old music that you love

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

looking at tom's popular entry on louis armstrong -- whose 20s music i ADORE -- and thinking abt the lex's "b-but i am too young to know" device, i started thinkin abt CUT-OFF POINTS IN TASTE

ie do you or do you not have an EARLIER THAN THIS I CANNOT GO as part of yr listenin armoury? if so sa wot

the earliest piece of music i am aware of liking is SALTARELLO (warnin: may be locked to non-sukratlings) -- it is 700 years old!

Comments

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I'm just not AWARE of any pre-50s music in as much depth as post-50s, finding an access point into pre-'pop' is q. difficult. Oh except I do like "in praise of total war"! I suppose the most pre-pop tradition I know = HIMMS and TRAD. ARR!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't *think* so i.e. I like Saltarello too! And quite liked the ANCIENT GREEK music that I heard, w/the caveat that obviously it is in no way "ancient".

On the other hand I don't listen to pre-20th century music much if at all.

The earliest 'pop' CD I own is a compilation of some 10s/20s swing band called "Dardanelle".

If truth be told I do not go back and listen to the early 50s No.1 hits very much.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

saltarello may be a bit of a cheat, in that it has "survived" -- largely via DEAD CAN DANCE -- bcz it suits our modern ears better than other music of its day

also of course you can like it and sharply dislike music of (say) two centuries later


"access point into pre-'pop'" = soundtrack music as regards "classical" and jazz -- tho of course then you "know" it (and like it?) w/o knowin what it IS

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

i think that discontinuity is a key factor in totally turning the intuitive premise of your question out the window.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I like too much Renaissance music to have a cut off point, although I think Mark beats me here.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

My 'pop' cut-off point is probably mid-50s though, but in terms of what I actually regularly listen to it's even later - 65 and onwards.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Any time I listen to music recorded more than three months ago is a rarity, really, and even though I actively try to rectify it it is just so hard and Keeping Up always takes precedence.

I rly rly want to get into more 60s girl groups as I would assuredly love them.

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

i like older things but despite desultory efforts at working my way back with jazz only ellington's blanton-webster recordings from the 40s (the earliest band stuff i've just started listening to, but it's not quite out of the old timey feel for me to feel comfortable with yet) and any number of early 20c. blues recordings feel natural to me - only with those do i feel like i know where i'm at, respond intuitively, not chafe or balk or get bored or find something awkward, etc.

i think (and think i am OTM) that proper at-homeness takes a lot of familiarity with particular recordings, for me, as well as breadth, and the latter esp. is slow in coming when not intentionally sought.

(along those lines any number of things from the 80s still remain somewhat foreign to me.)

[juror8.livejournal.com]

If you like modern day recordings of old songs, can you really be said to be liking "old music"? Surely that's just like saying "I really love 50s music, Gareth Gates' "Unchained Melody" is the awesome!"?

[sbp.livejournal.com]

yeah, but saying "I like Beethoven's 9th" - you're not going to hear the original performances are you?!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

there is a whole branch of (classical) music-making devoted to "authentic performance" precisely bcz fashions in delviery change so much

[sbp.livejournal.com]

And in pop too - viz The Bootleg Beatles, Counterfeit Stones, etc etc.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I'm going to listen to more classical music, I decided last night.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i think it's fair to say that saltarello's MELODY AND RHYTHM are 700 years old, even if the performances i know are only 15 or 20 years old -- so realistically it's a bit of both, and you can choose to be purist or else pragmatic abt how you summarise

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to engage with pre-60s music often...but I do love Peggy Lee, and some of the old torch singers. I cannot 'get into' classical music for the life of me. I need words, something to sing along to. Opera I can live with...

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha no one is saying "YES OF COURSE I DO cz 70s music = teH SUXOR"

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

oops

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

It used to be strict 77, no idea what it is now, probably general "60s" IE whatever I'm likely to have heard on the radio.

[celentari.livejournal.com]

(Other than da classical shit), CAB CALLOWAY!

[sbp.livejournal.com]

I find it harder to get into C21st music. My friends are going "bosh bosh the techno" or "listen to this latest pop", but the most modern band I actually like is Goldfrapp and even they went rub on their last album. None of the modern poppy guitar bands engage me, and I've been a guitarist since I was 10. I can appreciate the work put into bleepy music, but it doesn't make me want to dance. Or want to listen to the non-dancy version.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

Ha, I ws just reading this thread on the 'I hate music' board about getting into older classical as most on that board quite like/love the modern post-50s-to-present day classical.

(and yes this is someone who calls himself PARTCH urging everybody to listen to Beethoven or Mozart)

http://ihatemusic.bagatellen.com/viewtopic.php?t=4577

I have cut-offs. W/classical I quite like lots of modern but find Renaissance pretty wonderful and immediately easy to get into. So I am effectively writing off that 300-year+ (?) period in between Renaissance and Schoenberg although I like the odd recording (Furtwangler 1944 recording of the 9th, for example). With jazz I know more about (through reading/watching docs) than have sat down with stuff from pre-'59. I always want to correct my lack of knowledge with standards and such.

Facts are though I've not started listening to either jazz or classical until about 18/19 I've effectively grown-up with the modern stuff. With classical there is usually one recording of a modern piece and with both modern jazz and classical there is more at stake -- not only is it easier but you're sifting through the racks at the record and tape exchange and there is less of an idea whether this piece/performer/composer will be any good at all.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I don't have much *knowledge* about pre-60s music, but I still like Frank Sinatra/Ray Charles. What I *do* know about is 40s/50s musicals, which are almost entirely fantastic. I don't really like much jazz or swing bands though so have concentrated my music thirst for knollidge on later years...

Listening vs. Liking

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

iTunes is quite handy for this question.

I have a handful of random jazz, ska, soul, african, brazilian tracks from 60-64. Some Beatles and Motown flesh out 1965, but it's only in 1966 that I really start seeing a variety of stuff that I regularly listen to. I can appreciate and occasionally feel like listening to Sinatra, say, or various jazz etc from the 40s/50s but I wouldn't really call myself a fan in any way.

[spittake.livejournal.com]

wax cylinders 4-EVA!!!!!

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

Sir Lancelot is the furthest back I've ever gone, that's the 1940's I think.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I reviewed Armstrong's '20s recordings on FT - one of my first music pieces there! That and some other contemporary blues and jazz is as early as I go, but there isn't that much I care for greatly before the rise of R&B in the late '40s, then there is tons from then on.