It's True: Some People Just Don't Like Music

sciencehabit writes "Researchers have found that between 1 and 3% of people don't like music of any kind. These people aren't tone deaf or incapable of grasping the emotional meaning of a song—their brains simply didn’t find listening to music rewarding. While some psychiatric disorders are associated with the loss of the ability to feel pleasure, called anhedonia, the music-haters represent the first evidence for not feeling pleasure from only one specific pleasing stimulant, a condition that has been dubbed music-specific anhedonia. Curious where you fall on the music reward spectrum? The researchers have an online quiz." I know I actively prefer silence to most music, but what I like, I like intensely. Update: 03/06 21:48 GMT by T : Sorry for the garbled submission; now fixed.

Comments

Mind = Blown

[BisuDagger]

The amount of statistical information in the OP and the bonus "online quiz" has made this the /. article of the day!

Re:Mind = Blown

[mythosaz]

Study also shows that between 1 and 3% of online survey takers don't give a crap about the questions they're being asked, and just want the survey to be over with.

Re:Mind = Blown

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what they defined as popular music...

Probably music that a lot of people like.

Re:Mind = Blown

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually "popular music" means "everything that isn't classical music." It is not a function of how many people like it.

Re:Mind = Blown

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I Score...

69. Make your own joke.

Re:Mind = Blown

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose your mother was too busy with a mouthful of her own, to teach you not to talk with your mouth full.

Re:Mind = Blown

[treeves]

I think the definition is a little narrower than that. I.e. there is some music that is neither popular nor classical, e.g. jazz (of the John Coltrane or Miles Davis sort, not Kenny G)

Re:Mind = Blown

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you misspelt ‘bogus’.

Re:Mind = Blown

[TapeCutter]

Involuntary actions....triggered by MUSIC are the most relevant questions, surely you hear music when your not playing your violin? Do you NATURALLY react? BTW: my score was 58 - I can't play any instrument and I don't spend a lot of money on music.

HEY

[marcello_dl]

I didn't know there were so many fans of Bieber.

Re:HEY

[cayenne8]

Exactly.

So very little music you hear out today can be considered "musical" at all.

I prefer the days (I'm a rock/blues type) when people/groups generally wrote their own songs, played their own instruments, and aside from a bit of reverb, and other treatments shy of fucking Autotune...had real vocals on their songs.

I guess that's why I still see young kids of today, wearing AC/DC or Stones' tshirts (reproductions), and listening to Led Zeppelin, when they should have really come up with giants of music of their own day to replace the ones of my day.

I was shocked the other day really.

It was an afternoon on the way home from work not long ago. I was warm and I had the windows down on the car, and I was blaring Dazed and Confused, the 30 min live version from TSRTS album. It was during the extender part of Jimmy Page bowing his guitar, just a lot of noise really, and unless you knew this piece on a live recording...you'd not know what this noise was, especially considering the age of the piece.

Well, I pulled up, rolled up the windows, turned the music down and the car off and got out to walk into the store.

Just outside the store, a young stock boy, like in his upper teens, was sitting outside smoking a cig on break I guess. As I walked by, he spoke to me and said "Oh man, I love Zeppelin...dazed and confused!!"

I smiled and said yeah, good stuff or something like that.

As I walked in the store, I thought more about it and thought, goodness...HTF did he know that song?

Its that the old stuff is still around...because something happened along the way, and nothing really great or unifying in music happened much after my younger years, and the old stuff is still strong enough to keep a following. It hasn't been supplanted yet.

I think part of it was...most music through my era, had been very closely built or nicked from the music of the generation before it. Somewhere in the late 80s or 90's maybe, there was a break in the continuum. And music splintered, and money took over...and well, you just didn't get the continuing stream of artist with control over their music and time to hone their skills, style and following like say a Led Zeppelin did. Music became throw away, and while there have always been one hit wonders, that is now the norm. Groups don't earn or aren't given a chance to develop staying power. Or, maybe they just don't work as hard to know their instruments and music. I dunno.

Maybe some combination of all of the above.

Ok, now, get off my lawn, and lemme get my anti-static gun to "clear" my album I'm about to throw on the turntable.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of good modern music out there, it's just harder to find or not played on mainstream FM radio as in the 70s.

Re:HEY

[CanHasDIY]

It was an afternoon on the way home from work not long ago. I was warm and I had the windows down on the car, and I was blaring Dazed and Confused, the 30 min live version from TSRTS album. It was during the extender part of Jimmy Page bowing his guitar, just a lot of noise really, and unless you knew this piece on a live recording...you'd not know what this noise was, especially considering the age of the piece.

Well, I pulled up, rolled up the windows, turned the music down and the car off and got out to walk into the store.

Just outside the store, a young stock boy, like in his upper teens, was sitting outside smoking a cig on break I guess. As I walked by, he spoke to me and said "Oh man, I love Zeppelin...dazed and confused!!"

I smiled and said yeah, good stuff or something like that.

As I walked in the store, I thought more about it and thought, goodness...HTF did he know that song?

To be fair, the Zep represents that rare breed of musician whose art transcends generations. Just so happens the 1960's and 70's were chock-full of that kind of artist: Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Pink Floyd, the Beatles...

Well, OK, maybe just those four. Now that I think about it, I don't know anyone under the age of 25 or 26 who can name even one Jefferson Starship or Bread song.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

So very little music you hear out today can be considered "musical" at all.

I prefer the days (I'm a rock/blues type) when people/groups generally wrote their own songs, played their own instruments, and aside from a bit of reverb, and other treatments shy of fucking Autotune...had real vocals on their songs.

I hope this is sarcasm.

Every generation has great well crafted music, and every one has outside-written, overproduced pop that "real music" fans loathe. Believe it or not, we STILL have rock and blues. Just because you haven't made an attempt to find it doesn't mean it isn't there. It's hilarious that when people compare their favorite older music to modern music they always compare it to top-40 pop rather than the actual genre that would match. That autotune sentence of yours topped it off for me.

Somehow you manage to make Zeppelin and the Beatles represent the late 60s (not Three Dog Night or Neil Diamond), yet you automatically make pop radio music represent current music rather than, the MANY MANY bands who are extremely talented and creative without needing a lot of producing.

Ok, now, get off my lawn, and lemme get my anti-static gun to "clear" my album I'm about to throw on the turntable.

...

We still have turntables and EVERY BAND STILL RELEASES VINYL. I have vinyls of all of the music I consistently listen to and the only time I listen to MP3 is when I'm traveling.

Before you rant about an entire generation of musicians, please at least try to learn something first.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know anyone under the age of 25 or 26 who can name even one Jefferson Starship or Bread song.

I was going to reply to this saying that I could, given that a friend in college introduced me to Bread. (I know the name Jefferson Starship, but am not familiar with them.) Then I realized that I turned 30 the other day. Time sure flies...

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a ton of great music coming out, it's just not in the rock genre. Rock has gotten really stale, and hip-hop isn't far behind.

All the new artistry and experimentation is happening in alt-country, folk, electronic, and other niches. The problem with some of these genres, especially electronic, is just the sheer amount of garbage. And self-described alt-country and folk bands tend to evolve into rock bands, using rock/pop lyrical structures.

But, basically, the whole music scene is becoming much more diverse. It may never be like it was in the 1970s, where everybody knew who the greatest bands were. And it's hard to innovate when so many great bands came before. Much like in classical computer science, we're in the long tail of innovation, with a great part of the big discoveries behind us.

I intentionally refuse to listen to popular music. I force myself to crawl through iTunes and Amazon looking for new and interesting stuff. Now my collection of music spans from the 1950s to 2013, ranging from original country, Japanese rock (they peaked in the 1970s), Finnish polka, British
electronic, cumbia, tejano, etc. It's an unparalleled age to enjoy music, you just need to branch out in both time and space.

Re:HEY

[ebno-10db]

We still have turntables and every band still releases vinyl.

Why?

Re:HEY

[deathcloset]

Most digital paintings today have more subtlety, detail, accuracy, imagination, symbology and depth than the paintings of the great maestros of old - and there are exponentially larger numbers of them being churned out.

But something about the originals makes them "better".

