Himuro's study: Your music listening habits

[Himuro]

I've been slowly getting into more music and appreciating recently.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up Radiohead's OK Computer. It took me awhile, but I started to get a feel for it. Now when I listen to it, I never get bored and I'm calm. I feel inspired when I listen to that album. No other album has touched me in that way. Ever.

So, instead of using music as only background music when I'm bored, I'm been implementing various music into my daily routine depending on the situation. I find that by doing that, I not only appreciate the music more, but I understand it's "purpose" more.

I'd really like to learn how to appreciate music further so I'm studying and examining varios people's answers. People always say things like,"this and that band changed my life." and such. Before Radiohead I never really comtemplated that and I never really felt music as much as others. It made me feel like a freak, because I didn't have a favorite song or favorite band.

When I ask music heads how they listen to music and how they appreciate it, all they ever do is suggest a bunch of cds. I already have head covered with cd suggestions. Enough with that bs.

How do you listen to music? Depending on the mood? Depending on your actions, so you can have a soundtrack? When I listen to OKC, I am in a thoughtful mood, I'm preparing to go to sleep, and I'm just thinking about life in general. That album reflects my life in more ways than I'd like it to.
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She knows stuff.

[Parallax]

Music is pretty much a 'constant' feature of my existence. If I'm at home, I've always got the computer or a CD player or something playing music, even while I'm in the middle of something you normally wouldn't think I'd listen to music through. (I was listening to music while watching a movie last night, oddly enough...)

In my car, my CD player is always blaring...and when I'm out, I'm always the first one at the jukebox in the corner with a coin already in my hand. I'm basically addicted to music...but what I want to listen to does vary greatly depending on my mood. Generally speaking, the four main genres of music that I listen to are:

Classical Music - Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc.
Rock - Not punk-rock, not emo, not metal, but somewhere in the middle, just rock.
Techno - Of a wide variety of subgroups.
Hip-hop - I'm very picky about artists here...

Generally, if I don't really know what I want to listen to, I'll err towards some sort of rock music. Late at night or anytime when I'm very tired, I tend to listen to techno music. If I'm trying to concentrate on something or I'm working out, I like to listen to classical music. Finally, if I have a lot of energy or often when I'm driving, I like to listen to a very small selection of hip-hop. When I get sick of the very small number (about 3) of artists that I can stand in hip-hop, I go back to listening to rock.

I'd say it'd be pretty hard to say for sure which genre I tend to listen to the most.

[Himuro]

[Buff]

pretty much for me i only listen to hark rock or punk. more into the punk since i like it more. bands like my chemical romance, aiden, atreyu, afi, blink 182, the bled.

[Himuro]

[Krawnik]

Oooh, talking about music? Yes please!

I too, like Parallax, have music going on pretty much no matter what I'm doing. And like you, Himuro, I started out with no clear musical preference, was wooed by an album, and then quickly got to the state where I couldn't get enough. Nowadays I spend a lot of my time researching music, hunting for obscure artists and albums I might like, generally trying to immerse myself in all sorts of music.

The album that smacked me in the face and got me into music in the first place was Abbey Road, by The Beatles. I was like, "!!!!!!!!!" After I devoured that album (still one of my favourites to this day), I went into a Beatles mode, eating up all their albums, watching their movies, reading their history, etc. I sort of wore myself out of them, to the point where I couldn't listen to them for years afterwards, but recently I got the courage to pick up Abbey Road again, and now I take Beatles in healthier doses.

For what I listen to, I try to listen to as much as I can, from as many genres as I can stomach. I do think there's something to be said for nearly every genre, with a few notable exceptions. Let's take a look at some of my favourites!

Rock- Ben Folds (Five), The Go! Team, Gorillaz, The Strokes, The Shins, etc
Hip Hop- MF Doom (and his various pseudonyms), The Roots, Jurassic 5, J Dilla, NWA, Nas, 2Pac, etc
Electronic- Caribou/Manitoba, Ratatat, Nobody, RJD2
R&B/Soul- James Brown, Otis Redding, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Eddie Floyd, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, etc
"Classic" Rock- The Beatles, The Eagles, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, The Kinks
Folk/Country- Blue Rodeo, The Beta Band

So yes, I have made a concentrated effort to collect various musics.

