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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...
128x128marakanetz

Showing 1 response by unsound

unsound
7,315 posts
 
I try my best to give everything a chance. I will listen to any and every thing through till the end. I will admit that there are some "categories" I find consistently challenging.
I find most opera difficult. Perhaps the language barrier is to distracting, yet I still don't care for Gilbert & Sullivan despite the fact it filled my house as a child. I don't care for Ragge because it's too repetitive yet I like most minimalist music. I don't care for most Rap except for those rare examples when there is real poetry. Ditto Punk.
Avant Garde/Free Form ala Ornette Coleman, Chicago Art Ensemble etc. require me to be in a certain mind set, when I'm particularly open and not distracted. I have yet to come to the point in my personal development where I can control this state of mind. Often times I will give more opportunity to music that is less accesible to my cultural prejudice. I have found many things in life take many tries before appreciation can be found. Sometimes it works (Scotch Whiskey, coffee, etc.), sometimes it doesn't (fried liver).
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