To learn to appreciate concert music I can warmly recommend the Great Courses’ How to Listen to and Understand Great Music: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-to-listen-to-and...
Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
121–130 of 133 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#122I listen to all of my music on YouTube unless I'm playing records at my house and the algorithm has exposed me to a huge amount of amazing music over the years.
Go to YouTube, pick one of the more niche things you like, hit autoplay, and then if something random you like comes up start the process over with the new thing as the initial search. I promise you this works.
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#123Knowing what music you like would be helpful in a discussion like this. (Context: I've spent a lot of my career working in music or music software.) It's difficult to expand your musical horizons just by shooting in the dark at things you should like. But often you can build bridges to new things by exploring their musical ancestors and descendants. Like classic rock? Start listening to some blues, then go from there…
(thanks - note, link doesn't seem to work? )
Looks like this one:
https://smile.amazon.com/Thom-Holmes-dp-1138365467/dp/113836...
Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture by Thom Holmes.
I'll add a few other resources:
1) Soundcloud (the free version) is the best way I have found to find new music: https://soundcloud.com/
2) NPR's All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts are also excellent:
https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/
https://www.npr.org/series/tiny-desk-concerts/
https://www.npr.org/series/761983313/tiny-desk-playlists
3) Bandcamp has a surprising amount of music from around the world and you can almost always listen to everything before you buy. When I find music via bandcamp it is usually via small labels I found via someone I found out about elsewhere (small labels are not usually the "sign your life away" type so one artist is frequently on a bunch of small labels that have similar music). The website is not that great, look for label links in the upper left of the page (and when you go to a particular album it will often go to the artist's page outside the label and you can find their music on other labels from there). In addition to the Bandcamp Weekly that someone else mentioned they have a bunch of lists with short (meh quality) articles and a bunch of music that you can listen to right there. Note: beware of excessive PayPal currency conversion fees if you buy something in a different currency, either use a credit card if those fees are reasonable or transfer money to PayPal and convert to different currencies on the wallet page and use those pre-converted funds.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/electronic-folklore-list
https://ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com/
https://zzkrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://wonderwheelrecordings.bandcamp.com/
https://palenquerecords.bandcamp.com/
https://galletascalientesrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://analogafrica.bandcamp.com/
https://sahelsounds.bandcamp.com/
https://theoutlawocean.bandcamp.com/
Also, the history of music can be broken down into the history of instruments and of the movement of people.
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#124A music buff probably listens to music for the enjoyment of doing so and take active interest in its creation and history, and their "buffness" is a simply side effect of long-term application of this habit.
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#125Listen to NPR's "All songs considered"
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#126> How music evolved over the 20th Century?
Music married with electricity and that helped to create a cambrian explosion of creativity. This is the major contribution from the 20th Century to the history of music and nothing will be the same after this.
That spawned 1) Rock first, based in the electric guitar, and 2) an sea of Electronic music later, based in the synthesizer.
To focus in the second part, here you have a selection of albums to experience several flavours of electronic and experimental music, from dark wave to big beat, space rock or synthpop. Just one album representative of each group was chosen; not necessarily their best or the easiest to listen, but all deserve to be here for different reasons.
Kraftwerk - The Man-Machine
Yello - Stella
Pink Floyd - The Dark Face of the Moon
OMD - Dazzle Ships
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Bjork - Homogenic
The Prodigy - The Fat of the Land
Moby - Play
Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole
Pet Shop Boys - Please
Fatboy Slim - You've Come a Long Way, Baby
Depeche mode - Violator
Radiohead - Kid A
Gary Numan - Hybrid
Jean Michel Jarre - Oxigene
The Cure - Disintegration
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#127Knowing what music you like would be helpful in a discussion like this. (Context: I've spent a lot of my career working in music or music software.) It's difficult to expand your musical horizons just by shooting in the dark at things you should like. But often you can build bridges to new things by exploring their musical ancestors and descendants. Like classic rock? Start listening to some blues, then go from there…
My musical taste is pretty underdeveloped and surface-level and that is why it is not bound by any particular genre. I can barely differentiate genres, to be honest. But from what I have noticed my preferences gravitate towards electronic music. I can share my favorite albums if that'll help you: Abyss (Chelsea Wolfe), Dummy (Portishead), Ones and Sixes (Low), Ege Bamyasi (Can), Mystere (La Femme), Sirens (Nicolas Jaar), Big Fish Theory (Vince Staples), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Kanye), Awaken, My Love! (Childish Gambino), Soft Animals (Sofi Tukker), Modal Soul (Nujabes), Your Queen Is a Reptile (Sons of Kemet).
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#128[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#129I don't think this is something you can force, it just happens when you enjoy music, and a range of music. A couple tips from me though: 1) Use Spotify, and the personal generated playlists that expand out (ie Discover Weekly, and Release Radar), avoid the ones that just play what you listen to a lot, it just reinforces a limited set of songs/albums/artists. And use the 'Fans also like' section of artists. Spotify's…
About number 5. I think that was only true for a short period: From the time the LP was invented until music streaming hit the mainstream. Before the LP, it certainly wasn’t true, and we seem to now be moving away from that format.
Hmm I agree with what you say, but I only think it's pop music that is moving away from that format
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#130You might be going about this in the wrong order. Instead of trying to become an expert in an art form that does not currently appeal to me, wouldn't it make more sense to first find instances of this art form that DO appeal to you, and then branch out from that? So the order I would suggest is: 1. Find music you like particularly 2. Seek out music related to #1 3. Start thinking about why you like what you like So,…
Just to add to this - once you find music you do enjoy listening to, use discogs.com to find the producer of it and see what else they have produced, find what instrumentalists were on it that you really like and find what else they were on. Discogs is extremely valuable