everybody who does like them.

There will, also unfortunately, always be those who simply follow the crowd. I have come across countless people who claim to be fans of certain kinds of "music" just because that's what happens to be in fashion at the time.
 
Wow-I agree with you. I'm a musician too.

I think they do this because they want to be the best, even if they are wrong. Since they are adults, they feel like they need to have the better idea than you. They think that because they are older, they are obviously smarter about topics even if they know nothing about it.

Thank you for your interesting, well written post.
 
Can I HUG you - or is somebody going to file some kind of harassment paper on me for even suggesting that? You are intelligent, insightful, and you SO GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are fools everywhere, at every age - just *being over 21* does not make people wise. There are immature and ignorant people at EVERY stage in life - we just hope that young people outgrow some of their misconceptions. Some kids are raised on a steady diet of bigotry and close-mindedness - and some break free,while other do not - yes, the KKK has a *Junior Membership*! The only bigotry that I somewhat understand is that of the VERY old - who are not BAD people, but were raised with NO exposure to other ethnic groups, and repeat assumptions in some kind of benign innocence. Did you see the Clint Eastwood movie "Gran Torino" this year? The stuff that came out of HIS mouth, I heard from elderly relatives - but they would be the FIRST ones to tell you how great one of "those guys" was who worked next to you at the steelworks! They would repeat prejudices in the ABSTRACT - but the respected and were friends with the guys they worked with. My Dad's Navy Yearbook from WW2 had all the black guys in a separate section in the back - and Dad would say they they *hotbunked* on the destroyer - 3 shifts of guys all shared the same bed, every 8 hours, just grabbing their own pillow and blanket. Dad would talk about how the could not have BEEN closer workmates or friends - they slept in the same BED - but the US Navy put their pictures in the BACK of the book??? By the Korean War - every one was ALPHABETICAL. And I am sure that there were black guys from Chicago who had never worked with big Polish guys from Southie, either. My folks and 2 friends were great swing dancers - they went to Harlem one night to a club - where they were the only white people. As Dad said - they let them IN because they guy were in uniform. They let them stay all night because they could DANCE. It takes *something* to break the ice. The school I taught in was inner-city, and about 40% white, 40% black, 15% Hispanic - and there were NO race problems - kids had friends, made enemies, made groups, etc, - all color-blind. So - the future is with YOU - spread that great attitude you have. Turn your RANT into progress. Watch the movie Bullworth with Warren Beatty. Yup - Star Trek has is all wrong - by THEN - we are all going to be the same color anyway.
 
it's pretty simple- people just like to talk about themselves and things they like and know about and don't give a hoot about other people and what they like and know about (not just adults). But I also disagree with you about musicians and non-musicians, you don't have to play an instrument to appreciate good music just as you don't have to be a dancer to appreciate good dancing and voicing their opinions on what they enjoy, which goes back to people liking to talk about themselves.
 
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