my taste in music; juvenile delinquency

[gusl]

I like music of all kinds, as long as it has a melody. (see here for descriptions of my main musical aesthetics)
I specifically do not like electronic dance music (house, drum&bass, etc), hiphop, or anything with a loud repetitive bass (particularly because bass sounds don't get blocked by my windows).

Why is it that clubs only tend to play the latter? Whatever happened to the folk song? Can we blame the 80s?

Anyway, once in a while my neighbours have a street party, which is meant as a party for kids. But all they play is this shit electronic music.

They say a good way to prevent juveline delinquency is to leave draaiorgels around playing. It works like insect repellant. I, OTOH, *love* draaiorgels (especially when they play ragtime tunes), and would love to have one to jam with, especially if I could give it a little computer-intelligence (making it a sort of intelligent accompanist).

Comments

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

As the average attention span gets smaller and smaller, electronic music is better suited for club and party atmospheres. I had a long discussion with Lina about this because her first impression of techno is that it's stupid. It may well be, but if you have to make music in 5-second phrases (that's 16 bars at 180 bpm or so) instead of 64-bar progressions then you get techno. The repetitive, sampled nature of the sounds make the trance sound happen in seconds, and it's not a big linear experience that you have to devote 4 minutes to.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I think some bluegrass music gets up there. 160bpm is not uncommon in breakdowns.
My ex-housemate Erik used to only hear all the notes jumbled together, going up and down, and even found it kind of relaxing! I, OTOH, find it very exciting, manic even.

I think I agree with your idea that such music requires less attention. But why is people's attention span getting smaller?

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

I think it's because we're consuming more and more rapidly and have less patience with acquiring new tastes, so in a sense we're no longer an innovative culture in the west. You could certainly mash some bluegrass riffs inside techno, or conversely bluegrass could gain a lot of techno support. I'm anything but purist when it comes to musical sensibilities.