Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why most people don't like jazz

dyske.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 235 posts

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#191

Post by aston »

mtalantikite wrote: post #142
sp332 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wynton Marsalis says "When the music stopped being about dancing, people stopped listening." I never completely bought it, but I like the sentiment anyway :-)

I went out to see Roy Haynes/Roy Hargrove the other night, and he basically said the same thing on stage. Looking out into an audience of mainly dead silent white people, he said something to the extent of: 'I remember when I was playing in Spain some years back with Joe Henderson and Chick Corea, and man the audience gave us no love back. But at the end of the concert a couple thousand of them all put up their light…

I saw the Mos Def/Robert Glasper/Chris Dave get-together in San Francisco twice. You wanna talk about steep tickets, that was it: $70 each. On the other hand, totally worth it...

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#192

Post by Semiapies »

bryanh wrote: post #5

Not that I entirely agree with this article, but as a jazz musician, it definitely interests me. I am curious though; when was the last time everyone listened to an entire album while doing nothing else? (no driving, surfing, working, etc...)

If you have a decent sound-system, I wouldn't count driving as a distraction; I've often been behind a wheel when I first noticed some detail of a song. And then, sometimes I've set out to listen to music while doing something else and really mostly just listened to the music.

But even granting those points, it's been a few weeks. Shuffling among new tracks or listening to streams is just so easy.

(The album in question was Oil and Gold by Shriekback, an old favorite.)

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#193

Post by Semiapies »

mbubb wrote: post #114
snitko wrote: post #3

It'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…

Yes but I also think that in some cultures people sing more and informally. ot just education but also general attitudes towards singing. For me growing up the only time I would sing would be in church - the essence of drudgery. Working and traveling in Asia - I was exposed to people singing pubicaly a lot more. In Korea it seemed pretty common in parties or general gatherings for people just to sing. And NorReBangs…

Consider the early-tryouts section of American Idol. Americans experience so much Schadenfreude at watching the unskilled singers because it's considered terrible to sing if you don't know how. We're commonly too scared to try karaoke without some liquid courage.

Sad, really - we end up terrified of making music.

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#195

Post by eldenbishop »

bryanh wrote: post #5

Not that I entirely agree with this article, but as a jazz musician, it definitely interests me. I am curious though; when was the last time everyone listened to an entire album while doing nothing else? (no driving, surfing, working, etc...)

Hmmm, in the last few months

* OK Computer (by Radiohead) I've probably done 3-4 dark rooms listens through this in the last year alone. * Venomous Villian (by Victor Vaughn aka MF Doom) * Timeless (by Goldie) * The Stone Roses (by The Stone Roses) * Tranceport (by Paul Oakenfold)

I try and turn out the lights and listen to an album or two whenever my wife has Yoga or dinner with friends. Ideally I do this slightly drunk which helps me really lose myself in the music and keeps my brain from ruining everything.

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#196

Post by mtalantikite »

aston wrote: post #191
mtalantikite wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went out to see Roy Haynes/Roy Hargrove the other night, and he basically said the same thing on stage. Looking out into an audience of mainly dead silent white people, he said something to the extent of: 'I remember when I was playing in Spain some years back with Joe Henderson and Chick Corea, and man the audience gave us no love back. But at the end of the concert a couple thousand of them all put up their light…

I saw the Mos Def/Robert Glasper/Chris Dave get-together in San Francisco twice. You wanna talk about steep tickets, that was it: $70 each. On the other hand, totally worth it...

