All of us are here for one reason, I hope: we love language. And we have touched on music many times, in many different threads.
What I'd like to know is what kind of music do y'all love?
I'll start:
-Medieval, both secular (hi Faldage) and sacred -Renaissance, tra-la-la -Bach and the other (especially early) Baroque guys (if it ain't Baroque, don't fix it) -Mozart and his henchmen -Beethoven and some o' them - Mahler, Brahms, y'all know -some o' the Russians -30s-40s standards -60s oldies, blues & Motown -Brazilian (samba, bossa nova) -Folk music (Celtic, Sfardic, bluegrass)
My tastes start a little later than yours, =of mediæval music that I have heard, I like neither secular nor sacred, ditto Renaissance. As for the rest
Bach and the other (especially early) Baroque guys (if it ain't Baroque, don't fix it) -Mozart and his henchmen -Beethoven and some o' them (LvB's 9th half a dozen times a day, if I had the time) - Mahler, Brahms, only if I'm in the mood, which is very seldom -some o' the Russians -30s-40s standards -60s oldies, blues & Motown -Brazilian (samba, bossa nova) -Folk music (Celtic, and African, both in small doses)
The father of my son forced me for years to listen music, high volume, even during lunches and dinners... and this was making the life so difficult - even "please the salt" had to be cried. So in some sense I hate music - and just now after 8 years I start again to enjoy some simple song... But usually I prefere "the sound of silence", or just the birds singing... Ciao Emanuela
Well, I of course have to do my part in paying homage to modern Classical music: Jazz. Let's see, there's Ragtime, Dixieland, Blues, Swing/Big Band, Bebop, Cool Jazz, Modal Jazz, Free Jazz, Fusion, Soul, Hip Hop, Smooth/Contemporary Jazz.
My favorite artists/composers are Louis Armstrong (without whom the subsequent music generations probably wouldn't have existed), Duke Ellington (obviously the greatest American composer), Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck/Paul Desmond, Thelonious Monk, Tower of Power (soul/hip hop group), Herbie Hancock, SpyroGyra (contemporary/fusion group).
I can really listen to any kind of music depending on my mood. My least favorites though are Country, Rap, Heavy Metal and Hard Rock (Metallica). I think saying any form is not music is fallacious because music is the way in which we convey our thoughts and emotions. Mozart and Eminem are both musicians in the same way that Chaucer and e.e. cummings are both poets. I tend to consider wordless music superior because you actually have to listen to the music to find the message. And we've discussed before that language is limited in portraying a thought (especially across many languages) but pure music can sometimes fill in those gaps in language to adequately get the message across.
I have many more thoughts on this subject, but I'm not finding the words to say them, so I'll just hum them to myself.
I can really listen to any kind of music depending on my mood. My least favorites though are Country, Rap, Heavy Metal and Hard Rock.
I think you read my mind, JazzO! I completely concur. Some of my favorite composers/singers/music groups are:
J. S. Bach Carl Orff (his Carmina Burana) Handel U2 REM The Mamas and the Papas Simon and Garfunkel Duran Duran Depeche Mode Deep Forest (world beat) Ladysmith Black Mambazo Enya Andrea Bocelli The Crystal Method
Most everything, except impossibly loud rock, including opera esp. Mozart, and of his, especially Don Giovanni, as well as parts of Il Trovatore, and Don Carlo the first and second act choruses, and the first act trio of Fidelio, for shear bombast, In Questa Regia and for some bel canto lines, Bellini. The arias of Handel's Julius Caesar are also magnificent.
Then there are the Bach Cantatas, especially, "Weinen Traenen ____ Sorgen," and "Jesu der du Meine Seele," The B minor mass, Oh all sorts of other Bach.
I love the Schubert song cycles. Schumann's Dichterliebe is ethereal, surprisingly, it is the piano "accompaniment" that sometimes is most beautiful. When singing, I have sometimes had to stop for crying at something that's happened in the piano.
Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, many of the unknowns on the Lomax recordings.
