Does anyone not like music?

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I'm going to post some perhaps cliche examples, but I think that these are some really emotional and amazing pieces.
Elgar Cello Concerto- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5C99JyP2ns
Just full unrepressed feeling and power.
Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM
Haunting and very enigmatic.
Gabriel Faure Après un rêve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCU7YyTtX4A
Just to listen to a feel so relaxed. :love:

These obviously aren't modern examples but you need to find the music that speaks to you and grasps your heart and fills it with.. the music :biggrin:

just to be cheesy.

Reply 41

CalB92

How can you not like music?

:frown:

Reply 42

9MmBulletz

bananacake14

I like music, actually I love it. But it annoys me when people say they couldn't live without music or music is their life or w/e. Seriously, there's more to life than just music.

probably but look at everything around you, there's a music to it. the advert on your Tv, the song you listen to on the radio, the welcome screen on your mobile phone. films use different types of music to build suspense, create a sense of adventure. it would be be very hard to articulate many ideas without music.

Reply 43

krazybob

i like music about chairs.

Reply 44

Profesh

Then you're aesthetically-disabled, and frankly, that's your loss.

Reply 45

Geritak

magicsharkman

Could you please give an example where the music reflect life (not the lyrics :p:

)? Would you explain why it works; why the form of the song shows the meaning; how it's achieved. If anyone can analyse a piece of music for me and say why it's worth having, I'll rep them. (on a different account with more rep power :wink:

This is a bit long, but I hope it helps.

I didn't used to like music at all, up until I was about 15. Like you, I just didn't 'get it' - it didn't do anything for me. I would listen to my friends talking animatedly about so-and-so's new song and not understand why they were so excited. I played an instrument, yes, but that was more of a social diversion than anything else, and I knew what music I absolutely hated but I couldn't give you the name of anything I liked.

I don't know what the piece of music was that changed my mind, but fast-forward three years and I couldn't live without the stuff. There is a saying, "When words fail, music speaks", which I think gets to the crux of it the difference between a good song/melody and a good poem or novel. It is difficult to explain, especially if you don't have a similar experience yourself, but that's because music can cause emotional reactions in some people that defy words. Yes, the composer has his intentions and tries to convey some of his own emotions through the use of particular keys, tempos and rhythms, but it can rouse memories of people, places, relationships, reflections in ways that were entirely unforeseen and which depend entirely on the connections made by the listener.

I know this is all sounding a bit ineffable and ethereal, so I'll try an example.

I, for one, have no idea why the 10-minute mark in Yndi Halda's We Fill Empty Lakes never fails to simultaneously make me bawl and yet somehow feel enormously uplifted, but it does. I know that the technical response is that it has something to do with the composer's decision to have a beat of silence before bringing in the instrumental climax after a long build-up, with the rousing chord sequence and multiple layers of melody. However, I couldn't tell you why it is that I have that exact emotional reaction to that exact moment in that exact piece of music, nor why it affects me in that way when others have sat through the same moment stony-faced, nor why the written word could never produce that reaction in me so reliably.

I think the point I'm trying (quite laboriously) to make is that you shouldn't feel bad about not 'getting' music. I could give you a thousand examples like the one above and explain exactly how such moments make me feel, but there would be no guarantee that you would feel the same thing or even understand how that reaction was possible for me. Engaging emotionally with music is not really something that can be taught, and if you gain a similar satisfaction from literature, then I wouldn't worry.

Reply 46

Son of Makuta

The sounds can resonate with some emotional centre within you... excite you with a moving rhythm, entrance you with wonderful melodic sequences, empathise with feelings of frustration/anger/happiness/grief/relaxation...

There are some songs (or pieces, although I don't listen to classical music outside of movies/games) that can send shivers down the spine, whether from the lyrics or just the music itself. And if you don't find Led Zeppelin's The Rain Song beautiful then you have no soul. :p:

Reply 47

lydzz

music is my first love id be extreeeemmmeely lost without it!!!

Reply 48

Broderss

OMG worst troll attempt ever!!

Reply 49

Aphotic Cosmos

I think most modern popular music is a load of pretentious ****. Offensive rap & hip-hop, increasingly clichéd metal, whiny mockney indie and so forth. Only acts I could say I truly like at the moment are Daft Punk and The Killers.

That's not to say I don't like music - I'm quite into old [read: good] stuff and soundtracks, and some techno and electronica out there is OK, but there's so much identikit rubbish out there at the mo.

Reply 50

azhao

magicsharkman

Enjoy your -940 (from Profesh, not me)

hmm an interesting notion, um how about "uncool-story-bro" or "negatively-cool-story-bro"

Reply 51

kopi, ffs

It doesn't matter as long as you find your own majik. Most people relate to music, and frankly even if someone else's favourite music were a piece of pavement that I would pee all over, circling my hips to make liquid patterns easily 100 times more worthwhile than the music itself, so long as they like it, how can I truly criticise? So I like the music I like, he likes what he likes, they like what they like, and you like literature, because that's where your majik is. I don't understand you, but I don't understand paintings either, and according to Stendhal Syndrome, some people 'get it' quite intensely.

Anyway I'm not sure whether your point is to show off your musical immunity, to seek help or just to send everyone into farmyard style music appreciation rants, but should you actually wish to listen to something and think about it in a similar way to literature, I would recommend The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (album) by Genesis, with this annotation: http://www.bloovis.com/music/lamb.html. (The annotation is a little reminiscent of some teenager's puffed-up juvenila (opening paragraph, "[The Lamb album is one of] the most dense and obfuscated works of art ever created" but it does have some interesting points.))

ps. If anyone comes to deride my concept album, I'll stab at them with a plastic fork. Genesis r da bes'.

Reply 52

magicsharkman

Jelephant

There are lots of examples. In the most simple form, if it's in a major key it sounds happy, wheras in a minor key it's sad and depressing. It could be fast moving, with staccato notes and "jumps" in the music, which in a major key could sound very excited as if something is happening then and there (I'm thinking Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture), or in a minor key would sound quite angry and frustrated, like they're getting violent- maybe something like O Fortuna. Alternatively, if the music is slow moving it might be calm and peaceful (I love walking by the river back home with Canon in D by Pachelbel playing), or sad and upset- the Moonlight Sonata for example.

Bearing in mind this is only a very watered down analysis and it would take forever to go into detail, just like any good work by Shakespeare or your writer of choice.

I suppose the end of 1812 is pretty cool, but I don't understand the point of the beginning. The Moonlight Sonata sounded quite sad; do you know what makes that apart from the minor key?

I don't think I'll have an ephinany, but rather a gradual realisation, hopefully. :smile:

I find Pach's Cannon a bit boring, but I sort found Bethoveen's Eroica very interesting- his work sounds almost Shakespearen. Thank you for the help!

Finally, how would one go about learning about music's meaning? Should I go and learn some theory or just work it out?

Thank you to everyone for their helpful replies :smile: