Why do you like music?

[Dana]

      Everyone has their own preferences. Music that floats one person's boat will sink another's ship - it's one reason why there's so much of it out there. So I wonder - what is it about your favorite type of music that just tickles your fancy? And no fair saying something like "it makes me feel happy" unless you also say why it makes you more happy than another kind of music - I want descriptive answers!

[Mozart]

You are assuming I like music.

[Guido]

Beauty.

[Elgarian]

I listen to music for the same reason I enjoy visual art, or read books - because it offers (or has the potential to offer) an extension of being, of experience. C.S. Lewis wrote a passage about literature which sums it up almost perfectly, for me. For 'literature', just read 'art' in general:

"Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do."

That's not just idealised pipe-dreaming - that's what it's really like to listen to a great piece of music, contemplate a great picture, or read a great poem, or book. Each activity changes the way I perceive the world, and the way I relate to it - and it does so cumulatively. So it's like living in a house with an ever-increasing number of windows, each one offering ever-different views.

[vandermolen]

My favourite works deeply move me in a way difficult to describe. I can also appreciate works intellectually - although I am no musician.  The combination of intellectual/emotional appeal is best of all. Listening to music can be a kind of spiritual experience.  It also takes me away from the hassle of day-to-day life. Hope that will do 

[david johnson]

i like the manipulation of tone timbres into a thought that elicits an emotional/intellectual response from me.
it's even more fun to play than to just hear.
so... music fun is indeed a great factor to me.

dj

[Egebedieff]

I can think of many things that describe what I like about the different kinds of music, pieces of music, bodies of music (the intimacies and separateness of making or listening to music, socially and privately, the richness of the patterns, how music stands in for things we also like but can't always have, the connections between music and text, the sound of a voice, the endorphin-releasing grooves, associations with personal and shared experiences...). All of these seem like shadows cast as to the bigger why about how the relationship between humans and music came about (like birds and birdsong): the ties with language and form and emotion, what our bodies do—our heartbeats and our two-leggedness.

'

[hildegard]

  Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question....e.e. cummings

[DavidW]

I like music because it takes me out of my world for awhile. 

What I like in music:

• I like the different instruments playing at different tempos in a HIP Bach recording and then they sound distinct and almost cacophonous but then they come right in phase with each other and play together and drift apart again.  Kind of like interference with waves.  No wait exactly like wave interference.
• I like Mozart's long beautiful melodies.  I like the way Bruckner or Simpson take an idea and build and build up on it, and a simple motif like bricks build this amazing musical architecture.
• I like how Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Bartok and Carter write deep, beautiful music without having to exploit the charm of a catchy tune to do it.

But why do I like music?  Because I can turn it on, relax and suddenly have the stresses of the day washed away, leaving me refreshed and no longer world weary. 0:)

[Superhorn]

  Listening to  classical music ,like the arts in general, is an experience which makes life more than just a daily grind to earn a living. It makes life more interesting and enjoyable. It's not only emotionally fulfilling, but mentally stimulating.
  That's why so many people love to attend an orchestra concert or go to the opera after a hard day at work, or listen to recordings.
It makes their day.
 

[CD]

You are assuming I like music.

So far you've given little indication for believing so.

[jochanaan]

The most intensely musical experiences (which is not quite the same as "the greatest music") take me into a mental state beyond conscious thought, a state in which my body, mind and spirit are united, a state where I feel I glimpse what might be Life itself or Heaven or Nirvana, a state no words can describe adequately--as C.S. Lewis says, not because it's too vague, but because it's too definite for words.

[Opus106]

But why do I like music?  Because I can turn it on, relax and suddenly have the stresses of the day washed away, leaving me refreshed and no longer world weary. 0:)

Did you have stressful days as a child/young adult, too?

Yes, for most (all?) of us on board, here, music is a reliever of pain in some ways, but what turned us on to music in the first place and then made us stay with it all this time?


Dana, I'm sorry I don't have a reply to your question. It's all very fuzzy at the moment and I don't have interesting quotes to quote, either.

[schweitzeralan]

My favourite works deeply move me in a way difficult to describe. I can also appreciate works intellectually - although I am no musician.  The combination of intellectual/emotional appeal is best of all. Listening to music can be a kind of spiritual experience.  It also takes me away from the hassle of day-to-day life. Hope that will do 

Good question.  In a nutshell Mr.Vandermolen states the same rationale which difines my own own basic love for classical music.

[DavidW]

Did you have stressful days as a child/young adult, too?

We adults easily forget that teenage years are very stressful!  Child years can be as well.  Through the rosy haze of dim memories, we might see them as simpler times but that's really not the case at all.

And when I got into classical music I was a teen, trying to cram in as many honors and AP classes and hoping that my high school performance would be good enough for college acceptance.  I've rarely worked harder, I've rarely felt so stressed.  And I've rarely enjoyed classical music so much on a Saturday morning, I'm telling you!

And as a teacher, what I see is that even when I really feel stressed out, and my coworkers too, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the stress and also sheer amount of work my students have to do.  They really need classical music!

[CD]

what is it about your favorite type of music that just tickles your fancy?

To put it generally, it's one of the only opportunities we have to experience something exists in the physical realm but gives an intuition of something metaphysical. It's perceived by the senses but (my ideal music, anyway) becomes something beyond sense and easy description. The best in music, for me, creates it's own logic in a way that is intuitively grasped.

[Opus106]

We adults easily forget that teenage years are very stressful!  Child years can be as well.  Through the rosy haze of dim memories, we might see them as simpler times but that's really not the case at all.

And when I got into classical music I was a teen, trying to cram in as many honors and AP classes and hoping that my high school performance would be good enough for college acceptance.  I've rarely worked harder, I've rarely felt so stressed.  And I've rarely enjoyed classical music so much on a Saturday morning, I'm telling you!

I implicitly excluded high-school and beyond when I said young adult.

And as a teacher, what I see is that even when I really feel stressed out, and my coworkers too, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the stress and also sheer amount of work my students have to do.  They really need classical music!

Perhaps you should take Cato's route. (There are approximately zero compositions with a programme celebrating science, however.* )






*AFAIK statement

[DavidW]

Perhaps you should take Cato's route. (There are approximately zero compositions with a programme celebrating science, however.* )

Boulez perhaps?   I know that some teachers will play classical music at the break/start of the class period to calm the students down and prepare them for class.  Perhaps I should do that.   Well my students don't have trouble settling down though...

[Opus106]

Boulez perhaps?

I don't know, never heard his works. Not my beaker of caffeine-containing beverage. (Interesting follow-up question: Why do you not like certain music? Easier to answer?)

Although, I remember one episode of BBC show in which they showed clips from a Boulez "concert," which involved pushing down a whole bunch of chinaware. Might be useful for the Mechanics class.