http://bamaudioschool.com/audio_course/00_req.html

One of the course requirements is having an open mind and listening to different types of music.

Use this topic to list the various types of music you primarily enjoy and have the most experience with. Also list some other types of music you feel you want to explore to gain a further appreciation and understanding.

Also use this topic often to list recordings that you are listening to and studying, and any thoughts, questions or insights you may have.

The other day I was at a friend's house and we got out some old jazz recordings. When I say old I'm talking original issue LPs from the 1950s.

My fave was Chet Baker and Crew. Chet possesses a sense of pathos in his trumpet lines. Sometimes I wonder about the role of heroin addiction in Chet's playing.

There were also two live LPs we listened to. Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing features a young pianist in a small combo continually weaving around a theme moreso than the usual straight ahead jazz player.

The last was Dave Brubeck at Storyville: 1954. I'd never heard this album before. It's probably my fave Brubeck LP now. There's that juxtaposition between the heavy chordal piano playing of Brubeck contrasting with Paul Desmond's light dreamy lines on alto sax.

All these recordings possessed a sense of space and dynamic that's almost lost in today's product.

Yeah, space used to be easier to get when you were dealing with a room full of musicians communicating rather than piecing together a collage (like much of today's music).

A room full of musicians playing a SONG together will give you the "magic" that happens when their own individual interpretations meet and interact. If you are making music by yourself, although all of your parts may be very sensitive to the song and may properly support what they need to, they will still be coming from ONE PERSON'S perspective rather than a "meeting of the minds".

Yes, the simple and good quality equipment they were using then (great mics, purer signal paths) helped to more easily CAPTURE the space the musicians created and communicated within...but I believe that differences in how music was made leads to big differences in how much space there is.

-B

And although many will argue that today we make "product" more than music, I have to remind you that it was ALWAYS about making product. Even the great old records we love were made to make money.

But the tools used to make product then (room full of specialized and talented diverse musicians with great gear and a highly specialized staff) are very different from the typical tools used to make product today (one person with a computer).

Can we make the same space? Of course we can. But we have to deliberately do so since it may not as easily happen by itself as it did back in the day with a room full of people.

-B

I mostly listen to reggae, r&b;/soul. I do venture to world music more and am interested in flamenco, african, afro-cuban, latin, indian and all fusions within these ethnic styles. I do also listen to mainstream pop occasionally.

Greetings, just joined.

There is a dude on another board that uses the following quote in his Signature line:

"You don’t know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything." --Branford Marsalis

Seems pretty profound to me, been thinking about it, makes sense to me, thought it fit with this thread.

Good quote...there was another one about the "wise" man being the one who KNOWS he does not know everything...

Personal opinion will affect your work. It is important to never approach a project as something you may not "get into" as your mixes will show it.

on this issue:
i find it simply invaluable, the time i spent on the road playing cover tunes. (7 years).

covering almost every style....
i've done music from the island of Crete (with a greek band that played mostly weddings)...
country...
jazz...
r&b...;
funk...
fusion....
metal....
hard rock....
originals....
no classical, though i trained as a pianist at a young age, and that was all i did then.
well, and the elephant walk....!


i agree, the more you listen, and especially, pay attention to the interaction of the band memebers (vs. the style), and the way the mix was approached... opens up entirely new ways of thinking of mixes, for me anyway.

"The man who knows everything is expert in nothing" I listen to whatever I like. My main deal is metal. Mudvayne, Fear Factory, Pantera and Dillinger Escape Plan are in and out of the cd player most of the time. I can't get enough Primus or Victor Wooten in my ears sometimes. Steve Bailey's awesome, too. I love electronic music in small doses, if it's not just pumping heavy kicks at me. I'm really into anything Mike Patton has done. I've been listening to Mr. Bungle for a while and I just fell in love with that sound of theirs. I pretty much like any music that can keep me guessing while I'm listening for the first time. Predictability is a real turn-off for me. I wish I could just list styles for you guys, but except for metal, funk and techno, everyone I listen to is really unique. So.. Dog Fashion Disco, Tubring, Mindless Self Indulgence, Oysterhead, Flying Frog Brigade, RetardoBot, Duct Tape Mustache, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Bad Acid Trip. Anything with a WTF? factor.

quote:

Originally posted by ozraves:

My fave was Chet Baker and Crew. Chet possesses a sense of pathos in his trumpet lines.

Ditto,
I love his voice as well. He had a wonderful voice.
If you have not seen it, find the movie called Lets Get Lost -all about him, his life, his great years, his sad years, his last years and of course his music.
Unfortunately not available on DVD. Get the VHS at Amazon though.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/630165076...408?v=glance&s;=video

I listen to just about everything. I play and write metal, acoustic guitar stuff in many styles. I listen to a lot of music, both older recordings and the current stuff. I collaborate with musician's of other styles quite frequently. Hip Hop is fun because it seems to me there are fewer "rules". I listened to the old Atlantic recordings of Ray Charles the other day. It's easy to hear the signature of the old vintage microphones and the simpler signal paths used in these productions. More importantly to me though, is that you can hear that these recordings were basically live performances of songs which were well rehearsed. I can hear the interaction between the musician's. These recordings prove to me that a great song, a great performance was then, and should remain today, the root of any great recording. Gear is great stuff but, without the music it's useless. I am mainly a guitarist but began on the drum kit. I play some bass and I also do vocals. I love the sound of a great instrument.
I wouldn't sell my Taylor acoustic for all the tea in China! It has a gorgeous tone. I basically modify all of my electric guitars. Changing out the pickups as well as matching the value of the potentiometers and capacitors to create the tone I want from a specific guitar.
I'm a definate tube freak, especially when it comes to guitar/bass amplifiers. I go for getting a great sounding source first and foremost.
I also adore microphones. Can You ever own too many?

