11 ms·

Why most people don't like jazz

• run4yourlives 17y ago
  Wow what a great article. I didn't fully appreciate his take until this line: "Jazz to most people is like a color on a wall; unless you hung something on it, they don’t even notice it." It's funny, because I like jazz and classical, along with most music, and even I view the two types as "colour on the wall" in many ways.
  • ichverstehe 17y ago
    Until you put on Peter Brötzmann or some of those wild Coltrane live recordings.
    • bbgm 17y ago
      :-) I don't think anyone will call some of those Coltrane recordings or Ornette Coleman "color on the wall"
  • eru 17y ago
    Baroque music seems to be quite noticeable. And people seem to be able to appreciate Bach on an organ (though they may not like it).
• snitko 17y ago
  It's not the problem of lyrics vs words in the first place. It's a problem of lack of musical education. Give a person a guitar or a piano and within a year she starts paying attention to the composition and performing skills. And her tastes may change dramatically too. So in a sense, I consider "listening to words" not as an alternative point of view, but rather a lack of musical training. Sure, words may simply be bad, but they alone usually cannot make song good or bad, while music composition and performing definitely have this power. Also, please do not think of Americans that way. People in general tend to ignore music because they don't have a proper training. Same here in Russia. Same would even be in Japan. I would even rank Americans and Europeans higher, because they're naturally exposed to different quality music a lot more, than any other culture.
  • stcredzero 17y ago
    I've been playing gigs as a Irish Trad musician for 20 years. There are an astonishing number of Americans who can't clap on the beat. There are also lots of Americans who can clap somewhere near the beat, but then are still without awareness of how small variations in timing and emphasis can change the feel or swing of the beat. There are a disturbingly large number of people who -- by their own account -- can't distinguish or process melodic information. I cringe when I think of the 100's of teenagers I've seen purposefully blowing away the high frequency sensitivity it takes to appreciate all the subtle timbres of acoustic instruments. It's not all Americans. When I go to certain music festivals or even certain regions of the country, I'm surrounded by people who can perceive these things and who understand. I find that energizing. On the flip side, I am often saddened by my different awareness in other places. It's like living in a land of the maimed. It's like being the only sighted person on the planet, with no one to talk to about the beauty of the sunset, the spectacle of the night sky in the countryside, or my favourite paintings.
    • snitko 17y ago
      There's a peculiar book out there by Oliver Sacks called "Musicophilia". He describes in it various cases of musical deafness including tone deafness and rhythm deafness. In reality true cases are quite rare, so I believe most people can develop their "ears" to be able to appreciate music the way you can. I think the mission of every musician whose audience includes large number of people without a proper musical training, is not just to make them love you, but also get them interested to explore music further. I remember how Sting did that for me. I liked his image as a person and after visiting his performance I started listening to all of his records and playing bass guitar and drums (aside from playing classical guitar). Then I noticed how he really switches to different styles at different times of his career and how his songs sound noticeably different. That led me to exploring jazz and classical music further. And though I quit practicing music for now, I really believe that it was Sting's biggest impact on me that helped me to start appreciate music and developed my tastes.
    • heyitsnick 17y ago
      Why do you consider this both astonishing and disturbing? I don't find this surprising, nor do I see the problem.
• jcapote 17y ago
  Wait, most people don't like jazz? confused
  • impeachgod 17y ago
    Heh, I grew up in a family that listened to classical music, and took piano lessons since I was 5. It took me a while to realize that my family's musical taste was not ordinary.
  • mortenjorck 17y ago
    I wonder if the demographics of jazz enthusiasm skew at all for hackers.
  • Semiapies 17y ago
    I submit most people don't like what they think is jazz. Jazz is a very big label.
    • jcapote 17y ago
      Exactly. I hated jazz too when I thought it all sounded like Kenny G.
• bryanh 17y ago
  Not that I entirely agree with this article, but as a jazz musician, it definitely interests me. I am curious though; when was the last time everyone listened to an entire album while doing nothing else? (no driving, surfing, working, etc...)
  • michael_dorfman 17y ago
    Seriously? Two nights ago, my back was aching so I laid down on the (heated) bathroom floor and listened to "Between Nothingess & Eternity" (by the Mahavishnu Orchestra) on my iPhone. I can't say I've had the chance since, umm, the kids were born, but there aren't too many better ways to spend a Sunday morning than laying in bed listening to Van Morrison. Do people really not do this anymore? If I strolled around a University dorm at, say, 3am, I wouldn't find half-baked people listening to Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead by candlelight? Kids these days....
    • smokinn 17y ago
      Think of the medium. While it's entirely possible to listen to entire albums on the ipod/phone, it's just as easy to listen to a single artist/genre/list/random. It used to be a pain to get up and change the disc/tape/cd so people would follow the path of least resistance. Now the path of least resistance is to pick random. (Or something like genius or some other type of "smart random")
    • jff 17y ago
      On a weekend night, I have been known to get a bit drunk and put on some Pink Floyd, sometimes on vinyl if I have the album I want. So yeah, some of us uni kids still listen to the full albums. But not the Grateful Dead. You hear "Friend of the Devil" and "Casey Jones" and think, oh hey, these guys are pretty good. Then you hear pretty much anything else they've ever done and realize that most of it is a session where everyone was too wasted to remember when to stop the song.
  • mortenjorck 17y ago
    I am indeed guilty of neglecting this. So is everyone else, but I guess it stands out to me because I do consider it a worthwhile goal, to sit on the sofa, put on something like Jóhann Jóhannsson's IBM 1401: A Users' Manual, and just listen to the movements the way I would watch a movie. But I never do. I always feel like I have to be doing something while listening to music, simply because it's possible. It's true; I don't know what to look at, what to do, if I'm not watching a live performance.
