Better with Age?

[Grazioso]

You could populate a small planet with rock/pop musicians who fit JdP's model. But there are significant exceptions, too (Robt Fripp, Frank Zappa, e.g.)

His Procrustean bed, though, is yet less suited to the world of Jazz, at least so far as I can judge from the Jazz figures whose work most interests me:  Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Chas Mingus, Thelonious Monk (almost not worth citing Eric Dolphy here, as he died young).

Trane springs to mind, too. Some will certainly argue about his music being progressively "better," but there's little doubt he kept trying new ideas as his musical life went on and that he kept thinking seriously about music until the end. He wasn't a man to coast.

[Grazioso]

All meaningless jabber, you have no clue. The fact that you want evidence tells me that not only are you confused & lost, but that you are also blind & deaf. Go find yourself. You know, you can listen to an assortment of music, yet still understand it's proper perspective with clarity.

Meaningless jabber? Which words did you need help with?  When you insist you have the facts, someone asks you to provide one, and all we hear is the sound of crickets chirping...well, people are going to call bullshit.

[jochanaan]

And you're a member of forum devoted to Art music? You'd figure you wouldn't need any 'evidence' .. you would have heard enough to understand completely. Guess not .. you're probably just some guy who buys lots of recordings but doesn't bother to actually listen to any of it in a serious way.

If you stop digging, that hole you're in won't get any deeper.

[jochanaan]

One composer that has seemingly gotten "better" for me with age is F. Joseph Haydn.  When i was young, I thought his music was shallow compared to Mozart's; but as I age, I find myself more and more appreciating Haydn's sense of fun and simple joy, and his endless originality.

I'm also, to my surprise, finding flashes of beauty and power in Richard Strauss' late music, when I never thought I would!

[Grazioso]

Rock & Jazz pales in comparison (easy to hear) & film music is cheap shit (easy to hear). 

Uh oh, he just made it to China  "Communism is narrow blah blah blah piffle!" "Arrest that man!"

[starrynight]

The situation with popular music is that the style changes far more rapidly than with classical.  Because of that it is much harder for a musician to keep up with the changing audience tastes.  That puts them more out of the spotlight and just in less demand, or they try and change their music to fit the changing times and find it doesn't suit them.

[vandermolen]

I appreciate chamber music more as I get older.

[eyeresist]

There are some composers, and areas of music, which I have set aside, as they are "not for me" at the moment. On the other hand, there are some composers who after many attempts I have had to write off as essentially worthless. Very VERY occasionally, music from the second group turns out to belong to first group after all. It helps that as I get older, I understand my tastes and thought processes better.

Music that gets WORSE? Well, I'm not sure if it gets worse, but it seems to me there is music one outgrows. In classical music, there are certainly composers where one finds oneself saying "Enough!" at least for the moment, Tchaikovsky being perhaps the most obvious example.
Most pop music fits into the category of "music one outgrows" (I won't discuss the exceptions here), and it's always a little sad to find that an old favourite now seems like a waste of plastic. I think this is due to one's increasing capacity for musical complexity, with age. It doesn't come to all of us, of course. Certain older people who get drunk and sing along with the hits of yesteryear demonstrate that tastes do not necessarily become more sophisticated. This would also be why many pop music writers who seemed brilliant as youths become mired in the same narrow rut as they age (although of course commercial considerations could also play a part).

There are some classical composers who were perhaps at their best earlier in their careers. Arthur Bliss is often regarded in this way, and Mendelssohn arguably never regained the spark we hear in his symphonies for strings. For myself, I must confess I prefer Mozart's more youthful symphonies to his later "masterpieces", but this may be a case for the first category, mentioned in my introductory paragraph.

[Sid]

I appreciate chamber music more as I get older.

Agreed. This is the case with me. 20 or more years ago, I was more into the bigger forms eg. symphonies & concertos. Now I like the intimacy of chamber music, including string quartets, piano trios, solo instrumental, art songs. I find just as much value & enjoyment in a Piazzolla tango or say Schubert or Ives song as a whole Shostakovich or Messiaen symphony. I've discovered for myself that bigger is not necessarily better...

Rock & Jazz pales in comparison (easy to hear) & film music is cheap shit (easy to hear). 

This is just generalising. For example, I disagree that some of the film music of significant composers like Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Walton, Honegger, Takemitsu, Glass and many others is "cheap shit." You obviously know a lot about music, I have learnt from your posts in other threads, but I don't know why you have to reduce many things down to a kind of fixed ideology that is EITHER/OR, BLACK or WHITE etc. The world is more complex than these "false dichotomies" to use high falutin' jargon...

[starrynight]

As you grow older you will obviously be able to listen to more music as you have had more time to.  Also you have to take into account that it is easier to hear much music than it was over 10 years ago.  The internet has meant things from abroad aren't as distant anymore, more obscure stuff in general is more available too.  So I think there are more opportinites now to extent musical taste and fine tune it more.   

[petrarch]

Agreed. This is the case with me. 20 or more years ago, I was more into the bigger forms eg. symphonies & concertos. Now I like the intimacy of chamber music, including string quartets, piano trios, solo instrumental, art songs.

It has been the opposite for me. My foray into 20th C music (the bulk of the classical I listen to) started with chamber music, specifically string quartets. It was fortuitous that as I got interested in it the Arditti Quartet had started amassing a good catalogue of recordings, so for a long time my favourite genre was the string quartet. I believe the clarity of discourse, the 'gestures', the forms, all stand out very neatly in chamber music, especially if the idiom is concise. I still can't stomach most symphonies and concertos, but I have noticed that my collection has grown distinctly in that direction.

[starrynight]

I still like the pop music I enjoyed 25 + years ago.

[Octo_Russ]

As you grow older you will obviously be able to listen to more music as you have had more time to.  Also you have to take into account that it is easier to hear much music than it was over 10 years ago.  The internet has meant things from abroad aren't as distant anymore, more obscure stuff in general is more available too.  So I think there are more opportunities now to extent musical taste and fine tune it more.   

Well said!, i don't think it's so much that music particularly gets better with age, but rather as you get older your musical taste broadens, there's a certain cross-pollination of genres in music, there's just no way a 15 year old can have the same exposure to decades of music that a 50 year old has had, sometimes it takes 100 listens to a particular work to truly appreciate and fall in love with it.

It isn't the music that gets better or worse, it's the listener that gets better [or worse!] at listening to music over time.

[Sid]

I believe the clarity of discourse, the 'gestures', the forms, all stand out very neatly in chamber music, especially if the idiom is concise.

Well put. I find that with some types of orchestral music, I am overwhelmed by the many things that are going on. A lot of chamber music is like a "discourse" as you say, an intimate conversation between equals rather than a big show down or fight like the traditional Romantically inclined concerto.

...sometimes it takes 100 listens to a particular work to truly appreciate and fall in love with it.

I agree with this. I have dismissed a piece or composer after just one listen, I'm sure we all have at some stage in our listening careers. I try not to take my "gut" reactions too seriously now after listening to a piece new to me, particularly if they are more negative than positive. I try to give it time & eventually I get something out of the music, even if it's a little thing. The more I listen to a piece, or the work of a certain composer, the more I tend to engage with the music...