Being a music junkie for most of my almost fifty six years I've at least tried to listen to everything I can. And I like a lot of it------but not all. I was raised on classical, folk, and show tunes, branched in rock and country, then jazz. I dig Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Turindot, La Boheme, Pete Seeger, Carter Family, Jimmy Rogers(singing Brakeman), Hank SR., Glen Miller, Spike Jones, Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Howlin Wolf, The Band, The Byrds, Love, Cream, Billie Holliday, Judy Garland, Tony Bennet, Sinatra, Los Lobos, Bob Dylan, Cuban singer Armando Garzon, Sarah Chang's violin, Coltrane, Miles, Bix Beiderbec, Satchmo, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Allison Krauss, The Limeliters, Danny Gatton, Roy Buchannan, Tom Waits, Gram Parsons, Jerry Douglas, David Grisman, Klesmer, French Musette, Steven Foster, Django, Middle Eastern microtonal stuff, Sailors hornpipes, Flat and Scruggs, Louvin Bros, Segovia, Julian Bream, Madrigals, Greek Bazookis, African harmonies(major scales-ever notice?);

and I could add many more. I've listened to metal, hard core stuff, hip hop, just not for me. If I was approached to record this kind of stuff I'd respectfully suggest someone else.

Hum... i listen to alot of jazz,R&B;,hip hop, pop;from Nora Jones to Stevie Wonder, Sting, and from time to time some country. I play keys...and love song writting.

Well, as a young boy I remeber the Mitch Miller show on TV. Then Lawrence Welk of course. My Dad was into jazz organ recording by guys whose names I can't remember, but I sure listened a lot. Then he started making me listen to Johnny Cash and Chet Atkins. Then the Beatles arrived and my life changed forever. Then Led Zepplin came along. Then Kansas, Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons, Genesis. I love Frank Sinatra and Dino. The musical arrangements were pure genious. Nothing thrills me more than listening to a record that tells me exactly why every part fits. I listen to material and ask myself why the keyboard player played that there, and if the guitar player planned that piece, or just winged it. I love soul music, rock, world, jazz, hip-hop, really any music where the producer and artist nailed it. You listen to a song and just know it could not have been done any better. Bruce, if you could teach me anything at all, I'd like to know what I can leave out of a song.

I had thought I had pretty open ears but I got help broadening my listening in the last year by being involved in an online home recording forum. My own background was more in classical and pop but I’ve started to get a feel for metal, rap, punk…. Started really just as an exercise in identifying and talking about sonic characteristics separate from the expressive impact a tune might have on me, but then I was liking some of it. Metal was the biggest surprise in how similar it was, once I got beyond its surface characterisics, to some aspects of classical music. Though my own recording work is narrowly specialized I've benefited in perspective and "ear confidence" by listening and discussing some of the recording and mixing issues pertaining to drums, elec guitar, vox, etc., and the sonority and balance aspects particular to the styles I've been just recently getting to know.

Beyond aspects of style, what I like is a balance between sweet and hot, being in tune and in the pocket, and something in the performance that's personal or genuine.

Tim

I think I've actually been pretty close-minded until the past 4 or 5 years. I've been mainly an anvil-head... Metallica, Slayer, SOD type of stuff, but since I started this whole recording thing...it's anything from jazz to pop to contemporary, country, christian gospel, you name it....
And now I have to play all this stuff. Definitely different for me.
But I'm finding that all of it is pretty cool in one aspect or another. I may not like it all but have found a new respect for the people who play it.
Course, maybe I'm just on the mellower side of 40....

I listen to a lot of different styles of music. And, am always looking out for new kinds of music. I was raised listening to cuban music being that I am cuban. I also took piano lessons from a cuban teacher who has explained taught me a lot about cuban music and it's history. I find it interesting how there is a mix of european influence with european style instruments (like in Danzon) combined with african rhythms/clave. The merging of european and african cultures is what cuban music. And then, later on when castro's communist takeover being anti-usa he didn't want american jazz to be played in cuba. So, artists like arturo sandoval in the band irakere had to mix the jazz style with the cuban style by adding some cuban elements and combining it with jazz then saying that it was cuban music. I find it interesting that there has been a lot of mixing of cultures and their music to create new styles of music in cuba.
This article explains in more depth:
http://www.atidekate.com/Diaspora%20Castle%20Pages/CubaDiaspora.html

I also listen to jazz, brazilian, african, other latin music, electronic, pop, rock, singer songwriters, funk, r and b, reggae, some indian, I love oldies especially with female singers...there's so much. I don't really enjoy country or opera too much though.
evt

I'm from Georgia, so I'm mostly into Down South Hip Hop, r and b as well. I'm into all genres though, mainly rock, blues, and old school songs that many people today take for granted.

I love to listen to all GOOD music. As others have stated earlier, I think recordings that are well produced and recorded are exhilirating to listen to. I enjoy good musicianship, creative arrangements, and quirky personal performances that showcase an artist's creative expression and soul.

I've listened to everything from pop, rock and country to jazz, classical and world music. I've played many styles of music from classical and jazz in high school to pop, rock, punk, country, and R&B; in various bands and jam sessions.

Good music has the ability to take me beyond my limits and expand my possibilities. That is what keeps me involved in listening and making music as much as I can. It is also fun to see others respond to your music!

Michael

I've great recordings of horrible music and horrible recordings of great music. Although I prefer the great I get something out of almost everything I listen to.