Music Appreciation |
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dtguitarfan
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Posted: 26 May 2012 at 11:08am |
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So I gave Sonata
Arctica's new album a nice review on Metal Music Archives, and now I get to
watch as people in the forum for Prog Power are trashing the album. At
the same time, this album gave me the desire to go back and listen to Days of
Grays (which I was never really thrilled about) again, and this time I'm
finding it far more enjoyable. So I've been musing on this, and realizing
there are some lessons I've learned about music appreciation from being on
Metal Music Archives, Prog Archives, and the Prog Power forum, and from having
two very good friends who share a lot of the same tastes in music, but
occasionally have differences. These are
just personal musings that I wanted to write down as much for the benefit of
thinking them through as for anyone who might actually read through this
extremely wordy post, but hopefully someone will actually enjoy reading
them.
1) Knowing more about
music only helps you to appreciate it more.
Ok, that might have
sounded pretentious, but hear me out on this for a minute, I want to tell you a
story. So I grew up in a very musical family. A musically SNOBBISH
family. I wasn�t really allowed to listen to many forms of music � mostly
classical and jazz. When I was a young pre-teen, however, I found a
record in the back of a drawer of old records that never came out � it was
Emerson, Lake & Palmer�s �Pictures at an Exhibition.� I was CRAZY about
this album, because it combined something I was fascinated with (the sounds of
loud, electric instruments) with something I already knew and loved: classical
music. ELP became the first band I was a fan of, and this was the start
of my journey into crazy Prog Rock fandom. But the story doesn�t end
there. I listened to a lot of Classic Rock radio when I was in my teens,
and because I loved ELP I wanted other things like them, so of course I started
checking out bands like Pink Floyd, Kansas, Jethro Tull, Yes, Rush, etc.
But for some reason, I never really �got� some of these bands, especially Yes �
there were certain songs I liked, but most of their other stuff I thought
was�weird. Now fast forward to college. I was a big fan of Joe
Satriani in college, and had gone to see the G3 show with Satch, Vai, and John
Petrucci. Now, because of this I had gone and listened to some samples of
Dream Theater stuff on Amazon (this was when that feature of Amazon was brand
new, haha�shows how old I am), but never bought an album because I disliked the
singer�s voice. But the semester after going to the G3 show, I was
roommates with the president of the film club, and one day this guy came to my
room to return some camera equipment and as he did so he stopped and said �hey�is
that Joe Satriani?� We got to talking, and he asked me if I liked Dream
Theater, and when I explained why not he insisted I had to try out some of
their stuff, and later loaned me the Once in a Livetime album. I remember
not quite �getting� this album�but loved Take the Time � you know why?
Because on the live disc, they throw in the solo section from Freebird and
Petrucci plays it better than the original EVER was. That was enough for
me to try to �get� them, and I found an appreciation for a few other songs from
the album. On a side note, the gentleman who loaned me this cd is one of
my best friends, and has been for over a decade now. Back to the story: I
bought a couple Dream Theater cd�s, one of note being Images and Words. I
can remember HATING Metropolis Pt. 1. But a strange thing happened: for
some reason a piece of the instrumental section of this song got lodged in my
brain, and kept playing on repeat. So I had to listen to the song
again. I still hated it�but a little less now because I kinda liked this
part of the song. So I listened to it a few more times, hating it just a
little less each time�until I had an epiphany. I realized that there was
some really funky stuff going on in that instrumental section � strange time
signatures, and even parts where different members of the bands were layering
different time signatures on top of each other. Metropolis Pt. 1 became
one of my favorite songs after this, and this is the point at which Dream
Theater became my favorite band. And over time I�ve noticed some other
odd things in my changing musical tastes, such as the fact that these days I
prefer Yes (which I formerly thought were �weird�) more than I do ELP. This is why I say that knowing more about music,
or understanding more about a piece, can give you more of an appreciation for
it.
2) Everyone wants
something different out of a band or artist.
