Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?

#131

Post by omosubi » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

MogwaiAllOnYou wrote: post #34

I 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…

Re:Spotify. I know you didn't recommend these, but a lot of their pre made playlists are filled with music designed to make them money. the discover weekly and radar release are fine, but avoid their genre playlists. Start with music you know is good and work from there

Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?

#132

Post by lozf » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

pvaldes wrote: post #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 hav…

Whilst it may not have been as popular back then, electronic music actually predates Rock. The Theremin for instance, invented in 1922 was not the first electronic musical instrument, but it is one of the few from that era that still makes an appearance these days. https://120years.net has more on electronic instruments through the years.

Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?

#133

Post by cyberdrunk » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

sammorrowdrums wrote: post #93

wheels wrote: post #35

Knowing 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…

This is a solid answer, but I'd also add - there are very few general music buffs. Maybe I'd count, with years in pro music performance, degree in Jazz and a lifetime of listing to and performing an insanely wide variety of genres... but not a buff for all styles. Computer systems are actually not a bad analogy. How many people do you know that have an in-depth knowledge of Assembly in different systems (including th…

> If you want a weirder launching off point, watch koyaanisqatsi and look up Philip Glass who made the soundtrack - that's an interesting avenue, albeit not very mainstream.

Omg that film is absolutely amazing (maybe the best thing I've seen in the past 10 years) and easily half of the effect is the music.

For epic scores you can't also go wrong with "Requiem for a Dream"...