I admire Miles Davis, i admire Stravinsky; but i loved Chet Baker and Scriabin...You?


What we listen to we cannot trace always a border between cold or cool admiration and heart wrenching love at first sight....

I admire Bach without limit but i love also him dearly....Here admiration and love are one....

The first time li listen to Chet Baker i was not even sure if it was a great trumpetist, but i love him without knowing why....

More i listen to Miles Davis more i admire him but i still wait for love to come....I like it a lot but it is not love and i know the first time i listen to him why he is a great trumpetist, unlike Chet, his mastering of the instrument was evident.... For Chet i listen not the trumpet but the voice of his instrument, i even forgot he was playing the trumpet and the question if he was great was secondary....Miles was great without any doubts.... But i am in love with Chet because he touch my heart.....



Sometimes the frontier between these 2 are less clear, i admire Brahms but i like him more than i love him.... Bruckner i admire him like a new Bach and i love him like our old grandpa with a feeling that will never end....

I admire Monteverdi at the level of my admiration for Bach, but i like him only , it is not this passionnate love that changes my heart and life like with those i love...

I love Bill Evans dearly but i admire Keith Jarrett greatly but without any passion....

I admire and love Vivaldi at the same times.....

I admire Telemann, Haendel, Haydn more than i love them..... I am in love with Purcell tough and Josquin Desprez.....

I admire Hildegard the Bingen and i love her without words.... I am in love with the organ composer Pachelbel but i only admire Palestrina....

I admire Arvo Part very much, but am i in love? No....Excep perhaps for one or 2 of his work: Alina for example....I admire and love Gorecki symphony of tears but not much the rest....Only respect for the rest of his works....

I admire Arrau, Horowitz, many pianists but am i in love? No, but i am in total love with Ervin Nyiregyházi , Ivan Moravec, or Sofronitsky....

I admire the composer Sorabji almost like Bach but dont feel any love at all....Deep fascination and admiration for a genius  that never speak from the heart to the heart, only from his brain to my brain.... But what a genius ! 

I admire many, many, female singers, but i am in love with only a few, i love Billie Holiday, Marianne Anderson for example....

I will not go on with my list any longer...

But what speak to our heart and what speak to our brain is not the same and sometimes some music speak for us to the 2 part of ourselves...

But one thing must me clear, i dont want to live without the great musicians whom i only admire. I like them like interesting friends, even if i am not changed by love at first sight with them, swimming in the sea of adoration....


What are those you admire but only like ? What are those you clearly are in love with?

When the brain speak first and always, it is admiration and friendship not love.... In love there is a mystery in with we participate and which transform our life....

Those who we admire gives us pleasure.... Those who we love gives us not only that but an ultimate meaning that go to your heart.....


Listening music is learning to listen into the many levels in us where music can reach and transform us.... Each music or musician has this potential to change us at a level or at another one, or at all levels simultaneously....But for sure it is different for each of us......

I apologize if my OP makes no sense for some.... I hope my question will make sense for some....

Thanks......

128x128mahgister
Well, the two of you have provided much food for thought!  At this point, I think I need to take some time and try to digest what you've shared.  Thanks again for a deeply engaging discussion. I'll keep an eye out for your posts in the future. My best wishes to both of you. 

Well, the two of you have provided much food for thought! At this point, I think I need to take some time and try to digest what you've shared. Thanks again for a deeply engaging discussion. I'll keep an eye out for your posts in the future. My best wishes to both of you.
Thanks and much appreciated....

My best to you....
I love Beethoven. And the Beatles.

My thread is not about "taste"....Who are interested to know our tastes? Or what we hate?

I am not intereted by the love/hate polarity but by the more subtle love/like polarity.... When our music listening is more than an unconscious habit, it begin to be a conscious journey.... In unconscious habit the polarity love/hate dominate....In the conscious music journey the polarity love/like dominate....

It is about the immediate communion with some music, i call " love"...

And about a more distant link mediated by the brain, i called " liking"...

The 2 are important, i listen to way more music i like than music i love... For sure also many music i listen to, i like and love at the same times....Here i ask for those music we mostly "love" and the music we mostly only "like" to study the forces which are at play behind these contrast in ouselves....These 2 polarities reflect something that is in the music and something that is in us....The 2, what is in us and what we pick in the music, describe our journey and sometimes something about the music itself when a great number of people could agree...

We dont want to know only or mainly  what you love, we want to understand with a multiple double lists choices how you related to music....

"Tastes" are only anecdotal in themselves....But our way to link ourself to music, sometimes more with the brain than the heart, can teach us something....It begin to be more than anecdotal and can reveal an aspect of our journey...

It is simple to spontaneously name what we love or hate; it is less easy to spot what we love and what we cannot love but like a lot.... This is the "crux" question of this thread....

My best to you....




«Crocodiles also love, but we can think before eating»-Groucho Marx