Some people don't
want their favorite bands to change at all - the people who seem to hate the
new SA album seem to hate it because it doesn't sound like every other album
that they've done. The inverse of this is that I've watched in
ProgArchives how people are extremely divided on the new Dream Theater album,
and it's funny to see how some people are saying it's because DT has nothing
new to offer (they haven't changed enough to keep these people interested),
some people think Mike Mangini sucks (they've changed too much), some people
think they didn't use Mike Mangini to his potential (they haven't changed
enough), some people wanted "Train of Thought 2", some people wanted
Metropolis Pt 3, etc. on wanting part 2 of a past album, some people think it's
too show-offy (um...please go away, you bother me�cretin), and some people are
like me and think the album is a culmination of the efforts over the last
decade, bringing the band full-circle and showing the combination of their old
style with the experimentation over the years. But in any case, I think
what this proves is:
3) If you go at it with
a �no expectations� attitude, music is far more enjoyable.
This is an extension
of lesson #2 � so the reason I didn�t like �Days of Grays� at first, and now am
finding it very enjoyable is because I came to the album with
expectations. I expected a certain sound out of Sonata Arctica, and the
new album did not provide it. But after that experience, I didn�t listen
to much Sonata Arctica for a while, and when the new album came out I didn�t
know what to expect, so when I went in with a fresh start, it was an amazing
ride for me! And so I thought �hmm�maybe I should give Days of Grays
another try.� This brings me to lesson #4:
4) Listen to your music
buddies � they can help you to appreciate music more.
Now, one of the reasons I thought I should give Days of Grays another try was because one of my good Prog buddies I mentioned earlier LOVES Days of Grays � it�s his favorite album by SA. After hearing the new SA album and going back to Days of Grays, I gained a new appreciation for it and heard things I was missing the first couple times through that album. Another good example of this one is the band Redemption. I remember when I discovered them, I only just kind of appreciated them, and told my Prog Buddies about them mostly because they were creating a big stir in the Prog communities. Well, one of my two buddies latched on to them right away, saying they were in his top 5. I didn�t get it, and I told my friend that I always felt like Redemption had no dynamics � they were always loud and driving and never held back and had quiet moments. I also used to tell him that I felt like the band was 5 instrumentalists soloing at the same time � no coherency. Well, I kept buying their albums and giving them a chance because my buddy loved them so much, and I wanted to understand why. And then Snowfall on Judgment Day came out and something clicked. I started to understand why this band was so special, and that album became one of my all-time favorites. It gave me a new appreciation for the band, and I was able to go back to the old albums and really, really enjoy them now. My buddy and I don�t always see eye to eye on music, but I�ve found over time that often if I can figure out why he likes something, I gain an appreciation of it myself � this is especially true if it�s a band I already like (though not always true if it�s a band I never liked in the first place). But that�s ok because: 5) There isn�t enough
time to appreciate EVERY band or artist out there.
Pretty
self-explanatory. But to expound on that
� there isn�t enough time to appreciate every band or artist out there, but you
can respect that other people appreciate them.
Now, please understand something�this does not mean I am going to
respect every single artist the exists�*cough* BIEBER!
6) Give an album a few
chances, especially if it�s a band that has already earned your respect.
This is kind of
expounding on #4. I�ve been talking about
Sonata Arctica a lot here because they are a great example � I did NOT like
Unia when it first came out�but then I saw the band live, and when they played
songs off of the album they were so great live, that I went back to the album
and discovered�I LOVED it! It�s now one
of my favorite albums. I mentioned a
similar thing happened with Days of Grays.
And it�s happened with countless other bands and albums. So I�ve learned that if I don�t like an album
or band right away, but someone I respect does, I probably ought to put that
one aside for a while, and then give it another chance later on.
7) Seeing a band live
gives you a whole new appreciation / perspective.
This goes along with
my experience with Unia � I didn�t appreciate the album until I saw the band
live, and saw how great it translated.
And this has happened so many times with other bands � for example:
Voyager. I�ve gone to Prog Power USA 7
years in a row. The last few years, I�ve
tried to at least sample every band that is going to be there. This is partly because I have to know when a
good time is to go get a bite to eat, so I want to know which bands are
�skip-able�. Last year, Voyager was one
of the bands I sampled, and I decided that they didn�t sound unpleasant, but
they probably weren�t my style of band either.
But I decided to give them a shot and stay for at least part of their
performance. That was one of the most
fun performances I�ve EVER seen! I went
and bought two of their albums, and absolutely LOVED them! This probably never would have happened had I
not stayed for their performance. Now
the flip side of this lesson is:
8) Live performances
are the true test of a band�s worth.
In this day, there
are so many tricks a band or artist can use in the studio to make themselves
sound better than they really are. The
live arena is the true test � is this band fantastic, or mediocre?
9) Reviewing music
helps me understand why I like or dislike something.
