How to music ? Serious question.
 

Hello,

I come to you with a weird question. Despite being 34 years old, I own not a single casette, CD, or (music) MP3. I know no band names, nor song names, other than what I hear on the news for some reason. Everyone in my family is the same, pretty much.

Now, I don't hate music. I just never really got into it. In our home, we didn't listen to music, nor talk about it, and as weird as it sounds, I just have no sense for music. Often, friends have put on their CDs for me and made me listen to this or that song, but it's all just noise to me. It doesn't touch me in any way. We are also all incredibly music-retarded: we can't even tap in synch with a song on the radio.

Time to end that. I'd like to, uh, 'get into' music, and I'm looking for advice. I've been listening to the radio for the past year or so, ("the best from the 80s, 90s and today!"), and I guess that's alright. What would you recommend ?

I'm not so much looking for band or song advice, but for listening advice, I guess. Do you sit down and do nothing while listening to a new album for the first time ? Do you just queue it up and listen to it in the background ? How do you find music you like ?

I was also hoping to get into music while running/jogging, but I suppose you'd look for songs with the same BPM for something like that. How on Earth would one go about finding that ?

As you can see, I'm quite lost, and looking for some guidance that goes beyond "Listen to this band, dude, it's the best!"

That's sad! My whole family is interested in music, to varying degrees.
You should find out what you like first, and look for music in that particular style. Go through various genres, and see which one you like best. Music discovery will be easier if you download Spotify.
Good luck, and welcome to the forums! :)

I rarely sit and do nothing while listening to music. It's something I listen to while doing other things in order to help me focus or to inspire me or to entertain me if I'm doing something dull. I listen while I'm driving, while I'm working, while I'm exercising, while I'm walking, while I'm doing chores, while I'm writing, etc.

You're overthinking this. Just put on music that you enjoy, that pumps you up or that you can get lost in. It's not science, there's no need to match the BPM to the activity. When I used to run I'd listen to pretty mellow music actually because it helped me drift outside of the physical sensations.

I was sort of the same until I discovered the wealth of music out there. So many different genres that I sometimes despair over the fact that I probably wouldn't have heard a quarter of the music I might enjoy by the time I die.

But yeah, I used to just listen to one dumb indie band that sucks and never listened to anything else, and then I discovered Industrial music, and was shocked at how different music could be than the Top 40. I'll usually be on the computer while listening to music, but it's nice to have on while cleaning around the house and doing coursework.

I'd like to recommend to you our members' journals section. Here you'll find a varied mix of individuals all writing about what they like and more importantly why they like it. There are samples usually too, though that's not as important as perhaps tapping into a small idea of how people get into music, what it does for them and why, in many cases (including mine) they could not live without it.

I'd recommend Unknown Soldier's "Pounding Decibels" for getting a sense of hard rock and heavy metal, Anteater's for progressive rock, AOR (Album/Adult-Oriented Rock) and smooth jazz, Janszoon's award-winning "25 albums you must hear" for, well, just really out-there stuff and, well, you'll see when you get there. But it will give you an idea both of why music is so important to most people here, and also what they like and why they like it.

Music is different to everyone. Everyone has different taste in music. Even when it seems like you have met someone who has the same interest as you do, theres something they like that you dont.

I dont know how to direct you into a right category, i have never met someone who hasnt had music in their life at some point. Personally i would suggest that you should just look around this forum, listen to a little bit of everything that you come across and eventually you will find something that gets your heart going.

Everyone here seems really nice, im new too just signed up a couple days ago, and im having a blast here. Every one seems to be very knowledgeable and dont mind answering any questions that you might have.

So just look around!

Well then the world is your oyster. You can listen to anything you want: Jazz Art music, Folk, Rock n Roll etc. There is so much out there it is impossible to listen to it all, comprehend it all, but at the same time it is impossible not to find something you'll like.

"What to Listen For in Music" by Aaron Copland is a good read. It outlines basically a common sense approach to listening to music. Nothing in it is too difficult to understand.

That's great to hear, welcome to the forum! We are generally an approachable community here. If you like Electronica then check out my dubstep thread for some decent recommendations, as well as the recommendation threads on all the genres you're interested in! :)

Thank you, i kinda dig Dub step, i havent listened to a wide verity of it, i'll look into your thread Vanilla!

Understand what the artist is trying to say with the song, if there is a meaning. If not, I don't know what to say.

