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Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?

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

#21

Post by tkgally »

notnoided wrote: post #8

There are so many radio shows that explore the exponentially growing music-verse out there. Bandcamp is a great place for music artists. Here a huge chunk of the profits go direct to the artists, so it's got every possible kind of music from nobody you've ever heard of. They have a weekly radio show called The Bandcamp Weekly. It's super varied but they're friendly and they often do themes each week. Give it a go

Another great choice for radio shows is BBC Sounds. Wide range of genres, good song/piece selections in each genre, and, in most cases, a reasonable amount patter about the music.

Most of the music I’ve come to like in recent years I heard first on the BBC. Radio 3 is a particular treasure.

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

#22

Post by aklemm »

You could do worse than:

1) Tune into HD college radio stations so you get exposed to a lot of stuff and you can see the artist/track names.

2) Make and explore play lists on Spotify.

3) Google artists that interest you.

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

#23

Post by jbob2000 »

There's a distinction between a music buff and an audio buff.

If you want to be a music buff, my suggestion is to learn how to play an instrument. This will give you the understanding to appreciate music; you can't truly understand a musician's talent until you try to play what they can and fail. You can't appreciate the complexity of a piece that has changing time signatures (for example) if you don't even know how to count time. You'll end up listening to the same chord progressions over and over (G-C-D come to mind...) if you don't know how to identify what you're listening to.

If you want to be an audio buff, buy some expensive speakers and then just follow you ears.

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

#25

Post by microtherion »

You 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, start by establishing a visceral connection to the art before delving into the analytic side.

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

#27

Post by mike_mg »

For modern music, the definitive resource (in my experience) is RYM: https://rateyourmusic.com/. It has several advantages: 1) extremely broad coverage - it is almost "list of all music ever" 2) the community has rated all of this music and "has good taste" 3) nice sorting and search capability

How to use: a) For overview of most important albums which is at the same time a reasonable overview of modern music history, use the default sorting https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart b) after you get into specific sub-genre's, use the sorting. For example, you discover you like Japanese 90s city-pop? Here's the query for you https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&... c) for music discovery, browse recommendation lists of people there. It is a true gold-mine of great music

For completness, to rollingstone.com and npr, I add pitchfork.com which is arguably the most important "independent" medium

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

#30

Post by iamben »

There are many "should listen to", or "best albums of XYX" lists out there and (arguably) finding a pretty generic one (like a middle of the road music magazine) is probably a pretty good start.

However -- I've always listened to a lot of music. I still probably get through 10 or so new releases a week, a fair amount of older stuff I've never heard, and a lot of 'comfort' records. The problem with top XYZ lists is you have to be 'open' to listening to them, and for some records it definitely helps to have some reference points in the form of 'stuff you know' to frame why they're significant. It took me years to see the genius in some records that later become favourites.

Whilst I became much open to exploring genres as I got older, and whilst my tastes are now far more varied, primarily I still listen to a lot of alternative/punk and hip-hop. I'll occasionally listen to more electronic music, but with the rare exception anything too house/techno/etc. just doesn't work for me as much. I also find when exploring back catalogues it helps to hear the song over the production - a punk rock record from 1985 probably sounds like shit - but when you learn to hear the song you see how amazing it was. Definitely something a younger me struggled with (in a world of over produced music!).

I guess what I'm saying is personally I feel music is a lot like anything else. The more you surround yourself with it, the more you 'get' it, the more genres bleed into one another. And the more you hear, the better frame of reference you have as to why some of the 'best' records are what they are and sounds like they do.

TL;DR: Listen to lots and lots, keep exploring. Spotify is an incredible tool. Pick a genre, listen to what Spotify recommends. See what grabs you. If nothing does, try another genre. Keep trying until something grabs you. Then delve into the genre - you'll find pretty soon that genres start to crossover. Music should be fun.

God I love music.

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