Identity crisis! Who am I?

[71 dB]

Don't call it an identity crisis.

What defines our identity? What crisis is also identity crisis?

[Florestan]

What defines our identity?

Define identity.

[DavidW]

What defines our identity? What crisis is also identity crisis?

What defines your identity is an eclectic taste that has everything to do with personal preference and nothing to do with canon nor convention.  While others listen to Bach you listen to Caldara.  When others listen to Mozart you listen to Ditters.  This is to me is just more of the same and not a crisis because it is in keeping with your personality and taste.

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

Agree with Herman, I think it's an exaggeration to see your current dilemma as an identity crisis - you may be making whatever you are experiencing (changing taste? need for something new? just a vacation from classical for a spell?) worse than it needs to be.  Take a deep breath and then another; time and your own inclinations will show you your path.  What did you abandon when you became fascinated by CM?  When I was a youngster I lived and breathed baseball: played it; watched it; and read about it.  Exalted in snappy shortstop plays, screamed at grand slams, worshipped the green turf and the pitcher's mound (aka the hill), all of this was sacred to me. I nursed hopes of going pro.  Now baseball bores the bejesus outta me and not only do I kind of regret the time spent at it when I could have learned an instrument or read the All About Books my parents bought us every other month, I also believe it (and other organized sports) monopolize modern culture overmuch.  But I don't dwell on it or let it get the better of me...I accept it as part of the person I am, capable of change and hopefully of growth, as well as someone gaining greater awareness of self and society.   

[Szykneij]

Agree with Herman, I think it's an exaggeration to see your current dilemma as an identity crisis - you may be making whatever you are experiencing (changing taste? need for something new? just a vacation from classical for a spell?) worse than it needs to be.  Take a deep breath and then another; time and your own inclinations will show you your path.  What did you abandon when you became fascinated by CM?  When I was a youngster I lived and breathed baseball: played it; watched it; and read about it.  Exalted in snappy shortstop plays, screamed at grand slams, worshipped the green turf and the pitcher's mound (aka the hill), all of this was sacred to me. I nursed hopes of going pro.  Now baseball bores the bejesus outta me and not only do I kind of regret the time spent at it when I could have learned an instrument or read the All About Books my parents bought us every other month, I also believe it (and other organized sports) monopolize modern culture overmuch.  But I don't dwell on it or let it get the better of me...I accept it as part of the person I am, capable of change and hopefully of growth, as well as someone gaining greater awareness of self and society.   

In my youth, I too was (and still am) a big baseball fan. Somehow, I was able to balance my interest in athletics with my music studies enough that I was able to make a living in the music world. The tradeoff was, I never attained an elite level in either field, but I'm glad to have had the experience of both.

At least in the past, the sights, sounds, and smells of baseball were like no other sport. I always found the aromas of mud in the spring, fresh grass, leather, and neatsfoot oil to be pleasant sensations. The crack of the bat, voices from the bench, umpire calls, and slides into second base were familiar and welcome sounds. These days, artificial turf, synthetic materials, and aluminum bat pings have likely replaced much of that. I was extremely disappointed when the yearly "Who's Who in Baseball" publication was discontinued with the 2016 edition, deemed no longer needed thanks to the internet.

A GMG poster from years past who went by the user name Iago was one of the most unpleasant and curmudgeony posters ever, but I suffered his behavior because he was a big baseball fan, too. Unfortunately, I believe he passed away some years back.

At any rate, having varied interests makes a well-rounded person, so I would never regret experiences that were fulfilling even if they are not currently in the forefront.

[71 dB]

We Finns have our own baseball type of game called "pesäpallo" ("pesä" = nest, "pallo" = ball). I have always found it boring af, but then again I have never been much into sports.

What did you abandon when you became fascinated by CM? 

I don't think I abandoned anything. I simply listened to electronic dance music less. Electronic dance music peaked 1988-1993. After that it started to divide into subgenres and subsubgenres with less and less "genetic richness" and I gradually lost my interest to the newer stuff*. Classical music came to "rescue" me 1996/7. At that time I had discovered so little music I liked there was "room" for new music to enter my life. Over the years (the last two decades) the music I like has cumulated and now music genres are competing against each other for my interest! 