I think it has something to do with simply being at the right place at the right time - like the beatles. The beatles didn't really make the era, the era made the beatles.

If you don't think that the cultural climate has more to do with the art that is created than the artists that create it just think of the parallel with this old question - if you had been born in china 1000 years ago, would you have been a christian?

Of course not.

If the beatles were born today, would they be world famous?

Of course not.

It's the climate - the fact that the beatles/zeppelin/whoever were able to be moved/inspired by the culture of the time to create what they did. And it has something to do with the technology of the time as well.

If you want to hear something that should blow your musical (artistic) appreciation gene out of the water then just listen to/watch Diego Stocco's Experibass video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

He's caught in the culture of our time. He would not have been who he is even 20 years ago. He and his music are creations (indirectly, but definitely) of a culture of hackers and makers, just as the classic rockers and their rock were the creations of a culture of exploration and discovery.

Nowadays...well, the culture is not exploration and discovery, but exploitation and refinement....but I wonder if I sense a subtle change in the winds?....

Re:HEY

[wisnoskij]

Well you got to remember. There is that the new generations "greats" are Justin Bieber's. But also these bands are often still playing. There are lots of 60-70 year old rockers out their still playing concerts.

I think it is simply the money angle. You make more money taking some nobody off of the street, getting him to sign over 99.5% of their income for 5 years, making them a star overnight, and then dropping them when the contract runs out and they demand more money. They do not have to be good, even the highly modified songs they put out do not have to be good, as long as the entire industry keeps the general same quality, no one will know what they are missing.

Re:HEY

[Megane]

To be fair, the '80s had its share of good stuff too. The Police, Phil Collins both Genesis and solo, David Bowie, Huey Lewis, Michael Jackson before he got too weird, and a load of one-hit-wonders. (And nobody can name any Starship songs from the '80s either, except the heavily overplayed and overrated We Built This City.) I've got an iTunes playlist called "'80s Radio", which I have been filling up as I acquire old used CDs to rip from. It's mostly stuff from 1975-1988 (with some earlier stuff too) that you would hear on the radio during the early to mid '80s.

But the '90s? Hardly anything interested me from then. Black Hole Sun, and maybe a couple of things from Nirvana and RHCP. Then I discovered music from Japan, where they were making stuff that still had a lot of the feel of western music from the '80s, and also some German dark wave industrial (Rammstein and Eisbrescher). But the only new music from US/UK that I'll buy these days is when Weird Al comes out with a new CD.

Oh, and I think you forgot to mention The Rolling Stones, man.

Re:HEY

[Cimexus]

Agreed. There's heaps of excellent new (mostly indie) music being produced these days. Pop, rock, electronica, all genres under the sun. Problem is that most of it doesn't ever make the radio (particularly in the US). You kind of have to go out actively looking for good stuff ... it won't hit you in the face by chance as you'll never hear any of it in the mainstream media or in public places etc.

Re:HEY

[orgenegro]

There is good music out there still, people just don't get exposed to it, so their comfort levels then grow to match those of clear channel syndicates that have been playing those same goddamn Led Zeppelin songs for as long as I've been alive (1980). A lot of this has to do with where bulges are within the population (boomers) and who listens to / controls the car radio. I personally am tired of songs about hobbits, and wish there was more Jack White (a descendent of Zeppelin for your example) on mainstream stations.
To give you an idea, there was a day and age where the disc jockey actually picked the music, and a band like the Doors could become particularly popular because the long cut of the song gave the DJ time to run to the bathroom. This is almost entirely gone, except for a number of college radio stations. Instead songs are cut down to nothingness so that the station can claim to play twenty songs non-stop, and the whole mix is made in one place and sent out to the rest of the syndicates (traveling across the country doesn't expose you to new music on the radio generally).
Most people don't want to hear new music except in a small window of their life. It's just something in our psychology.
I'll step off your lawn now.

Re:HEY

[cayenne8]

Plenty of good modern music out there, it's just harder to find or not played on mainstream FM radio as in the 70s.

Possibly...

But maybe that's one of the things that went wrong...I mean since there's no real good mainstream way to easily discover new good music, if it is there but not easily accessible, then it really "isn't there" in actuality.

I mean, unless you're a kid or still living on the parents' teet, to have the free time to actively search for good music in the sea of banality, you don't see any good new stuff.

I mean, I have a day job...and my time away from that is spoken for, I don't have time to sit and devote hours to search the haystack for the odd shiny needle here and there.

But there may be something else. I mean, I speak with younger folks today about music, and to them, it is disposible. They tell me the download of even buy stuff, but it isn't something to keep and listen to for the rest of your life. It isn't worth it to get a GOOD listening set of tools, a good stereo, to listen to the music...I mean, the songs I grew up with, I BOUGHT all of it, and I feel so strongly about it, I invested over the years (not at once) quite a bit building a high quality home sound system, so that I can enjoy it to the fullest.

I can't imagine parting with my songs/albums/CDs ...I mean, if I"ve lost my hard copy I replace it and I keep hard copies to rip my digital versions I use for lessor listening environments (ipod in gym, the car, etc).

To me, the music that captures my heart, has never been disposable. What makes todays music disposable?

Re:HEY

[cayenne8]

Oh, and I think you forgot to mention The Rolling Stones, man.

The Stones and the Beatles are implied.

:)

The Stones (of their day) are my favorite band to listen to still.

Re:HEY

[Jahoda]

Hey man - coming from a life long Zeppelin-man, and someone proud to call himself a person with broad, and (I believe) good taste in music - while it is true that there is no longer ANY mainstream-radio rock that is legitimate or good, there are, thanks to the democratizing effect of technology, a great many folks out there making incredible music. some of it very "indie", some of it touching the mainstream. Shouldn't close yourself off like that. At bare minimum, a Zeppelin man would love "White Denim" and/or "Gary Clark, Jr."... both from austin. But the thing that people like you and me need to accept is that rock is, for lack of a better term, dead. And by this I mean that rock isn't mainstream any more. It just isn't. It sure as hell isn't what "the kids" are into.

Re:HEY

[Jahoda]

Absolutely correct. Seeding a Pandora station can really help expose oneself to all variety of new things. What I think is sad, though, is that there are not so much any more those good bands that "Everyone" is listening to, culturally. Seems like you have to be one of those people who cares enough about music to go find it. Otherwise, just listen to the same auto-tuned country music and over-compressed post-metal-garbage from your local Clearchannel wastehole.

Re:HEY

[Darinbob]

I'm sick of you young kids no longer listening to the legends of Liszt and Haydn.

Re:HEY

[cayenne8]

Hey man - coming from a life long Zeppelin-man, and someone proud to call himself a person with broad, and (I believe) good taste in music - while it is true that there is no longer ANY mainstream-radio rock that is legitimate or good, there are, thanks to the democratizing effect of technology, a great many folks out there making incredible music. some of it very "indie", some of it touching the mainstream. Shouldn't close yourself off like that. At bare minimum, a Zeppelin man would love "White Denim" and/or "Gary Clark, Jr."... both from austin. But the thing that people like you and me need to accept is that rock is, for lack of a better term, dead. And by this I mean that rock isn't mainstream any more. It just isn't. It sure as hell isn't what "the kids" are into.

Well, I did find Wolfmother a few years back, but they only did 2x albums...and I like some of the Black Keys.

But the thing is, there is no easy way to find good music....everyone even on these threads says "you have to actively search for it". Well, when you are out and have a real job and responsibilities and limited time for fun, you don't really have time to search through the huge sea of crap out there, to find the gems.

In real terms, it might as well not exist.

:(

I mean, I grew up finding all my great (now classic) bands driving around hearing them first time played on album rock stations. If it isn't easily findable, it isn't there.

But, thanx for the suggestions...I'll try to look those guys up you suggested. I really like any type of blues based rock really.

Re:HEY

[NatasRevol]

http://azpeacemakers.com/

http://www.peacetimegoods.com/...
http://www.peacetimegoods.com/...

Re:HEY

[CanHasDIY]

To be fair, the '80s had its share of good stuff too. The Police, Phil Collins both Genesis and solo, David Bowie, Huey Lewis, Michael Jackson before he got too weird, and a load of one-hit-wonders.