• keyist 17y ago
  An interesting corollary is that jazz musicians tend to not have as striking an image when it comes to their marketing. Compare what you first visualize when you hear the names KISS or Flava Flav versus say Brad Mehldau or Keith Jarrett. EDIT: This is probably due to jazz musicians taking themselves more seriously and wanting to be known more for their music than anything else. If a jazz artist enlisted Dir En Grey's stylist, it may invite insinuations that any success is due to marketing instead of artistic merit. EDIT: To further clarify -- average person's image of: Rock/Metal: shirtless guys with long hair and tattoos playing guitars Pop: Pretty boys/girls in shiny costumes who can dance Jazz: dude with curly hair holding a saxophone
  • aristoxenus 17y ago
    Have you noticed how much more sophisticated Lady Gaga's music is than the rest of what's popular these days? Her popularity has nothing to do with that. It's the way she throws in catchy verbal chants and is equally brilliant at visual and personality branding. And she as a great name.
    • eru 17y ago
      > than the rest of what's popular these days? Depends on your definition of popular.
    • duck 17y ago
      I never thought I would see Lady Gaga and sophisticated in the same sentence.
    • talktalk 17y ago
      I would have to disagree re: Lady GaGa's music. I find her visual image and brand are very well executed and interesting. However, the quality of her music is just not up to snuff. If you compare her tracks to those of other contemporary pop producers such as The-Dream, Xenomania, and Richard-X, you will find that there really is much room for improvement. That being said, I am almost certain that GaGa will get her act together and start collaborating with better producers and she will become one of the true great pop artists of our time
• WilliamLP 17y ago
  I was hoping this article would tell me more about why I don't like jazz. I don't know why! I've tried. I love all forms of classical music. I like rock and pop music. I know the opera repertoire really well and have sung several major tenor roles. But I just can't get to like jazz at all for some reason.
  • CoreDumpling 17y ago
    Have you tried listening to Shostakovich? He was moderately successful at blending jazz and classical elements, as well as at polarizing critics in the process.
    • hernan7 17y ago
      Or that Jazz Flute Suite record by Bolling & Rampal.
      • sp332 17y ago
        One of my favorite records :-) I also like Bolling's Suite for Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Piano Trio.
  • raganwald 17y ago
    Do you like Gershwin? Start with "Rhapsody in Blue." If you don't like that, there's no hope of building a bridge from your love of classical to jazz, you'll have to try a different way round. If you do like it, watch the movie "An American in Paris" and if you like any of the songs, look for instrumental versions of those jazz classics.
    • WilliamLP 17y ago
      I kind of like Gershwin. I enjoyed playing a clarinet part for "An American in Paris" in an amateur concert band even. I like Dave Brubeck too actually. But those don't really seem like jazz to me, more like cheating:)
• sp332 17y ago
  I like (among other types) a sub-genre called "smooth jazz". But I always used it as background music, and in fact thought it was designed to be background music (not being complex enough to hold one's attention), until I saw a live smooth jazz concert on TV. The musicians were putting a lot of emotion and skill and effort into making those sounds, but I had never "heard" what they "saying" in the music. I have to concentrate to get the content of the music, which I can't sustain for more than a few minutes before my mind wanders.
• hernan7 17y ago
  For a more recent take on the subject (including opinions of some jazz musicians), see http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=42725 http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=42725 Personally, I don't have the foggiest idea of how one would go about marketing jazz. I got my taste for jazz from my parents, who were fans of "hot jazz" (a.k.a. traditional or Dixieland jazz). They were never into any modern (postwar) jazz styles, and accepted big band/swing only reluctantly. Glenn Miller was "too commercial" for them :-) One problem that I see with jazz evangelists is that they tend to push the more abstract/ academic masterpieces in detriment of the more digestible stuff. I can see some kid like I was getting into Satch and Bix and Django, and then going on to discover Mingus, Parker, Weather Report, and so on, like I did. But I'm not sure if you can throw "Blue Trane" cold at somebody without giving them any context, and expect them to like it because "it's good for them".
  • tjr 17y ago
    Context is very important for the more "masterpiece" recordings. The relatively short history of jazz music shows a continual building upon previous works, exploring new ideas and new sounds. Handing a jazz novice "Blue Trane" might be akin to handing a Star Trek novice "The Search for Spock"; it may or may not be superficially enjoyable, but to really understand it requires more background knowledge.
  • Legion 17y ago
    For an alternative point of view, Blue Train is probably what got me into jazz in the first place. But seeing as my tastes went on to become enamored with highly abstract, noisy, wall-of-sound, drone-for-40-minutes sort of stuff, I might not make a good data point. :)
• ugh 17y ago
  I have often wondered whether I would be listening to the same music if English were my first language. Probably not. I listen to markedly different stuff depending on language. No lonely songwriters singing English in my collection. Less English rap than German rap. I have always been listening to tons of German rap but have only in recent years started to listen to more American rap (as my ability to understand English improved – now probably pretty much on par with my ability to understand German). Make of that what you will, might just be a coincidence.
  • andrewcooke 17y ago
    i don't think i've (knowingly) heard any german rap - is there anything you'd particularly recommend?
• aarghh 17y ago
  I disagree with the assertion that this is due to the abstraction associated with instrumental music as opposed to vocal music. Most people relate to instrumental music quite well - it needs to have the right rhythm, the right hook. Lots of rock is instrumental, with fairly vapid lyrics - its still pretty popular. Blues - put someone in a room playing John Lee Hooker, and I'd be surprised if they don't start tapping their feet. "Boom, Boom" isn't too much of a lyric, but what a hook! The problem is the accessibility of "modern" jazz - much of it tends to be divorced from its origin as dance/march music, and that is where the abstraction plays a role. I love Bill Frisell's work, for instance, because of the structural aspects of his music - but its not necessarily very appealing to most of my friends.