* There were still interesting stuff coming out, but less and less compared to all the stuff.

[Mirror Image]

I don't think I abandoned anything. I simply listened to electronic dance music less. Electronic dance music peaked 1988-1993. After that it started to divide into subgenres and subsubgenres with less and less "genetic richness" and I gradually lost my interest to the newer stuff*. Classical music came to "rescue" me 1996/7. At that time I had discovered so little music I liked there was "room" for new music to enter my life. Over the years (the last two decades) the music I like has cumulated and now music genres are competing against each other for my interest! 

* There were still interesting stuff coming out, but less and less compared to all the stuff.

Why can't you listen to what you like and not worry about anything else?

[71 dB]

Why can't you listen to what you like and not worry about anything else?

Most of the time I am doing just that. I am just surprised about how much the "importance" of classical music to me has changed over the years. I did not expect much change. 20 years ago I tried hard to convert people into elgarians. Today I don't care at all what other people think about Elgar. What's the topic I have been talking about the most in this forum the last few years? Well, something like Medicare for all! 20 years ago I had zero clue about the oligarchic problems in the US. I knew SO LITTLE about the World! No wonder it was "easy" for me to get "lost" in the wonders of classical music. Ignorance is bliss.  0:)

Obviously I am not the same person I was in 1997. Back then I had lived too short life to have questions concerning my identity. Short life can be coherent enough to give an illusion of "known identity." Only later has so much strange stuff cumulated that I have a reason to think about these things...

[71 dB]

Everyone here struggles with some classical music so maybe it's not that dangerous to not be into everything all the time. I just need to figure out what kind of classical music works for me at a given moment. Silvestrov worked. It's a hint. I suppose something like Pärt's "Spiegel im Spiegel" could also work.

[Mirror Image]

Most of the time I am doing just that. I am just surprised about how much the "importance" of classical music to me has changed over the years. I did not expect much change. 20 years ago I tried hard to convert people into elgarians. Today I don't care at all what other people think about Elgar. What's the topic I have been talking about the most in this forum the last few years? Well, something like Medicare for all! 20 years ago I had zero clue about the oligarchic problems in the US. I knew SO LITTLE about the World! No wonder it was "easy" for me to get "lost" in the wonders of classical music. Ignorance is bliss.  0:)

Obviously I am not the same person I was in 1997. Back then I had lived too short life to have questions concerning my identity. Short life can be coherent enough to give an illusion of "known identity." Only later has so much strange stuff cumulated that I have a reason to think about these things...

I love the music of Debussy, Ravel, Bartók and Stravinsky with all of my heart, but do I care if other people like their music at the end of the day? Nope. People like what they like and I can't make a convincing enough case on my part as to why anyone should check out their music. Obviously, there will be fans of the composers you like somewhere in the world and it's great that we can connect with these people like we do here on GMG, but what is important is not to get caught up where you believe you're at musically and just listen to what your heart/mind tell you. If classical music isn't important to you any longer then it means it doesn't have any kind of relevance in your life and there's a profound reason for that or, at least, this is what I think. As I said in an earlier post, tastes change and it's completely natural to gravitate toward something else, but we're all different and, if anything, the importance of classical in my own life has increased, not decreased. I honestly don't think I could function properly without it. There are certainly times where I'll take a break from classical music and pursue other musical interests, but my main musical interest is classical and I'm not second guessing myself here. I do believe this music is still important to you, but it just doesn't factor as significantly into your own listening as much as it has in the past.

[greg]

I don't get the identity crisis problem because my tastes change very little, only what I listen to may change a lot over time.

I don't listen to music often nowadays, and pretty much no classical music. I've already found the vast majority of my favorite stuff within the genre. So it's always there for whenever I want to listen to it again. And taking many years of a break will only make the relistens better.

[71 dB]

I don't listen to music often nowadays, and pretty much no classical music.

What do you do instead? Watch Netflix? In my case Youtube is robbing A LOT of my time nowadays. 