As for what I listen to when, and why, since I listen to music nearly perpetual without special occassion, I listen by mood instead. If I'm bummed, I'll listen to something slower and heavier, some late Beatles, Clapton, Neil Young, Elliot Smith, that stuff. If I want to get pumped up, it's definetly the Go! Team (highly reccomended!), some Gorillaz tracks, maybe a little James Brown. If I just want something to distract my ears while my brain tries to write essays or whatever, I usually fall back on some classical, or electronic, or even some video game music, usually something without lyrics.

So yes, I listen by mood rather than circumstance, since I've always got music on. I just tailor it to suit how I'm feeling. It works so far!
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416- friggin' racists, messing up my generalizations, also stealing my jobs, women.
RIP Ninjalicious

[Himuro]

We share the same taste man.

[Calupict]

[nocturne1337]

i love listening to techno, reggae or classical in the car.


Carmina Burana is really cool to listen while driving in the car!

Music always gets me thinking as well, i start thinking about life and a wole bunch of other crazy nonsense!
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' and then it was like knocking 4 times on the door of unhapieness' excerpt from albert camus's The Stranger

[Krawnik]

Oh, speaking of Last.FM,

http://www.last.fm/user/Krawnik/

And if anyone here hasn't heard of it, Pandora is a good way to find new music.

http://www.pandora.com
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416- friggin' racists, messing up my generalizations, also stealing my jobs, women.
RIP Ninjalicious

[Yvl]

Ever since I first started getting into music, I realized how it affects me. I remember I was listening to "Last Resort" by Papa Roach while playing Armored Core: Project Phantasma. There was one enemy I couldn't beat, and was really stuck on that enemy, and then that song came on, and it really pumped me up, and improved my reflexes and found myself hacking at my opponent to the beat of the song, and beat him by the end of the song.

By now I listen almost exclusively to Japanese music, as I really can't find enough decent american artists to hold my interest. The things Do As Infinity do can almost always calm me... and I've managed to imprint the momory of the beach onto her songs by listening to them at the beach, so now I get immensely relaxed whenever I hear her songs... especially "Raven."
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[nocturne1337]

i never found out whats so gooda bout japenses music i tohught it was even more convulted than our market... :?

considering tis all about pop there and thats the bif seller over there

any artists you could recommend to start me out on japense music?
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' and then it was like knocking 4 times on the door of unhapieness' excerpt from albert camus's The Stranger

[Marshmallow]

Music is a very interesting thing; it's a pity that I wasn't into it at all when I was younger. I tend to be a very auditory person though, so something heard can be more inspiring or moving to me than, say, something seen or something 'done'.

When it comes to musical tastes, I can't really say I have a specific one, I'll listen to anything as long as I find it pleasing to the ear. Genre wise, I like Power Metal a lot because it has an epic sound to it that I enjoy. I've always been a fan of videogame music as well, so I buy a lot of OSTs and listen to them on a semi-regular basis. I've also been getting into some older music more recently, I assume most of it could be considered folk music?

Anyway, bands by genre:

Power Metal: Blind Guardian (my favorite band), Dragonforce, Rhapsody
Prog Metal: Ayreon, Devin Townsend (at least I classify Synchestra as progressive. I might be wrong, though.)
Folk (Or just general 'old' music. Old is used subjectively here): Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Neil Young
Videogame Music: Composer-wise, I really like Yasunori Mitsuda

A few of my friends are really into Indie Rock. I don't really understand it, but according to them, the bands Architecture in Helsinki and The Decemberists both fall under the Indie category, and I like both of them, so whatever.

As far as music I won't listen to, I absolutely despise most rap and all country music. Why? I don't like the subject matter. Though if I had a choice I'd rather listen to rap, because at least then I can have fun making fun of the artists. Country makes fun of itself.

Lastly, Techno. Techno is, . . . interesting. I went to a friend's place once, and he put on some techno music, then synched his TV up with his computer and put a music visualization program on there. I sat there mesmerized for hours. Having never done drugs of any sort, I can only imagine, but if I had to take a guess, I'd say that's what tripping on acid is like . . . :shock:

[Arcana]

Japanese pop composers tend to use more melodic motives that are developed through the course of the song compared to American pop composers. The structure in Japanese pop music is usually a bit more varied than American pop music, as well. This is evident in a lot of JRock and Japanese electronica.