• CoreDumpling 17y ago
  By this logic, English-language opera (yes, it exists) ought to be doing well in America. Check your local opera house schedule and see how many performances you can find that are not in Italian, German, or French. There is some merit to this argument, that some music can't be appreciated as easily unless you attach it something people can easily relate to. Even classical music isn't immune to this, hence the existence of program music like Beethoven's 6th symphony and many other works from the Romantic era. Today, it's mostly film scores that fall into this category of instrumental music that is best understood within a certain context. I think the difference today is that the context itself has changed. We've transitioned to an urban, fast-paced lifestyle and have lost touch with the beauty of nature from which many instrumental pieces draw inspiration. We've become more materialistic, hence the prevalence of "bling" in rap songs. The host on my local classical station once remarked that there are only two serious topics in music: God and sex. Though I'm not religious, I can tell that these days it's much less of the former and more of the latter. That said, I wouldn't be so pessimistic right now. Think long-term: in 100 years, how many people will still be listening to Brahms, and how many will still be listening to Britney Spears?
  • impeachgod 17y ago
    I don't think humanity as a whole has become more or less materialistic: we've just raised the bar due to technological advances. Witness the greed of conquistadors and kings of times past for gold, for example.
  • jerf 17y ago
    "By this logic, English-language opera (yes, it exists) ought to be doing well in America." We call them "musicals". They're doing OK. If you want to argue that a "musical" is an "opera plus some stuff added to make it more palatable to visually-oriented Americans" I'm not going to argue.
    • raganwald 17y ago
      I was under the impression that a musical is a spoken word play where the actors break out into song and dance on a regular basis, whereas in an opera the singers rarely dance or speak. If that is the case, the difference between musicals and opera is more than just the language. and actually supports the author's point that American culture needs visual stimulation (the dance) and words they can easily understand (the spoken lines).
• halostatue 17y ago
  I grew up playing music (eight years piano, variously oboe, clarinet, and several years vocal). I don't like jazz. I think that a lot of it is self-indulgent noodling. I can appreciate the talent of some of the artists, but I can't get into it. I feel the same about country music and rap: there is artistry there, but I can't stand 90%+ of it and don't want to waste my time listening to it to find the really good stuff from the derivative, self-indulgent crap. Yes, I pay attention to the lyrics (because of my time as a vocalist), but I also pay attention to the music. I think most people don't like 'jazz' because it's an ill-defined "style" that ranges from reasonably well known swing and "standards" to obscure fusion or acid jazz. The more obscure you get, the more inside baseball the discussions become and the less accessible they are to people who might just "like" the sound of a particular song. (The same could be said about the more obscure corners of 'rock'.)
  • birdman 17y ago
    Agree with the self-indulgent part. It's sophisticated to like jazz so people try to like it. And then they do because one can grow to like anything. From TFA, "... the American ears are getting lazier and lazier." I'll agree with that, but I don't consider it a bad thing. Jazz seems to meander and is only impressive once paid close attention to. I want music to come and hit me; I don't want to have to work for payoff.
    • wfarr 17y ago
      That's really quite the generalization. Some forms of jazz are very much like that, yes; however, there are many forms of jazz, particularly focusing on those from 1910-1950, which are very structured in form and don't really lend themselves to being "self-indulgent". It'd be like me saying that all rock is talentless because it's all just a "fuck the man" wall of distortion. Yes, there's some rock music that's like that, but rock is an expansive genre and claiming that all or even the majority of rock is like that would be very naïve.
      • bpyne 17y ago
        I read a book on Duke Ellington in which he expressed concern for the emerging BeBop style's destruction of Jazz. It seems like he foresaw the move from structured, dance-able music to explorative music as isolating the music from the larger population. It's interesting that I didn't understand his opinion until just now. I'm still not sure I agree with it, but I can see how making music less dance-able could turn off people.
• ghfdrvtsyup 17y ago
  I agree with the article to an extent, but I don't agree that musical education will necessarily make people like instrumental music in general or jazz music specifically. The truth is most people don't really care about music and pop/radio music is sufficient and exciting enough for them. This is not a bad thing. I don't like the assumption that there is necessarily some sort of proper 'way' of listening to music that can be or should be taught. People who like music will like music and seek it out, people who don't won't.
• dan_sim 17y ago
  I'm a musician myself who used to play jazz. The problem with jazz is that is considered by the people who listen to it like "pure art" when it is just a style of music. Jazz (and classical) is elevated higher than other form of music and music teachers will expect a good musician to play jazz. If jazz lovers would stop thinking at themselves as "higher educated" and jazz would go back to the people who want enjoy a good swinging song (Ella Fitzgerald, Satchmo, ...) maybe then, jazz would be loved again.
  • sp332 17y ago
    Wynton Marsalis says "When the music stopped being about dancing, people stopped listening." I never completely bought it, but I like the sentiment anyway :-)
    • stcredzero 17y ago
      It's very true. A lot of the visceral oomph of music like Jazz comes from its early association with dance. "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing." The sensuality of a certain kind of step, a certain kind of movement is transmitted in the beat and the music. Understanding this brings many people flat-out joy. In my opiniion, understanding this makes one more human. That last part, you just have to experience to truly understand. But believe me, if you are doing it right, it really is something close to transcendent. It really is magic.
    • Glide 17y ago
      Ok I've done Lindy Hop for like 5 years now and I think I sort of understand the meaning behind that statement. When you dance to music you really, really need to listen to the music and where it goes. I notice that good dancers listen to the music and change what they're doing accordingly. If the music is high energy, they dance with high energy. If there is a break in the music, they hit it a break in the dancing (or they try). One of the most amazing jack & jill competitions that I watched seemed like the couple was interpreting the music. Try asking a person you know who dances what some of their favorite songs to dance to are and why.
• zefhous 17y ago
  Interesting, but I think this is missing a lot of the reasons Jazz isn't popular. Lyrics are a part of it sure, but that's just on the surface of the issue. He talks a lot about listening to music, but I like to make a big distinction between hearing and listening. It's kind of like seeing a website and really looking at its design. Listening is an active, focused activity; hearing is passive. In my experience, even many musicians I've played with don't really know how to listen to a recording. That's one part if it, but there's so much more. Another issue is that casual ears just aren't equipped to appreciate the extended harmonies, progressions, and chord substitutions that are used in Jazz. It is so advanced beyond what most of us can understand that it doesn't really mean anything. Last thing I'll mention is part of the culture of Jazz. Jazz musicians get bored easily, they master one thing and then just keep pushing it forward. Sometimes it's just a sport where the whole point is to demonstrate how far you can push the theory and how fast you can play. That's not conducive to listener enjoyment.
