Conversations about music, WHY

Major bust ups? I have a continuing feud with my friend about Ryan Adams but is kinda lapsed into a silly joke now (kinda like Ryan, haha) which culminated in him saying, coldly, blankly: "David, all you ever want to do is ARGUE..." I am quite willing to play the devil's in these situations, and refuse to do that thing where yr drunk and then pander to the person's taste "oh yeh, Toploader are, okay... I guess..." - I just be honest now.

I had a thought this week: my taste can be charted as a function of negativing the group of musical tastes I am surrounded by. Ie, mine is a negative musical taste, inasmuch as it is defined by what it is not as much as what it is. And I guess to understand its progression you would have to understand Scottish 6th Years Trance (that song that goes "down, dow-dow-d-down" X 1,000,000 anyone?), 1st yr Arts Students and now 3rd yr Arts Students.

Ego get involved? I guess I've answered that.

I feel my friends value my opinion on music; in fact, its a gentle joke among my friends that we all have a Scale of Reliability and some people we trust less, some more, etc...

Talking about music (as opposed to writing about it, which for me serves a number of different purposes) is fine in the context of something like an FAP meet-up, but otherwise I don't enjoy it and try to avoid it. The sad truth is that, more than anything else, I still want - no, NEED - to talk about Laura because she is still on my mind, still IN me, more than anyone/anything else.

It also makes me uncertain about myself - the possibility that once you take away the music component, there's not much left of me.

And yes, I really did use the phrase "smelly rockist against the pop" in everyday discourse, following which I experienced a moment of clarity when I looked at myself and though "what have I become?!"

I love arguing about music to people. I vastly prefer it to talking to people who like the same music as me, in fact.

My favorite thing though is to hear people describing music about which I don't know much and hearing them place it in the contexts of musics about which I do know something. Sooner or later I will have my metal/electronic music analogue decoder worked up & then all questions will be answered!!!

Paul and Lucas and Dave and Tom are all as bad as me. We stay in and play each other records and, if especially drunk, sing. ("No, you'll like Talking Heads. Where's my Sleater Kinney album? No, Leadbelly is *so* Tom's CD.") Until I try to play The Smiths and then they tickle me.

I suppose I am the "music person" (as Ronan sez) in my circle of friends, making mix CDs and suggesting shows to go to. The best is when you're able to peg someone's musical taste to the point where you can give someone a CD and say you'll absolutely LOVE bands X, Y and Z -- and they do!

So yeah, talking about music is Classic -- love those all-too-uncommon instances of having a musical soulmate moment with someone else. I recently had a similar thing happen to me as with Douglas and his wife, where I met someone (now a friend of mine) and we found out we were going to the same indie rock shows in NYC circa 1991 but never met.

Like Ronan, I have the honour of being known as "the music guy" in my circle of real life friends , so my wisdom is seldomly put into question; when it is, I rant off some half-arsed theory as to why I'm RIGHT and they're WRONG; since I'm pretty good at confusing people, that usually takes care of business (yes, I'm a tyrant, I confess), but make sure to follow it up with something like "but all that stuff doesn't really matter, listen to what you like man".

I haven't met that many people in real life who're music geeks; when I do, there are disagreements, but it never gets heated enough for me to truly wish I hadn't started the convo in the first place (that's politics.)

Being The Music Guy is truly a thing of beauty, too- ah, the satisfaction of hearing someone who's truly delighted about that mix tape or CDR I sent 'em.

I'll argue with anyone - I enjoy it. But I do do the seeking the overlap thing a lot too.

I was thinking about "musical soulmate" today and found this thread (the only one semi-related to it).

Do you believe a musical soulmate exists? I never found someone who likes the same bands I do, and even on this board, I seem to like a lot of stuff people just don't care for or are just not that into. Maybe they have a passing interest in it, but I seem to be into it way more.

Likewise, a lot of people on here seem to love stuff I really don't care for.

Anyway, in terms of love/relationships, did you ever try to meet your musical soulmate? What did you discover?

I sort of feel like that? Definitely feel that way outside of the board.

As someone who has failed to find regular "band mates" for 6 years for this reason, I envy bands with members that ARE all on the same specific wavelength, like Polvo.

Though pretty recently at least one friend has come through- but meet ups to play has been still a little too infrequent. Overall this is mostly my fault, though I'm still allowed to be jealous of people that don't have to put in the work to do this.

If your only qualification for a musical soul mate is that they enthuse over listening to the same bands you enthuse about, then finding that person so that you may both sit around enthusing in tandem seems like a rather barren exercise, tbh.

it's not barren if you are looking for a bandmate.

what a bizarre post xp

Yeah, when I was in bands, it was all about what bands got you excited and inspired.

In relationships, I never bothered, but I kind of started thinking about that.

The thing is, you can't be into, like, noise and think it's okay to listen to it randomly when you want in your home when your bf/gf hardly likes music, for example. Anyway, concessions and all that.

Just curious what other people thought

seems to me you should probably find someone wh o likes F♯ and A♯

haha, it's not about me, but props for the attempt

i think you'd have a more exciting relationship with someone who likes C# and E# tbh

actually i've always been partial to microtones, if it must be said

if ur poly u could do a circle of 5ths with that person and someone who likes G# and B#

just intoned if you must

i have had friendships that got deep really fast via a connection through music, most recently my friend sam through and with whom i discovered a lot of disco and r&b. we never really talked about much else but i really love the guy. i think my best friend and i have basically the exact same taste in music but that's cause we've been swapping wares since high school. i usually share music with partners but haven't dated any true nerds, except for this one who liked freak folk waaay too much. my bandmates all have good taste but they're completely rockist for the most part. if my true music soulmate is out there i'd probably find some reason to dislike them on some narcissism of small differences. i kind of don't believe in the power of music to create such a deep bond anymore, though. like when you're young and a music nerd it can really blow your mind to meet someone else along that path, but now, meh

This thread reminds me of a college party where I got into a random argument with a dude (who I don't think actually knew much about Wes Montgomery) was insisting that "Jimi Hendrix could have played anything Wes Montgomery played, but Wes Montgomery couldn't play everything Jimi played."

If your only qualification for a musical soul mate is that they enthuse over listening to the same bands you enthuse about, then finding that person so that you may both sit around enthusing in tandem seems like a rather barren exercise, tbh.

― Aimless, Wednesday, 21 January 2015 07:03 (15 hours ago)

this reads like the profound dispiritment of someone who hasn't downloaded any good albums recently

Some of my best, longest, deepest and truest friendships evolved out of mutual musical enthusiasms. It's important to find people with whom you can share your passions and, more crucially, who will both get something from and give something to the exchange. I don't know that such connections necessarily depend on closely overlapping taste, but the initial "oh my god yes!! and have you heard..." type conversations do help build lasting bridges. Speaking as a total nerd, I mean.

That said, when it comes to romantic relationships, musical sharing can definitely add fuel to the fire, but it's no indicator of long-term compatibility.