Can You Learn To Like Music You Don’t?

Can you learn to like music you hate?  Research suggests you can.  But I’m a skeptic.  Country music?  NEVER.  And I’m a country boy (of sorts), having grown up in Arkansas and having spent summers and my college days in rural NW Arkansas.  The truth is, I probably could learn to like music I hate if I tried.   According to a research study, people react negatively to certain kinds of unfamiliar music.  They may not recognize a particular chord structure in the music and simply can’t hear and process it.  Researchers argue that it’s like encountering a foreign language for the first time. In the study, subjects with no musical background took a crash course on music theory and then listened again to music they had previously rejected.  On the balance, the “trained” subjects were better able to process dissonant chords.  Now this doesn’t mean they loved the music, but they apparently understood it better which is the first step toward acceptance.

This brings me to an interesting question:  how does one acquire musical taste?  Need one be a musician to enjoy a diverse palate of music? I submit that it helps, but is not a requirement.  Think of the language acquisition analogy.  Children consistently exposed to rich inputs of multiple languages in the home or school stand a much better chance of acquiring the languages (and without an accent) than children from monolingual backgrounds.

I can trace my own musical tastes to early exposure.  Jazz.  My dad used to come home from work and play jazz records – Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck were two artists I remember.  I didn’t really like the music much as a 6 year old, but I liked my dad.  I wouldn’t begin to listen to jazz in earnest until my late teens, but my dad paved the way.  Same is true of classical music.  I didn’t like it much growing up, but it was around me all the time.  My mother was a musician and music educator – still is.  She sang in church choirs and chamber orchestras. And she played the piano, as did my sister.  They played a lot of classical music.  As a kid, I took piano lessons from a  world class bell choir instructor and arranger and church organist.  This lasted about a year because my older sister, who also took lessons, was a much better keyboardist than I – plus I didn’t like being compared to her, or to practice.  The only thing I can play on the piano today is “Strangers in the Night” (with my right hand) and I learned that by myself before I began taking piano lessons.  I daydreamed and doodled a lot during church services as a kid, but when the church organist played, often Bach, the music dramatically soared out of hundreds of pipes and caught my attention.  I didn’t begin to seriously listen to and buy classical music until my 30’s, which was right around the time the CD was starting to compete with and overtake vinyl.

Commercial radio, the Midnight Special and American Bandstand probably influenced my tastes the most as a kid.  I worked throwing a paper route and mowing lawns to feed my thirst for records – 45’s, and LP’s.  One of my first 45’s was Stevie Wonder’s “You are the Sunshine of My Life” and one of my first albums was his landmark Innervisions, which ranks up there as one of my favorite LPs.   My dad turned me onto Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake in my mid-teens.  I felt some liberation from commercial radio when my sister brought home a Jeff Beck album, Blow by Blow.  And that led to my interest in jazz rock fusion, back to Miles and on to Weather Report and Herbie Hancock.  I discovered a lot of music on my own, often quite randomly; sometimes I bought an album of an unknown (to me) artist for the cover art or photography.  This is how I stumbled across the music of the Pat Metheny Group below:

I often joke that I have musical genes but no gift.  I may have an ear for music, but apart from some piano lessons at age 7, no formal training.  I owe my ability to appreciate and understand jazz and classical music to early and constant exposure.  I am proof that an average person can learn to like music that he previously rejected. But this process takes time, in my case, it took years.  Will I ever learn to love country and folk, rap and heavy metal?  Probably not due to the lack of early and consistent exposure; respect yes, love…love is such a strong word.

Here’s another self-indulgent look at the influences on my musical tastes:

• Rock, Pop and R&B – Commercial radio, the Midnight Special, American Bandstand, Soul Train, friends, record stores and album covers
• Jazz – my dad, my sister, Guitar Player magazine (the John McGlaughlin edition), KUAF, and a Miles record
• Alternative and Punk – MTV, KUAF and KRFA DJ M.A.
• Classical – my mom, ML Thompson, church organists, music appreciation class in college (an easy A),  Menotti’s Amhal and the Night Visitors and Star Trek
• Blues – Muddy Waters with Eric Clapton one night in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
• Industrial, Ambient, Minimalist and Odd Sounds – the drone of the industrial strength fan on a hot day in elementary school, church organists, WZBC and the laundry room at home where I used to chill and listen to the washer and dryer.

Related articles

• Can You Learn To Like Music You Hate? : Deceptive Cadence : NPR (npr.org)
• Records of My Life

Accidental Music

When I was a sophomore in college back in the early 80’s , I serendipitously discovered the music of Pat Metheny. I was looking through a stack of used albums at a local record store when I came across a album cover with a bunch of glistening airstream RV trailers photographed against a blue sky. I didn’t even notice the name of the band or the album title at first.  I was trying to imagine what music represented by an airstream might sound like.  I was intrigued, so I checked out the name of the band – the Pat Metheny Group.  Never head of them.  American Garage was the name of the album. I almost put it back in the bin, but decided to flip over the album, expecting to find references to folk or country music – maybe a fiddle player or a picture of a mandolin or a banjo trio. Quite the contrary.  The photo on the back cover revealed some young guys in a greasy garage jamming.  I knew it wasn’t a country band because the guitarist was playing a hollow body Ibanez jazz guitar.  Hoping I had found a gem, I bought the album; I’ve been playing it ever since.  A true gem!

To check out samples of the rest LP,  follow this link: American Garage.  To check out more Pat Metheny music, go to the Pat Metheny Group website.

Better Days Ahead

He’s not from a town called Hope but he inspires hope.  He inspired millions of Americans to participate in democracy for the first time.  He inspired millions to stand in long lines for hours to cast a vote, even in states like Massachusetts that were never in play.  Young and old, of all backgrounds united for a better future.  Si, Se Puede, y Qui, Nous Pouvons and we did!  President-elect Barack Obama!!  Finally, Better Days Ahead, a musical idea by The Pat Metheny Group I’d like to promote to replace the tired expression, Country First, which is a far better song than slogan.  Tap on the links and sample both!

What a brilliant campaign!  Competitive in all states, forcing McCain to spend money in his home state and in other previously reliable Red States just to stay viable.  McCain’s largest margins of victory came in the following states:   Oklahoma – 65.6%; Wyoming – 65.2%; Utah – 62.9%; Idaho and Alaska – 61.5%; Alabama – 60.4%; Arkansas – 58.8%; Louisiana – 58.6%; Kentucky – 57.5% and Nebraska – 57.3%.  Arizona did not break the top 10.

I hope the anti-Obama voter gives him a fair shake to show he is the President of all the people, not just residents of the United Blue States of America.  I am confident that his policies and leadership will bring about positive change here and abroad.  I am convinced better days are ahead.  Now is the time for all to get behind our President-elect.  Divided we fail and fall.