• dlytle 17y ago
  There's a difference between being able to appreciate the artistic value of something, and being able to enjoy it. I don't like jazz, and I mostly listen to music where I can't understand the lyrics, or where none exist. Sometimes people just don't enjoy certain genres of music. I'm sure part of it is cultural, but this article seems to portray the inability to enjoy jazz as some sort of cultural failing, and that's just ridiculous. Pixote was thought-provoking, emotional, and well made. Despite that, I did not enjoy it. That does not mean I'm incapable of recognizing art, it just means that I don't enjoy the style of the piece in question.
  • mojuba 17y ago
    Jazz as a genre is more complex than virtually any other genre of music. It employs more subtle and more complex harmonies which are usually not used anywhere else, neither are seen in music textbooks. Plus improvisation which essentially is composing on the fly - something not every musician is capable of keeping up and not every listener is capable of understanding. In other words (and this shouldn't be news) jazz is a language that you need to learn in order to enjoy it. That's the point of the article. (Some parts of jazz though are pretty "accessible", such as Billie and Nina, but if you forget about the lyrics and the emotional side of their art and leave only the music, that for the most part wouldn't be a good example of jazz.)
    • autarch 17y ago
      I enjoy classical music of the modern period like Messiaen, Britten, and others. This is arguably more complicated than jazz. I don't really like most jazz. The performers are mostly amazing players, but the music doesn't provoke any emotional reaction from me, whereas listening to something like Messiaen's Turangalila is as close to a religious experience as I'll ever get.
• ThomPete 17y ago
  Jazz music used to be pop music. The reason why many people don't like jazz music is the same reason some don't like classical music. It doesn't say them anything because they weren't brought up with it.
• timwiseman 17y ago
  Its an interesting concept, and I do agree that to a degree he is right. But that is definitely not the whole of it. Personally, I enjoy a variety of classical musical and some modern purely instrumental music (TSO for instance has many purely instrumental pieces that are classically inspired, as does their forerunner Savatage, though the connection to the classical inspiration is less obvious there.) I still do not like jazz. In my admittedly limited exposure to it, I find much of it to be rather dissonant and atonal (I am well aware there are multiple types of jazz and not all will have these properties) I suspect I could acquire a taste for it if I wished and spent some time studying it, but I have seen no reason to yet. I rather enjoy classical, metal, and hard rock and there is enough depth there to keep me quite satisfied for many lifetimes. It is quite easy to enjoy and appreciate instrumental music without enjoying or appreciating jazz.
• smokinn 17y ago
  I don't really need a whole blog post to explain why people don't like jazz; it's because to most people it sounds like a cacophony of random noise. (Especially in "live jams") Unless you've studied music and know what they're trying to show, where they're going and the technical difficulty involved, you just won't be able to appreciate it. He does being up a very valid point though which was crystallized for me when I heard "How you remind me of someday". Basically Nickelback had this one really popular song called "How you remind me" and then, later, released another really popular song called "Someday". It was the same song. To prove the point someone mashed them together, putting "How you remind me" in the left speaker and "Someday" in the right speaker. The result was amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvujgcbaCF8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvujgcbaCF8 Talk about formulaic.
  • eru 17y ago
    The formula for producing (potential) hit songs are pretty well-known. Not all follow this schema, e.g. Blue Monday from New Order, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
• samd 17y ago
  I think this article is more accurate: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/11/18/116-black-music-that-black-people-dont-listen-to-anymore/ http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/11/18/116-black-music-t...
• zackattack 17y ago
  Ok, I agree. BUT I've yet to see a PRACTICAL inventory of what must be done to reduce the need to filter experience through interpretation.
  • anigbrowl 17y ago
    Take the chairs away. Seriously. Seating is a scam to collect economic rents on artificially-induced scarcity. Chairs are for sitting and maintaining social ordering, and most people are respectful of that, and by implication of each other. And they are optimal for some kinds of performance. but standing is more equitable and allows people to literally vote with their feet. I have been falling-down tired waiting for a concert to begin, only to forget myself when the artist goes to work - which is why I bought the ticket in the first place. The fact that two largest ticket companies are now merging into one with a virtual monopoly on the live entertainment industry is a bad, bad thing. I know, this is bit tough on the disabled who are unable to stand for a long time or at all, but there are ways to work around that.
• ecoffey 17y ago
  I thought I was the only one who didn't pay attention to lyrics. My friend and I kinda of resemble that dynamic. He loves some of the shittiest songs (imo) because of interesting lyrical content, where as I totally ignore them. If I like them it's because of how they were sung not because of me diving through looking for "meaning". That's why after all these years Pinback is still one of my favorite bands. Their voices are just another instrument in a lot of their songs, since it sounds like Rob Crow kind of mumbles through them all, and they're usually sitting a layer or two down in the mix. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59cQWw9ctOA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59cQWw9ctOA (not the greatest quality I know). It's the way he sings / shouts "Stop! It's too late! I'm feeling FRUS-trated!" that draws me in.
  • eru 17y ago
    Just as an anecdote: Since my English got much more fluent in recent years, I pay much more attention to (English) lyrics now, than I did earlier. Though it's still easier not to pay attention to English lyrics than German ones. I don't know whether or how that has changed my perception of music. I like purely instrumental music, too. My sister prefers music with voices in them to purely instrumental stuff, even if she can't understand them, e.g. Japanese rock. http://kahvi.org/ http://kahvi.org/ is a nice place to get (mostly) instrumental-only electronic music from the creative commons.