The father of my son forced me for years to listen music, high volume, even during lunches and dinners... and this was making the life so difficult - even "please the salt" had to be cried. So in some sense I hate music
Although I have never had anyone father a child with me (my plumbing's not set up that way,) I can sympathize with you, Emmanuella. The people at work insist on playing screaming teen-ager type rock (compressed dirt), thereby metamorphically transforming my normally sedimentary self into an igneous raving maniac! However, that has not reduced my delight in Baroque and Russian Romantic music, which are my favorites. We here in Portland, Oregon, are furtunate to have an excellent Baroque period orchestra, so my thirst for such music can be easily slaked.
As for the rest, well, AnnaStrophic, I think you've got a pretty good list, Mahler excepted!
I'll be the first to admit that most popular hip-hop music is rubbish (Puff Daddy, Snoop, Jay-Z, Lil' Kim, et al). But people, until you've sat down and listened to something like Pharcyde, Black Eyed Peas or Mos Def, please do us a favour and hold your two finger typing. This music is fun and, yes, sometimes even thought-provoking and you can bop your head to the beat. My list of favs would be too long, but if there's one composer I can recommend it is Richard D. James aka. Aphex Twin, a musical philosopher, a master mind.
belligerentyouth makes a great point about how good, thoughtful rap is so much different from the more popular stuff. I'd have to add De La Soul, KRS-ONE, Outkast and (some) Tupac Shakur to your list, b-y. Lately I have been introduced to Moby, who's musical creations are almost impossible to pigeon-hole into a category, but appeal to a wide range of musical tastes.
As far as "classical" music goes, I took a "music appreciation" class in college that really opened me up to the depth and intricacy of the great composers, from Beethoven to Stravinsky, but I feel like to really understand and get the utmost out of classical music I would need to study it more. That said, I do enjoy Copeland, Gershwin and Joplin when I'm in the mood.
I'd also like to put in a plug for a fabulous folk singer whom I have been a fan of for some time now: Catie Curtis writes and performs some of the most thoughtful, emotional, and catchy folk I have ever heard. If she comes through your area, check her out.
I also listen to some "pop" and "hard rock", but I'll save myself the embarrasment of listing band names.
It has been so interesting to hear what my fellow ayleurs are listening to!
Greetings--I am a new member as of today and will try not to waste your time of give offense. I have been searching for a music related word for years (even tried to invent my own with no success). I think there is a French equivilent for the word I seek. Help please.
Is there a word to describe the common condition of having a tune, song, melody, etc., go through ones mind forever (or seemingly forever). The tune is often the last thing I hear on the radio while driving to work, but they can come unbidden in the middle of the day. People think I am strange when they hear me humming "you better watch out; you better not cry; Santa..." in July. Thanks.
There is a medical term, although I can't remember it. You can find it in "The Man Who Thought His Wife Was a Hat," by the neurologist/writer who's name's gone out of my head. He writes of a patient who heard the same tune for 15 or 20 years without rest.
You might want to check out the Helpful hints for newcomers thread in the Information and Announcements category. It’ll save you a lot of wondering on how to get around and how to do things like make your words bold or how to add emoticons .
As to your question. I have no idea. I usually call it annoying in French and English
Addendum... I forgot to tell you to look in the top right corner right below the list that goes from Main Index to Logout. When you are in the Main Index you have a little note that says 'welcome you have ... messages' Click on Check private to view your personal mail. Sometimes, new members are not aware of this find it only after several months.
is there a word to describe the common condition of having a tune, song, melody, etc., go through ones mind forever (or seemingly forever). The tune is often the last thing I hear on the radio while driving to work, but they can come unbidden in the middle of the day. People think I am strange when they hear me humming "you better watch out; you better not cry; Santa..." in July.
you think you've got it bad? from the Onion: Ronald DeGaetano, sole survivor of the Jan. 31 Alaska Airlines crash that claimed 88 lives, has had the 1982 Asia song "Sole Survivor" stuck in his head ever since. "Goddamn it, I can't get that stupid thing out of my head," DeGaetano said. "After the plane went down, I was floating out there in the Pacific, thinking about how I was the sole survivor, and for some reason, that song popped into my head. Now I can't get it out, and it's driving me friggin' nuts." DeGaetano said that if he does not shake the song soon, he is going to "start wishing I hadn't been the sole survivor."
