These are interesting blueprints for hip hop and alternative music. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/3883/products/hip-hop... https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/3883/products/alterna...
Where can I find more of these?
Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
41–50 of 133 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#42I'm very much a dilettante but a piano teacher taught me a few boogie woogie songs when I was in middle school. That planted a seed that has turned into a lifelong love for the music of New Orleans, which is essentially the source and pulse of American music, full stop.
A benefit of exploring this music is that while the tradition is both deep and broad it's also very much alive, and there are tons of ways to get into it. A great start is to listen to WWOZ (wwozy.org) and to google all the artists that you like. I could do that all day if it paid.
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#43I think it’s pretty simple, actually. Start playing an instrument (or dig deeper into playing an instrument). Most “music buffs” I respect are decent musicians themselves. I great prefer a musician’s music recommendations to a music critic’s who doesn’t play.
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#44These are interesting blueprints for hip hop and alternative music. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/3883/products/hip-hop... https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1260/3883/products/alterna...
Where can I find more of these?
I was able to find the store that offers these, and a bunch more. https://www.wearedorothy.com/collections/music
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#45Start off with the beatles and branch off forwards and backwards from there, I guess?
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#46Music of XX century is rather a broad subject, but I assume - from your question - you are looking for popular music genres like pop, rock, hiphop, etc.
In fact, most of this music has been as much a cultural phenomenon and and a statement of a generation, as it was... music. Not being rude to individual artists, who were at times very talented, a lot of this music is musically rather simplistic and doesn't require any preparation, but a cultural context. Granted your film-literature preferences, a good territory to start explorations from would be watch a few music movies, like the history of the Doors etc. that could give you the context needed and you are all set for many months of listening. But is all largely about youthful energy, about love, a man vs society, about dance and drugs. So - if you are not too young anymore - it can be a bit boring ;)
One exception would be jazz, that is a bit more complex to grasp, but again - you have a good series from Ken Burns to start with. That being said, to enjoy jazz truly in it's more complex genres, I would argue at least certain musical background is beneficial, maybe some youtube talks etc.
Classical music... well this is a true ocean. Just Beethoven piano sonatas could be a passion for a year or two. You're talking about XX century, and there's been great classical music published in that period! But probably - if you go that route - you really want to start with renaissance and baroque. Here a lot of great introductory courses are available. If you don't have musical background, Robert Greenberg series on Great Courses is really an entertaining and valuable intro.
And then there is world music, ranging from African roots bands playing drums to Indian classical music.
Now - having all that said - my personal perspective is that to enjoy music, you want to enjoy music. What I mean by that, is that you might want to dance, sing, play! Even a simple baroque dance, played by your self, could be way more gratifying that latest dull pop hit. If you really want to enjoy music and not just be a pop music encyclopedia who knows names of The Beatles - you should do one of these!
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#47Make sure you have some decent headphones/speakers before you start, which will allow you to pick up the subtleties in what’s playing. Then get a streaming service with high quality. RateYourMusic is pretty good for organizing best albums of each year or decade, by genre as well. It might not have what was popular from a historical perspective but is probably a good start. I check out different genres and then read about them on Wikipedia, which has a ton of information about every genre and chronology of music.
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#48At a certain point, you realize Bach is all you need.
And then Frank Zappa fills any remaining gaps.
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#49This is a pretty good book that should roughly give you what you are looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rest_Is_Noise
A great book for music fans, and probably at least a good read for non fans like our OP. Recommended.
Re: Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?
#50I definitely consider myself a music buff. Here's my suggestion: start with what you love and explore the graph from there.
Consider an album a node in the great graph of music. The links to other nodes are plentiful and will likely lead to other things you love. Explore other artists on the same label, other groups composed of members of the group, other albums recorded in the same studio, etc.
Don't just listen to the music but get interested in the context, just like any work of art, the significance is often relative to the context in which it was created. Learn about the history of the members, read reviews, etc.
Learn an instrument, you don't have to be good, but a little knowledge of how to play some of your favorite music can really help to understand the craft.
Find some of those '500 best albums of all time' type lists and do my graph exploration for the ones that resonate with you. It's fine to not like everything but awareness of the really impactful landmark albums will help you understand the evolution of music. It can be interesting to learn about what an album is a _rejection_ of as much as it is a homage to.
tldr - bread first explore from what you already like