Yeah, but was it only for 45 minutes of music? That's how it is at the Blue Note or Village Vanguard. When I saw glasper do a night of both the experiment and trio, with maxwell and bilal, it was $25 for about 4 hours of music

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#197

Post by stan_rogers »

anigbrowl wrote: post #133
jerf wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

No way - operatic singing techniques are fundamentally different from other kinds of singing, and much harder work physically. Next time in you're in the shower or wherever you can sing, do a chorus of some song you like. Then take a deep breath and instead of using your throat as you do when you talk, use your abdominal muscles to push the air out of your lungs while you sing, such that you can feel the notes resona…

Opera != bel canto. True, the classic opera (say, late baroque through Puccini) was written specifically for the bel canto voice due to the increased size of the audience over the previous, more intimate pieces, the unfortunate lack of amplification, and the relatively few vowels to be found in Italian (and French, for that matter) but there's no real reason to equate a genre of theatre with any particular vocal style. Hearing a Purcell piece sung with the English-mangling roundness of vowels required for the italianate style is as disturbing to me as Nixon in China. Even loudness is not an excuse -- the reverberations of Ethel Merman's last "on with the show" have not yet died down.

There's no need for opera to become fossilised, nor for it to aspire to an audience of fossils. Jesus Christ Superstar should have changed the world -- not that it was the best that could have been done, but it should have opened doors everywhere to the possibility of actually keeping opera relevant.

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#198

Post by habitue »

crux_ wrote: post #176
habitue wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visual art is distinctly different from music. It's possible to be entertained and feel emotion for visual art that is not a photorealistic depiction. Music, meanwhile, has certain rules that need to be obeyed in order for people to want to experience it. I'm sorry, John Cage might have some interesting concepts, but it's completely unlistenable. There are just some things that you cannot develop a real taste for. Th…

Experimental chefs can start fooling around with liquid nitrogen and re-purposed inkjet printers and meet with wild success, however. ;) A more substantive reply: I question the entire underlying premise you have -- that entertainment or emotion are what makes art, art. Something can be entirely distasteful and still art. (Thought experiment: imagine a sonata so deeply heartbreaking that nobody can bear to listen to…

Yeah it's definitely not my premise that art = emotion + entertainment, that was the GP. I would, however, divide art into "art that is/can become enjoyable" and "art that cannot be enjoyable (but may be thought provoking etc)". I'm definitely not being fair to John Cage, I am far from well versed in his music and since he's an experimental artist I know his pieces have different levels of accessibility. I would group the 4'33" piece into the "interesting but not enjoyable as music" category.

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#199

Post by necubi »

talktalk wrote: post #120
sp332 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read it again: he said music, not jazz. Anyway, (e.g.) square dancing is still fun :-) And I know a few drummers would like to have a word with you about "instruments of a bygone era."

I should clarify that by "instruments of a bygone era", I really mean "acoustic instruments speaking the language of bebop, swing, etc." While I agree that square dancing and other folk dance traditions can be fun, they can not by any means be considered "contemporary". Their appeal these days is that of nostalgia and fondness for these bygone eras.

As a 19-year-old who plays for contradances (a folk dance tradition from New England) and scottish country dances, it's hard to believe that the diverse crowds of teenagers, kids and adults of all ages are there because of nostalgia. The same is true of swing, lindy and blues dances I've been to: many people do genuinely enjoy these dance forms for themselves. All that's old is not irrelevant. Not everybody wants to flail there arms around in a sweaty club to electronic noise.

There is a real appeal to this music and these dance forms. Perhaps the biggest problem they face is that they're less accessible. Anybody can go to a dance party and dance, but you have to learn to swing dance.

Re: Why most people don't like jazz

#200

Post by ShardPhoenix »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #116
swannodette wrote: post #61

The state of music commentary on this thread is low enough to be insulting and pretty much validates the article. I find it humorous that a website that draws people dedicated to abstract thought can have such a mediocre understanding of music and music history. Do yourself a favor, find a piece of music that you think you don't like. Sit down and listen to it 50 times without distraction so that you know all the cha…

Sit down and listen to it 50 times without distraction so that you know all the changes, turns, asides, tensions, contractions, contradictions, and undulations. In college I had a minor in electronic art. We'd sit through each other's performances and then comment on all the various artistic work that went into them. The elephant in the room was that it was all BS. I couldn't count the number of times that someone to…

I think that's also part of the reason why distortion can sound good - it can add a lot of fake depth to the music.
Post reply on HN