Musings on Music, #1

[pat]

brian1789 and I have different tastes in music, and I was trying to figure out some of why that would be so. Part of it is that there is no accounting for taste, but it is more than that.

What finally struck me are the different elements in our music choices. Generally speaking, mine tend to have strong melodies and lyrics, his strong rhythmic elements. He has many more instrumental pieces than I do.

I'm a singer. I am drawn to music that I can sing. I will often purchase cover versions of songs that are in my range rather than originals. (calebbullen despairs of me.) I make no claim to be a good singer (and lately, when I sing I get a sore throat), but I do sing. I sing around the house, I sing in the car, I sing everywhere where I can do so without people looking at me funny. I think of music in terms of melody and voice.

Brian is a dancer. Sometimes he will hear a piece of popular music and comment "Hey, that's a tango!" I will sometime ask him -- "what sort of dance is that music?" He thinks about music in terms of rhythm and movement.

I'm not sure what this says about us, but I think it is interesting.

Comments

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I need music with a strong rhythm I can rock to (yes, autistic-rocking), a strong melodic line that I can harmonize to, and preferably a steady beat that remains the same throughout the piece. Lyrics? Eh. I always have to look at a lyric sheet - I can never hear what the singer's saying.

So: Alanis Morissette, YES. October Project, YES.

Tori Amos? Eh. I can take or leave her stuff.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I like both, and something else. Some music I love singing along to (Queen, Bjork, opera arias), some music I love for its rhythm and danceability (for me), some music I can't sing along with or dance to, but love all the same (Vaugh Williams' Lark Ascending leaps to mind).

That's not to say I like all music by any means. But I certainly can't pin down my preferences based on categories like this. I assume there's something else guiding my choices.

Amusing observation: I don't, personally, get drunk, but I've noticed that many of my friends like "my kind" of dance music better when they're drunk. Also one friend who previously had paid no attention to my music preferences made some observation when we were playing DDR, that zie'd started out making zir own song choices but discovered after a while that my choices tended to be more fun for zie too.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I make no claim to be a good singer (and lately, when I sing I get a sore throat), but I do sing.

Singing is an expression of joy and worship (of whatever). In that context there are no good singers or bad singers or indifferent singers. There are only *singers*. Make a joyful noise :):):).

(P.S. - If I couldn't sing, I'd die. It's that simple.)

[elissaann.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are a singer! I want to do a "tune-up" the next time I'm out there to find out what's up with the sore throat. Meanwhile, make sure you are not tilting your head back at all, so that you are not tilting your larynx far back, which stresses a bunch of muscles. Try balancing a book on your head.

Rhythm vs. melody is a cool way to divide up ways of listening. I tend to divide listeners into "form" and "texture." I listen for form first, and texture only after I'm comfortable with the form. If I can't figure out the form, I get bored. Baroque music, folk, and big band jazz are the ultimates in sticking to form, so I listen to all of these for comfort. I have a friend who pretty much listens only for texture (the timbres, the way the instruments sound and fit together) and his wife listens only for form. They never go to concerts together, because they don't like any of the same music.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

I usually need intensity and energy in the music to keep me awake and attentive, along with enough interesting melody-devices or lyrics to whet my interest. Softer, lower-energy music either loses my attention or I eventually fall asleep, unless the interplay or lyrics are particularly fascinating...