  • davi 17y ago
    I also don't really listen to lyrics, largely because it is hard for me. I think I actually have some sort of perceptual incapacity -- I have to really try to understand them, whereas it seems other people hear them very easily. Even when I try, it's hard. I'm smart in other ways, but in this regard I am comparatively deficient. Anybody else on HN share this 'syndrome'? For me, music has always been about structure, tone, melody -- I like the Eagles, for example, but when I started hearing the lyrics (it took me a while, and they're pretty easy), I was like, "Man, these guys are cheesy!" In some agreement with this article, I love jazz. Check out my friend Daniel Levin for how far out I like it: http://www.daniel-levin.com http://www.daniel-levin.com (annoying flash site but has samples of his music)
• scott_s 17y ago
  I find it sad that some of my favorite pieces of music are inaccessible to most people - but it's not their failing. My own personal preferences causes me to listen for certain things in the music that I hear. In particular, I like music with depth and layers, clever melodic hooks, and some changes in tempo and rhythm. Like jazz, the best parts of it are instrumental. But most people just can't seem to get past all of that screaming in death metal.
• zaphar 17y ago
  I think I actually fall somewhere in the middle. I evaluate a piece of music by both lyrics and melody/harmony/beat... I can appreciate purely instrumental and also Rap which is heavy on lyrics and beat. I think being too far on either end of the spectrum causes you to lose out.
• swannodette 17y ago
  The state of music commentary on this thread is low enough to be insulting and pretty much validates the article. I find it humorous that a website that draws people dedicated to abstract thought can have such a mediocre understanding of music and music history. Do yourself a favor, find a piece of music that you think you don't like. Sit down and listen to it 50 times without distraction so that you know all the changes, turns, asides, tensions, contractions, contradictions, and undulations. If you still don't like, fine. But I say 9 times out of 10 with this approach you'll realize you know so little about music and there is much more to know and you'll be practically giddy to expand your knowledge. The distance between Arnold Schoenberg and Lady Gaga is less than you think.
  • araneae 17y ago
    For most people, music is entertainment, just like literature, art, television, etc. It seems like you (and the author of this article) take it much more seriously than that. That's fine for you, but I think what many of us are expressing is that it's silly to claim that you're superior because of it. Musical skill is certainly to be admired, but condescension isn't.
  • CWuestefeld 17y ago
    Sit down and listen to it 50 times without distraction so that you know all the changes, turns, asides, tensions, contractions, contradictions, and undulations. In college I had a minor in electronic art. We'd sit through each other's performances and then comment on all the various artistic work that went into them. The elephant in the room was that it was all BS. I couldn't count the number of times that someone told me "I appreciated the way you used X to emphasize Y". In truth, nothing had been farther from my mind; it just worked out that way. So I think that a huge portion of what you're interpreting in the changes, turns, etc. are just happenstance. It's just that our minds are such incredible pattern-recognizing machines, and are so malleable, that it's trivially easy to spot some pattern and rationalize a whole lot of noise (in the information processing sense) into spurious meaning. How else to explain someone deciding that Ursa Major looks like a bear?
    • 17y ago
• philwelch 17y ago
  I have this same argument with my girlfriend all the time--not about jazz, per se (which I haven't gotten into) but about the general topic of music vs. lyrics. Some of my favorite songs I still don't know all the lyrics to, but she knows them by heart even though she zones out during the guitar solos. And her favorite songs, I listen to the basic instrumental loop and get bored with it. There are ways to learn to listen to instruments, though. You just have to consciously do what an instrumental listener does unconsciously, which is to focus on instruments instead of vocals. You can start by picking out one instrument and following it throughout the song, though as you learn the song better you start learning when to switch between instruments and eventually how to absorb the gestalt of them. I'm not totally uninterested in lyrics, but they have to have something to play against that enhances them rather than just being there.
  • mattm 17y ago
    I've noticed this as well. In general it seems women listen to lyrics more while men pay attention to the instruments more.
• aston 17y ago
  The criticism of rap in the middle of the piece seems both misplaced and undereducated. Some of the most musically complex instrumental music I've heard in the past few years has come out of the hip-hop world. Take a song like T-Pain's "Chopped and Screwed" [1] and try to pick it out on the piano -- it's got enough 7's,9's and alt chords to make any jazz listener happy. Rap is probably the only pop genre where fans pay enough attention to the background to like a song/artist for the lyrics (Nas) or the beat (Kanye) or both (Jay-Z). [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtP6arjZmzI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtP6arjZmzI
  • Radix 17y ago
    I'm not convinced. The melody sounds simple and repetitious, and the verses, mostly sung by tPain, are similar. The rest is just a fleshing out of these ideas, though, there is rythm and lyrics. I think you'll disagree with me, but I believe that's more because you disagree with me and the authors definitions of music than because I'm wrong. Having said that, would you like to try to send me to some hip-hop I'll like. I've been looking, but when listening to music that has lyrics I have to listen to them, and I don't like these, or most rap for that matter. I've yet to find any particular artist I really like yet. Jack White puts it well. On whether he does or does not particularly like hip-hop: "Not particularly. I find OutKast and Wu-Tang Clan interesting. But I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just left with rhythm. I don't find much emotion in that."
    • gruseom 17y ago
      I agree with Jack White. Thanks for the quote. Still, as a very-non-hip-hop-fan, I have to admit: there may be nothing in it that I can appreciate besides rhythm, but that rhythm is often amazing. It's like Monet said about Manet: "Only an eye, but what an eye!" (Actually, that's not true. The other aspect of hip-hop that I can appreciate is its linguistic sophistication. It's not exactly lyrical, though; it's more like verbal variation on the rhythm. So maybe it is the same thing after all.)
• dasil003 17y ago
  I like the article and there's a lot of truth to it, but I have two critiques. First, the music that people like is heavily based on familiarity. People want one or two original elements in a song, but if the overall structure and composition of the song isn't following familiar patterns they will be unable to enjoy it. This is why artists like Frank Zappa are more appreciated by musicians than the general public. After repeated listenings, you find a lot of musical meat, which can then be broken down into more repetitive poppy elements. Jazz in general is much the same, but even further away from pop music today than Zappa was. The other critique is about the assertion that "rap" music is just about lyrics. One of the foundations of hip-hop and something that sets it apart from other music throughout history, is that it is the first form of music to be built primarily from the manipulation of other recorded music. And it does so in a way that maximizes the impact of the music via looping and sampling. The degenerate form of hip-hop that is dominant today in the form of club music with banal hedonistic lyrics, autotuned vocals, and repetitive plain rhythmic styles is nothing more than familiarity breeding popularity. However the art form of hip-hop is alive and well and still progressing (hopefully sampling can see a proper fair-use legitimization in court soon).
