musical taste and criticism (a personal essay) - part 1

I recently told a joke on my personal facebook page about my deep respect for music as an art form, and how my determination to understand and respect music that doesn't readily appeal to me comes from a desire to better myself be eradicating ignorance and prejudice from my thought process. The punchline was that i hate nickelback, but it made me reflect on my listening habits. As a result, i want to share my process for finding and listening to new (or at least new to me) music and the reasons why certain songs, pieces, bands, etc. stick with me while others do not.

I consider myself a connoisseur of listening. I am an academically trained musician and poly-instrumentalist. Decades of my life have been spent translating musical sounds, feelings, and thoughts back and forth from one to another. I hear music in my mind all day and night. Listening to music is not a static, passive experience for me. My body physically mimics the actions that produce what i am hearing, my mind connects disparate ideas to on another and develops fragments in interesting ways, transposes and translates sound from one instrument to another.

All this means that i naturally gravitate toward music that physically connects to my life at the moment. When i write, i write music that feels right, that follows a logical sequence, that alludes to the references i have accumulated. Thus, i am motivated to listen for new ideas, new connections, things i haven't thought of yet.

But, how do i do that? Well, for starters i may be one of the few people left on earth who actually reads the liner notes (the boring parts where a band thanks their families, and friends, and recording engineers, and tells you who actually wrote the song, and mentions other bands. I've spent hours following youtube rabbit holes of associated videos. Back when record stores existed i would buy at least one new album (sound unheard) and listen to it a dozen times before adding it to my collection or trading it in for something else.

What i've found is that no matter what genre, there is at least one artist with whom i connect, at least one piece or song i like by any artist. That one moment is the point at which our experiences cross and the place from where appreciation and understanding begin.

I also spend a great deal of time re-listening to albums in my collection, sometimes for pleasure sometimes to find new or forgotten ideas associated with that music.

I plan to write more on this subject, but this is a good introduction to my approach to music.

Until next time, cheers.