Laurence Sherwood <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Do people on this List have experience with this question?  Are people
>whose musical tastes are formed by "rock" or whatever musical perversion
>predominates in their formative milieu able to make the transistion to
>CM as adults?

I'm in my early 30s, and so far at this age I would agree with Laurence's
hypothesis.  I haven't met anyone yet "coming" to CM, even in college, who
didn't already have some kind of early appreciation in their early years.
I think that part of the reason for this is that for whatever music we
listen to and like, we internalize it and it becomes part of our subjective
conciousness, that is, part of the mentality with which we perceive the
world.  Consequently, committing oneself to listening to a different type
of music in some sense is tantamount to making a personality change!  What
I am describing is extreme, but I'll offer myself as an example of what
I'm talking about:

I casually played the violin and only listened to classical music until
the age of 14, when I fell in love with heavy metal music.  I liked the
heavy, solid beat, the pseudo-screaming, all that stuff that just sounded
"hard" and solid yet melodic at the same time.  For a teenager searching
for absolutes in life, I felt like that here was one answer, and a pretty
direct one at that.  However, in my 20s two important things happened: 1)
I made a couple of friends who had a deep and broad interest in classical
music and historical recordings, and 2) I got a new violin teacher.
Together, they opened my mind to the nuances of clasical music.  My teacher
taught me to listen, and my friends gave me a foundation for taste (in my
opinon, anyway:).  It was an arduous and tortuous journey, and it all
involved changing my "rock" mentality.  My very first classical purchase
during this period was a Teldec CD of Mengelberg conducting the BSO in
Tchaikovsky's 5th.  I listened to it 5 times, and still couldn't understand
it or appreciate it.  My friend who talked me into the purchase said,
"listen to it five more times." On the 8th try I got it, or began to get
it-- the lilt, the runs crescendoing into climaxes, the stunning interplay
between instruments.  Now, years later, I still like rock, but now it
sounds very incomplete to me.  I miss the complex developments I hear in
CM, the fine art of phrasing that special CM artists can bring out.  And
the nostalgia that familiar rock songs invoke also remind me of a kind of
numbness that I must have lived with as well.  So now if I'm station surfing
and hear an "80s flashback," I might listen to it, but I might just as
well not.  I appreciate my awareness now, and listening to that heavy metal
draws me into another stream of conciousness that I don't have much use
for.

However, having said all this, I'd be careful of referring to pop, rock,
or even heavy metal as a "musical perversion." In a way that's an unfair
judgement of the people who still listen and appreciate that kind of music.
It may have not done much for me, but I'm only one case.  One of the
intellectually smartest people I personally know listens only to 80s dance
music.  Another friend, a very rational fellow who's sensitive enough to
write good poetry, only listens to rock, and most of it from one band.  If
these people are decent individuals (and they are, as I know) and assets
to our society, then I'd be reluctant to refer to their tastes as being
musically perverted.

hector aguilar