The criticism of rap in the middle of the piece seems both misplaced and undereducated. Some of the most musically complex instrumental music I've heard in the past few years has come out of the hip-hop world. Take a song like T-Pain's "Chopped and Screwed" [1] and try to pick it out on the piano -- it's got enough 7's,9's and alt chords to make any jazz listener happy. Rap is probably the only pop genre where fans pay enough attention to the background to like a song/artist for the lyrics (Nas) or the beat (Kanye) or both (Jay-Z).
Why most people don't like jazz
71–80 of 235 posts
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#72I'm a musician myself who used to play jazz. The problem with jazz is that is considered by the people who listen to it like "pure art" when it is just a style of music. Jazz (and classical) is elevated higher than other form of music and music teachers will expect a good musician to play jazz. If jazz lovers would stop thinking at themselves as "higher educated" and jazz would go back to the people who want enjoy a…
Wynton Marsalis says "When the music stopped being about dancing, people stopped listening." I never completely bought it, but I like the sentiment anyway :-)
Ok I've done Lindy Hop for like 5 years now and I think I sort of understand the meaning behind that statement.
When you dance to music you really, really need to listen to the music and where it goes. I notice that good dancers listen to the music and change what they're doing accordingly. If the music is high energy, they dance with high energy. If there is a break in the music, they hit it a break in the dancing (or they try). One of the most amazing jack & jill competitions that I watched seemed like the couple was interpreting the music.
Try asking a person you know who dances what some of their favorite songs to dance to are and why.
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#73It's not the problem of lyrics vs words in the first place. It's a problem of lack of musical education. Give a person a guitar or a piano and within a year she starts paying attention to the composition and performing skills. And her tastes may change dramatically too. So in a sense, I consider "listening to words" not as an alternative point of view, but rather a lack of musical training. Sure, words may simply be…
For what it's worth, research has shown that people who speak languages with tonal differences (like Chinese, Vietnamese etc) tend to be far more likely to develop perfect pitch. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/18/china.highereduc... Not sure if that contributes to musical education, but my guess is that perfect pitch should have something to do with it.
Thanks for bringing this issue up. I read about this research, yes. I've also read that basically it's not the language itself, but the exposure to any sort of musical training (including learning a language with tonal differences) that affects the development of perfect pitch in early years (source: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Research-Education-Young-Chil...). Thus, I should correct myself on the statement that different cultures are just about the same in their ability to appreciate music. On the other hand I don't think that those differences are somewhat significant, because in both european and asian languages - it's still a language with words, right?
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#74I like the article and there's a lot of truth to it, but I have two critiques.
First, the music that people like is heavily based on familiarity. People want one or two original elements in a song, but if the overall structure and composition of the song isn't following familiar patterns they will be unable to enjoy it. This is why artists like Frank Zappa are more appreciated by musicians than the general public. After repeated listenings, you find a lot of musical meat, which can then be broken down into more repetitive poppy elements. Jazz in general is much the same, but even further away from pop music today than Zappa was.
The other critique is about the assertion that "rap" music is just about lyrics. One of the foundations of hip-hop and something that sets it apart from other music throughout history, is that it is the first form of music to be built primarily from the manipulation of other recorded music. And it does so in a way that maximizes the impact of the music via looping and sampling. The degenerate form of hip-hop that is dominant today in the form of club music with banal hedonistic lyrics, autotuned vocals, and repetitive plain rhythmic styles is nothing more than familiarity breeding popularity. However the art form of hip-hop is alive and well and still progressing (hopefully sampling can see a proper fair-use legitimization in court soon).
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#75The reason why I don't like jazz is that my ears can't find any pattern to it. There's no melody, except at the beginning and end of the piece, so the notes just sound random. So to me the music is largely indistinguishable from noise.
Once I discovered that jazz is apparently about the chords it made more sense. (The notes appear to be unimportant as long as everyone is in the same chord)
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#76I would argue that the original proposition is flawed. If we did an experiment, most people who would listen to live jazz or a good recording in an easy atmosphere would enjoy it. It's just that jazz music can rarely be fit into your busy life full of 30-second interruptions. So you stick with music where a 30-second lick/rhyme/lyric/beat can stay in your head.