[71 dB]

I love the music of Debussy, Ravel, Bartók and Stravinsky with all of my heart, but do I care if other people like their music at the end of the day? Nope. People like what they like and I can't make a convincing enough case on my part as to why anyone should check out their music. Obviously, there will be fans of the composers you like somewhere in the world and it's great that we can connect with these people like we do here on GMG, but what is important is not to get caught up where you believe you're at musically and just listen to what your heart/mind tell you. If classical music isn't important to you any longer then it means it doesn't have any kind of relevance in your life and there's a profound reason for that or, at least, this is what I think. As I said in an earlier post, tastes change and it's completely natural to gravitate toward something else, but we're all different and, if anything, the importance of classical in my own life has increased, not decreased. I honestly don't think I could function properly without it. There are certainly times where I'll take a break from classical music and pursue other musical interests, but my main musical interest is classical and I'm not second guessing myself here. I do believe this music is still important to you, but it just doesn't factor as significantly into your own listening as much as it has in the past.

Nothing wrong with Debussy, Ravel, Bartók and Stravinsky. Even I like some of their music. Classical music has still importance in my life, but not nearly as much as it used to. I started noticing years ago how I bought classical CD and then when I got those CDs I listened to them once and put them away not having the desire to listen to it again. Meanwhile a lot of non-classical music got me much more excited and when I bought those CDs I listened to them several times. I started questioning why do I buy classical music at all? However, this is not simple. Sometimes I revisit a classical CD in my collection and I am surprised about how good it sounds (happened to me with a Naxos Telemann disc last year). So, sometimes classical music does serve me well.

[Herman]

I love the music of Debussy, Ravel, Bartók and Stravinsky with all of my heart, but do I care if other people like their music at the end of the day? Nope. People like what they like

Absolutely. Part of my socalled identity is liking and loving things no one else loves.

Maybe it's inimical to GMG, but finding people who love the same things as I do, doesn't really make a difference.

Back when I was a professional (book) critic I could write the occasional review that turned on a lot of readers, and publishers really liked that, which is when I stopped doing that.

[71 dB]

Absolutely. Part of my socalled identity is liking and loving things no one else loves.

Maybe it's inimical to GMG, but finding people who love the same things as I do, doesn't really make a difference.

Back when I was a professional (book) critic I could write the occasional review that turned on a lot of readers, and publishers really liked that, which is when I stopped doing that.

Loving things no one else loves? That's my superpower! 

That's the reason why it has taken me so long to discover my favorite music. Of all my favorite music hardly anything is "recommended" to me. (Pat Metheny being one of the only artists introduced to me by a working pal at work) I have had to figure them out by myself. Oftentimes the music I like might be somewhat popular in some other countries, but not in my country Finland. For a Finn my music taste is REALLY weird. In a country where people listen to metal (most metal bands per capita in the world by far) and if it is classical music it is Sibelius I feel like an alien. I am not even a "hipster" , or at least I don't identify myself as one. I just listen to the music I like regardless of how popular it is. Some of the music I like is "hipster stuff" (e.g. Autechre) while some other music is the complete opposite (e.g. Katy Perry).

In the past I didn't understand at all people have different tastes. Over the years while debating online and reading other people's opinions about things I started to understand we are different and that's okay. There are even theories explaning people's different tastes. Music communicates using musical dimensions (melody, rhythm, harmony, timbre, words, etc.) Music genres use these with differing emphasis. For example in jazz music Harmony and rhythm are dominant dimentsions while other dimensions are supporting or even non-existing. Jazz is harmonically and rhythmically very sophisticated, but jazz doesn't usually go into timbral effects. Fans of jazz music have learned to expect complex harmony and rhythm from music. That's why they probably find music with no complexity on those two dimensions boring and overtly simplistic without realizing other music genres might communicate using other dimensions such as melody or timbre. Popular music uses pretty much all dimensions equally and that's why those dimensions are simple as themselves. All of them together is the complexity. If you want to like jazz AND popular music, you need to teach your brain to listen to both spectrums of musical dimensions: You can't expect the harmonic complexity of jazz from popular music, but when listening to popular music you need to pay some attention to all dimensions, not just on harmony and rhythm or you are missing a lot of things.

This is why some people have so narrow taste in music: They learn to listen to one or two musical dimension spectrums and just find all other music dull and stupid without realizing where the problem really is. Teaching our brain to listen differently allows us of expand out taste. Some people so far as to talk about "healthy musical diet" meaning we should listen to different kind of music to keep our brain able to listen to different genres.