Those two sentences seem contradictory.

Ba-dum psht.

All kidding aside, although I'm not a fan of most of the groups you mentioned (with the exception of MJ, as he was quite awesome before the Pepsi commercial incident got him hooked on opiates), I'm not questioning whether or not the music was "good" - I'm saying that certain groups, such as the Zep, transcend generations, which is why those teenagers in OP's anecdote knew that he was listening to Dazed and Confused.

As for 90's music, They've been playing Nirvana and Soundgarden on the "classic rock" stations for a number of years now, and pretty much everyone knows who Kurt Cobain was, so I'd classify them in the 'transcending' category. I'd throw techno groups like the Crystal Method and Chemical Brothers in there, too, but honestly I don't talk to a lot of people younger than 30, so I couldn't tell you if their music is still popular with electronica fans.

Oh, and I think you forgot to mention The Rolling Stones, man.

Oh, I didn't forget... I just let my bias show through there a bit.

Outside Paint It Black, I could take or leave the Stones.

Re:HEY

[TapeCutter]

I grew up in the 60's and 70's, really good music has always been "harder to find", only cream of 70's musicians lived on, the rest were promptly forgotten. Same with any era, my adult kids still listen to the Nirvana and Gun's and Roses they grew up with and enjoy it just as much as I enjoy Floyd and Marley. The difference since about the late 80's is that parents and their children often have similar tastes in music.

I can't comprehend how someone could not enjoy ANY music, music is the fundamental pre-cursor to language, not only is it deeply ingrained into humans but species as diverse as whales and grasshoppers use music to communicate with each other.

Re:HEY

[jxander]

Once music started to make a ton of money, it shifted from an art to a business

Why wait for years while bands practice, learn instruments, tour to build a following and all that... skip it. Tell people "here's the latest band to be exited about," and just auto-tune them, have studio musicians play on the CDs, and lip sync in concert. We can now do in days or weeks what used to take years. And then we move onto the next big thing. There's no money to be made in people wearing the same band's tshirt for years on end. Make them buy new tshirts once a month for the new band that just newly got popular. And again and again and again.

Sarcasm aside, there are still plenty of good artists out there. Musicians who make great music, tour and genuinely love what they do. But they just don't get any of the publicity or marketing. "It's just business." I think the pendulum will swing back eventually. In the meantime, I think I'll listen to some Chickenfoot.

Re:HEY

[Sir_Eptishous]

To be fair, the Zep represents that rare breed of musician

"Oh by the way, which one's Pink

Re:HEY

[geekoid]

"So very little music you hear out today can be considered "musical" at all."
bullshit. I could go on and on with current music that is, be any definition musical.

There where people in your day(mine to from the sound of it) That thought the previous generation was real music, and so on.

" And music splintered, and money took over"
says everyone who doesn't like a shift in music for all time.

"and while there have always been one hit wonders, that is now the norm."
No, it's always mostly been one hit wonders. The 60s, 70s, 90s where FULL of one hit wonders. Look at the charts at the time. You have forgotten the crap of you generation and only remember the greats. and since no one plays the one hit wonders(seldom, anyways) from that generation, kids will where the good music from the time.

Tell me, are you amazed the the pinnacle of music coincidentally coincides with the music you liked when you where in your teens?

Think about that a bit.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know anyone under the age of 25 or 26 who can name even one Jefferson Starship or Bread song.

Starship?!? you mean that horrible 'We Built This City...' Song? I'm still trying to forget it. And I don't know anyone who could name even one Fairport Convention song, or Flipper or the Flamin' Groovies for that matter. The Faces maybe...

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Its true, I have no feelings for any music I have had friends in the past try exposing me to different forms of music thinking that it was just because I haven't found what I liked nothing worked.

I can appreciate the skill that some musical forms take (like complex singing or skilful instrument playing) but have no feelings for any of the musical forms. I don't like or dislike any form of music apart from my appreciation for the skill.

I have not been in any accidents have suffered no trauma, I own no music & no cd's or any music players (no mp3 player's, record) no posters or music merchandise, when I drive I watch the road it doesn't even occur to me to turn the stereo on.

I do not enjoy ANY Music, oh and I speak 3 languages so I'm not sure how much of a precursor to language music is or its just an assumption made that music came before language.

Re:HEY

[melchoir55]

I can't comprehend how someone could not enjoy ANY music, music is the fundamental pre-cursor to language, not only is it deeply ingrained into humans but species as diverse as whales and grasshoppers use music to communicate with each other.

IAAL (I am a linguist)

Music is not the fundamental precursor to language. Language is just a fancy way of diong communication. Communication itself is a common thing that organisms do. The likely precursor to human language would be symbolic rperesentation without things like syntax. "Music" doesn't enter into it.

Animals aren't doing "music", unless by "music" you mean a form of communication which depends on repetitive pitch patterns or something like that. If that is what you mean, then you havnen't managed to distinguish between language and music. Language does that too. Most people think of music as an artistic twist on language. Pitches are held longer than is "normal" in the dialect. A prosody pattern is represented with a guitar rather than a human voice doing actual speech. The list goes on at length.

Animals are communicating with one another, and they tend to do it in a very similar way to humans. Most animals aren't doing anything you can reasonably call music if you want the words "music", "communication", and "language" to have any distinction. Your example of a whale using music to communicate is anthropormorphization. Whale speech happens to sound like music to you because your brain is keyed to represent certain tones in certain patterns in certain ways. It isn't any different than an a squirrel chriping, it just sounds more beautiful to humans because the tones are low and held for long periods.

Language is a precursor to music. It isn't the other way around. All that being said, I am surprised there are humans who don't enjoy any kind of music at all at any time. I suspect the results are either being exagerated, the survey results were contaminated, or the people being surveyed had a tenous grasp on language in general

Re:HEY

[Jahoda]

Definitely check out Gary Clark, Jr. he is seriously _legit_ blues. Younger guy, like 29-30, but (according to Wikipedia) got taken under Jimmy Vaughn's wing at an early age, so has gotten to cut his teeth with some real Texas blues guys. I wound up seeing him on Conan O'Brien, and his licks were incredible.

Re:HEY

[anubi]

My take on this as well.

Many of today's "stars" seem to be analogous to the "pump-n-dump" offerings of investment advisor.

They go about "stoking the star making machinery" to pump up some unknown artist they get for cheap, get him into debt up to his eyebrows, own all his works, then dump him.

Then have Congress write law for them honoring this business model.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote "Language is a precursor to music. It isn't the other way around. All that being said, I am surprised there are humans who don't enjoy any kind of music at all at any time. I suspect the results are either being exagerated, the survey results were contaminated, or the people being surveyed had a tenous grasp on language in general"

I do not like any form of Music, I do not find it pleasurable or disagreeable in any way, I do not own any Music in any form nor any players or merchandise from any band, I am 31 Years old and have never found any music I enjoy. I also speak 3 Languages English Russian and Chinese.

I am not alone in this, I have found alot of the comments very interesting and this could lead to some interesting conclusions and I would be very interested in reading a linguists opinion of this as it is true (assuming it is true, I can't prove it you don't know me.) Some people have commented it's impossible as music is essential, others find it unbelievable as they can't "live" without music, I find such comments quite shortsighted, Music is unique to the experience of the listener, how is it inconceivable that a small percentage do not like or dislike any of it.

Re:HEY

[fisted]

there are services like last.fm. i typically have it play, and it's mostly playing stuff i don't know yet (although of a genre i like). when i notice i like the currently playing track, i can mark it as "loved" (conversely one can ban tracks you're sure not to want to hear again).

As time passes, the list of "loved" tracks grows, and every couple months or so i leech it all off^W^W^W^Wpurchase legit copies of the tracks i marked loved.

Re:HEY

[MightyYar]

I'd add that while it is harder to find than mainstream music, it is easier to find good music than ever in the history of mankind. YouTube alone can keep you exploring music for hours at a time.