[yart alert -- all those who detest yarts, stop reading NOW] this came up before, and some suggestions were made that you might want to look at...
I'm into nearly all types of music from medieval to comtemporary, with some exceptions, such as rap (which I don't recognize as music), hard rock, heavy metal, country twangie-wang (which I find saccharine). I like, but don't listen much to, most jazz especially blues, dixieland and ragtime. Don't care much for swing (most of it sounds too much alike). But what I really appreciate most is church music, especially English. Naturally, this takes in a great deal of music written up thru Bach. But, being an incurable romantic, I really go for the Wesleys, Samuel and Samuel Sebastian, and the later Victorians and Edwardians, Stanford, Parry, Howells, to name the best-known. Yesterday at church was a great day since it hit on music which is at the top of my favorites list: An anthem by Goss (which I helped to sing) on the text, "O taste and see" set for double choir; the great Welsh hymn, Guide me O thou great Jehovah to the tune Cwm Rhondda and for organ postlude Bach's masterpiece chorale prelude O Mensch Bewein dein' Suende gross. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
Any of y'all out there who have a category you don't consider music have a definition of music that everything you like fits but the stuff you don't consider music doesn't?
Note: I'll not require that stuff you don't like but do consider music either fit or not fit the definition.
BTW, I don't like opera or Amazon River Indian music. There are some, such as gagaku, that I like but can't take more than about 20 minutes of in one sitting.
i love chamber music more than any other, but i'll listen to anything. it totally depends on the scenario; when i'm by myself at home it's usually classical (Mozart and Bach are my favorites, but i think Faure's Pavane is arguably the most beautiful piece ever written; with my husband it's usually classics like the Doors, Joni Mitchell, CSN(&Y), Doobies, Eagles and especially Steely Dan; driving on the freeway with the top down on a hot day it's inevitably either kid rock or Ministry of Sound, but during the cold months for some reason i love stuff like Matchbox 20, Vertical Horizon, Lara Fabian, U2(their cover of Unchained Melody is breathtaking), or even some of the old power ballads from Great White, etc.
recently (thanks kev!) i discovered Allan Holdsworth, who is wonderful, but i've always loved Benoit, Honk, Satriani and others of that ilk.
the only stuff that really leaves a bad taste in my mouth is some of these girl rap bands that have appeared out of nowhere (and will hopefully retreat quickly), the syrupy-sweet 'boy bands' such as BSB and 'n sync, twangy country stuff, and the show tunes that my husband insists on playing every Sunday morning (blech).
the only stuff that really leaves a bad taste in my mouth is some of these girl rap bands that have appeared out of nowhere (and will hopefully retreat quickly),
There you touch on one of the great mystries of rap. How can a form of expression that glorifies the most vile mysogyny be so attractive to so many young women. Marshall Mathers is only the latest in a long line of rappers who have been phenomenally successful chanting the standard rap giospel of anger, hate and intolerance, and women have always been at the top of the list of targets. It was the hateful, degrading language used to express that mysogyny that turned me off rap completely, and left me bewildered at its popularity among young females.
Faldage makes the point - nay, the rhetorical question: Any of y'all out there who have a category you don't consider music have a definition of music that everything you like fits but the stuff you don't consider music doesn't?
This raises a serious point. When does art stop being art? Like, that guy who rolls national monuments with toilet paper, or the one who machine-gunned all his earthly possessions..... [banging-head-on-keyboard emoticon]
Do you think we should first consider how art *became* art, and not just making? If we can identify how we came to extol it, we might be able to approach the answer-of the gigantic question-you are looking for. [trulykon]
A related observation (not mine) I'll put as a question: is Rap a renaissance of the tradition of oral poetry?
is Rap a renaissance of the tradition of oral poetry?
