Changes in your musical taste for 2009

Mike, I don't see my tastes changing in that there is stuff I don't like anymore. Rather, it is more like I continue to discover and enjoy more and more music from all different genres - it is additive. There really is a big world of music of such huge variety to enjoy and discover. Fascinating and what a great hobby

Sometimes certain music has a special appeal. One year you may listen and give a shrug. Another year the same piece rivets you. So it goes.

The only music that has died on the vine for me this year is Richard Strauss, whose programmatic formula seems trite and unconvincing, Mahler, who I think needs a good musical editor, and jazz, which seems to have lost its sense of invention.

It is inevitable that musical appetites change, given sufficient hours of listening. I think it is very interesting to see how this plays out for others.

I hope everything that goes around, comes around. We'll see.

Can't imagine a better hobby :-)

Concerning your opinion about R. Strauss, I agree. But there is an exception, this song is awesome.

Manfred

quote:

Originally posted by Manni:
Concerning your opinion about R. Strauss, I agree. But there is an exception, this song is awesome.

Manfred

Yes, in general his vocal music is another matter altogether, and the Four Last Songs are indeed memorable. Stunning performance, hadn't heard it before, so thanks :-)

An interesting thing :

A popular music tune on the radio might change at a rate of a change every ten or fifteen seconds. I think that is true across decades, right up to the present.

A good classic jazz tune might change 10 or 12 times a minute, with occasional episodes where you don't know where you are going. Very exciting :-)

A classical work of the first rank might present you with 80 to 100 changes in the first minute. Only human speech can equal that.

Each requires a different ear. Losing one is to lose all.

The classical music changes so much, you never catch all of it, but you also never catch the same things. Each listen is different. Some are so good, you can listen 100+ times and never lose your sense of expectation and resolution. In my experience, that is a rare and precious thing :-)

Music :-)

As some of you already know, I started digging deeper into the classical music world during 2009. This hadn't occured since over 6 or 7 years and I can say I listen to music in a much different way now that I used to. I've also started to enjoy some indie and alternative rock from the US and I'm listening to some good oldschool prog rock again, too Yes, quite a few changes this past year.


Christian

Did anybody else experience any musical changes in 2009? It was all pretty much the same? On all types of music?

OK. If that's the way it happened, that's the way it happened :-)

Mike,


Ever since I invested in a quality HiFi my interests have been changing and evolving, though I don't ever leave a old love behind. The past classics in electronic music still thrill me today as much as ever even though some of them seem simplistic now compared to my newer interests in Prog Rock & Classical. I am now searching through the annuals of time to find music that past me by and new music has been put on the back burner for now, though a time will come for me to seek newer music, it could be 2010.



Dean...

Going through my 'orders made in 2009' from Amazon, here's a few:

Lots of Moody Blues
Caravan - In the Land of the Grey and pink
John Mayall - Blues from Laurel Canyon
Wishbone Ash- Argus & Wishbone Ash
Cream - Disireali Gears & Wheel of fire
Family- Best of
Colosseum - Valentyne Suite
Yes - Close to the edge

I can safely say my musical tastes of 2009 have swung towards music from the late 60s & early seventies.

I think 2010 will be more of the same, I want to check out more from Yes & Caravan, and have yet to buy a Genesis album.

Looking forward to it!

quote:

Originally posted by Spoonboy:
I want to check out more from Yes & Caravan, and have yet to buy a Genesis album.

Looking forward to it!

Then you have a lot to look forward to. Look out for Selling England by the Pound, Foxtrot, Nursery Cryme, Trick of the Tail, Trespass and Seconds Out from Genesis. Then you can move onto the Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett solo albums. Enjoy.

Yep my musical horizons have broadened this year.

I now have a large Blue Note jazz collection and am starting to pick up some European jazz discs.

Lontano makes a good point. Not sure that my tastes have changed all that much but they have certainly expanded over the years, this year included. One thing that I haven't quite got the hang of is classical (with a few exceptions - I like Pictures at an Exhibition and Boris Godunov - classical meets Jimi Hendrix ) so maybe I'll target that for 2010. For 2009, my son has got me interested in a few female vocalists that much to my surprise he likes - Regina Spektor, Alela Diane, that sort of thing. Until now, I've been limited to Patti Smith, the occasional Aretha and the peerless PJ Harvey - so nice one, son!

Ps. Re European jazz, Jazzanova/Compost do some great German and Polish compilations of yesteryear. Cracking stuff!

Finally I have left the anachronism of the use of the piano for Bach behind - one exception aside. All examples of the solo keyboard music and also all recordings of the piano in the keyboard concertos have gone this year except one noble exception as the rest of the set of performances is too fine to part with!

The exception is the set of the Orchestral Suites and Brandenburg Concertos recorded by the Busch Chamber Players for EMI at the Abbey Road Studio in the nineteen-thirties. Pioneering proto-HIP performances that still employed the piano [as the continuo keyboard] played by Busch's son-in-law Rudolf Serkin, but which otherwise prefigure so much that is wonderful about the best of modern Bach performance.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by Spoonboy:
Going through my 'orders made in 2009' from Amazon, here's a few:

Lots of Moody Blues
Caravan - In the Land of the Grey and pink
John Mayall - Blues from Laurel Canyon
Wishbone Ash- Argus & Wishbone Ash
Cream - Disireali Gears & Wheel of fire
Family- Best of
Colosseum - Valentyne Suite
Yes - Close to the edge

Great selection there.

quote:

Originally posted by Pigeon_Fancier:
I like Pictures at an Exhibition .... - so nice one, son!

May I suggest the eponymous debut, Tarkus, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery are also tremendous elpees by ELP - Works is pretty good too especially Pirates.

I doubt my musical tastes have changed - 2010 already looks good and I have pre-ordered Basia Bulat's new elpee and am waiting for the new Martha and the Muffins record - all this and Beatles re-masters on vinyl.

I would not say my musical tastes have really changed so much in 2009. I do know that through each year in my life my love of music continues to grow and that through this my view points have broadened and expanded along with it (compared to when I was a 15 or 20 year old, for instance, when it seemed I knew it all ). The past year was no exception.

A combination of ever increasing knowledge along with many years of searching and discovery have added up to pay dividends in this regard. I believe I'm always growing and in a constant state of flux though. I wouldn't say I ever held very immoderate or radical ideas about music or on how things "should be." In fact, as I age I find that this becomes less important to me. I realize now that I do not know or will ever know the answers to many questions. Personally, my own musical journey is enriched solely when I focus on listening to or am creating music. It matters little on what so long as it is beautiful and speaks to me. When I have no words to describe what I'm feeling then I know I am on the right track. Nothing can better or equal this.

2009 was a good year for me musically and I look forward to more of the same in 2010.

I rediscovered popular music in 2009.

After many years dominated by classical and world music, and overplaying an ageing prog-rock and pop collection, I realised that with the exception of a few bands/performers I'd missed the last 10 years of 'pop' music.

So I've been coming out of CD shops with handfuls at a time. Turns out there's lots of great stuff out there. Who knew?

Changes nah!, just more of the same. A little more easier to access jazz, an expansion of parts of the groups I've liked for years, Steve Hackett for example.