I Am NOT a Music Snob!

Music Snob (def.): A person who can listen to the William Tell Overture by Gioachino Rossini and not think of The Lone Ranger.

Note: For those too young to remember black-and-white television, The Lone Ranger was a popular weekly TV Series starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels.

That is all you had to do to pass Music Appreciation. Listen to the Tell Overture and not shout " Hi Yo Silver". LOL

I like to listen to lots of music, but can't help resenting some. I think that 's what defines the 'snobbery' here: resenting or looking down on some music, rather than having a narrow range of musical taste. I can enjoy country, r 'n b, gammelan, highlife, hungarian folk, French punk and quite heavy metal. But there is some particular kinds of music I can't stand at all, and I don't really know why. The Doors always wind me up and get turned off by me. Celine Dione, the poor lass, also doesn't stand a chance on our radio.

But I'm quite certain about one thing that has been suggested here. It has absolutely nothing to do with old/new, complex/simple, harmonic/rhythmic, loud/quiet, fast/slow preferences. I do acknowledge to have personal preferences, mainly for old, complex, rhythmic, and yes please loud and fast music. It still doesn't explain the resent.

Fashion? Well, Celine could be explained that way, but the Doors are certainly 'hot' or 'cool' with most music lovers.

Perhaps it's some strange case of incidental learning? I once had a professor of learning psychology, who was disgusted by apples, because in his childhood he once had become sick after eating too many of them and then riding a rollercoaster.

This quote is long overdue in this thread -

"We like both types of music - country and western"

Well, music needs lyrics, and good lyrics are (is?) poetry, so without further ado:

"The Sky," by John Wayne

The sky is blue
The grass is green
Get off your butt
And join the Marines!

Just thought I should throw that in here for good measure.

"The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat".

ukulelekarcsi said:

I like to listen to lots of music, but can't help resenting some.

But I'm quite certain about one thing that has been suggested here. It has absolutely nothing to do with old/new, complex/simple, harmonic/rhythmic, loud/quiet, fast/slow preferences. I do acknowledge to have personal preferences, mainly for old, complex, rhythmic, and yes please loud and fast music. It still doesn't explain the resent.

Perhaps it's some strange case of incidental learning? I once had a professor of learning psychology, who was disgusted by apples, because in his childhood he once had become sick after eating too many of them and then riding a rollercoaster.

Click to expand...

Maybe its some strange form of conditioned response. When I was about eight years old I was in my Uncle Johnnies Pear tree, eating in a peach when I was stung in the belly by a bee. I have never liked peaches since. THe funny thing is that I don't have a problem with bees. I get stung occasionally and it is never pleasant. One day I was at the Academy of Natural Science, They have a bee habitat built into the wall of the kids floor. ~ 50,000 bees behind glass, open to the outside. They change the bee colonies out now and again to maintain the health of the bees. They invited me to help and I did. Moved 100,000 aggravated bees that day, No problem.

Let us consider that whipping boy of the musical world: Rap. I know a lot of people, who are tolerant of many kinds of music just can't abide Rap. Me I don't care for much of it; but there is lots of good Rap out there that I do enjoy. Why is it that we are so selective in our dislikes. It is a strange form of conditioned response.

"The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat".

ukulelekarcsi said:

I like to listen to lots of music, but can't help resenting some. I think that 's what defines the 'snobbery' here: resenting or looking down on some music, rather than having a narrow range of musical taste. I can enjoy country, r 'n b, gammelan, highlife, hungarian folk, French punk and quite heavy metal. But there is some particular kinds of music I can't stand at all, and I don't really know why. The Doors always wind me up and get turned off by me. Celine Dione, the poor lass, also doesn't stand a chance on our radio.

Click to expand...

I don't think that's musical snobbery. I look at musical snobbery as not liking a specific genre without giving it a fair chance. You've listened to the Doors and decided that they aren't for you, which is fine. That's a preference based on actual listening experience. I'm the same way with Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd; both of which have been because they played the same couple of "hit" songs on the classic rock radio station I used to listen to, and I got burned out by them. They're excellent groups, but not for me.

Musical snobbery would be me saying "Pfft, Pink Floyd sucks with their trippy crap music" and never have really listened to them. Much like saying a lot of rock/pop music doesn't hold up to jazz.

Taste in music can change so much over time. I remember back in the early 80's being dragged to a Frank Zappa show by one of my college buddies. I was bored to tears as Zappa played mostly instrumentals and very few songs I'd ever heard before. I discovered that very show, nearly in its entirety, on YouTube recently. I watched it and it was freakin' brilliant. Amazing how much better Zappa got, despite being dead, over the 30 or so years in between....

Frank Zappa is a very good example for this thread....he filled his "blank empty space" with notes from every genre...from Country and Western, Pop, Rock, Blues, Rap (before it was invented) all the way to Jazz and Classical - (and even things like percussion experiments similar to Edgard Varese's Ionization)...some of these compositions are quite simple - some incredibly complex - all technically excellent and (in my opinion) all highly enjoyable.

While I don't consider myself a musical snob, there are genres that I enjoy listening to and playing more than others.

The way a melody is harmonised can depend on the person playing the song. When I was learning to play guitar circa 1960, I had just learned a song called Jack O' Diamonds from a Burl Ives songbook. It suited me at the time, because I could play it with two of the three chords that I knew.

(G) Jack O' Diamonds, Jack O' Diamonds,
I've known you of (D7) old, Boys, I've known you of (G) old.
You robbed my pockets, robbed my pockets
Of silver and (D7) gold, Boys, of silver and (G) gold.

