Musical Taste: Different Ways to "Like" Music

Since Facebook has entered into our lives, the word "like" now means something different than it used to.  And as Facebook becomes more commercialized the word is being spun in order to be lucrative. 

I recently had a conversation with someone about musical taste.  As I was listening to a description of music that was enjoyable it occurred to me that liking this music was, in part, because it was easy.  The music demanded little. 

I find after long and sometimes arduous days of ministry, especially when I have been meeting and praying with families in distress, I want to be entertained.  I will put on DVD of a movie that will be light, funny and ridiculous.  I don't want to think too much and the comedy helps me to loosen up which in turn helps me to process some of what I have experienced. 

My dad used to take me down to Ontario Place (I've described it in an earlier post).  My appreciation of the symphony concert there was not particularly deep at all.  But I'm sure glad he started me off.  Listening to CBC Stereo (which came to be called Radio 2) in the afternoons as I researched and wrote my papers in university and seminary began to give me a deeper education and much wider exposure. 

Some of the music I liked and some I didn't like, but as my life experiences began to accumulate I also came to value the emotive intelligence of many composers and the similarly involved commitment of musicians in performance. 

I didn't look at the whole field at once.  When it came time for me to start buying recordings I went for things that I already knew I would enjoy listening to.  But it wasn't long before I was venturing a bit.  Buying pieces I didn't know from composers I liked and dabbling in composers I had little familiarity with.  In some cases these "experimental" discs were not well received on the first attempt.  Some have sat on the shelf to be taken up at a later time. 

The last art form I approached was opera.  It is intimidating.  It is usually in a language other than English.  In some repertoire at least the ornamented singing can put you off.  And broken down into its component parts many operas don't first appear as very appetizing.  The plots are incredible sometimes and even hokey. 

But opera is the epitome of western music and acting.  It combines almost all the performance art forms.  So it is worth working at.  And that's my point in this missive.  Liking music can sometimes involve a willingness on the part of the listener to be stretched.  It takes work to read the plot ahead of time and certainly at the first viewing to be attentive through the performance with the realization that many good bits have slipped by.  That is the reward though.  When the second and third experiences come along or when viewing the video or listening to the audio recording of the opera later it literally grows on you.  And then you can begin to ride the wave -- to experience the parade of characters, relationships and the veering trajectory of emotions. 

There are some shoes that don't fit very well and that's fine.  I am just considering now whether to start warming up to Johannes Brahms whose music has been notably absent from my classical music collection.  I have not managed to get myself inside very much baroque opera no matter how beautiful it is.  I love Puccini.  Whatever the critics may say, his unfailing capacity for melody just sweeps me away. 

The case is then is this:  consider making room in your musical life for things that demand something of you.  If 50% of those new things are transformative then you may have found a new definition for "like".