Aquiring the Taste (was: tape music)

[jh]

I guess with only tapes being played, a broad audience would have
missed the cute violinist girls on the stage (;->) - sorry, couldn't resist.

I must admit that I'm quite ignorant in this domain, too.  I just listen to
what I like, but I'm aware that my personal taste is an acquired taste:
At first I did not like the dissonant, experimental beginning of Klaus
Schulze's "Dune" at all (to name an example), but I utterly loved the 
20 minutes that followed. So with repeated listening, I came to dig
deeper into the textures of the beginning as well, and today I appreciate
it for it's own (and not just as a dissonant contrast to the beauty that
would follow). Or Gentle Giant (to name a very different example): I
loved "Three Friends", "Funny Ways" and "Giant" from the start, but
I did not like "Free Hand" or "On Reflection". Today I know that the
less "comfortable" songs are the better ones. Same for King Crimson
(I started to love In the Wake Of Poseidon" and hated "Lark's tongues",
the latter being my favorit KC album nowadays), and I could name many 
more examples.
I guess music can have it's greatest impact when it includes parts of
immediately perceivable beauty and leads - or "lures" - the novice
listener to more serious, more daring, more in-depth parts.

For some reason, this did not work that well when it comes to "serious"
contemporary music - did not work on *me*, that is.
(I came to love Ligeti's - vocal - "Lux Aeterna" because of 2001, but
I don't like his - electronic - "Artikulation")

But surely I know the feeling of disappointment. I remember how I was 
going to see an early Bunuel film when I was a student, and when I
was seated in the cinema, we were two people in the audience, and 
the operator cancelled the film ("we only have to show it for 3+ people").
Went there again the next day, and we were 4 or 5, and it was a 
wonderful film (;->).

JH.




>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Martin Czech [SMTP:martin.czech at intermetall.de]
>Sent:	Friday, June 04, 1999 8:52 AM
>To:	synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl
>Subject:	ot: tape music
>
>On Wednesday I went to a tape music concert, tapes/pieces by Eimert,
>Stockhausen, Reich, Xenakis and Beria.  Mostly 6 or 8 channel audio.
>
>I think this was really something. You don't have the possibility to
>listen to the original recordings very often.
>
>And a very moderate price, too: only 6 Euro.
>
>And it was in the concert hall of the Freiburg college of music, where
>people from all over the world come and study music.  (the tramways are
>full of beautiful japanese violonist girls ...).
>
>
>.. but only 40 people came to listen, a couple of them were also occupied
>with the performance, installing speakers etc, so we can't count them in,
>and also not some friends of the organising people etc. so there were
>only 20 strangers remaining. And: only one music professor attended,
>he's got the chair for new music, so I guess he had to.
>Where were his colleagues? Certainly not in vacation, since there were
>also exams before the concert on the very same day, just a few hours before.
>
>
>Now my question:
>
>Is this normal?
>
>Or what kind of oldfashioned city do I live in?
>
>What kind of music college is this where most students are not interested
>in contemporary compositions?
>
>
>m.c.