I think many people
have no idea why they like or dislike things, or even why they are for or
against other things. I�ve found at
times that analyzing this has changed my opinion on things. For example, I will give one of my now
favorite bands: Haken. I did not like
their debut. My buddies did�so I
analyzed things, and realized that really the only thing I didn�t like about
them was the singer. For some reason I
just didn�t appreciate his voice. But as
I listened to their music again, I realized I LOVED the instrumentals. Analyzing why I disliked them helped me to
realize that I could get past those reasons, which I did, and now they are not
only one of my favorite bands, but I have also been able to appreciate the
singing as well (still not my favorite vocalist by any stretch�but I like him
quite a bit more than I did). So I�ve
found that as I�ve been reviewing albums on this site and on Prog Archives,
I�ve been listening to music with more of an analytical ear, and I�m finding
this helps me to appreciate more music.
10) Pandora is an
AWESOME tool for music appreciation.
I�m going to use
Opeth as an example for this one because it is a recent occurrence: I never
really appreciated them, until recently I set up a mixed station on Pandora
that contained Riverside as one of the handful of bands I put into the
station. Because of this, Pandora kept
selecting some of the quieter songs with compound time signatures by Opeth, and
without knowing who it was, I�d say to myself: �hmm, this is cool, who is
it?� And I�d look up and be surprised
that I was really enjoying�Opeth!
11) Your current life
situation changes how you appreciate music.
I�m thinking of two
particular examples for this one. One
was in college � I was depressed, but mostly angry over�surprise�a girl. And this was right after a certain album by
one: Linkin Park. The angst in that
album spoke perfectly to my situation at the time. Now, on the flip side of this, I had a very
different experience with a Redemption song: Keep Breathing. This album came out when my son, my first
born, was about 9 months old. The song,
Keep Breathing, was written by one of the two guitarists, Nick Van Dyk, about
his daughter Parker, who has a degenerative disease causing her to lose her
eyesight. The lyrics explain how as a father he can't stand to see his daughter
in pain, but at the same time is amazed at her strength and bravery and tells
her that it inspires him to go on.
Listening to this song at this point in my life was like perfect timing,
and something rare (for me) happened: I had to pull over as the tears began to
flow. Thinking about my love for my own
son, and my desire to protect him, made the song so much more beautiful to me.
Ok, so how am I
going to wrap up these ramblings? Well,
I may come back here and add more thoughts to this later, but for now I will
finish this long, wordy ramble off with this last final lesson:
12) Music is meant to be
enjoyed in community.
Having two good
buddies who enjoy much of the same music I do has enriched the experience of
music in so many ways. I don�t think
music should be enjoyed alone � I think it should be shared! If you love a band, tell your friends about
them! Try to get them into the
band! Find someone else who loves the
band and befriend them! It makes the
experience so much better.
Well, that�s it for now � hope I didn�t bore anyone. But after I wrote these, I was thinking about
them and realizing some of these apply in many other areas: for example, the
lessons on knowing why I feel a certain way about music, and taking time to
develop my opinion on it, are applicable to so many more situations, like
politics, for example. I mean, so many
people seem to have opinions on politics that they are so vocal about, and yet
seem to have no idea why they have these opinions. *cough* Tea party�I�m looking at you right
now, that�s right. How many videos have
you seen where a news guy has gone and interviewed people at a tea party rally
and asked �did you know that if that was put into place you�d lose [fill in the
blank]?� And the tea party person says
�um�well�no�I wouldn�t like that�.� They
look like a complete idiot! Yeah, I�m
not an expert on applying these lessons as I�ve looked equally the idiot too
many times, but I know I OUGHT to take more time to develop my opinions,
examine the other side�s opinions, and if anyone asks what I think about the
subject in the meantime say things like �I don�t think I know enough about the
subject to take an opinion either way right now.�
Edited by dtguitarfan - 27 May 2012 at 6:43am |
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Diogenes
MMA Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: 06 Nov 2010 Location: Undecided Status: Offline Points: 877 |
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Not boring at all. You bring up some great points, especially 11. A few days ago I was talking with Jeff about how I tend to associate songs or albums with certain time periods in my life, and when I listen to them, I can almost feel like I did back then. As my taste in music changes, I stop listening to those bands, but they'll always be connected to me somehow. It's hard to describe and it sounds really cheesy, but it's true; as much as I hate being a part of a hated stereotype, Korn played a huge part in getting me through high school (for about a year, anyway), and because of that, I'll always be up for listening to their self-titled, even though I may not own it anymore. Same deal with Metallica, Soulfly, Disturbed, etc. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be on this site having this conversation right now.