One day I went to a coffee house in Hamilton, Ontario to see a fellow named Jackie Washington. He played my song, but he used two chords for every measure. I ran down to Waddington's School Of Music the next day and bought Mickey Baker's yellow and black jazz guitar book and Jackie Washington became my guitar hero.

Jack O' (G) Diamonds, (GMa7) (G6) (GMa7) Jack O' (G) Diamonds, (Am7)(A#m7)(Bm7)
I've known (Bbm7) you of (Am7) old, (Am6) Boys, (Am7) I've (D13b5) known you of (G) old (Bm7)(Bbm7)(Am7)

James Taylor took a simple folk song, Oh Suzannah, and played a simple Travis style 3 chord instrumental version, but when he started singing, he made some more complex chord substitutions. I'm not sure if these are his, but they're a close approximation:

I (A) come from (Bm7) Ala(C#m7)bama (F#m7) with a (A) banjo (F#m7) on my (Bm7) knee (E7)
I'm (A) goin' to (Bm7) Louisi(C#m7)ana (F#m7) My (C#m7) true (Cm7) love (Bm7) for (Bb) to (A)(Ab)(A)
(D) Oh Su(Bm7)zannah(E7) (A) Don't you (F#m7) cry for (Bm7) me (E7)
I (A) come from (Bm7) Ala(C#m7)bama (F#m7) with a (C#m7) ban(Cm7)jo (Bm7) on (Bb)my (A) knee.

You can "jazz up" almost any simple song by substituting more complex chords. Whether it's wise to do it or if it improves or even ruins the song is a matter of taste. I like to keep some songs simple, but sometimes it's fun to make them a little more "swingy".

I recall playing Hey, Good Lookin' using chord substitutions and giving it a Western swing feel and when I'd finished, a Hank lovin' friend, Lance, said, "Jim, of all the tunes to F#$% up with a bunch of jazz chords, why a Hank Williams tune?"

Dare I say it? I don't like jazz. I'm okay with a piece like "Take Five" or "Misty" that has a recognizable melody, but that rambling, noodling stuff is just like nails on a chalkboard to me. I also don't care for rap/hip-hop, EDM or most of what passes for "pop" these days. Does that make me a music snob?

itsme said:

Dare I say it? I don't like jazz.

Click to expand...

Most people don't so you're in the majority. I love jazz and I've met very few people in my face to face life that listen to it. I'm incredibly impressed with the improvisational nature of jazz and the skill of the musician that can successfully pull it off. I went to see a headliner tenor sax player at the Dakota one night and had a table about 6 feet from the stage. He wasn't traveling with a band so he played with a pick up trio. They hadn't played together before the night of the performance. What killed me is that the headliner could just turn to the trio and say that that he wanted something in 4/4 with a bossa nova feel in the key of __ and they would just take off and start playing and would sound great together with each member soloing along the way. Each member had to listen to what the others were playing and had to play accordingly. I guess that's the art of it, what you're hearing is being created in the moment, it's not thought out in advance and rehearsed. (Though that would not hold true of all jazz of course.) I think it's brilliant and I dig it.

Ah yes, the "jazz" question. It's tormented me my whole musical life. I guess the bottom line is, I have to hear something that interests or inspires me in music. Otherwise, I discount it as rubbish. Some jazz improvisation I've heard seems to be OK. It has recognizable elements of melody and harmony that correspond to what I think the music is supposed to sound like. And I say, "Oh, that's nice!" But all too often, the player just seems to go off on a rampage of runs and arpeggiated chords that don't seem to have any beginning or end, and no relationship to the piece of music being played. That leaves me cold. Now, maybe it's me. Maybe the melody and harmony elements are hidden so cleverly in there that I just can't hear them. But, I don't think so. I think the player is just regurgitating a string of jazz licks that happen to be in the right key. And as far as I'm concerned, that's not music. So, am I a snob? If so, so be it.

I don't listen to much jazz but Kinda Blue by Miles Davis is on my "Desert Island" list.

Jim Yates said:

..... You can "jazz up" almost any simple song by substituting more complex chords. Whether it's wise to do it or if it improves or even ruins the song is a matter of taste. I like to keep some songs simple, but sometimes it's fun to make them a little more "swingy"......

Click to expand...

Amen to that! Have been guilty of that and also the reverse - finding a really "busy" version of a tune and simplifying it so I can pick it up quickly.

Peterjens said:

I don't listen to much jazz but Kinda Blue by Miles Davis is on my "Desert Island" list.

Click to expand...

Kind Of Blue was/is a brilliant album, lightning captured in a bottle. Bill Evans' liner notes were perfect in capturing what it was all about:

"There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.

This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.

Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.

As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time,. Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with sure reference to the primary conception.

Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."

CeeJay said:

Also playing jazz tunes on my Kamaka Bari, low g, with Southcoast LL-NW's really helps.I think this was the really important line perhaps ??:biglaugh:

Click to expand...

Ha, I just strung my Favilla bari with those this morning and have been practicing my Christmas songs [some of which are Jazzy]. I love them strings!

ps. I agree with this quote from the duke "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind."

strumsilly said:

ps. I agree with this quote from the duke "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind."

Click to expand...

But that raises the question, who decides what the good music is and what's the other kind?

mikelz777 said:

But that raises the question, who decides what the good music is and what's the other kind?

Click to expand...

That's the beauty of it! We all get to decide for ourselves what we consider good

mikelz777 said:

But that raises the question, who decides what the good music is and what's the other kind?

Click to expand...

Very easy! According to my grandkids, the "other kind" is what I like, and for the most part vice versa.....