Music, A Difficult Mistress?

Many years ago i did an Arts foundation course for the OU and before that a primer called "Living Arts - Music",and "Living Arts - Words". These could be done over any period to hone your skills or brush up what you have forgotten before the main course, and i just found them again. So i will see if they will sell at the stall.It's all complete,book and tape in blue folder and red folder fo each volume at the dead cheap price of £2 each. As one famous antiques personality would sau "CHEAP AS CHIPS".

It is a dictum that enjoying music and understanding it are separate issues.Most people enjoy music whithout a real understanding of it,and hence when something more challenging or difficult comes along they do not make the effort to understand. I find it is always good to listen to something challlenging quite a few times before i decide if its something i enjoy. Trouble is people these days want instant gratification and when confronted with something difficult they don't want to know. So as for the new Scott Walker CD or vinyl(if "Tilt" is anything to go by) i wonder how many boomerangs are attached to each copy of it when people buy it in the vain hope that it will sound something like the early Scot 1 to 4.

Liking or understanding music is a very subjective area,and primarily in the types of music i listen to,it depends on the commitment that is put in to it in getting to know the music. Time is limited in our lives and we do not always have the luxury to really get into a piece of music. That is why,pop music per se ,is so so popular ,and generaly so vacuous, as it requires less involvement than opera,avant-garde clasical,musique concrete, or free improv.

I must admit that opera is something of a grey area for me,despite having some opera in my collection,it does take time to get into it,and i do find myself listening to other things instead. I probably have listened to the whole of "Nixon In China" by John Adams less than something like Wilco's "A Ghost is Born". Not a fair comparison really as i do have the Wilco loaded on my MP3 player,not John Adams.

Also, do we really need to enjoy music to like it?Is some music there simply to provoke us or make us think about the concepts of music and noise (eg. speed metal.death metal.the sonic onslaught of Tony Conrad) and the Cagean notion that any noise can be music?

Whatever your take is on the MP3 player or iPods,it gets you listening to ot of music in placeswhere taking a bunch of CD' difficult or plain silly.

Perhaps that is where we can gain more time listening to the interesting difficult stuff. If i loaded the John Adams onto the MP3 player (and as its sung in English,not French ,Italian or German) i can get to really appreciate this most modern of operas.

In some ways the MP3 player could be the saviour of classical music.

It is strange that just finding these two items from the OU prompted me to think again about why i go for such a diverse and eclectic choice of music, and that one day i might listen to Pli Selon Pli by Pierre Boulez and tracks from the Deep Ska box set the next day. Different music for different moods,perhaps? Also relevant,and i guess more important, is the effort put in actual listening and understanding of the music.
Or is it that ska or reggae requires differnt sense data to that of opera. You can dance to Ska (me,rather badly) but not really to opera.

I feel this debate could go on and on ,but i do welcome any comments and thoughts,suggestions,whatever. If the response is good i will come back to it.