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Bizarre twist in musical taste (long)

Posted by Teresa on July 1, 2012 at 01:59:53

It's been two months since I woke up one day in early May of this year (2012) and poof I didn't like classical music anymore. This after it being my favorite style of music for 38 years. I don't understand what happened. It's almost as if my classical gene was turned off overnight and I can't turn it back on. On May 22, 2012 I posted Any other older music listeners enjoying the music of their youth? http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/general/messages/62/623173.html

I have now played at least parts of all my classical SACDs and computer music files and can now confirm it's not just classical orchestral but also orchestral music from other genres such as pops and movie soundtracks that are now unexplainably unlistenable. I just find it all so boring.

My long time favorite SACD of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition with Paavo Järvi conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra now bores me to death. So I decided to give my first version another shot, the Emerson, Lake and Palmer progressive rock arrangement, and in some ways I liked it better and in other ways not so much. If I had liked it more that would have made it full circle since Emerson, Lake and Palmer was one of the rock groups that introduced me to classical music. However I actually prefer Emerson, Lake and Palmer's songs not based on classical music thus I have retired Pictures At An Exhibition from my listening cue for the time being.

I think it's also the style of the music, not just the instruments themselves where my interest has faded away. To me classical music now sounds simplistic, whereas before it sounded a lot more complex, indeed perhaps the most complex of all music. Before classical music sounded meaningful, often exciting and sometimes beautiful but now it just sounds boring.

I love rock, jazz, blues and world music as much as I did the day before this happened. Rock music from the 1960's-1970's is now my favorite musical genre followed by traditional jazz.

There is another possible reason for my orchestral burnout, I have always been very picky about the sonics of orchestral music. This could stem from the fact that I never much cared for the sound of string instruments played with a bow (arco style) and prefer plucking instead (pizzicato). I found bowed violin on CD and 16 bit PCM unlistenable, and only the very finest engineered analog and high resolution digital recordings, made string instruments played arco style somewhat enjoyable. It was the winds, brass and especially percussion instruments that got me interested in classical music back in 1974.

This might explain why my favorite symphony was Johan de Meij's Symphony No. 1 for Band "Lord of the Rings" which has no string instruments. With full orchestra I preferred works that stressed the brass and winds over the strings and had lots of percussion. I listened to my classical music written for winds, brass and percussion and it seems I have lost interest in those as well. On the other hand I still like the violin solos on "Sad Lisa" and "Into White" from Cat Stevens' "Tea For The Tillerman" both played arco style.

I was never cared much for concertos even for wind instruments. Another classical instrument I always had trouble with is the classical guitar. I'm a guitar player and I've played electric, acoustic folk and classical guitar. I like the sound of acoustic folk guitar the best, especially early Martin's, mine is a Samick LW020G dreadnought acoustic guitar. To my ears the classical guitar sounds dull especially the three highest strings which are nylon instead of the steel on the folk and electric guitars. My classical guitar was a Yamaha and it had the same dull sound as classical guitars do in recordings.

How it all began

In 1974 I started experimenting with classical music which never totally displaced my favorite rock, folk and jazz music but I got more and more into it especially the more obscure modern tonal composers.

My first classical LP was called Beethoven's Biggest Hits on an RCA LP I purchased after reading the liner notes to Electric Light Orchestra's ELO II which had the song "Roll over Beethoven" in which Chuck Berry's song was interspaced with excerpts of all of Beethoven's most famous works.

My second classical LP was Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition by Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic on a Deutsche Grammophon LP which to me at the time sounded better and much different than Emerson, Lake and Palmer's version. This is what started my Classical adventure.

I never liked Mozart, Haydn, Handel, Bach and most other pre-Romantic era composers. Most of the music I liked was on both sides of this time spectrum, early ancient and medieval dance music and tonal music from the Romantic and later eras. I never liked most chamber music, especially string quartets which I think stemmed from my dislike of string instruments played with a bow as there is no winds, brass or percussion to balance out the string tone. Also I didn't like solo organ or piano music.

I didn't like any type of classical singing and abhorred opera most of all. To me opera sounds unnatural, especially the high sopranos, their nerve-wracking wails sound like they are being tortured to death. To my ears all forms of classical singing sound even worse live in a concert hall. Even when they sing in English it's still hard to understand the words, from research I have done, part of it must be singing from the diaphragm and how they form words with their lips, to my ears it's all very unpleasant. I also abhor singing in broadway and musicals which has some of the same objectionable qualities, although the words can be understood.

Most of my favorite rock, jazz, folk and world music is vocal, so for me instrumental-only classical music was a sharp departure from my preferences in other types of music. This could have contributed to my classical/orchestral gene being turned-off since I love popular singing in every language, my favorites are English, Spanish and French.

Because of so many things I disliked about different styles of classical music, some people claimed I didn't really like classical music but instead was a dabbler in classical music. I fought this designation but now I think it was correct after all.

The first signs of my disenchantment with classical/orchestral music

It actually started about five years ago when I got tired of most symphonies finding them too boring. The few exceptions which I still liked being those of Mahler and a few other composers most of which were written in a programatic style with colorful orchestration. I used to have the patience to wait for the climax but as I got older it seems it takes longer to get there and I didn't enjoy the development as much as I used to.

About a year ago I could no longer stand listening to any Mahler symphony, next I deleted Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe from my hard drive because I could no longer take the little bit of choral singing in it. After that I slowly deleted or sold more and more classical recordings, I would say I got rid of about half of my classical music collection prior to that fateful day two months ago when I woke up and couldn't stand any classical or orchestral music.

When I first started listening to classical music I thought the styles of classical were more varied than other forms, however that is because classical music is derivative from other musical forms, based largely on the country of the composer. So it is not the original or authentic form of said music but a high-art version. As I have got more and more into authentic traditional and pop forms of world music I discovered non-classical music is actually not only more varied but more enjoyable, at least for me.

I like jazz, blues, bluegrass, country, classic rock, modern rock, pop, folk, world music from the folk/traditional/pop/rock genres of Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Latin America, South America, Africa, Ireland and other nations as well as traditional Jewish and Arabian folk music. However I don't like everything in a given genre, I pick and choose.

To sum up I think it's a lost cause for me to enjoy pure orchestral music again, my classical/orchestral gene appears to be permanently off. Losing interest in classical/orchestra music is new to me as in the past if I liked a song or composition I generally liked it the rest of my life.

While I once praised Electric Light Orchestra's ELO II and Emerson, Lake and Palmer's version of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition as my induction into classical music, I now recognize them as gateway drugs I now wish I had avoided. I wonder how much more varied my non-classical listening would be if I hadn't spent 38 years exploring classical music. Prior to these two classical inspired rock LPs I abhorred classical music I heard in the music appreciation and composition classes I took in high school. If I had never purchased them I would have happily went on hating classical music. Instead I bought tons of classical LPs I didn't like with a rejection rate of over 90% that I either found atonal or too boring. There wasn't a way to audition music back in the 1970's so I had to gamble based on reviews and what was written on the back of album covers. This was especially true in the town I grew up in, Tulsa, Oklahoma which had no classical music stations, the college station played underground rock, folk, jazz and bluegrass.

Anyone else experience such a shift in musical tastes?

• Any other older music listeners enjoying the music of their   (Open in New Window)

Edits: 07/01/12

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