Music you "ought to" like but just aren't that into, .. help me like it? Options

[corenfa]

I'm not trying to start a "[genre1] is better than genre2]" holy war here. This was prompted by having Radio 3 on this morning and an opera programme came on. My instinct was to change the channel, but I didn't - it was about how many operas end with the female soloist dying, and the reasons for this. It was really interesting.

(This also isn't meant to slag off any genre in particular - just because I don't like it stuff doesn't mean I think it ought not to exist)

It was the initial instinct to change the channel that made me think of this. I have had the opportunity to listen to lots of opera, having been a music student, but I just don't really like it. Musically it does not do much for me.

I think I ought to like it, though, because it's a pretty important genre in Western musical history. It might be that I am listening with the wrong emphasis or I just don't get it or I don't know enough about it to get it. I *appreciate* it, but I don't really like it.

Anyone got any ideas for how to approach music like this? Anyone got any other similar experiences?

I also feel as though I ought to know a bit more about Chinese music as those are supposedly my roots, but it doesn't do anything for me either.

Lastly it's also occurred to me that maybe no matter how much I intellectualise about opera or Chinese traditional music, I'll never like either, the same way I keep trying booze (see the alcohol thread (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ) and just don't like the taste. That would be OK too, but I feel as though I ought to think about it a bit more (music, not booze (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ) before writing it off altogether.

[TSax]

I wonder if it's something to do with the "journey" thing?

To be honest, I don't listen to a lot of classical music, not because I don't like it but because of the limited time available and the wealth of great music out there.

I do listen to a lot of jazz. When I first started to get into it I was fairly non-discriminatory about what I tried to listen to. So, for example, I bought John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" because it was such an important recording. But I didn't get it at all. Then, quite a few years later, I listened to it again and I understood what all the fuss was about, but I needed the intervening years of listening and experience to get to that point.

My dad sort of likes jazz. I think he'd like to like it more. In the days of theJazz digital radio station I bought him a digital radio as a birthday present and he ended up listening to theJazz for an hour or so every day, and it was perfect for him because it was a mix of the sort of stuff he already enjoyed - big band, swing, Ella Fitzgerald with the occasional more challenging piece thrown in. Taking some advice he'd given me many years earlier ("If you're not sure what to buy someone, buy them something you'd like yourself"), for a more recent present I bought him a boxed set of DVDs - Ken Burns Jazz. It's a history of jazz, and if that's the sort of thing you're into quite fascinating, for the social history as much as the musical. He'd never really enjoyed bebop much before, but he said that after watching the episode about bebop he started to understand it and could appreciate and enjoy it much more than he had.

So, in rather a long-winded fashion, I wonder if you've tried to arrive at the destination "opera" without doing the journey you need to really appreciate it.

[Arundodonuts]

I wonder if it's something to do with the "journey" thing?......

.....So, in rather a long-winded fashion, I wonder if you've tried to arrive at the destination "opera" without doing the journey you need to really appreciate it.

I think you make a great point TSax. I always reckoned one type of music I would never appreciate was Country and Western. Then (for some reason I can't recall) I read a wonderful book called "In the Country of Country" which describes the history of Country music and its social context. That and putting together the links from Irish, Scots, English folk and Bluegrass and Blues, suddenly made the music so much more than white, trailer park trash fodder.

I still don't get A Love Supreme though.