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.

[corenfa]

I started this thread because I didn't like opera- since then, I've figured out that what I don't like is a certain style of singing which is commonly found in opera. I'm an ignoramus when it comes to styles of singing, but it's pretty much anything with extremely wide wobbly vibrato (whether high or low voice) or anything shrieky. I've just discovered Maria Ewing, and I didn't know opera could sound like that.

[Tenor Viol]

I started this thread because I didn't like opera- since then, I've figured out that what I don't like is a certain style of singing which is commonly found in opera. I'm an ignoramus when it comes to styles of singing, but it's pretty much anything with extremely wide wobbly vibrato (whether high or low voice) or anything shrieky. I've just discovered Maria Ewing, and I didn't know opera could sound like that.

I like some opera, but not all. I think changing musical tastes with regard to the use of vibrato is core here. I was used to hearing cathedral choirs where the boy trebles take the soprano lines: they do not use vibrato. One of the worst effetcs of C19th excess was the promotion of vibrato from something used occasionally as a form of decoration, to something that was used continuously, especially by operatic sopranos. It is thus at its zenith when operas by composers such as Verdi and Puccini are writing.

Thankfully, the last 40 years or so have seen recognition that over-use of vibrato is certainly wrong for the operas of say Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Donizetti etc and should be used more sparingly in general. Singers such as Emma Kirby were early exponents of this revised style and it's so much more pleasant to listen to.

Vibrato has its place - it can warm a long note and it can assist with projection, but used continuously it is objectionable. I am firmly of the opinion that many people's dislike of opera stems from that one item.