A continuation of the tradition in a new form, perhaps, but I would not ennoble it with the description Renaissance. Even in my small provincial town of only 50,000, a local tavern holds meetings of "The Live Poets' Society" every other Friday night, where amateur enthusiasts and professional poets alike get to strut their stuff.
I am selfishly going to put mine first, because I want to issue a HUGE WELCOME to the fourth Kentuckian aBoard! Welcome, Larry! Are you by any chance related to Paul Grannis, the only social worker killed in the line of duty in the history of the state? Send private if you'd prefer.
Bob, you described country music as "twangy-wang"--I love it! We sang Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah yesterday, too!
We sang Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah yesterday, too!
Here, that magnificent hymn has been reworded to "Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer". I still think that it should only be sung by massed Welsh voices, at say, Cardiff Arms, to put the fear of Jehovah into opposing Rugby teams.
> "The Live Poets' Society" If they display half the adroit dithyramb as the hip-hop greats I'd be surprised. I agree that a some hip-hop is disrespectful towards women but Max, if you think that M&M is misogynic and hateful, then he achieved exactly what he wanted (that's right publicity), the Lady Chatterley's Lover effect. He made it as controversial as he could you know. He wanted people like you to find it disparaging. I'm no great fan of his, but he is no doubt beating the conservatives on the censorship front. If you listened to the MM LP, you'll have noticed the first thing he does is rattle off about 50-100 derogatory phrases and statements, especially concerning sodomy and gays. Not because he hates them (he doesn't give a ****, remember), but to point out the prejudice of the listener towards them. He just released a song with a highly respected 'fag' (Elton John). Although a lot of oldies like to think of themselves as fairly liberal, when confronted with these distressing topics they scream 'obscenity!'; yet it's completely fine for their daughter to buy Cosmo and read about Kama Sutra and satisfying their boyfriend. See, you're already cringing; it's like cryptonite this subject. All he does is hold up a mirror to society, some don't like what they see. 'Intolerance' is not what he's preaching - in fact it's the opposite. He's preaching the, 'the world's more messed up than I'll ever be' philosophy. He's dead right too, he's completely harmless compared to say, oh, the U.S. Senate. btw, you're indirectly giving him a lot of credit just by mentioning him. You're prolly not much of an electronic music fan right, not that you've listened to much of that either. Many classical music lovers still can't cope with contemporary 'classical' music, a lot are still coming to terms with 'The Rite of Spring'; why should things be different in 'popular' music.
wet blanket
p.s. Bridget, if you liked 'Ministry of Sound' try listening to Herbert. While the hours away at 120 bpm.
Max, if you think that M&M is misogynic and hateful, then he achieved exactly what he wanted (that's right publicity), the Lady Chatterley's Lover effect.
I am well aware that much of his material is designed to shock in order to generate publicity. However, that was not the point of my post, any more than he was its focus. While I don't like the message, I have no particular feelings concerning the messenger. As for your rather presumtptuous statement See, you're already cringing, you are completely in error, having taken it upon yourself to tell me what I am thinking. I do not "cringe" at Mathers' message, I simply choose not to listen. The possibility that he practices what he preaches, as suggested by the assault charges, simply strengthens my conviction that the philosophy espoused in his work is not one I agree with, and so I choose to ignore it. I bear him no ill-will, nor do I think that I am a lesser person for choosing not to listen to his work, or that of others whose work espouses similar views.
Personally, I think that rap has a place - I just couldn't define it particularly well. The bottom of the Marianas Trench comes to mind, but there are logistical problems there, so I'll keep thinking about it.
BUT, wait for it, there's something worse, much worse. And that is mainstream singers who try/tried to cash in on the rap craze by either doing a rap track themselves, OR, EVEN WORSE, incorporating elements of rap into "normal" songs.
Now, I know I'm getting old because modern music often just sounds like noise to me, which is exactly the scathing sort of statement my parents used to make about The Beatles, the Kinks, yadda, yadda in the 60s and 70s. Although, I do have to say, I heard my 76-year-old pater humming along to "Money" by Pink Floyd on the radio the other day. That was a worry.