Mind if I add a couple thoughts of my own? BTW, I just realized this post was in Blogs. We need more of those. Edited by Diogenes - 26 May 2012 at 11:42am |
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dtguitarfan
MMA Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: 19 May 2012 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 481 |
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Go right ahead! And thank you for your thoughts/commentary on what I wrote! |
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dreadpirateroberts
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#2&3 stand out for me, especially as I have to remind myself of #3 sometimes, before writing a review etc
I think, drawing on your point from #1, the idea of knowing more about music, especially in terms of a wide range of genres, is great. That's powerful knowledge for a listener, I think it best allows us to contextualise what we're hearing. (For a simple example, imagine approaching Led Zeppelin with no knowledge of Folk or the Blues.) And by range, I don't mean 'Metal sub-genres A through Z.' So many teenagers I teach seem to be under the impression that if they have one genre covered, they 'Love Music' - when what they actually seem to love is a certain style of music. I reckon I did the same thing in high school with the Rock genre, I was closed to other genres, if it wasn't Zep, Sabbath or Deep Purple I wasn't keen. Took me a while to break free. Good times since then. |
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We are men of action. Lies do not become us.
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Diogenes
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Alrighty. I just want to say that, for better or for worse, great artwork on an album's cover can do wonders for one's listening experience. I know that music should simply be about music and not image, but for those of us who are more visual learners, the cover art often has a great effect on how we perceive the music. Not only will I be more easily swayed to listen to an album that also has visual appeal, but I also tend to appreciate it more as well; a colorful album cover will make the music seem more lush, while a darker or more subtle one will bring out a lower mood. The easiest example I can think of is when my iPod can't load the artwork for albums for whatever reason...man, that pisses me off to no end. I don't know why. It just helps to have something visually appealing to associate with something sonically appealing, you know? Again, it's something that probably shouldn't matter, but it's no coincidence that some of my favorite albums have some really awesome artwork to go with them. |
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UMUR
MMA Special Collaborator Errors & Omissions Team / Retired Admin Joined: 25 Mar 2010 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 18239 |
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^I feel exactly the same way. Artwork is important.
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dtguitarfan
MMA Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: 19 May 2012 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 481 |
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Haha, that's so funny - I would like to say that artwork doesn't affect my appreciation of an album, but it sure does help. I think I can get past it usually, though - I guess for me, good/bad cover art is more of a selling point. Once I've bought the album, I can judge it just by the music. For example - one of my favorite artists is Anubis Gate. But for some reason I didn't "get" them, really, until their latest album, the self-titled one. But as far as cover art goes, especially for them, the cover is a little boring. But it's the album that helped me to "get" them, and made me go back to their old stuff and listen again (now I love their other albums). |
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Diogenes
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Anubis Gate's latest is definitely an exception for me. I was able to get into that album no sweat.
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J-Man
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Nice blog, Geoff, I completely agree with all of these points.