• prewett 17y ago
  The reason why I don't like jazz is that my ears can't find any pattern to it. There's no melody, except at the beginning and end of the piece, so the notes just sound random. So to me the music is largely indistinguishable from noise. Once I discovered that jazz is apparently about the chords it made more sense. (The notes appear to be unimportant as long as everyone is in the same chord)
  • adrianh 17y ago
    There are many ways to judge jazz music, but in my opinion, a really good jazz solo works as a standalone melody. As (I think) George Harrison said, the best guitar solos are the ones you can hum along with. Listen to a solo by Django Reinhardt, for example. His version of "I'll See You In My Dreams" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJxehJ0Tbi0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJxehJ0Tbi0) is absolutely beautiful melodically -- even though pretty much the whole song is improvised, aside from the first seven notes.
  • tjr 17y ago
    Those seemingly random notes are improvisation. Depending on the arrangement and/or preferences of the individual player, yes, those notes may be based on the chord progressions... or based on a particular scale or mode ("modal jazz")... or pulled together from a catalog of memorized melodic fragments... or some combination of all of the above. In general, players who are also proficient composers tend to be the best improvisors. Players who are only players can be good improvisors, but their improvisations tend to be more on the mediocre / less inspiring side. Unfortunately, it sure seems to me that we've had less and less good jazz composition over the years, which might explain why more and more jazz improvisation sounds rather lousy. On the other hand, some improvisation made by expert jazz players really does sound very strange on purpose, e.g., the "Science Fiction" recordings of Ornette Coleman. You might like it, you might not, but either way, it's pretty far out there.
    • prewett 17y ago
      I agree, the random notes are improvisation. But improvisation can also be done with non-random-sounding notes: Mozart's variations on "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" are very impressive. The difference being that with Mozart you can still hear a melody. You'd have to be really good to do this on the fly in a solo, though, which is probably why a lot of the great jazz bands practiced beforehand (it wasn't strictly improv)
• coverband 17y ago
  I would argue that the original proposition is flawed. If we did an experiment, most people who would listen to live jazz or a good recording in an easy atmosphere would enjoy it. It's just that jazz music can rarely be fit into your busy life full of 30-second interruptions. So you stick with music where a 30-second lick/rhyme/lyric/beat can stay in your head.
• anigbrowl 17y ago
  I don't think it's so much about lyrics (although instrumental music tends to be less popular in general). Nor is about musical ability. I'm only a mediocre musician, but I can appreciate musical structure very well and like to compose in unusual modalities, especially phrygian. I know far better musicians than myself who don't like jazz; meanwhile my Dad has a complete tin ear and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but he loves jazz despite having little or no musical knowledge. I can't stand it, but not because I think it's bad - I'm really impressed by the depth and skill of jazz musicians. I just can't take it in any significant quantity. My problem with it is that I get frustrated by the fact that it isn't necessarily going anywhere - the exploratory and whimsical nature of it upsets me because it conflicts with my desire for structure and resolution. I think my Dad likes partly because of this; it doesn't demand that he model structure and tension, he's quite happy to just be a passenger and enjoy the musical scenery. This is not to say it lacks structure or harmonic tension. Harmony is the weakest part of my musical ability and I'm just not able to appreciate the relationships between complex chords and for that matter I'm not much good at polyrhythms either. Strangely, on occasions where someone has tried to get me more into jazz, if we agree in advance on a musical modality I am able to improvise reasonably well and we can have an extended musical 'conversation': it's easier for me to play than it is to listen to, or at least it was when I practiced on a more regular basis. But the emotions it arouses in me largely consist of 'Aaagh! Please stop fucking around and get to the point!!'. Most commercial music is highly structured, both rhythmically and harmonically. Jazz reminds of those art projects where they make blank molds of some kind of sculpture and then hand them out to artists to decorate as they see fit, such that the shape of the sculpture is less important than the mix of color and pattern the artist wishes to explore, a 3-dimensional blank canvas if you like. Very often the results seem to have nothing to do with the shape, but I find myself thinking that if the shape is so unimportant, go paint a piece of canvas or something. I know these artists are saying something about deconstruction of the form by projecting things onto it which don't fit its obvious structure but I'm at a complete loss as to why you would choose a specific form if the primary thing you want to say is that form isn't important. Or maybe it's just that I find some such work innovative but have no patience for the ensuing horde of people copying the same idea and just doing so with their own favorite patterns and colors. It's like saying you feel liberated because you put on a straitjacket and then took it off again. /handwaving
• maxklein 17y ago
  I absolutely hate the instrumental nonsense that a bunch of music school graduates are producing this day, but I love jazz. Play Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Satchmo, Anita O'Day, Peyroux, even Diana Krall. This is what Jazz was initially defined as - jumping up and down the scale on a trumpet and wearing old Egyptian costumes is not Jazz for me.
• ivanzhao 17y ago
  I don't usually smoke pot; but when I do I usually end up with Coltrane, and he makes me want to cry.
• ivanzhao 17y ago
  When t-shirts and sweat pants roaming around town everywhere, who still cares about jazz? a jazz party in 1957: http://www.ivy-style.com/shoulda-been-there-dizzys-jam-session-1957.html http://www.ivy-style.com/shoulda-been-there-dizzys-jam-sessi...
• hkuo 17y ago
  I used to be a huge jazz fan. I discovered it around my senior year in high school and just started eating it all up. While other cars were blaring rap music and Guns and Roses, I would be playing John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. So I can speak from personal perspective on how I lost interest and give my 2 cents on why it's lost popularity. It's actually pretty simple. There's just nothing new. No innovation. That's it. I enjoy the melodies when I hear them and there are appropriate times when I will put it on, but it is what it is and nothing more these days.