Re:HEY

[ElectraFlarefire]

I don't enjoy music.. It sets background and rithym for words but the music it'self does very little for me.
I don't buy or listen to it day to day and I feel no worse off if I never encounter it.. And while Disney style movies are fun, they are fun for the words in the songs.. Not the music..
While I was growing up I listened to some music, for example, Weird Al that was good because of the words, but now that's not enough to have me listen to him.
And my best friends are all /heavily/ into music of all eras.. And while I can appreciate it on a technical level, the music it'self does very little for me.
Oh.. And I also /cannot/ have it playing while I'm trying to do anything as it completely screws up my mental processes.. It's just disruptive..

Re:HEY

[mattack2]

Its that the old stuff is still around...because something happened along the way, and nothing really great or unifying in music happened much after my younger years, and the old stuff is still strong enough to keep a following. It hasn't been supplanted yet.

I think you still have your rose colored glasses on.

That's the stuff I listen to too, but remember, you are listening to the best of the 70s.. Just like people are "still" listening to the best of the 50s and 60s..

There's still lots of popular (literally) music. I don't listen to it, but I know it's out there. Some of it may be the "they're still listening to it" in 40 years. (Pink maybe? Adele, though you'll probably just mention that she's in the style of older music.)

Re:HEY

[riverat1]

I'm sick of you young kids no longer listening to Bach and Vivaldi.

Re:HEY

[Laser Dan]

I can't comprehend how someone could not enjoy ANY music, music is the fundamental pre-cursor to language, not only is it deeply ingrained into humans but species as diverse as whales and grasshoppers use music to communicate with each other.

Interesting to know that 1-3% are like me.
I will clarify this for you.

I have zero interest in music. I have never bought (or pirated) a CD or mp3 in my life.
Why people are so obsessed with music I can't understand at all.
It's like how some people looove stamp collecting, I don't understand that obsession either.

It's not a DISlike of music, it's just no interest.
Sure some music has a good beat, or a catchy tune, and I won't complain if someone plays music, but I would never actually choose to play music myself.

Besides this I am pretty much the same as everyone else, I'm not autistic or anything.
I'm an engineer, with friends and a girlfriend, hobbies and a good job.
Music just isn't any more interesting to me than bird noises etc.

Re:HEY

[Bite The Pillow]

And the article is about people who don't like that. Everything that you mentioned, that you like, that you consider musical, there are people who apparently do not like that.

Your whole diatribe is unoriginal, derivative, and pretty much off topic, because we are not talking about musical taste here. This is about people who, for whatever reason, don't like music of *any* kind.

There was a story I CBA finding again, but so many people responded with comments like, why doesn't that dude listen to music? He is depriving himself of one of life's simple pleasures and all that. Well, maybe he just doesn't get the same enjoyment out of music that 97 to 99% of the population does? And here it is, at least the initial research to suggest these people may exist, and he wasn't depriving himself of anything nature hadn't already.

Many people agree with, though very few people care about, your attitude that only the "classics" are real music. It demonstrates the lack of a true appreciation, where you can at least see the qualities that make today's, if you will pardon me for not having an alternative word available, "music" popular. And it makes your appreciation suspect, as if there is something other than just the music that you appreciate.

With the comment about staying power, it shows you don't really understand how today's music is put together. A few very talented people are behind most of what happens on the radio these days. You have a few writing teams writing the songs that the throwaway groups "perform", and they are *very* good at putting things together in a way that is pleasing, at least to the lowest common denominator.

Check out Bonnie McKee. Her career is pretty much the definition of staying power. You might not consider it music, because the same people are not both writing and performing it. And there are countless small production groups that can be counted on to make catchy, singable pop that people love to hear, pay to buy, sing at karaoke, and in general incorporate into their stupid lives through posting lyrics on BookFace or Twitr.

Pop music in 1730 was Baroque (which comes under the genre "classical"). In 1770 it was Classical (also "classical"). 1800 gave way to Romantic (also "classical"). In 1975, Rock (classified as "hard rock" or just "rock") was the popular music. Oh wait, I lied, the chart toppers were lounge songs or funk. The song by America wasn't rock, nor the Eagles.

1969 - CCR with Proud Mary? Zeppelin hit #21 on Billboard with Fool In The Rain. That's your hard-rockin' Zep, right?

Just spend some time looking at where people, generally captured as the Billboard charts, thought your music ranked for the year. And, what were the top ten for that year. I think you will realize that most people do not share your opinion. Many do, enough to get Zeppelin in the top 20 frequently. But we are talking about people here, not you and me.

For me, Zeppelin has the #1, 2, or 3 best rock song in the history of the universe depending on how much I've had to drink. Generally that means I am wrong 90% of the time, even if it's just which song is the best.

But that doesn't have anything to do with what is good music, or whether something qualifies as music at all. If your only concern is how hard someone worked, can't you give some credit to singers who perform other peoples' songs but do it well? If you are against autotune, can you discredit people who, in the 70s, still patched in corrections until they were pretty much perfect? Can you not grant that at least some of the performers today have real, genuine vocal tracks? Including Justin Beiber, who started out recording himself on Youtube without the fancy production of a typical pop record, and had enough followers to attract real record companies?

Search for "The Great Led Zeppelin Swindle" and learn everything you ever needed to know about stealing other peoples' music. Not taking the time to develop your own artistry, but blatantly ripping off riffs and who

Re:HEY

[Wycliffe]

I have no idea why this is scored a -1. This almost perfectly describes me as well.
I don't own any cds, mp3 players, etc.. Interestingly enough my mother can play
the piano but she also never listens to music of any kind and never has to my knowledge.
We've actually had conversations about it and she for some reason feels weird about it.
I can go months without listening to music. I can't listen to it at work as it disrupts my
concentration. I will occasionally turn the radio on on long car trips to keep me awake
but after about an hour I get overstimulated and have to turn it back off again.
I do enjoy the lyrics of certain songs the same way someone would enjoy listening
to a poem or reading a short story but the music itself does very little for me.
For the record, I took the survey and was in the 10s and 20s for most of the scores
so definitely outside of their standard deviation.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sick of you young kids no longer listening to Bach and Vivaldi.

That's nothing. I'm sick of you listening to the sounds of two rocks being banged together rhythmically!

Oh wait, that's a Philip Glass CD.

Nevermind.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to object and say that I'm young and know plenty of Jefferson Starship/Airplane songs, but then I realized I'm 27 now.

Re:HEY

[Tablizer]

I prefer the days...when people/groups generally wrote their own songs, played their own instruments, and aside from a bit of reverb, and other treatments shy of fucking Autotune...had real vocals on their songs.

Yeah, I remember the good ol' "Get Off My Lawn" song, by "Wipper and the Snappers".

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

But maybe that's one of the things that went wrong...I mean since there's no real good mainstream way to easily discover new good music, if it is there but not easily accessible, then it really "isn't there" in actuality.

I would argue otherwise. Back when the radio was the only real way to get your music "out there", the industry had a lot of good talent begging for air time, so they could actually get some decent talent to top the charts, and flesh out the "down times" with the copycat knock-off crap. The only other way people could get new exposure was if you lived in a town with a thriving "underground" music scene. Or just word-of-mouth.

What the internet has done, is allow people to skip the radio entirely. They can get decent mid-level exposure without begging for handouts from the Big Guys. So if you spend some effort looking around, it's far, far easier to come across new stuff.

But the other impact is that there is less top talent trying to get onto the radio. So the big labels, unable to change with the times, are acting in desperation. Instead of putting a lot of money and effort into hunting new talent, they are taking ANY thing which seems to attract the public's attention and beating it to death- endless copycat artists. Sure, you still have some good talent and fresh stuff that makes its way up, because the big labels still can offer a much larger payday for a studio album. But it's fewer and farther in between, and with so much more copycat stuff out on the radio even the good stuff doesn't seem unique or memorable.

So that's really why today's music feels so "disposable". Because so much more of it IS disposable, and a lot of the really good stuff never even tries for the "charts".
The comforting thing is that the "underground" scene is vastly larger, world-wide now, and so much easier to access if you go looking.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside Paint It Black, I could take or leave the Stones.

