[Harp-L] musical elitism (was timbre etc...)



Regarding this quote:  "Listen to jazz for a few years and you will probably get a whole new
perspective on music and you may find that most blues start sounding
boring, same with most rock and pop. This is not snobbery, once you
get used to jazz, other music just starts to sounds too simple, too
basic..."
   
  I think you're making a valid observation but assigning an invalid reason.  Formally trained musicians are among the people who listen to jazz and classical the most because other people find jazz and classical to be boring.  
   
  And I speculate that a lot of formally trained musicians would never have started listening to jazz or classical if they were not encountering it in their endeavor to play their instrument, or if it were not forced on them (in my case this happened and, incidentally, it grew on me), which developed their taste for it.  It's like when my grandfather used to watch golf on tv--- i could not think of anything more boring- but he was an avid golfer and when he saw a shot he appreciated the difficulty, the talent, the practice required etc. and he aspired to play that way himself.  I observed and experienced none of that.  It was fascinating to him and a snoozer for me. 
   
  A lot of pop, rock, rap and, more recently blues and jazz- are filled with performers who cannot play and instrument well or at all, who cannot compose or arrange, and/or who look better than they can sing.  The last factor is what gets non-musicians to buy CDs, watch videos, and go to concerts.  I suppose if a younger Brittany Spears played golf on tv in a bikini I probably would have been more interested in watching golf on tv even though I could not tell a good 9 iron shot from a bad one and I could not play the game myself.  So there is a lot of trash-level music being presented.
   
  While all music is a matter of personal taste, I'll bet if you strip away the "trash" selections anyone can find blues, rock, pop, and country that is interesting to him or her. (I'm still not sold on rap as "music"since it has no melody- but i appreciate it for being a form of expression and poetry.)  The difference being that for jazz and classical you have less sifting and less to discard because the sellers of trash have not used these genres as mediums to peddle trash.  But they are trying.  Just tune in to one of those "new age easy listening jazz" radio stations and you'll here a computer generated bass and percussion track behind a horn or guitar solo that a novice could play and compose. 
   
         
    


Larry C
 
---------------------------------
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