Has education expanded your listening tastes?

I am excited to see this thread here - I have been arguing for years on this board that more audiophiles should educate themselves more about the music they listen to, as this will only increase their enjoyment. There have been some great comments here.

Rok, Mapman and Brownsfan have made good stabs at answering your question. However, if you really want to understand the changes in music over time, you need to understand more about music in the first place. I am not being condescending here - it really is difficult to discuss music without using musical terms. For you and anyone else interested, the very best book I know of for musical "laymen" is Aaron Copland's What To Listen For In Music. If you are more of a DVD/CD kind of guy, another great place to start would be those Great Courses series - pretty much anything that is done by Robert Greenberg. He is excellent at explaining music to non-musicians, and he has a couple of different courses available from that company on music history and music theory. He is fantastic. I took a couple of grad seminars from him in college, so yes I have personal experience with him.

Lots more great posts since I have been able to check in. Rok, I am not sure whether your question was serious or not, but yes, Copland's book is about all music. Most of the examples come from classical music, some jazz, but it is applicable to all forms of music. Frogman, you again have proven yourself the most articulate and reasonable person on this board. My hat is off to you, sir.

Very interesting article, Frogman! Thanks for sharing that.

Wow - some very interesting posts since I have checked in. If I may ask Schubert something. I originally thought I knew exactly where you were coming from, but I am not at all sure anymore. Perhaps I am totally misunderstanding what you are trying to say. You wrote a while back:

"Germany, like the USA, has no shortage of ignorant people.
If I ask the recovering addict, 8th grade drop-out painting
my room in WI if he listens to Beethoven the reply likely will be, I don't listen to that crap.
If I ask the 8th grade drop-out recovering addict in Germany painting my room ,who knows no more about LvB than his american counterpart, the reply will likely be ahh, Beethoven , a great man.
Makes a LOT of difference."

I would submit to you that the reason the German kid says what he does is indeed education, not just cultural difference (though that of course affects the educational system). He would certainly know quite a bit more about him than his American counterpart, especially nowadays. I am therefore not quite sure what your ultimate point is here.

Photon, no offense taken at your comments, which are good ones. No one is arguing that someone should be silent if they are not an expert - as you say, that is ridiculous, and I also agree that "there is nothing wrong with having less than fully formed opinions about art forms they are a fan of." This is not what Frogman and I are objecting to at all. What I do not understand is the folks who are obviously afraid that educating themselves more about music is somehow going to decrease their emotional enjoyment of it. Exactly the opposite occurs, in every single case of which I am aware. Yet some refuse to even consider the possibility. They don't know what they are missing, and maybe never will, which is saddening, and their attitude also makes it much more difficult to discuss music seriously with them, which is a shame. That said, that will not stop me from attempting to discuss music with them if they clearly have a desire to do so.

Hi Rok - my comments were not actually directed at you, but such opinions have indeed been either stated or strongly implied from time to time in threads like these, and are even expressed by college music students, as Photon says. I agree with him that any sort of discussion of aesthetics has almost entirely disappeared from our culture, and that is not a good thing, IMO.

I would also say that your experience with Photon's link is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about. I do believe you will enjoy (not just understand) any canon much more the next time you hear one now that you know how one works. There is so much more to music than just the emotional content and/or the emotional response it provokes (or doesn't). These other aspects of it will only add to the emotional aspect of your enjoyment, because they do involve your mind more while listening. You are more of a jazz fan - I would submit that looking up a bit of info about basic jazz forms will greatly enhance your listening experience, in much the same way Photon's canon link has done. Frogman could probably provide such a link, I would guess.

Hi Rok - Frogman has answered your question nicely. There are quite a few who have gone from the orchestra to a solo career. Just in the horn world, Barry Tuckwell, Tom Bacon, and Eric Ruske immediately come to mind. James Galway in the flute world. And many string players, as Frogman said.