Can't You Hear Me Knockin?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HDdiz8MU8o&feature=kp

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

OR maybe you are the one who has not progressed, and still listens to the same old shit from 40 years ago. There are some fantastic new artists, if you took the time to find them. Can't depend on the radio anymore to find the real good stuff.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Add The Who to that list, make it a nice five. Maybe the Eagles (someone, just yesterday, turned me onto an acoustic version of Hotel California that is freaking amazing).

Otherwise the list is spot on.

Re:HEY

[spitzig]

To paraphrase Theodore Sturgeon when asked why so much SF sucked: "95% of SF sucks. That's because 95% of everything sucks."

95% of music made today sucks. 95% of 60's music sucks. People just don't remember the old crappy stuff. In 50 years, people won't remember most of the crap from today in the same way.

Re:HEY

[Fr33z0r]

So very little music you hear out today can be considered "musical" at all.

That's always true, and there's always plenty of good music being made, we just tend to have an emotional attachment to music that we associate with the time in our lives when we were listening to a lot of music and going out into the world and doing new things, and obviously since they're lasting musical choices, our kids end up hearing them and liking them because they're stuck in the same house with us (and the bands we enjoyed in our formative years are genuinely good)

I'd recommend giving some good stuff made in the last decade a listen to see how you get on. Anything by The Black Keys or Cold War Kids is a safe bet. If you're a fan of albums as complete experiences, try Everything All The Time by Band of Horses, Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter, Teen Dream by Beach House, Glory Hope Mountain by The Acorn, Becoming a Jackal by the Villagers and plenty more.

There's never been a better time to love music than now - we have the internet, we have a world of music at our fingertips. There are plenty of bands in all different genres keeping it real all over the world. You're cheating yourself out of a world of fantastic music if you stick with decades old American rock.

Re:HEY

[markhb]

Flipper? As in "SEX BOMB MAMA, YEAH!" (Of course, I'm old enough to have voted for Reagan, so I'm outside your sample and I'm also in the "really don't care about music" category to boot.) But Sex Bomb is the only song I know by them, and I thought it was one of the most awful pieces of dreck I'd ever heard.

Re:HEY

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Are you saying that Zeppelin and Floyd weren't getting constant airtime on the radio? That their music didn't chart?

Within two months of its release the album had reached Billboard Top 10. It stayed on the Billboard chart for 73 weeks and held a 79-week run on the British charts.

That's what Wikipedia says about Led Zeppelin's debut album. Is it somehow not fair to compare Top 40 hits from 45 years ago (which happened to be rock) to the ones we hear today (which happen to be overproduced crap for tweens)?

Re:HEY

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I was lucky enough to see Pete Seeger 2 years ago. There were maybe 30 people in the audience on this chilly autumn morning. They were mostly in their 20s.

Pete's dead now. He was in his 90s when I saw him. In his 90s. Somehow, I don't think Justin Bieber will grow up to be the amazing man Pete Seeger was. And I don't think he'll be performing his "art" into his 90s.

Re:HEY

[iplayfast]

IAAL (I am a linguist)

Are you cunning? :)

Seriously, to respond.I developed a distaste for music after playing professionally for 3 years in bar bands. Realized that everyone I worked with was an alcoholic and I decided I had had enough of that life. The distaste was so bad, I couldn't even go into a store where there was musak going on. (It has since subsided)

I'm not saying that everyone of the 25% had the same experience, but that a lot can happen between birth and testing.

So it might be that yes language is a precursor to music, but that has no bearing on life experiences. You are linking one theory to your expected results instead of looking at actual ones.

As far as the animals not using music, I think it depends on your definition of music. There is no reason for a cat to purr when it's happy, other then to show it's joy through sound. They don't purr when they are upset do they. I've also seen videos of birds whistling along with tunes. I don't know why they would do it other then to join in, in a shared experience. (They were pet birds in a relaxed environment).

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anon because I'm embarrassed to link to this.

The kids may not be listening to Liszt, but they may inadvertantly be learning about him.

Re:HEY

[iplayfast]

That's it. Music overstimulates me as well. Can't listen to it at work unless I'm doing the boring physical tasks where I'm understimulated. I also much prefer to listen to a book on tape or nothing then have music playing in the car.
My daughter says she feels physically car sick if she doesn't have music playing. (I think that's weird).

Re:HEY

[CCarrot]

I will occasionally turn the radio on on long car trips to keep me awake
but after about an hour I get overstimulated and have to turn it back off again.

Might I suggest you try listening to audiobooks on your long car trips? Douwnpour.com has a great selection of DRM-free MP3 audiobooks for reasonable prices.

I also can't stand listening to music while driving: it doesn't engage my mind enough to counteract the tedium, while being just repetitive enough to engender frustration and annoyance. But put in a good book by one of my favourite authors, and I'm happy as a clam: those four-hour drives just fly by! :)

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

But Sex Bomb is the only song I know by them, and I thought it was one of the most awful pieces of dreck I'd ever heard.

Then you obviously haven't heard The Stooges "L.A. Blues"...though that's another one of my favorites (but not a band that begins with the letter 'F'...or maybe you have heard it and don't think it's 'dreck'?).
But no, I wouldn't put Flipper in the 'easy to listen to' category. The other 'F' bands, yes, mostly, though Richard Thompson can crank out some pretty dissonant solos. Yes, my tastes are fairly eclectic, and yes, I consider all bands in this and my previous post 'legendary' in their own way.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Reich would be more accurate.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up in the 60's and 70's and I still hate listening to most music. It doesn't really matter who the artist is, I prefer silence or listening to the news over music anytime. I am always annoyed by people who know the names of artists and songs, and see it as a waste of good intelligence to learn all that crap. What good is that information unless you are in the business? I had no problem boycotting all music when the RIAA made it clear they wanted to enforce their monopoly and I still hold a grudge against them for making me pay extra for compact discs because I "could" record music on it, which I have NEVER done. I plan to never buy any commercially produced music in my lifetime ever again as my response to the RIAA. I can enjoy the birds outside instead.

Re:HEY

[Megane]

Outside Paint It Black, I could take or leave the Stones.

What's funny is that was the song that popped into my head when I thought about them (it's damn catchy)... and I didn't even know that song until a few years ago, from PBS running those "remember when" shows during pledge drives with bands playing on Sullivan, etc., and that one was in black-and-white. I'm definitely not younger than 30, so I'm going to guess that you have to be over 50 to be familiar with that one unless you've gone out of your way to hear their stuff.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing at all to do with hard work-- and the work itself has nothing to do with the tools you use (ie. instruments/effects). If I spend two thousand hours learning the subtle nuances of a digital synthesizer, does that make me less of a musician than a kid that spent a thousand hours with his guitar? It's a logical fallacy, of course.

Music is music.
Tools are tools.
People are people. ;)

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

You speak three languages, but you are unable to write coherently in english. Hmm. Could there be a connection between this and the lack of interest in music?

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on. Good stuff? The Police, Phil Collins both Genesis and solo, David Bowie, Huey Lewis, Michael Jackson? Laughable.

Re:HEY

[CanHasDIY]

I'm definitely not younger than 30, so I'm going to guess that you have to be over 50 to be familiar with that one unless you've gone out of your way to hear their stuff.

Maybe the Ed Sullivan performance (I've always been a big fan of his, so I dig), but not the track in general - Paint It Black seems to be pretty popular in pop culture, appearing in numerous movies and TV shows over the decades, with Full Metal Jacket being one of the more notable instances.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

...Zep ... Led Zeppelin...

I don't know anyone under the age of 25 or 26 who can name even one Jefferson Starship or Bread song.

Name one song by the female who sang on Zep's Battle of Evermore...

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe you didn't listen to it loud enough.

Re:HEY

[melchoir55]

The reason I make the claim that it is unlikely any human categorically dislikes music of all kinds is because what we can consider music is incredibly broad. It is like making the claim that there are humans who don't enjoy art. It seems nearly impossible because the nature of art is such that it permeates all human endeavor. Medicine, for example, is art. Lots of science in there of course. But there is a lot of art as well. I don't mean "an art" either, I mean art. When people start doing things creatively according to their internal sense of aesthetics, they've made some art.

