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Author Topic: General Music talk  (Read 83370 times)

jdc

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #720 on: January 19, 2021, 11:42:11 PM »
I generally don't listen to music for "meaning". Lyrics are usually the last thing I pay attention to. I just like a catchy melody, or a funky groove, or music that evokes a particular mood.

I largely agree with this with a few excpetions.  Probably a good amount of the lyrics don’t make a lot of sense to me or I don’t pay attention to them.  But you know, every now and then, there is a Pour Some Sugar on Me that really should be dissected and unraveled.

Though.. I don’t take issue with FLY’s view, time is a limited resource and we can’t spend too much where it might not benefit. 
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Bondo

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #721 on: January 20, 2021, 04:48:02 AM »
Part of the bias against instrumental and non-English lyrically music alike is I’m a singer, one of the ways I’m most likely to be drawn to a song is if it is something that suits me as a vocalist. This not only rules out the aforementioned but also most hard rock, rap, etc. This obviously makes it an inherently...maybe not subjective, but biased, standard.

FLYmeatwad

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #722 on: January 20, 2021, 08:52:55 AM »
What if I can't pick up on key though? Like in the Fiona Apple song where she sings "Nothing's wrong when a song ends in a minor key" a few times towards the end, I assume that she's using a minor key, but hell if it registers as much of a difference to me because I don't really hear it outside of being more quiet. Same reason I never much CINECAST!ed with meter in poetry. Or what if, as I asked before, it makes me feel a completely different way or evokes a different understanding of what the piece is about? Certainly the way it makes me feel can't be wrong, even if I explain why it makes me feel that way as opposed to how someone else experiences a song. So, once again, the focus comes back to discussing timbre, rhythm, etc, which is a more specialized language, and is directly at odds with both my experience and what I'm listening for.

I generally don't listen to music for "meaning". Lyrics are usually the last thing I pay attention to. I just like a catchy melody, or a funky groove, or music that evokes a particular mood.

This, like I have been saying, is why music is the most subjective artform and all does come down to taste. Lyrics to me are typically the point of focus, or, at the very least, how the voice and lyrics become an instrument in the case of Young Thug's earlier work and early James Blake, but, again, lyrics aren't completely absent there.

You can remove one part from the other, but if you take away the instruments you still have poetry. Take away the words and all you have are a bunch of instruments. Which is fine if that's what you're in to, but I'm certainly not.

Listening for meaning or to experience art as I do with any other form (film, games, novels/plays, etc), the lyrics are key to reaching that meaning or fulfilling experience. When a song or album plays to that, it is good. Because you cannot have that without words, instrumental music is bad. In my opinion (which I figure is probably implied whenever someone writes a post).

The big issue is that I don't enjoy what other people enjoy? Somehow that is wrong or dismissive. I've explained the logical process behind my opinion, and have even mentioned during NMF before why some instrumental or just beat work is something I enjoyed, but nothing I'd go back to for this reason or for serious listening. Some sounds are pleasing to me, but that's instrumentation. Music, as best experienced, is the intersection point of instruments and lyrics, but lyrics are the lifeblood, instruments are a piece of the puzzle.

EDIT: Tangentially related, this is why the best Radiohead song is “Fitter, Happier.”
« Last Edit: January 20, 2021, 08:56:00 AM by FLYmeatwad »

Eric/E.T.

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #723 on: January 21, 2021, 12:04:30 AM »
Listening for meaning or to experience art as I do with any other form (film, games, novels/plays, etc), the lyrics are key to reaching that meaning or fulfilling experience. When a song or album plays to that, it is good. Because you cannot have that without words, instrumental music is bad. In my opinion (which I figure is probably implied whenever someone writes a post).

I mean I think this is as far as the conversation can go. You are just closing yourself off from the majority of music that is made. I figure for discourse going forward, if you have an awareness that instrumental music has value, but just not for you, I think that's fine. Symphonies, marching bands, quartets, house music, downbeat, all the way to Dilla's greatest beat tape of all time Donuts, all seek to forward a certain meaning out, which doesn't only get transferred through concrete meanings, but also through the abstract, down to what it means to be alive and be anything at all. I've had what I'd consider religious experience to both types of music, primarily in my favorite rap music and my favorite indie from the 90's and aughts. It's happened listening to Miles Davis, too, though, and listening to Ian William Craig, who makes his songs with his voice as another instrument and every listen to his Centres albums brings me somewhat closer to enlightenment, the understanding of everything.
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jdc

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #724 on: January 21, 2021, 12:28:55 AM »
This is where I just look as time as a limited resource and everybody has to make choices.  While I don't feel the same as FLY when it comes to instrumental music, which is most of the live music I go listen to.   I would probably feel similar when it comes down to an different interest, say poetry in general. It is quite ok to close yourself off but also need to accept in others. My wife and I have some similar general interests but within those, preferences very.  I am sure we both think each other can be closed minded when not wanting to explore or dismissing certain things, but who has the time or energy, as long as enough overlap.  Then some interest are really not of interest at all to each other and it is good to not try to push them
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FLYmeatwad

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #725 on: January 21, 2021, 08:52:21 AM »
I wouldn't say I close myself off to the vast majority of music made (as there seems to be an overabundance of it regardless, but don't CINECAST! with modern country), as I'll still listen to Important works that come out from primarily instrumental artists, and even can enjoy them on a personal level, but on a larger level they lack the tools to have the dialogue between art, artist, and listener outside of the abstract sense, which has value to each individual, but, by and large, doesn't produce meaningful art in the way I understand it.

jdc

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #726 on: January 21, 2021, 04:39:54 PM »
"Beer. Now there's a temporary solution."  Homer S.
“The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations” - David Friedman

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #727 on: January 21, 2021, 04:55:30 PM »
FLY should just listen to beat poetry is what I surmise from this conversation. :P

FLYmeatwad

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #728 on: January 22, 2021, 07:41:36 AM »
I do think there's actually a modern freestyle and battlerap scene that holds an appeal, but has mostly been impenetrable to me in terms of how to jump in outside of like Youtube videos. One of the coolest parts of the (past two?) Ab-Soul album(s?) have been the parts where he freestyles or has another freestyle rapper come on to battle/go back and forth with him in mostly beatless sections.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: General Music talk
« Reply #729 on: January 22, 2021, 08:50:56 PM »
The first performer here is all FLY. Just a drum and the voice...of My People...

https://youtu.be/2OxMR-ccZyo
A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire