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Do You Understand Music?

First I want to describe something that repeats happening with me when I listen to the relatively new music to me.

There are a few examples that I want to describe:

1. I've acquired a rare CD of Cluster "One Hour" which contains one track that lasts exactly 1 hour. No matter how hard I've tried to listen to it as whole i was getting tired or just simply did not understand what's going on and was postponing a listening to the next session. Next session something similar happens and in curiosity I'm just trying to fast-forward to the last minutes of the track to hear how it ends. After few more trials to torture myself i quit and exchange this CD to the different offered by one of my best friend(Wobble-Parker). He digged in(meaning was able to listen the whole hour) from the third listening session and reviewed this music as one of the most magnificient projects created by Cluster for what I envy him to have a patience to understand.

2. Nearly the same thing happend with double CD album "Cobra" which is a project of John Zorn.

Some years ago I couldn't understand Ornette Coleman but now I realize that his music is like surrealistic art and has a divine presence. Same I can tell about Kronos Quartet.

Please share with me if you had a similar situations. Would you listen to the music that you don't understand? Would you try to understand it? Would you honor a "different" music and accept it as an art?

For me I'd rather listen to what I do not understand and try later-on to understand instead of just simply go to the Wiz and buy some Ricky Martin or Marc Anthony...
marakanetz

Showing 1 response by duanegoosen

duanegoosen
355 posts
 
Good thread. I guess it's pretty common not to be real absorbent or appreciative when initially exposed to unusual or brilliantly put together artforms.
IMO, the sense of discovery that comes when you really dig something that was previously inaccessable is hard to beat.
Can, Massacre(w/Frith), Herbie Hancock-Sextant, Miles Davis (Jack Johnson, On the Corner, Agharta), Present, Blast, Ruins, Squarepusher, most Van Vliet (Beefheart) and FZ's Uncle Meat taste alot better now than they did at first. Still can't seem to get through an opera without tripping the ol' gag reflex though.
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