"I don't enjoy music" meaning "I don't pursue even a tiny interest in music" seems plausible to me. What seems implausible to me is the statement "I have never enjoyed a work of music in my life". I'll admit that it isn't really based on anything I know about cognitive science, so I could be wrong. There might well be people who actually don't like any combination of melody, beat, rhythm, or whatever. The reason I find it diffiult to believe is because music is just artistic expression, and artistic expression seems to be a part of what it is to be human. I would think that some form of music would resonante with anyone because by the definition of art there are nearly no limits to what one could consider music. If there was no music a person liked, I would think they could make some by just tapping their fingers on a table in a way they find calming/pleasing/whatever.

All the crap I just said in this post is unrelated to my training as a linguist. Like I said above, music doesn't preceed language, and linguists have no need to study it as a foundational sort of thing. I also happen to have a philosohpy degree, so the above is mostly me trying to make clear what we mean by our terms.

Re:HEY

[TranquilVoid]

It's not a DISlike of music, it's just no interest.

This is popping up a bit and is very interesting since usually I've heard the opposite story - people actively dislike music because it tells them how they should feel.

To me music taps into something primal within our understanding of sound. The reaction to sudden, loud notes after a quiet passage is probably the most obvious example that we can link to our survival experience, but all languages have their own musical elements (prosody) and some are even tonal, where the pitch alters the meaning of the word. This is why it seems musical appreciation should be universal.

So a question, do you understand the emotional content of music and simply not care (that sounds almost paradoxical), or is the lack of interest from not being able to 'parse' it? If you understand it, to what extent? If not, how does this apply to lanuages? For example, do you fail to find French beautiful and German harsh, and how do you fare at picking up tone in spoken language?

Re:HEY

[TranquilVoid]

They don't purr when they are upset do they?

Actually cats will purr when they are about to die (e.g. fatally wounded or ill, when they have given up). On music by animals in general it's hard to say, since humans use music as art/entertainment. Most animal 'music' is more for communication or attracting a mate, but of course you could say that's really what human art is about too (as the musicians you met during your bar gigging years would no doubt attest).

Re:HEY

[ffflala]

Most animals aren't doing anything you can reasonably call music if you want the words "music", "communication", and "language" to have any distinction. Your example of a whale using music to communicate is anthropormorphization.

I generally agree with your comments here, as far as my not-a-linguist training goes. I am a lifelong musician however, and there is one thing I've repeatedly experienced that does indeed seem to me like "animal music." Specifically, when I've played instruments in a certain pitch range (generally on the higher end), I have had birds come along and... this might sound crazy.. but they have started learning bits of my songs, and singing them back to me. IOW I've witnessed birds pick up and repeat some of my hooks. I'm not sure if they've been trying to communicate, and/or if they think that I'm trying to communicate with them. But goddamn, it has really felt to me like the birds are just joining in on and/or are trying to learn what they think is a good tune. And since there is video out there of what appears to be animals using expressive arts --dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJOZp2ZftCw,) and painting self-portraits () -- it seems reasonable to think that other animal brains might also indeed be capable of the kind of artistic expression & intent that distinguishes "music" from the kind of "communication" one has a spoken language.

Re:HEY

[pnutjam]

Sure..., your music was the best ever...
whatever makes you feel young and hip is certainly the epitome of music...

Sorry...

[meglon]

Another psychological pseudo experiment that draws incredibly stupid conclusions from a meaningless, waste of time, poorly thought out, mess. Read the description of what they did.

Re:Sorry...

[plopez]

So in other words, no different from any other /. post.

Oblig XKCD

[scorp1us]

XKCD

Re:Oblig XKCD

[imatter]

and because of John Cage 1% - 3% becomes 0%, case dismissed! That might be my favorite XKCD.

Re:Oblig XKCD

[ClickOnThis]

and because of John Cage 1% - 3% becomes 0%, case dismissed! That might be my favorite XKCD.

I daresay the percentage of people who would like this is not zero.

Notice carefully who wrote it.

Re:Oblig XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the most interesting link sidetracks I've enjoyed yet on Slashdot, yet it looked so cliché at first. :D Thank you.

For the lazies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4...

Re:Oblig XKCD

[imatter]

I was referring to the silence part, although the Cage piece is not really about silence but about what you hear in the absence of "traditional" music. Unless they said that 1% - 3% just don't like to hear anything.

disliker!

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be one of those sort of people who disliked all music.

I was being narrow minded. I even self selected myself into making myself not like music. I would say it and make it true...

These days I still dont get gangster rap... except for a few rare cases.

Re:disliker!

[cayenne8]

These days I still dont get gangster rap... except for a few rare cases.

Well, to be fair, the words rap and music ARE mutually exclusive terms.

;)

Re:disliker!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be fair, the words rap and music ARE mutually exclusive terms.

People that say that rarely know what actual rap sounds like. There is plenty of lousy rap now, but that happens to a lot of things when popularity comes and waters down a thing. It's like saying Britney Spears reflects all of pop music.

Re:disliker!

[Cinder6]

If I were pressed, I could possibly name 30 songs I legitimately like, and none that I would care to listen to at the moment. Stuff on the radio is downright terrible to the point that I would feel relief when switching through stations and I came across a commercial. I know there is likely music out there that I would enjoy, but you know what? I don't care. It's not worth the effort. I haven't intentionally listened to any music in a year, and I'm actually happier for it. Whenever I drive anywhere, I just listen to audiobooks. They're immensely more entertaining and satisfying, and a great way to reduce my book backlog and discover new things.

Re:disliker!

[riverat1]

Huh, if I were pressed I could name at least 30 Beatles songs I like and would listen to now. I agree with you that there is not a lot of good music on commercial radio but we have some local listener supported stations, one that plays an eclectic mix from rock & roll to blues to hip-hop to folk to country to bluegrass (KBOO) and another that is 24/7 classical music (KQAC), both of which I listen to regularly. I go to 1 or 2 concerts a month. We've got a lot of good local artists to see with the occasional national/world artist. I couldn't imagine my life without music.

Re:disliker!

[gIobaljustin]

I was being narrow minded. I even self selected myself into making myself not like music. I would say it and make it true...

Yeah, narrow minded. It's unbelievable that someone could not like things that I like! Such a thing just isn't possible.

Oliver Sacks

[snooz_crash]

...has already written about this phenomenon. http://www.oliversacks.com/books/musicophilia/

Jazz

[Curate]

I know a few people who can't stand music of any kind. They prefer jazz.

Re:Jazz

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I consider myself in the 1-3% mentioned in this article but don't mind jazz. I never listen to or buy music. My car's radio is set on my local NPR station and has never changed. I have no connection whatsoever to music of today...but I don't mind sitting in a club with some quiet jazz playing in the background. I've even been known to tap my foot a time or two. With that said, I feel no desire to ever seek it out on my own and prefer silence (or talk radio) over music.

Re:Jazz

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm right there with you.

Re:Jazz

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

You're the spirit of Jazz?

Re:Jazz

[onkelonkel]

Is that like people who don't like beer so they drink Coors Light instead.

Re:Jazz

[Anonymous Coward]

Most styles of jazz are quite orderly and structured, and there are many styles of jazz. You're probably thinking of free-form jazz, which is probably the closest thing to "chaos" in the world of music, and also the least popular form of jazz. I'm not a fan of it either, although I am a big fan of "musical" jazz.

Re:Jazz

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably thinking of free-form jazz

You mean like when Spinal Tap went jazz?

Re:Jazz

[JackieBrown]

I'm the same way. When I try to listen to a few stations, it is usually do to other people in the car wanting to listen.

I prefer to talk or - if by myself - drive in silence.

What does "don't like" mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not listening to any music. But I play several instruments and sing and maintain GNU LilyPond, a music typesetting program, and do some arrangements of my own. It's not just recordings or broadcasts I don't listen to: I also don't go into concerts unless I am performing myself.

Probably like instructional videos or podcasts or whatever, as a listener, music is "wrong-paced" for me. When I'm playing myself, the speed and concentration span is just what I need at the moment.

Ringing in my Ears

[Danathar]

Most of my youth was listening to Rush, Metallica and other hard rock/Metal bands of the 80's.