  • tjr 17y ago
    I still am a fan of jazz, but I agree with the sentiment. By the late 1960's or so, jazz innovation was beginning to wane in favor of copying elements of rock music, seemingly in an attempt to gain more listeners. Some great jazz/rock fusion came out of this (e.g., Weather Report), but it was more or less an evolutionary dead end for jazz. By the 1980's, jazz started going back to the styles developed in the 1950s/1960s, and most of the jazz we hear made today is just rehashing what the masters did during that era, only not as well, and without the creative freshness. I personally think pretty much every genre of music has hit up against this lack of creativity recently, though... I really don't hear much new music that I think is all that great.
• nerme 17y ago
  I take some issue with the basic thesis. I don't think you can outright separate the appreciation of music in to two camps, that of the musical content and that of the lyrical content. Much as in poetry, the sounds and rhythm of the words are an integral part of what makes a good melody. Hip-hop might actually be the ultimate example of this. Sure, there is content, but it is mainly about the flow of the lyrics. The fact that the author of the post looks to hip-hop as being some kind of example of the decline in musical appreciation just tells me that he is himself is lacking in the ability to properly listen to music. Jay-Z has amazing flow. Busta Rhymes is a freaking explosion of syncopated beats, as good as swinging as Gene Krupa, but managing to tie lyrics in as well. KRS-One? Snoop? Eminem? They are practically jazz drummers who use their mouths instead of a drum kit. I would bet the fact that they're talking about drugs, violence, money, women, and what it's like to be poor are the main reasons they turn people off. Most detractors don't want to know that this world exists and sure as hell don't want to have anything to do with it. Beyond hip-hop, this is an important element to pretty much all music that could be labeled as "good". Sure, the actual language content is important... you're going to connect with more people if you're singing about heartache and love than if you're singing about molecular biology. However, if your lyrics are set to a stale melody, or don't have a rhythmic foundation that inter-plays with the rest of the music, it's not going to sound good, and people are not going to like it. Vowel sounds are incredibly important. Imagine the lyrics to your favorite song. Now, get rid of the consonants, and listen to the rhythm of the different vowels. More than likely, you'll find a syncopated pattern. There might be an interplay of the "ee" and "ah" sounds, there might be repeated "oo" sounds at the end of every verse, etc. It may be simplistic, but I can guarantee it's there. There are a number of great songs that have either nonsensical lyrics in them or at least very simplistic content. Led Zeppelin has never been known for their lyrics and are still selling tons of albums every year. "Ob-la-di-ob-la-dah"? "Ma ma ma my sharona"? And I'm just sticking to rock/pop music with these few examples... Style and fashion, of course, have a lot to do with popular appeal. And these are based on trends, where timing is everything. If The Beatles were to have never existed (and somehow music today ended up where it is without them, which is highly unlikely) and they suddenly emerged, I'm not sure that they would be all over the airwaves. Sure, there would be people who were absolutely smitten with them, but I they are who they are because of a certain time and place. They hit their peak when albums like Pink Floyd's "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" were top 10 albums in the UK. Can you imagine that? Piper? Top 10? That is one weird and crazy album. Actually, I think it got to number 6 on the charts. There are a lot of elements that go in to music. But they go in to and form a cohesive whole. It is very hard to separate out one element from another and say that this element is more important than another element. I don't see how you can split lyrics from their musicality.
• bpyne 17y ago
  Jazz not being in the limelight anymore is not really a fault of the music, the listeners, or the players. It's not an unhealthy turn of events either. I think it's as simple as a new generation has come up who wants to "have their say": they want to express their own take on life in their own way. Another generation will come along in 20 years and supplant them. It's a never ending cycle. Jazz isn't anywhere near death judging by the number of internet radio stations offering it. Jazz musicians are still exploring musical boundaries. Admittedly there are fewer venues but you can still find them. Another consideration is the influence Jazz had on the mainstream. Groups like the Dave Matthews Band embody the Jazz spirit very much. What I'd like to hear more of is people from other cultures mixing Jazz into their own native music. Jazz is, to me, about exploration. NOTE: Edited the first sentence due to a blatant abuse of negatives.
• deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
• Goladus 17y ago
  The current market share of Jazz in America is mere 3 percent. That doesn't mean most people don't like Jazz. It just means they don't tend to seek it out ahead of other alternatives. Jazz isn't associated with pop culture which is to say sex, relationships, and high school / college kids. But most people, should they find themselves in a space with a good jazz band playing, would enjoy it.
• Perceval 17y ago
  On of my favorite essays on music is by an art critic/dealer named Dave Hickey. He wrote a collection of essays called Air Guitar, which is worth picking up even if (like me) you're not interested in art dealing or art criticism. He's a very lucid writer about the value of art for life. Anyway, in the chapter "The Delicacy of Rock-and-Roll" he ends with thoughts on what he considers to be the two most fundamentally American musical forms: jazz and rock-n-roll. Here's the quote: "Jazz presumes that it would be nice if the four of us--simpatico dudes that we are--while playing this complicated song together, might somehow be free and autonomous as well. Tragically, this never quite works out. At best, we can only be free one or two at a time--while the other dudes hold onto the wire. Which is not to say that no one has tried to dispense with wires. Many have, and sometimes it works--but it doesn't feel like jazz when it does. The music simply drifts away into the stratosphere of formal dialectic, beyond our social concerns. Rock-and-roll, on the other hand, presumes that the four of us--as damaged and anti-social as we are--might possibly get it to-fucking-gether, man, and play this simple song. And play it right, okay? Just this once, in tune and on the beat. But we can't. The song's too simple, and we're too complicated and too excited. We try like hell, but the guitars distort, the intonation bends, and the beat just moves, imperceptibly, against our formal expectations, whether we want it to or not. Just because we're breathing, man. Thus, in the process of trying to play this very simple song together, we create this hurricane of noise, this infinitely complicated, fractal filigree of delicate distinctions. And you can thank the wanking eighties, if you wish, and digital sequencers, too, for proving to everyone that technologically "perfect" rock--like "free" jazz--sucks rockets. Because order sucks. I mean, look at the Stones. Keith Richards is always on top of the beat, and Bill Wyman, until he quit, was always behind it, because Richards is leading the band and Charlie Watts is listening to him and Wyman is listening to Watts. So the beat is sliding on those tiny neural lapses, not so you can tell, of course, but so you can feel it in your stomach. And the intonation is wavering, too, with the pulse in the finger on the amplified string. This is the delicacy of rock-and-roll, the bodily rhetoric of tiny increments, necessary imperfections, and contingent community. And it has its virtues, because jazz only works if we're trying to be free and are, in fact, together. Rock-and-roll works because we're all a bunch of flakes. That's something you can depend on, and a good thing too, because in the twentieth century, that's all there is: jazz and rock-and-roll. The rest is term papers and advertising."