Anytime I listen to an album I've never heard before- new or old - I try to give it my undivided attention. That may not be the first time I'm listening to it -depending on my mood- but within the first 3 spins. After that, I feel comfortable listening to the album while surfing the web, working or driving.

You might try All Music Guide - AllMusic : Music Search, Recommendations, Videos and Reviews - and exploring by genre, mood or theme before picking an artist to check out.

I got just the song 4 U its a great start off band


[HD] Gorgoroth - Carving a Giant (uncensored) [HD] - YouTube

$10 bucks says this guy doesn't come back and get all the wonderful suggestions everyone has made. It would be nice if he did though because he's certainly going to benefit from being apart of the forum.

go buy the first Neil Young album you see as quickly as you can.

No bet here! :shycouch:

What about instrumental rock songs? They don't even have lyrics!

Iron Maiden - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (lyrics) - YouTube

Looks like someone owes someone else 10 bucks ;)

Real life conspired the way it does to divert my attention for a while, sorry for the slow replies. Thanks for all the helpful posts!

I opened a few of the recommended journals, haven't started to read them yet. Wish I could somehow turn them into an ebook to read on my Kindle, there seems to be a lot of stuff in there. I also got the ebook version of that Aaron Copland book that was recommended.

I have some trouble with most of the other advice - I haven't really gotten to the point where I seem to 'like' anything. There is some music I definitely DISlike (like rap, hiphop, country and most electronic stuff), but after I listen to something I haven't yet gotten any feeling of "that's better than average". I guess it's kind of like shopping for socks at this point.

(Glad he didn't make the bet: can't afford ten bucks, or Euros even!)
Hey glad you made it back man! Sorry you're not having too much success. Have you tried the "Albums you're digging" threads around here? Hard to know what to suggest when you yourself don't know what you like. But keep at it: I'm sure something will click with you at some point.

You could also try Spotify and Grooveshark and just see what they throw at ya: never know....

Don't get too excited, she meant New Zealand dollars.

Music is a story, a painting, a way to evoke emotions. The artist who writes the song wants to convey certain emotions in you ... with the lyrics or the music itself (chord progressions or instruments) ... you should try to find which songs get you to feel those feelings, either happy, sad, melancholic, angry, etc.

I think this guy is totally pulling our leg. Tribal people living in the most remote regions of the Somalian desert regions know who Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder are. Goat herders in rural Estonia know who the Beatles and Rolling Stones are.

Was this guy raised by wolves; or maybe he was held hostage in root cellar for three and a half decades?

This guy is telling us he's been around 34 years and can't name a single band or a single song. Impossible!

He gives himself away when he casually throws out the term "BPM" (beats per minute), which is a term mostly known to club deejays.

I was thinking the same, Gavin. It's really strange. If you have internet...you cannot possible be in the situation the OP described.

It is a strange situation for sure. As someone who's always loved music it's hard to relate, though everyone's wired differently. I'll give the benefit of the doubt for now and think of how my mind refuses to work with numbers. They just fall out of my head.

When I'm checking out a new artist I usually put them on while I'm doing something mundane, like cleaning. I know I really like something when my attention is grabbed away from what I'm doing and I get lost in listening. There will always be tomorrow for the dusting and washing!

Indeed impossible, and if such a guy shows up, be sure to tell him about that. In this case, however, it appears that you have built up a so called straw-man argument: you invent something that the other person, in this case me, hasn't actually said, only to tear it down. If you reread what you yourself actually quoted, you will see that I have said no such thing as what you claim above:

"I know no band names, nor song names, other than what I hear on the news for some reason."

Obviously, I have heard all of the names (other than Marvin Gaye) you mentioned above on the news many times.

I'm afraid your cleverness has led you astray. It is also a term known to people who like to go running, and read running forums where people post about selecting songs based on BPM to match their running speeds. There are even apps for it, though I can't imagine playlists produced like that would work very well. Which is why I asked here about it.

I certainly recognize your hostile tone and the accusation that I am trolling, but frankly, I don't really think there is anything I can do to convince you that you are mistaken, and as this thread has, other than your reply, only produced positive feedback for me, and doesn't seem to have bothered anyone else, I recommend simply ignoring me until I go away or I stop being musically retarded. I'll even promise you I won't make any other threads if it helps.

For the rest, I have another question: with a book series or a TV show or games, I would start with the first one if I suspected I liked something. Is that a wise idea for bands as well ? Or should I stick to the most recent stuff and move backwards later ?

It's your life, do what you want.