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Check out my YouTube channel! http://www.youtube.com/user/demiseoftime
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Triceratopsoil
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Numbers 1, 2 and 3 are the story of my life
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Wilytank
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6) That sword cuts both ways you know. I loved Days of Grays on the first listen; but after a few more, I reconsidered. Eventually, I expelled it from my CD collection. As you probably understand, writing a review for an album on the first listen is a bad idea. The more solid your opinion, the better off you will be when reviewing. That said, I really find that the "I hated [x album] the first 999 times I listened to it, but I absolutely loved it on the 1000th listen." idea almost never applies to me. Hit your hand a thousand times with a hammer and yeah it will eventually stop hurting, but you'll have seriously fucked your hand up. If an album gets a 2.5 or less from me on a first listen, I find that on subsequent re-listens my score actually goes down. Such an occurance happened with Gorguts' Obscura in my case. 7) I never liked internet radio. I don't like not having control of what I listen to, because if something comes on that I already do despise like Suicide Silence when I want Immolation or Incantation I'm going to flip shit. I prefer my music played in the order it was intended to be set in on the album it appears on. If I need new bands, all I really need to do is ask around. This is all personal preference though. 11) As most of the rest of you may know, angst ridden lyrics are often a reason for me to give the middle finger to a band. I am turned off by "whiny" lyrics about how shitty the lyric writer's life is, especially if it's a mallcore band who uses these themes to milk money from the music industry. Now do I like depressive and sorrowful atmospheres? Yes, I do. Black metal in particular tends to be an ideal place to project this atmosphere with acts like Coldworld, Xasthur, Drowning the Light, and Shining; and death doom/funeral doom metal acts like Katatonia's debut, Bethlehem's debut, October Tide, Skepticism, Funeral, and Ea. I like all those bands because I think their music fits much more ideally with this type of theme than metalcore does and I feel that I can take them more seriously because of that. And not all of them even have lyrics dealing with depression; Skepticism for example mixes nature in to make a simple, but effective set of lyrics. Here's the lyrics to "Sign of a Storm" as an example: By the healing waters of my lovely shores I laid The air so bleak so cold I breathed with my eyes with my ears Through aeons went my journey From these mountains I swear the world I am the hammer I am lightning By the signs I shall return To burn all land beyond the seas Added to them are bands like Esoteric and Leviathan who partner the depressive atmosphere with misanthropy to create an atmosphere of pure hate of the world. They've succeeded in making their music not exactly sorrowful sounding, but more along the lines of being full of animosity. What does all that bullshit have to do with your original point? There's definitely a sizable age difference between the two of us, but I've got too much pride to let angst bother me. The last time I was frustrated, played a couple of songs by some death metal bands with lyrics about killing God, which, being the Christophobe I am, made me feel quite powerful and ended up forgetting about the frustration. Again, this is personal preference.
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Triceratopsoil
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I agree. If I am going to preview music on the internet, it will be via something I can actually listen to the whole album on (ex: grooveshark) |
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dtguitarfan
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Well, when you have over 200 GB of music on your hard drive, sometimes it's very difficult to decide what to listen to, and so a personalized radio station can be quite freeing. |
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Diogenes
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I get what you're trying to say, but that analogy is a little extreme. For one, there is no one out there claiming that hitting your hand with a hammer is awesome and that everyone should love it, and as such there would be no potential upside to doing so. And what if the hammer looks like this? I agree with you on internet radio though. I can't remember the last time I found an artist through an internet radio station. Waiting for a song that I like by an artist I don't know greatly exceeds my attention span. |
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Wilytank
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My point is why waste time continuing to listen to music you don't like after the first few listens on the off chance that you'll like it more after another ten listens when you can find music infinitely more deserving of your time?
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UMUR
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I think what was meant, was that you might not fully appreciate a certain release the first or the second time, but you can still hear that there is something there and you keep coming back to take another listen, because something intrigues you even though you still don�t really like what you hear. Sometimes repeated listens help open your mind to new things.
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Nick Dilley
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Haha, I have the same problem. I'd have to check my external hard drive, but I'm definitely into the hundreds of gigs of music area. I dig sites like Pandora when the user interface is simple and whatever algorithms they are using to predict the music selection ACTUALLY WORK! I can't recall the names, but when internet radio first came out, I was soooo frustrated with how poorly they actually functioned. Pandora is cool, though--works great, and the music selection is usually pretty accurate when choosing "like artists." If not for Pandora, I never would have found Amon Amarth! LOL, I love those guys (to an extent)! |
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Nick Dilley
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+1 The point of multiple listens isn't to force yourself to like something you don't like. Sometimes you're just not in the right zone to appreciate something. I'm someone who is pretty sure about whether or not I like something on the first listen--but I've been wrong many times, and I'm not afraid to admit that. When you know that you do like something, multiple listens can reveal how good something is and increase the pleasure of the experience, or it can show you how a piece can get stale relatively quickly. Lastly, I think that there is something to be said for listening to music that doesn't appeal to you all that much, as an exercise. I used to do it all the time, and guess what: I like pretty much everything for some reason or another and I get a lot more out of listening to music than I used to. But, I totally get not wanting to use music as an academic exercise. It appeals to me personally, but not so much for a lot of people. |
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mmogoogle
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Nice blog, Geoff, I utterly accept as true with all of those points. I ne'er liked net radio. i do not like not having management of what I hear, as a result of if one thing comes thereon I already do contemn like Suicide Silence after I need sacrifice or charm i am reaching to flip shit. I like my music compete within the order it had been meant to be set in on the album it seems on. If i would like new bands, all i actually ought to do is raise around. this is often all personal preference tho'.
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