Just a random thought I had:

What makes us like the music that we like?

Nobody has ever forced me to listen to certain types of music or forbid me from listening to other types, so there has been no "conditioning" for my musical tastes. I tend to dislike classical music, polka, opera and rap. I tend to like classic rock, country, blues and house/trance music. I have never made a conscience effort to like or dislike any song or musical genre. I just like and dislike stuff for no apparent reason.

Most people have some predilection to one kind of music or another.

Inasmuch as we like music at all, I suppose that music appreciation is partly genetically determined. However, it seems a bit much to say that liking certain genres of music is genetically determined, because usually the genres are defined by marketing and not by a set of physical characteristics of the sound that might stimulate some reaction in a human being.

For instance, I like classical music in general, but I think that Tschaikovsky's music sounds like it was composed by some mincing retard. (This puts me at odds with many people...)

I generally find that a person will have a preference for the music that they used to listen to as a kid - if you grew up in the 1980's, then the music of that period will likely have a special meaning for you, even if it isn't technically superior to the music of the periods before or after it.

Also, appreciation for certain styles of music will often confer other predispositions - fusion jazz fans, for instance, will often criticize mainstream music as being boring and unoriginal, and will seek music where the greatest attempts at free expression are made. Fans of Bach, on the other hand, may have a foregoing preference for music that showcases the kind of technical precision that old Johann Seb used to write with.

Whether these preferences are taught by early experience or inherited as physical properties of genetic expression is not something that I can readily analyze, but I would guess that it's about early experience if I had to make a choice.

Acid Cowboy:
What makes us like the music that we like?

I doubt it's genetic, more an expression of values and worldview - aesthetics, in short.

For instance, you can't lump "classical" into one undifferentiated mass. I love Bach. Saint-Saens annoys me to no end. But both are classical. Why one and not the other? It's the precision and creative discipline of Bach that attracts me, wheras Saint Saens sounds to me like...nothing.

The frontman of the black metal band Bathory dedicates an album to the classical musician Richard Wagner and freely aknowledges the influence of Romantic composers such as Beethovan and Wagner. The result is that much black and heavy metal music sounds like classical romantic music.

Note how people group themselves by what music they listen to. While this is indicative of how alienated modern culture has become from its tribal roots, the choice of music is telling.

"Stoner" music generally sounds like something one would get high to, dischordant and not very structured. Ambient - good ambient - is a sort of structured background noise quite suitable for intellectual contemplation and is rather popular among scientists and engineers (as is Bach). Metal is favoured by those with a sense of exclusion, suffering and death, as well as a longing for heroic action and power - hence the emphasis on sagas and warfare. Industrial music tends to attract those who feel intensely the decay and futility of a world whose glorious technological wonders are not living up to promise.

Why? We like music because of how it makes us feel, what parts of ourselves are revealed and nurtured by it. Why a person wants to feel a certain way is a matter of psychology and not so much of genetics.

On what you said about conscious effort -
You'll notice that even those who try to like a genre will end up picking from that genre music that sounds like whatever they're used to. "I don't know music, but I know what I like"

i think that a lot of music can be based on alteration of generations. notice many kids do not like the same kind of music that appeals to their parents? and every decade a new style of music emerges, sometimes warped from its predecessor, sometimes not. :m:

Acid Cowboy
ask the same question about language and there is your answer
an easy one realy!

hotsexyangelprincess:
i think that a lot of music can be based on alteration of generations. notice many kids do not like the same kind of music that appeals to their parents?

Not really - pop music stays more or less the same.

it seems doubtful but my mom caught me humming some opera and told me my dad has been to that opera a thousand times and knows it all by heart. apparently he knows a lot of opera by heart and i had no idea. there seem to be a lot of things i do/like that i later find out some family member also does/likes.

I think it depends on intelligence, attention span, and taste in particular paatterns. For example, when I was a boy I listened to simplistic radio music (pop, rap, etc) mostly because that's all I was exposed to. Over time I realized these forms were hardly of the melodic variety I was searching for. I needed something more expressive. As I grew up I got more into metal, and finally classical. It did require transitions. At a young age classical was too chaotic to follow, and I needed to first go through to rock, metal, and simple keyboarding to suddenly understand. Soon it became natural to fall in love with classical.

i think that a lot of music can be based on alteration of generations. notice many kids do not like the same kind of music that appeals to their parents?

But that is not always the case, and sometimes kids intentionally do things to irritate their parents. When I was in junior high school, I listened to a lot of rap music. There were rap songs I truly liked, but I also got a kick out of blasting music that my parents found so irritating and worthless.

i have thought about topics like this befor and i have always came up with it is what type of persanlty you have( there is about 11). so i then ponder is personality devloped how you were raised (punshment/gifts/yelling...ect) or is that gentic also or is it half and half to a sertain point??? gentecs can only decid some what and hwo you were raised, was influenced....ect :bugeye:

Mincing retard:
For instance, I like classical music in general, but I think that Tschaikovsky's music sounds like it was composed by some mincing retard. (This puts me at odds with many people...)



:: slap::
How dare you?


On topic:

Cooking is more or less universal in the human species...but its buttfucking stupid to say there's a cooking gene.

Color vision is the prized possession among a small few in the animal kingdom, but becuase canines and bovines lack retinal cones....can we say color does not exist?

Meaning; its ludicrous to rely too much on the premise of evolutionary psychology, in that we are genetically predisposed to do so much. Its the communal vs. individualistic feeling that music does to one that fashions out, case by case, likes and dislikes.

Try to relate this with why music tastes can change.......
I used to like pop, then some rocks, then combo of em, but now, I'm into instrumentals.

I always generally agreed with the stuff about music being the language of emotion etc. Hence the rough links between what you listen to and how you feel at that time.
As for tastes changing, it is partly due to need for newness and novelty.

It seems to me that weather I like music is just weather the patterns are not new to me at all and if the total sound is associated with something that I like.

pop music is called pop music because it is popular in nature--a huge mass of people (for some reason) like the same style of music. whether this be a peer-related reason or a true reason, i don't really know.

-->i am a musician that studies music theory, and the majority of pop music has the chord movement that the ear "naturally prefers." even certain chords are "preferable" to others, so it could be a biological factor whether or not one likes dissonance. however, it's not biological entirely.

personally, i enjoy bach and jazz music because i like dissonance.

hastein:
I think it depends on intelligence, attention span, and taste in particular paatterns. For example, when I was a boy I listened to simplistic radio music (pop, rap, etc) mostly because that's all I was exposed to. Over time I realized these forms were hardly of the melodic variety I was searching for. I needed something more expressive. As I grew up I got more into metal, and finally classical. It did require transitions. At a young age classical was too chaotic to follow, and I needed to first go through to rock, metal, and simple keyboarding to suddenly understand. Soon it became natural to fall in love with classical.
i totally agree with you. although some preferences may be more dominant, i think that they are subject to change. many people like simple music because it's "easier" for them to listen to--less expression is better sometimes for some people (when they think that music is more so entertainment rather than art). which is perfectly fine. but for people that thirst for music in its art form, the expression part becomes more necessary. thus, someone will find new means. this is when we search for music that we personally can connect with, regardless of what we're looking for.