How to stop worrying and love contemporary music

[JHC]

Number 2 without any question. You might have to work at, even listen a few times, but you have to work for anything worthwhile.

.

Now now, you are saying #2 but qualifying with a ref to #1
50 cents both ways

[mmsbls]

Listening to music is not a chore, it's a great pleasure. Any difficulties along the way are part of the pleasure.

Here's an example of two attitudes:

1) I have to work at getting this modern stuff.

2) Oh, good. I get to listen to something new.

Which do you think will get the best results?

And here's an example of a third attitude:

I get to listen to something new AND I will have to work at getting this modern stuff.

There's nothing wrong with working very hard to learn and appreciate something. I worked exceedingly hard to understand physics, and physics is the most beautiful, rewarding thing I've ever experienced. I talked to so many people about their attempts to appreciate all kinds of music (not just modern). When they did come to appreciate the work(s), they felt the effort was well worth it.

I'd love to just put on some Boulez, Cage, Schoenberg, etc. and love it right away (or even after a few listenings), but that apparently doesn't happen for me. I could kid myself and believe that it somehow will happen against past experience, but I'm definitely too much of a realist.

[some guy]

And I, for my part, never know ahead of time which things will be difficult and which things won't. Even within a single composer's oeuvre. So I just try to take things as they come.

Here's a list, for people who like lists, of the composers I had, at one point or another, to work at to enjoy. It's a fairly complete list, too, even though it's short. Claude Monteverdi, J.S. Bach, Hector Berlioz, Gustav Mahler, Jan Sibelius, Arnold Schoenberg, Serge Prokofiev, Elliott Carter, Giacinti Scelsi, Eliane Radigue, Phill Niblock. I also struggled with Berio's Visage for a long time, even though I liked other Berio things immediately. The same for Ashley's Purposeful Lady, Slow Afternoon.

You'll notice, I hope, that many many supposedly difficult composers are not on this list. (And that several pretty easy ones are. As well as a few really great composers. And that's why I never think my struggling or not struggling has anything to do with the quality of the music itself. Music is fun. Not every piece, of course, but generally. Go into any experience thinking it will be fun, and it might turn out to be fun. Go into any experience thinking it will be difficult or unpleasant, and it almost always will be.)

[JHC]

some guy

A piece that rings a bell and I am probably wrong is ‘a short ride in a fast machine (a train I believe) was it by Steve Reich ?? You will know.

I found this very good even if a little basic but that is OK.

This has been worrying me on and off for a while and I finally realised that I had the wrong composer. Why didn't some guy put me right?
The composer was John Adams and this is a clip I do wish they had shown more of the orchestra, to me it is so very obvious what he was trying to portray. man

[methodistgirl]

I thought you were going to talk about pop music that was contemporary.
There are som gospel songs that are in that catagory. I love that kind
as well.
judy jennings

[some guy]

Not on a classical music forum, I wouldn't.

[JHC]

I take it this is too commercial for you some guy, fair enough.

[some guy]

Nothing to do with me. It's just that this is a classical music forum. Not a place where we talk about gospel or country western or bebop, nice those those things may be!

[JHC]

Nothing to do with me. It's just that this is a classical music forum. Not a place where we talk about gospel or country western or bebop, nice those those things may be!

Sorry some guy I didn't make myself clear I was referring to My John Adams video clip