As a result I have ringing in my ears that I only notice when it's silent.

Have you ever heard "The Silence is Deafening?" Well, for me silence can literally BE deafening.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Anonymous Coward]

All the good things in life kill you when indulged in too much, metal is no exception.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Anonymous Coward]

This probably won't help you; but it can't hurt you. It helps me sometimes but I hardly ever listened to music at excessive volume in my youth. Your hair cells are shot of course. Mine might be too; but for other reasons. OK, here's the trick:

1. Put the palms of your hands over your ears. Note, use your palms. You are not sticking anything in your ears. It is important to use your palms so that...

2. Make sure that your hands are positioned so that the finger tips meet behind your head. You'll have to raise your elbows to do this. It should be possible unless you have a really big head combined with really small hands or... are missing a hand. I'm not sure if this will work for amputees.

3. OK, now the fun part. Tap your fingers together quickly. Get a good fast rhythm going. Make sure your palms are still over your ears, forming a nice seal.

4. Ironically, you'll hear a kind of ringing while you do this. You shouldn't have to do it too long, maybe 10 seconds although I've seen some sources say 30 seconds or a full minute.

5. Now take your hands away from your ears and relax... Wow!

How it works? Apparently there is some "circuitry" in the brain compensating for the loss of the hair cells and forming a runaway positive feedback loop. Yep, there's crap in our brains sometimes that's like a bad sound setup at the concerts you attended.

Note. The relief will most likely be temporary. You have a bad sound board. The mic level will most likely return to annoying volumes at some point. You may only get a minute or two of relief; but perhaps longer.

I don't know if this works for everybody. I suppose it wouldn't work if there is an actual oscillation near your hair cells.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Anonymous Coward]

All the good things in life kill you when indulged in too much, metal is no exception.

Particularly switchblades.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Morpeth]

Just curious, have you ever had an extended period of silence, like hours or days? Why I ask is this, most people have some ringing in total silence (which is rare because we live with SO much background noise these days), but it settles down after an extensive period of being in silence or near silent conditions. Whenever I go backpacking somewhere very remote, my ears ring like hell for the first day or so, by the 2nd or 3rd day, not so much.

But if it's always there, you may have tinnitus, which unfortunately medicine been able to cure/resolve yet... :/

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[rwa2]

Meh, I get that when I start hyperventilating. You should just have your blood pressure checked.

I kinda thought that I didn't like music either, then some slashdot post recommended one of the streams at http://somafm.com/ . Since then I've actually spent some money on an album or two. Though I still don't have an "entertainment" budget set aside to speak of.

Also want to put in a plug for http://sleepbot.com/ambience/b... , which is generally "not music", at least not as you know it.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Morpeth]

which unfortunately medicine HAS NOT been able to cure/resolve yet - sorry bout that

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent sounds like he's got tinnitus, and trust me, it sucks. It has literally driven people to suicide in bad cases. To say the least it's annoying even in a mild case like mine.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[labnet]

Which is called tinnitus.
If you put anyone in a sound proof room for long enough, they will eventually hear noises.
The most common form of tinnitus is a high pitch ringing and the most common source is now believed to be in neural cortex (related to memory and overactive neurone feedback) rather than the ear, although the original source is often a defect in ear mechanism, such as a loss at a certain frequency where the brain is attempting to compensate.
In my case, it is 24x7 for the last 15 years. I can hold a hair dryer up to my head and still hear it.
The only medically accepted treatments are habituation(TRT)/masking which is teaching your brain to break the fight/flight response.
There are other techniques that have variable results, such as xanax, hypnosis, vegas nerve stimulation, notched music, and playing tones either side of the tinnitus frequency.
I heard a quote recently that if you could hear pain, that would be the sound of tinnitus.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of my youth was listening to Rush, Metallica and other hard rock/Metal bands of the 80's.

As a result I have ringing in my ears that I only notice when it's silent.

Have you ever heard "The Silence is Deafening?" Well, for me silence can literally BE deafening.

Rush is not hard rock or metal. I don't get why so many folks love them and they are classified as metal.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[DarwinSurvivor]

And mercury.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[rts008]

You should just have your blood pressure checked.

That's HOW I keep track of my blood pressure, you insensitive clod!

All lame jokes aside, the volume and pitch of my tinnitus changes with my BP changes.

If it's louder than normal, and higher pitched than normal, it's usually a sign I have forgotten to take my BP med.'s.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no need for suicide. Just listen patiently to the tinnitus until it speaks to you. Then you've made a new old friend. Best coping mechanism ever. I agree.

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[turp182]

I go camping a lot, sometimes for 2-3 days with no other sounds than nature and my family (I solo camp quite a bit as well).

After a long day of quiet I lay down to fall asleep and listen to both the ringing in my ears and the sounds of nature. In almost all circumstances I hear better than my wife and others, very quiet sounds are rather clear (twig snap, rustle in the woods, etc.). But put me in a situation where the background noise is around human speech frequencies and you will need to speak rather loudly for me to discern your words. I suck at dinner parties, "what?" is the thing I talk about the most (never liked them anyway...).

I know when it all started. When I was 14 I got to shoot a 22 revolver for an afternoon, without ear protection. With my ears still ringing two days later I went to my first concert, Iron Freaking Maiden!! My ears rang for about 4 days after (very clear memories). Since then I've been to well over 100 concerts and played out about the same amount, all without hearing protection (with lots of ear ringing). Seeing Pantera, Slayer, and Testament together in a small venue caused the longest ringing I've ever had (great show though).

These days I seek silence because I know the damage is done and it cannot be undone at this point. I can close my eyes almost anytime and hear the ringing (even at a concert, because of the ear protection I wear these days). I've wondered if sleeping with a fan running contributes to the damage (sleeping or hearing, which would I prefer? I choose sleep).

Re:Ringing in my Ears

[Alioth]

Do other people genuinely hear ringing (like the repeated sound of a bell?) or is it just a figure of speech?

Mine doesn't sound like a ring, it's a continuous tone at what seems about the frequency of a CRT TV flyback (about 15kHz or so. I went to the effort of putting my signal generator through headphones and turning the knob until it matched the constant tone I always hear). It never goes away. I can ignore it though, but it never goes away regardless of whether I'm in silence or a lot of noise.

Remember when?

[Drunkulus]

Ha! Slashdotted.

Re:I don't like most popular music either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Nitwit,

From the summary:

"Researchers have found that between 1 and 3% of people don't like music of any kind"

Allow me to highlight the pertinent part.

"Researchers have found that between 1 and 3% of people don't like music of any kind"

Once again:

"Researchers have found that between 1 and 3% of people don't like music of ANY kind"

Maybe I need to block-quote it to get it through your thick skull:

"Researchers have found that between 1 and 3% of people don't like music of ANY kind"

As in ANY. As in ALL MUSIC. Not just "popular" music. ALL music.

HTH

false

[bitt3n]

those people don't prefer silence. they just like to listen to the same song over and over, without, one might note, ever giving a dime to the original artist.

Really?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

They must really hate this.

Re:Really?

[CanHasDIY]

They must really hate this.

I do.

Namely because, to me, it represents that self-serving form of 'performance art,' that has absolutely no artistic value but rather is an expression of the "artists" narcissistic desire to be the center of attention by doing something remarkably weird and/or stupid, and subsequently pontificating on the topic as if they're the first person in history to ever do anything weird and/or stupid. You know, the kind of garbage that art snobs devour.

FWIW, I despise most of Andy Warhol's work for pretty much the same reasons.

Re:Really?

[Anrego]

Totally with you.

Sometimes abstract art is actually novel, or does something in a way that actually expresses something.

This type of shit is just pretentious and boring.

Re:Really?

[ClickOnThis]

it represents that self-serving form of 'performance art,' that has absolutely no artistic value but rather is an expression of the "artists" narcissistic desire to be the center of attention by doing something remarkably weird and/or stupid, and subsequently pontificating on the topic as if they're the first person in history to ever do anything weird and/or stupid.

I can understand your dislike of self-absorbed narcissistic artists, but I don't think it's fair to put John Cage in that category. After all, 4'33" was not the only thing he wrote. He was completely serious about composing, and was quite prolific and innovative.