This theory might explain why I have struggled with jazz so much. I have always thought jazz is about MELODY! Why? because of improvisation. In jazz melodies are improvised making them look important, but I never realized the point of jazz is actually the harmony over which the melodies are improvised. As I have studied music theory lately by myself I have a much better grasp of what jazz is about musically. This all might help me to get into jazz better.

[Florestan]

In the past I didn't understand at all people have different tastes. Over the years while debating online and reading other people's opinions about things I started to understand we are different and that's okay. There are even theories explaning people's different tastes. Music communicates using musical dimensions (melody, rhythm, harmony, timbre, words, etc.) Music genres use these with differing emphasis. For example in jazz music Harmony and rhythm are dominant dimentsions while other dimensions are supporting or even non-existing. Jazz is harmonically and rhythmically very sophisticated, but jazz doesn't usually go into timbral effects. Fans of jazz music have learned to expect complex harmony and rhythm from music. That's why they probably find music with no complexity on those two dimensions boring and overtly simplistic without realizing other music genres might communicate using other dimensions such as melody or timbre. Popular music uses pretty much all dimensions equally and that's why those dimensions are simple as themselves. All of them together is the complexity. If you want to like jazz AND popular music, you need to teach your brain to listen to both spectrums of musical dimensions: You can't expect the harmonic complexity of jazz from popular music, but when listening to popular music you need to pay some attention to all dimensions, not just on harmony and rhythm or you are missing a lot of things.

This is why some people have so narrow taste in music: They learn to listen to one or two musical dimension spectrums and just find all other music dull and stupid without realizing where the problem really is. Teaching our brain to listen differently allows us of expand out taste. Some people so far as to talk about "healthy musical diet" meaning we should listen to different kind of music to keep our brain able to listen to different genres.

This theory might explain why I have struggled with jazz so much. I have always thought jazz is about MELODY! Why? because of improvisation. In jazz melodies are improvised making them look important, but I never realized the point of jazz is actually the harmony over which the melodies are improvised. As I have studied music theory lately by myself I have a much better grasp of what jazz is about musically. This all might help me to get into jazz better.

You think too much and over-rationalize even more. Just listen to whatever gives you pleasure and stop thinking about the whys and the hows or about what other people might think about your current preferences. Yiou like what you like, period and it's nobody else's business.

If I may make a joke, what define your identity is these recurrent identity crises. 

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

Well advised, Florestan!   0:)

[71 dB]

You think too much and over-rationalize even more. Just listen to whatever gives you pleasure and stop thinking about the whys and the hows or about what other people might think about your current preferences. Yiou like what you like, period and it's nobody else's business.

If I may make a joke, what define your identity is these recurrent identity crises. 

I am someone who is thinking about all kind of (useless) things. In my youth I didn't think about things related to identity. I didn't have to. Life was simple and coherent because I was ignorant enough to not see the complexities I see now that I have much more life behind me. So much "messy" stuff was happened I can't call life simple and coherent anymore. So, all kind of questions rise... 

Maybe I just am someone who has recurring identity crises as you joke... 

[steve ridgway]

Part of my socalled identity is liking and loving things no one else loves.

There doesn't seem to be much love for the Darmstadt school of classical music; even punk and heavy metal have become fairly widely accepted in the meantime but my classical loving father didn't even know Boulez had written stuff of his own. Although it's the strange and experimental that attracts me more than mere obscurity.

[greg]

What do you do instead? Watch Netflix? In my case Youtube is robbing A LOT of my time nowadays. 

I almost cancelled Netflix but found a few cool things on there lately, including a Sengoku period Japanese history documentary, a barbecue show, and Beastmaster (an obstacle course show).

Youtube has definitely robbed me of plenty of time over the last few years as well, but at the moment my life is every single day split between half of the day making music and the other half playing video games. (also I work at home also while doing either one of them)

I view them both as ambitions, or goals (for example, finishing a very challenging 120+hour game at the moment), but being in that mindset all the time is exhausting so I take an hour before bed to do something that I'm in no rush for. Currently have been watching a few episodes of One Piece before bed each day because it's such a long show that it'll probably take years to finish, so it helps me unwind.