Can you discern a persons nature from the genre of classical music they like ?

[Florestan]

At least, I know when my chain is being pulled 

Is it chain or leg? Oooops, wrong thread, that should be in the Cato´s Grammar Grumble. 

[Florestan]

1) Why would you want to try to discern a person's nature from the kind of classical music they like?

To show how smart / intellectual / scientific type of person you are? 

How may classical listeners confine themselves to only one kind of classical music?

Judging by GMG, more than you would expect... 

Generally we get to know people by hanging out with them. It's neither efficient nor reliable, but I can't think of any better way of doing it.

Agreed.

[some guy]

Well, I'm relieved. Just good clean fun.

If there's a shitstorm later on, I'll just remember these last few posts.

I grinned out loud to all of them.

[mc ukrneal]

I grinned out loud to all of them.

I'm not sure that is anatomically possible, but we get your drift!

[Elgarian]

1) Why would you want to try to discern a person's nature from the kind of classical music they like?

When you put it like that, it seems a pointless exercise. Much better, as you say, to hang out with the people whose nature you want to discern.

But there's something bubbling beneath the question, and it's that bubbling thing that interests me: what is it about certain types of music that I seem to have a natural affinity for, and why is it so? Not just like or dislike - it's more than that. I have the feeling that there are certain pieces of music that I was born to hear. Very hard to express this, and of course I'm using 'I' and 'me' when maybe I should be generalising into 'one', and you could just dismiss all these claims as mere romanticism. Alright: but I don't think it is. This music that I'm talking about strikes at what I think of as my 'essence'. Drogulus would tell me I'm mistaken - that we have no 'essences' - but (pace Ernie) that's no more than an assertion, and we have the choice of following our intuition, or demanding some sort of objective proof.

I can't believe I'm alone in this, especially not here at GMG. I find it impossible to dismiss the idea that there is some significant link between who we are , and the music we most long to hear; and maybe the only answer is metaphysical, but I can't help being curious about it.

[Karl Henning]

Bubbling fuzziness and curiosity are good things.

[Elgarian]

Bubbling fuzziness and curiosity are good things.

They make you sneeze though ...

[some guy]

I knew we'd get around to Kodaly, eventually.

[Ken B]

There was no broader claim, only a question in the sense of 'what do you think?'.

I don't want to run this gamut all over again, I thought it was silly the first time. But I am trying to imagine what sort of evidence it would take to refute the claim positively, to your satisfaction. It is an 'angels dancing on the head of a pin' sort of thing to start with, and so for every refutation, the simple question 'what about this one?' will cancel it out and start you over. Your sense of metaphysics has outweighed your logic in this case, I think. 

What are you talking about Gurn? Saying the question isn't fit for adult discussion is making a claim. So claims have been made.

As for logic, no, I am correct. Citing one example does not prove a general case.
But there are lots of negatives that can be demonstrated. You cannot trisect an arbitrary angle with a ruler and compass. You cannot cool your apartment by running the refrigerator. These are proven by more general arguments. Only Todd has even tried that here, and Jo's response is good.

[Elgarian]

I knew we'd get around to Kodaly, eventually.

I don't get it! Please say more ...

[Florestan]

Saying the question isn't fit for adult discussion is making a claim.

Oh, come on, Ken! That claim was made by only one poster on page 1 and now we are on page 11, so obviously nobody else agreed with him.

And BTW, here is the OP:

Can you ?

Nature/personality/character/temperament etc
Even if its just a few similar traits its still a connection and so interests me.

It seems pretty obvious to me that by "you" he means we, the GMG-ers who happen to read his post.

Nobody ever denied that there are studies who attempt to find meaningful correlations between musical preferences and personality, but as has been pointed out by Todd and Jo their methodology is dubious and their practical value is limited (and mostly consists of securing tenure and lists of publications to their authors).

[Jo498]

Sorry guys, but for me there is nothing "metaphysical" about that. What Elgarian and I said seems basic common sense to me. I completely agree that it might be difficult to quantify such things in a way that they are open to the style of psychological research we find in the papers linked to. But for me, that's not the point. Such connections between "character" and e.g. musical preferences are fairly obvious from the first person (introspective) perspective. It's not only an important part of me that I am into classical music in general but also that I love Beethoven's music and do not care much for most of Puccini's etc.

Such a presupposition is also shown by the prevalence of such preferences in formulating dating profiles, forming friendships (the tribalism of some popular music extending to clothes, hairstyle etc. has been mentioned).
So in the daily practice of living, forming social relationships etc. we all seem to believe that hanging out with people who share some of our (e.g.) musical preferences is more likely to lead to friendship or a nice time in pleasant company or even to romantic relationships because we assume that these people will also more likely to be compatible with us in many other ways. Of course it does not have to work out (more likely means only prob > .5) but if this "strategy" was so terrible I would really wonder why it has been a rather stable way to initiate social relationsships for decades or centuries (this is actually a reason to assume a probability much higher then .51).

Sure, it is complicated to analyse how much of those preferences we "find within us" pre-reflectively and how much we cultivate (because we want to be a person who appreciates this or that or want to belong to a certain tribe). But there has to be something there to cultivate. Someone who only goes to the opera to please the in-laws might remain indifferent but he could also begin to develop a genuine love for opera. And I do not think it is completely random if one develops that.