So, like B96 and others, I listen to an eclectic array of music ranging from galliards from the 16th century to Robbie Williams, who I admire as much for his genius at relatively inoffensive self-publicity as for his music. In spite of being rubbished from all sides, I listen to Jethro Tull, Steely Dan, early Deep Purple, Yes, Bowie and the whole gamut of the 70s and 80s rock music repertoire. I guess that part of it is nostalgia for my early days playing in bands, but most of it is just that I like the stuff.
And I don't want to stop people listening to rap. I don't see it as the devil's music, I don't want to play it backwards looking for deep and evil meanings. Like Maximus Quordleplenus, I just choose not to listen to it myself.
Bear in mind, if we all liked the same kind of music, then any band craze would be like the dotcom failures - there wouldn't be room for more than one band in each genre.
Many classical music lovers still can't cope with contemporary 'classical' music
Yes, I also listen to a very wide range of music, from very early medieval through to contemporary electronic 'serious' music, with everything from Mozart to Scriabin and Schubert to Shostakovic along the way. Speaking only from my personal slant, BY, I think such generalisations are a bit dodgy, even though you doubtless have a point. I would rather listen to Phillip Glass than most of the mid 20th c. 'post classical' stuff - I would rather go to the dentist than listen to Pierre Boulez! But the particular like and dislikes I have grown to foster over the years (with you on Bowie et al, CK!) probably have little external meaning. Oh, and I hate rap, too - not because of squeemishness over the pathetic self-glory involved, but mainly just because it reduces music from such grand and noble possibilities to such a very small and unsatisfying range of options. For me, it's the current answer to the jew's harp: boring.
> having taken it upon yourself to tell me what I am thinking ... No Max, I really didn't mean it that way, but rather more generally... I meant that often people, perhaps yourself included, cringe (the use of 'one' often comes across as strange/pretentious; this problem doesn't exist in other languages!). I could say that I don't like certain parts of music like so called 'progressive rock' (e.g. JT is not for me), but then again Floyd & Yes are worth a good listen. I'm all for listening to a piece of music without (as far as is possible) preconceptions. I've even enjoyed some country tunes, and that's about the most chastised 'type' of music, in my age group at least. Maybe in 20-30 years someone will have the same trouble trying to make me listen. Anyway, I'm happy if you just aviod listening to HH, AND avoid criticising it too, because you lot have got not the foggiest idea about it. Mav. I agree that it's hard to throw all of the good old 20th century's E-Music in one pile. After all, post-classical stuff was just designed to, amongst other things, p-off advocates of the Strauss dynasty and the like, i.e. as a direct contradiction to Romanticism. You still don't see much really new music being presented in any great proportions; I mean, a respected Philharmonic wouldn't touch the stuff. It's as though something has got to be old to be respected.
I like rock, and Hindi film music from the period (approx) 1950 - 1970.
Music that sends me to sleep: Indian classical (Northern or Carnatic schools), Western classical (though I can whistle 'The March of the Toreadors' from thingy - Automobilemales), modern jazz (though I can, at times, enjoy old time popular stuff - Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerals and the like), hip-hop/rap call it what you will.
And no, Faldage, I cannot think of a single definition of music that would somehow include "Won't get fooled again" (The Who) and "Laaga, chunari mein daag" (Manna De) without including just about anything else that could pass as music.
Oh and yes - Enya, whalesongs, dolphins mating, birds twittering and rustling through Amazonian forests and so on make me nauseous.
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I can sympathize with you, Emmanuella. The people at work insist on playing screaming teen-ager type rock (compressed dirt), thereby metamorphically transforming my normally sedimentary self into an igneous raving maniac! However, that has not reduced my delight in Baroque and Russian Romantic music, which are my favorites. We here in Portland, Oregon, are furtunate to have an excellent Baroque period orchestra, so my thirst for such music can be easily slaked.
Welcome, Larry! Are you by any chance related to Paul Grannis, the only social worker killed in the line of duty in the history of the state? Send private if you'd prefer.
