Music Appreciation

One thing that my music exploration has in common with my reading is that I don’t always know where it’s going to go. Sometimes I have an idea of where it’s going to go, and I’m wrong, and other times I seriously don’t know, but I figure it will go somewhere.

With listening to the “pop” music, I believed it was really just going to be a matter of confirming that my sentiments are correct, and I am not missing anything, and they suck. With the guitar songs, I was hoping that I would find new and cool things for my listening pleasure. Neither has really gone as expected, but they are still going somewhere. (And I am just going to keep putting “pop” in quotes, because it meant something different back in my day.)

With the “pop”, yes, I am perfectly fine not liking it or listening to it. There have been a few laughs, certainly, and I am not a fan of anything new, but there have been some other musings, and I will get to those eventually.

With the guitar, although I haven’t been finding that I really liked (and I am only on number 35), it does at least make me think of things differently. There are some songs that I knew before, but I never really thought about the guitar elements specifically. Listening to them in that context does take me back and think, Yeah, I can see that.

One thing I have been thinking about though, is who likes what, and why. Obviously, there are people who are huge fans of Justin Bieber, and I guess there are reasons for that. Also, though (and this is where it may be perfectly reasonable to question my taste), there are a lot of well-regarded bands by people who know something about music that I do not like at all. I don’t really care for the Beetles, or Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan is, for me, like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I have been thinking about him specifically, first of all for the Desolation Row connection, but also, Charlie Sexton plays for him. He has a huge following, and when that very annoying woman on the train indignantly said he was the voice of a generation, she was not wrong.

It reminds me of back when MTV would have guest VJs, or when I would read magazines about my teen idols, and there were bands that I loved that cited influences or chose playlists that really had me going “Huh, really?”

I suppose some of it is a matter of personal chemistry and I will explore that more, but I have also been thinking that it is logical that a professional musician will have a wider range of appreciation.

It is commonly attributed to Malcolm Gladwell, but maybe started with K. Anders Ericsson, this idea that it takes 10000 hours of practice to master something. So, even with no aptitude for guitar, with 10000 hours of practice I could be really good. I still think aptitude is important. For example, I have some drawing ability and I bet I could develop it in only 5000 hours. Writing came faster to me, but between journals, blogs, stories, letters, screenplays, television pilots, and one novel, there could easily be 10000 hours in there anyway. I have not been counting.

I suspect that if you have some natural talent or ease of learning, putting in the time becomes easier, because some of the normal starting frustrations can be moved through more quickly. More than that, though, I think there has to be some great passion. I do kind of like performing, but not specifically performing on an instrument—I will pick comedy or karaoke or a skit first. I am passionate about music, but more as a listener.

Imagine, though, the person who really loves music and loves performing music, and the hours they put in practicing and arranging and getting gigs. You know people who have day jobs but they still end up playing around town, and are always in one band or another (or four at the same time), because they just can’t let it go. It does not seem unreasonable to me that such a person would be able to appreciate lots and lots of different kinds of music, because they are appreciating it on multiple levels. And it kind of gives me warm fuzzies inside, to know that it’s possible.

This is not to say that I will not be doing any more slagging on anything in this series of music blogs, but I am going to try and open my mind more in my regular listening, and just find new things. Maybe it won’t change my normal listening habits much, but I am at least going to be open to it.