So I do not see any reason why the connection of those preferences to more general character traits (as the ominous "big five") should be intractable. I am pretty sure that they exist by introspection and anecdotal evidence, I fail to see why they should be indiscoverable in principle.
We are not talking about mind-reading here, only about connecting different publicly available "manifestations of character". Neither am I presupposing that there are simple law-like correlations; it might be extremely complicated (too complex to have real predictive power) or experimentally feasible distinctions might be to coarse-grained to be meaningful. I do not know about methods but maybe one would need different methods with in-depth interviews and people describing introspectively their love for certain music more specifically.

I might still be mis-understanding some statements, so sorry if this only adds confusion or reiterates points almost everyone agrees with...

[Elgarian]

Such connections between "character" and e.g. musical preferences are fairly obvious from the first person (introspective) perspective. It's not only an important part of me that I am into classical music in general but also that I love Beethoven's music and do not care much for most of Puccini's etc.

Yes, yes, yes.

hanging out with people who share some of our (e.g.) musical preferences is more likely to lead to friendship or a nice time in pleasant company or even to romantic relationships because we assume that these people will also more likely to be compatible with us in many other ways. Of course it does not have to work out (more likely means only prob > .5)

Yes, yes, yes.

So I do not see any reason why the connection of those preferences to more general character traits (as the ominous "big five") should be intractable. I am pretty sure that they exist by introspection and anecdotal evidence, I fail to see why they should be indiscoverable in principle.

Yes, yes, yes.

Neither am I presupposing that there are simple law-like correlations; it might be extremely complicated (too complex to have real predictive power) or experimentally feasible distinctions might be to coarse-grained to be meaningful. I do not know about methods but maybe one would need different methods with in-depth interviews and people describing introspectively their love for certain music more specifically.

Yes, yes, yes.

[mc ukrneal]

Sorry guys, but for me there is nothing "metaphysical" about that. What Elgarian and I said seems basic common sense to me. I completely agree that it might be difficult to quantify such things in a way that they are open to the style of psychological research we find in the papers linked to. But for me, that's not the point. Such connections between "character" and e.g. musical preferences are fairly obvious from the first person (introspective) perspective. It's not only an important part of me that I am into classical music in general but also that I love Beethoven's music and do not care much for most of Puccini's etc.

Such a presupposition is also shown by the prevalence of such preferences in formulating dating profiles, forming friendships (the tribalism of some popular music extending to clothes, hairstyle etc. has been mentioned).
So in the daily practice of living, forming social relationships etc. we all seem to believe that hanging out with people who share some of our (e.g.) musical preferences is more likely to lead to friendship or a nice time in pleasant company or even to romantic relationships because we assume that these people will also more likely to be compatible with us in many other ways. Of course it does not have to work out (more likely means only prob > .5) but if this "strategy" was so terrible I would really wonder why it has been a rather stable way to initiate social relationsships for decades or centuries (this is actually a reason to assume a probability much higher then .51).

Sure, it is complicated to analyse how much of those preferences we "find within us" pre-reflectively and how much we cultivate (because we want to be a person who appreciates this or that or want to belong to a certain tribe). But there has to be something there to cultivate. Someone who only goes to the opera to please the in-laws might remain indifferent but he could also begin to develop a genuine love for opera. And I do not think it is completely random if one develops that.

So I do not see any reason why the connection of those preferences to more general character traits (as the ominous "big five") should be intractable. I am pretty sure that they exist by introspection and anecdotal evidence, I fail to see why they should be indiscoverable in principle.
We are not talking about mind-reading here, only about connecting different publicly available "manifestations of character". Neither am I presupposing that there are simple law-like correlations; it might be extremely complicated (too complex to have real predictive power) or experimentally feasible distinctions might be to coarse-grained to be meaningful. I do not know about methods but maybe one would need different methods with in-depth interviews and people describing introspectively their love for certain music more specifically.

I might still be mis-understanding some statements, so sorry if this only adds confusion or reiterates points almost everyone agrees with...

I'll my chorus of yeses to those already posted by Elgarian. 

[Elgarian]

I'll my chorus of yeses to those already posted by Elgarian. 

We have a trio of yessers. We can make music affirmatively!

[Florestan]

We have a trio of yessers. We can make music affirmatively!

Yes, yes, yes, yeees! Yes, yes, yes, yeees!
G     G     G      E        F     F     F       D

[Elgarian]

Yes, yes, yes, yeees! Yes, yes, yes, yeees!
G     G     G      E        F     F     F       D

Gentlemen - fate knocks at the door. We have a quartet!!

[EigenUser]

Yes, yes, yes, yeees! Yes, yes, yes, yeees!
G     G     G      Eb       F     F     F       D

FTFY

[some guy]

I don't get it! Please say more ...

Háry János has a big orchestral sneeze in it. In Hungarian folklore, a sneeze means something, but I found only conflicting information about it online. The way I heard it when I was a kid, whatever followed a sneeze was true, no matter how outlandish. In the Wiki article on the opera, the sneeze supposedly follows the tall tale as confirmation of the improbabilities. In a program note I found online, the sneeze precedes the story, but indicates that what follows is not to be taken literally.

Just some struggling with the concept of humor, there, I guess. Anyway, a sneeze indicates either that an improbable story is about to be related or confirms/asserts the veracity of the tall tale after it's been told. I couldn't find which option was true. (Maybe if someone had sneezed as I was reading one explanation or other, I would know.)

[Karl Henning]

I'll my chorus of yeses to those already posted by Elgarian. 

In my own defense, I do sing in a chorus.