• anamax 17y ago
  Most people don't like {musical genre} so why should jazz be any different?
• bitwize 17y ago
  "The self-surrender of classical music to a sterile, scholastic avant-garde after World War I doomed WFLN to the status of a fading museum of antiquities before that radio station was even born. The hankering of dance-band leaders to be seen as high artists after World War II sapped jazz of its vitality. Both genres have been steadily losing market share for decades because they deliberately turned their backs on the mass audiences they formerly commanded." http://catb.org/~esr/writings/arts.html http://catb.org/~esr/writings/arts.html Personal note: I've been to jazz concerts where the musicians were in it to have fun, not to make a statement or prove their avant-garde-ness. This included a real exciting swing performance with dancers at an airshow. When played as such the music is invigorating like nothing else.
• axod 17y ago
  If you haven't already seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TebUMhJAKSM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TebUMhJAKSM (The fast show, "Jazz Club") "So er what tune are you going to play for us today Jefrey?" (offended) "Tune??? Tune??? This is jazz!"
• Tycho 17y ago
  Jazz can be hilariously inaccessible. I think one of the problems is much of it is 'standard based' (ie. they're improvising around the chords and melodies of classic old songs like Autumn Leaves, All of Me) but they take HELLA liberties (i once heard a Dinah Washington rendition of All of Me and could swear she didn't know what the song actually was). Once you know the standards, and the majority of them really are gems in their own right, you start to realize what the jazzmen are really DOING, what patterns they're playing with. Then you can follow and appreciate long improvisatory solos better. But if you're just hearing some 60 year old song that you don't even KNOW, and they assume that you already know it SO WELL that they barely need to play the original melody, and they're ramping up the complexity 5x to challenge themselves, then it's tough going. Something that's helped me a lot recently is typing standards into Spotify and just listening to different versions of the same song (not always jazz artists) for hours. I used to think 'why can't all standards be as enjoyable as Summertime?' but now they kinda are
• jsz0 17y ago
  Whew lots of words to sum up something that seems kind of obvious to me: People just aren't exposed to good jazz very often. We mostly hear really terrible soul defeating elevator jazz. People grow up understanding the language of rock, country, hip hop, etc so they will almost certainly hear some really good examples of music from these genres and naturally gravitate towards some or all of them. Jazz is an art form you really have to seek out these days. The better question is why did popular culture move away from jazz in favor of these other genres? I think it reflects the demand for shorter more concentrated messages in music. The 2-3 minute song is how most people consume music. If you sliced out some choice 2-3 minute segments of some great jazz albums I bet they could be palatable to a bigger audience even today. We see this in film & TV today with jazz and orchestral music. People like it but not in big doses.
  • Semiapies 17y ago
    I suspect many people in their 20s and 30s aren't aware of much of the jazz they've come in contact with as being jazz. When the expectation for jazz is "Kenny G.", you can come across quite a bit of it from older movies, TV shows, and pop music without recognizing as such.
• roundsquare 17y ago
  I think the author is missing two big points. The first is that, for people currently in their 20's (and probably a bit older/younger as well) jazz was something their parents enjoyed a lot. In the US, there is an strong tendency to dislike whatever our parents like, so from a young age jazz is automatically crossed off, and that carries over as we get older. Second, if his argument was correct, Americans would generally require some kind of lyrical coherence to enjoy music. If each sentence in a song were completely disconnected from the previous sentences we wouldn't enjoy it. However, witness the popularity of DJ Girl Talk[1]. From a lyrical point of view, its only fairly connected. Of course, Americans will generally recognize the lyrics and that may offset my point to some degree, but I'm not convinced it does. (FWIW, I only recently found DJ Girl Talk and have become obsessed, so take that for what its worth). [1] http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=05DBB3473E2A7D56 http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=05DBB3473E2A7D56
• olh 17y ago
  I'm Brazilian and here jazz is also far way from the mainstream. I like jazz that "got the blues"; listen to some Focus jazz and you will see what I mean. The problem with jazz is that, as commented by other folks, it is an art. Some jazz scales sounds suck, but they are hard to do. You will only like these musics if you appreciate the ability of the musician on playing it, and not the "sound/music" itself.
• thangalin 17y ago
  Many people like jazz ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myJj0mNNe1Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myJj0mNNe1Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJBjNkacy8o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJBjNkacy8o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf65VY_ebUg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf65VY_ebUg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSfK-0tZ73I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSfK-0tZ73I
• devin 17y ago
  I don't really care for the article. All I have to say is listen to more Dave Holland Quintet.
• wazoox 17y ago
  I remember readng this a long time ago. About that time I've also read this wonderfully amusing piece from Pat Metheny about Kenny G: http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm This is a hell of a crucifixion :)
• nhemeter 17y ago
  I live in New Orleans and when locals listen to music here they clap, (on the 2 and 4), dance and move around. I recently attended a festival in Finland, and folks just sat there, the same thing happened in Virginia. No one moved. It was weird. So... come on down to NOLA, dance, clap and pass a good time. By the way, we are having a Trad Jazz Camp for Adults this summer. Check out www.neworleanstradjazzcamp.com