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#77I don't think it's so much about lyrics (although instrumental music tends to be less popular in general). Nor is about musical ability. I'm only a mediocre musician, but I can appreciate musical structure very well and like to compose in unusual modalities, especially phrygian. I know far better musicians than myself who don't like jazz; meanwhile my Dad has a complete tin ear and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but he loves jazz despite having little or no musical knowledge. I can't stand it, but not because I think it's bad - I'm really impressed by the depth and skill of jazz musicians. I just can't take it in any significant quantity.
My problem with it is that I get frustrated by the fact that it isn't necessarily going anywhere - the exploratory and whimsical nature of it upsets me because it conflicts with my desire for structure and resolution. I think my Dad likes partly because of this; it doesn't demand that he model structure and tension, he's quite happy to just be a passenger and enjoy the musical scenery. This is not to say it lacks structure or harmonic tension. Harmony is the weakest part of my musical ability and I'm just not able to appreciate the relationships between complex chords and for that matter I'm not much good at polyrhythms either. Strangely, on occasions where someone has tried to get me more into jazz, if we agree in advance on a musical modality I am able to improvise reasonably well and we can have an extended musical 'conversation': it's easier for me to play than it is to listen to, or at least it was when I practiced on a more regular basis. But the emotions it arouses in me largely consist of 'Aaagh! Please stop fucking around and get to the point!!'.
Most commercial music is highly structured, both rhythmically and harmonically. Jazz reminds of those art projects where they make blank molds of some kind of sculpture and then hand them out to artists to decorate as they see fit, such that the shape of the sculpture is less important than the mix of color and pattern the artist wishes to explore, a 3-dimensional blank canvas if you like. Very often the results seem to have nothing to do with the shape, but I find myself thinking that if the shape is so unimportant, go paint a piece of canvas or something. I know these artists are saying something about deconstruction of the form by projecting things onto it which don't fit its obvious structure but I'm at a complete loss as to why you would choose a specific form if the primary thing you want to say is that form isn't important. Or maybe it's just that I find some such work innovative but have no patience for the ensuing horde of people copying the same idea and just doing so with their own favorite patterns and colors. It's like saying you feel liberated because you put on a straitjacket and then took it off again.
/handwaving
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
"By this logic, English-language opera (yes, it exists) ought to be doing well in America." We call them "musicals". They're doing OK. If you want to argue that a "musical" is an "opera plus some stuff added to make it more palatable to visually-oriented Americans" I'm not going to argue.
I was under the impression that a musical is a spoken word play where the actors break out into song and dance on a regular basis, whereas in an opera the singers rarely dance or speak. If that is the case, the difference between musicals and opera is more than just the language. and actually supports the author's point that American culture needs visual stimulation (the dance) and words they can easily understand (t…
"Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat" is entirely sung (Well, apart from "and I don't speak Egyptian very well"), but is usually referred to as a musical. Maybe just marketing though. Personally I usually expect opera to mean a particular style of singing more than anything else.
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#79I was hoping this article would tell me more about why I don't like jazz. I don't know why! I've tried. I love all forms of classical music. I like rock and pop music. I know the opera repertoire really well and have sung several major tenor roles. But I just can't get to like jazz at all for some reason.
Do you like Gershwin? Start with "Rhapsody in Blue." If you don't like that, there's no hope of building a bridge from your love of classical to jazz, you'll have to try a different way round. If you do like it, watch the movie "An American in Paris" and if you like any of the songs, look for instrumental versions of those jazz classics.
Re: Why most people don't like jazz
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems society has a notion that music alone cannot in and of itself be the only event.
I know I do. I finally gave up going to classical music concerts even though I love classical music because after about 30 minutes, my brain was too tired to listen to the music any more and my mind wandered.
That's why I prefer dance music (including very abstract stuff like Autechre which many people find unlistenable). If you want me to explore the music, don't ask me to sit still for it.