Electronica is usually mislabelled as "techno". Techno is a certain style of electronica. Electronica is generally "music made with electronic music" although it tends to sway toward music that use synthesized waveforms and have a mostly-static beat (so, for example, your NES chiptunes, although electronically-generated, are not considered electronica).

A good way to learn more about music is to not only listen to it, but to study a little bit of the theory and the materials behind it. It's much nicer to listen to music when you consider the harmonies that someone inserts into a song, or if you listen closely to the pads, or if you keep an ear out for the kind of atmosphere the song has. If you're familiar with music production, then you can listen for things like effects usage, even on classical and rock songs.

Another good thing to do is to get a textbook about musical history. Music history is actually a very young field; only as recently as the 1700's has music been thoroughly examined, but much of the framework of pop music is based on classical techniques developed hundreds of years ago. A music appreciation study is quite enlightening and I learned an immense amount by actually doing a course; it involved listening to songs from different eras and identifying certain characteristics of song, such as the structure, or the harmony style, or the polytony of the song and matching it with the era in which it was dominant. We also had the opportunity to hear some people play. Unfortunately I never got to its sister course, which studies vocal and choral music.

With digital technology, I believe there's been a pretty strong renewal in music interests. In addition to people listening to more music (thanks in part due to rampart music piracy), many are beginning to compose their own tunes as well purely for fun and distributing them online.

Like Yvl, I listen to a lot of Japanese music. I don't usually listen to vocal tracks because I like to study or work when listening to music, and I find that vocals actually distract me. For this reason, I tend to purposely acquire a certain amount of repetitive electronica alongside my more dynamic, emotional New Age and Rock stuff.

A few of my favourite composers/bands are

Yuki Kajiura
Noriyuki Iwadare
Motoi Sakuraba
The Crystal Method

Some of my favourite amateur artists are

SGX
GrayLightning
Sir Nuts
bLinD
Noir (Eric Barker)
Zircon

A really good performer from the VG remixing community is pixietricks.

That's all, for now. :)
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Woo, 2000 posts as of Tuesday, 2007 August 28.

[Vincent Chase]

Great pickup on The Bends there, Himuro. It's my favorite Radiohead CD (better than Ok Computer), with all of my favorite Radiohead songs on it.

I passed up a chance to see them in Toronto June 8th and seriously wished I didn't (despite the fact that the last time I saw them I didn't come off impresed). A show is still a show, after all.

Well, I'm retarded in the sense that I can't listen to music at all times (Because thinking he's taking you one way and taking you in the opposite direction is Ice's job...). I don't have an MP3 player or a Portable CD player. I only have 120 or so songs on my computer, but plan to get a new one later this year and torrent the hell out of everything.

However, when I'm behind my desk, music is always going, be it a CD or Mp3. I also always listen to CDs and radio when I'm driving. Other than that, I enjoy the soothing sounds or the people and things I'm surrounded by.

Classic Rock - Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Who, April Wine, The Talking Heads, Neil Young, David Bowie, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rush, James Brown, Pink Floyd
80's, 90's and 'New' Rock - U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Oasis, Green Day, Radiohead, Incubus, Depeche Mode, The Killers, AFI, New Order, Audioslave, Lenny Kravitz, Third Eye Blind, Weezer, Blur, Rage Against the Machine, Goldfinger, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam
Hip Hop - The Wu Tang Clan, Nas, Snoop Dogg, Notorious BIG, Jedi Mind Tricks, Dr. Dre, Mos Def, 7L, Esoteric, Talib Kweli, NERD (The Neptunes), Eminem, Non Phixion, Kanye West, Common

Unclassifiable - The Dandy Warhols, Tool, Joy Division, The Beastie Boys, Gorillaz

My current spins are Dandy Warhols - Odditorium or Warlords of Mars and Everclear - So Much for the Afterglow.

You know what I find? No matter how lame I think a band is, They all usually have at least 1-2 songs that I like. Take Sum 41 for instance, from Ajax (about twenty minutes from where I was raised). I don't consider them metal at all, no matter how hard they try, and generally dislike all of their singles, except for Some Say. It's weird how that happens sometimes. I've also been on a pretty good Brit-Rock kick lately. The Queen's English might not be better, but her music sure seems to be.