Music tastes
 

How do you think we get them? Are we affected by what we are exposed to growing up? Is it something random? Is there ANY real explanation at all? :usehead:

I love 90s music, which is what I grew up with. But when I was younger I loved Native American music, Trance, and the first song I ever really liked enough to listen to obsessively was The Preachers - Flatliners (Dash Mix) which was when I was around 9. For the record I still love all these genres, and Flatliners.. although I'm still trying to figure out why.

I'm midway through a unit of lectures about this at university at the moment.

To sum up what I know so far, lots of reasons, media input, what our parents like (either by liking what they like, or liking what they don't like as an act of rebellion), what our peers like, and age has a role to play as well (less mainstream as age increases (apparently))

I'll type some stuff out tomorrow morning before I get the train if anyone's interested and I get up with enough time to do it. I could probably PM a link to one of the unit reading PDFs we have on the uni website as well, if anyone's interested just ask.

I heard a person's musical taste is from what is fimilar to them when they are a child. What music person hears a child hears the scales that music uses becomes normal and then after a certain age what they will sound foriegn and strange. Some describe language as being hardwired in the brain, the same thing happens to a certain type of music too. That doesn't mean if your parents like country you'll like country, but the scales you hear in Country music are the same intervals used in the scales in Western music so that becomes the scale intervals sound normal and other scale with more different intervals sound more exotic. People who heard Western music think it sounds strange because it uses a tempered scale.

I guess because of the media they're is a wide range of world music that a person has the chance of hearing; they is a chance now that people will grow up with different musical taste the people a generation before them -it all depends though.

I think it's more of a thing you pick up as you grow from the people you're around than anything like that to be honest, I don't think language is hard wired either (but that's a whole different topic). I'll dig that slideshow from our lecture out later today, off to record a Justin Timberlake cover in a minute

I think it comes down to who you're friends with at an early age, and what you feel is 'cool' at that time.. (Chart music) Until you grow up and realise y'know what, my ears actually DON'T like that. I'm gonna listen to this type of music.

Scared of being judged at an early age, where you just want to fit in and music plays a big part of that, until you can get your own identity..

My music taste has been consistently evolving for a long, long time. Pretty much constantly. It was born out of whatever I was exposed to at an impressionable age, what my friends were listening to and id say my biggest influence at an early age was my sister who bought me any old shit I was showing an interest in while also discreetly trying to guide me away from it.

Apart from certain resources over time, i have to say specific people have helped to mould my music taste by opening certain doors for me to then go and run through them.

my current tastes are nothing like the music i listened to growing up. i have a few throwback albums from my childhood in my music library, but very little else.

in fact, many the styles of music i enjoy today didn't even exist when i was a kid.

of course, it's hard to say what my tastes in music even are. i listen to so many different genres that it's impossible to pin it down...

I know that I always enjoyed the music that my parents listen to. REM being what I enjoy the most. I've gone so far as collecting bootlegs of rare performances (especially shows played in Toronto clubs that don't exist anymore). I've also developed my own tastes based on what my friends have been listening to over the years. Some mainstream and a lot of indie. I try and go to clubs to see local (or fairly local) bands and artists perform. The music is usually always new, original and raw. I love the live sound of an indie band.

I've spent the last few years listening to indie stuff. Because of my searches for REM rarities, I've discovered a lot of the other bands from the Athens, GA area, like the dB's (who were playing the same clubs at the same time as REM), and the bands that came a little later like Neutral Milk Hotel.

However, I've been rediscovering all the mainstream stuff that played on the radio when I was a kid. The best gift I ever got when I was a kid was a little portable walkman/radio that I carried everywhere. All the late 90's mainstream stuff brings back a lot of good memories!

I suck in music knowledge =/
..but i like browsing the threads and youtubing music songs/artists that i read about.

I think your music tastes depend a lot on what you hear when you're younger, from your friends, parents, radio, etc., and then as you get older what you listen to to fit in, and what kind of person you are; there's a reason there's not many Christian death metal bands and such.

Looking back on it, I can see how my tastes have evolved to an extent.
For example, I used to cringe at any type of screaming in music. Then a friend recommended Thrice to me, which has a decent amount of screaming, mixed in with a punk feel (which I was comfortable with). I found that I could handle the screaming and got into other bands that scream a bit more. This progressed until I got to where I am today (where I actually enjoy screaming).
I'm not into stuff that's too too heavy now, but who knows, it could happen.

I grew up on country and R&B and now prog is my thing which is something I was not exposed to at all as a kid, not even Floyd. Maybe it's because I have an attraction to music that's different from what I grew up on.

That being said I also enjoy a lot of music that's very familiar and nostalgiac for me because I grew up on it, like CCR, Queen, GnR, etc.

Actually. A lot of prog music reminds me of 8 bit/16 bit video game music, which like prog quotes classical music, consists of synthesizers and uses similar melodies and rhythms, so nostalgia could be a factor in that as well since there was a time when video game music was the only kind of music I listened to. :laughing:

What you're saying actually makes a lot of sense.

I relate to punk, musically not always lyrically, that's why I like it most.

Parents for sure. I love so much of my dads music, he was wood stock styles. I am additionally a big fan of drum and bass, trance and trip-hop music now which I think is attributed to the internet via recommendations and general discovery.

Nowadays, I listen to music which is reminiscent of the kind of stuff I listened to when I was a kid. Between then and now, there was a period in the 90s when I listened to more mainstream stuff at the time (punk and grunge and so on) and while much of that is still incorporated into my tastes today, I've abandoned the music from that stage in my life more than I have the music I listened to when I was a kid .. which was stuff like 70s Pink Floyd.

Now, although I like to think of myself as having diverse tastes, I'm probably more clear cut than I like to admit with a clear preference for various kinds of 70s rock.

Really?

What kind of "woodstock" bands are you into?

I just press play and listen to it whatever type of music it is. I think having an open minded attitude in music applies in everyday life and other interests too.

I think that there are far too many factors to clearly define what makes an individual listen to the music they do.

Just music makes yu a purer person <3

Check your Private Messages, Herr Jules.

I think alot of it has to do with our experiances. Being able to relate to what the artist is saying, where you can almost sort of feel it was written for you?
Music that you can feel, I think, is the music that's going to shape your tastes.
Some poeple might GET that song about the drug addict and fight for life. Some people GET that song about the blonde dancing the night away.
But if you've never been there, you're just hearing the words. I don't think you can actually FEEL like those who've been in that certain situation.


I guess what I'm saying is I don't think it's exactly something we khow as a child, or have really learned. I think the music that stays with us is something we've felt through our experiances.
Does that makes sense?