To paraphrase Arnold Schoenberg (one of his teachers) Cage was more of an inventor than a composer. Some of his music is highly approachable, similar in style to Eric Satie (whom Cage admired greatly.) Some of his prepared-piano pieces are fascinating, and evoke a kind of javanese gamelan sound from the instrument.

And of course, others are admittedly weird, like 4'33", and ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible). (A performance of the latter began in 2001 on an organ at St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany, and is scheduled to last 639 years.)

In short, I think it's important to judge John Cage on his entire output, not just the one single gedankenstucke that is 4'33".

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to set aside your points, and ponder whether by having the reactions, insights and even as you say, hate, you are actually validating those things as works of art.

Re:Really?

[Bite The Pillow]

Then you didn't get it. That's fine. You can be ignorant if you accept it. It follows from many ideas Cage had developed through the progression of his career. It is actually quite predictable given his previous presentations, and even more obvious if you are familiar with his music.

It is, quite literally, the complete opposite of being the first person in history to do something, since he had spoken at length on the subject, and had already written that in many small instances prior. And it is quite literally the opposite of weird or stupid, since his explanations and stated desires are very clear and consistent, from the first hint to this composition.

You may hate it, but you hate it because you don't understand it, or maybe you don't understand why you hate it. Not one of your words has stood up to any scrutiny whatsoever.

I'm not including the Warhol references since they are asides, and I have no real basis to evaluate them, other than I just don't personally like Warhol's style. I'm not defending my dislike of Warhol - it could be completely out of ignorance. But I accept that, and I have no desire to understand him. I avoid saying stupid things about Warhol because I know that I am willfully ignorant.

Re:Really?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Namely because, to me, it represents that self-serving form of 'performance art,' that has absolutely no artistic value but rather is an expression of the "artists" narcissistic desire to be the center of attention by doing something remarkably weird and/or stupid, and subsequently pontificating on the topic as if they're the first person in history to ever do anything weird and/or stupid. You know, the kind of garbage that art snobs devour.

Okay, you don't like something. That's fine. But you might bother to learn something about it before insulting other people.

For one thing, this is actually the first time in history that a composer tried a particular kind of experiment. And yes, I mean "experiment" in the same sense that scientists do. In this case, it was an attempt by a composer to try to find out something about the nature of music (and art in general), and also to allow a group of willing listeners to participate in that experiment.

You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT that there is a lot of nonsense "experimental art" out there which is just pretentious nonsense -- people trying to do something weird or "edgy" or offensive or "provocative" just to get attention. Most of these people -- and their audiences -- are something like what you describe.

But Cage's point was different.

The main problem with 4'33" is that you have to understand the context. Without context, it sounds ridiculous and like some sort of stunt. It would be like taking someone who doesn't know anything about physics and putting a 100-page paper full of mathematical proofs about string theory in front of them, and saying "Look! See how this explains everything about the universe!" And the reaction is, "Umm... how many dimensions?! What the heck is this talking about? This is just nonsense made up be pretentious snobs who like to play around with math for fun. Why should I care?"

And some people might have that reaction to string theory too. I've heard people say as much here. But maybe we should look a little deeper about what a theory or an experiment is trying to do before dismissing it with anti-intellectual rhetoric and ad hominem attacks on the people who value it.

Look -- here's an interesting question for you: what is music? Seriously. You may not care. You may say, "I just wanna go back and listen to my Top 40" or Alternative Death Metal or whatever random stuff you like. But some people have a career where they write music and think about how music is made. And some of those people might find that question interesting. So think about it for a minute or two: what is music?

Most people often say something like "organized sound." Okay, but what about birdsong or wind chimes? Can those be music? Some people say yes; others say no. Why? Most people will admit that something that sound "musical" can exist even if there is no human really "composing" or "performing" it -- whether it's actually "music" is a philosophical question, but many people say, "Well, it's a pleasant sound when I listen to birds, so it has some 'musical' quality about it."

Now, John Cage comes along, and he does other sorts of experiments. He himself spends some time in an anechoic chamber, in complete silence. Except it wasn't completely silent -- he became intensely conscious of hearing the rhythms of his own breathing, and a kind of sensation of his heart beating.

Now, if you think about issues like this -- how we heard "musical" elements in nature, and how our own bodies will always be influencing our perception of sound, eventually you realize that music is partly created by the listener. It's not just a composer or performer putting sounds out there -- it's also in the ability of a listener to find some sort of meaning in the sound world around him/her.

You may think all this talk is snobbish or pretentious or whatever, but it gets at the heart of why some people don't think rap is "music" or don't think jazz is

Re:Really?

[CanHasDIY]

Okay, you don't like something. That's fine. But you might bother to learn something about it before insulting other people.

Hey, I read the Wikipedia article. FWIW, if you find my characterization of "art snobs" insulting, perhaps it's time for some introspection - whether or not a person finds offense in a statement is on them, not the speaker. For example, I could take offense to your art-snobbish notion that I don't know anything about music, or environmental noise, or this Cage piece in particular; but I don't, for several reasons, namely because I know that my knowledge of music (and sound in general) is far more complete than an art snob would give me credit for, thanks to years working in the sound-and-stage industry. Also, I tend not to base my own self-worth on the opinions of other people.

But hey, it's a beautiful day out there (at least, it is around here), so let's not bicker about what amounts to subjective nonsense, and enjoy.

Re:Really?

[CanHasDIY]

Then you didn't get it. That's fine. You can be ignorant if you accept it.

FYI, this is exactly the sort of response I would expect from a pretentious art snob: "Oh, you just don't get it, you Plebe, because you're obviously far less cultured than I am."

No, dude, I get it. I just think it's stupid, self serving nonsense. I'm entitled to my opinion, same as you. The difference is, I don't go around criticizing others or accusing them of "not getting it" just because their opinion doesn't march in lock-step with my own.

Re:Really?

[CanHasDIY]

I can understand your dislike of self-absorbed narcissistic artists, but I don't think it's fair to put John Cage in that category. After all, 4'33" was not the only thing he wrote. He was completely serious about composing, and was quite prolific and innovative.

Sure; Picasso painted a lot of cool stuff before he went off his nut and mailed his own ear to his girlfriend.

And, to be fair, I never said anything about Cage's body of work as a whole, other than positing my belief that this particular piece exists purely to stroke his own ego. Which is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it.

Re:Really?

[ClickOnThis]

Sure; Picasso painted a lot of cool stuff before he went off his nut and mailed his own ear to his girlfriend.

I think you're confusing Picasso with Van Gogh. And it was a prostitute, not his girlfriend. And the story has been disputed by a couple of German historians, who claim he actually lost his ear in a fight with his friend Paul Gaugin. And Van Gogh painted cool stuff before and after the incident.

And, to be fair, I never said anything about Cage's body of work as a whole, other than positing my belief that this particular piece exists purely to stroke his own ego. Which is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it.

You are indeed entitled to it. However, it is clearly not shared. The piece, while obviously not performed often, has been a historical way-point for much discussion about the nature of composing, performing, and listening to music. In that sense, I think it is a success, and not a way for Cage "purely to stroke his own ego." Which is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it.

Re:Really?

[AthanasiusKircher]

whether or not a person finds offense in a statement is on them, not the speaker.

Well, take a moment to re-read what you wrote:

pontificating on the topic as if they're the first person in history to ever do anything weird and/or stupid. You know, the kind of garbage that art snobs devour.

Look, I generally agree with you. I didn't actually take offense at your notion. I accused you of insulting other people, which, frankly, if you look at the text you wrote, you did. I don't think this is unclear in your writing: when you say people are doing something "weird and/or stupid" and are producing "garbage," I think there's some pretty clear implications. I don't think there's time for my own introspection -- your characterization was very clearly negative and, frankly, intended to devalue ("garbage") your target.

As I said, you don't like the stuff -- that's fine. And maybe you did know more about it, but still don't like it. That's great. It's your opinion. But you didn't give any details about why you think that way: you just declared, "This sucks, and the people who do it are doing something weird and/or stupid, and trying to impress pretentious snobs" (paraphrased, obviously).

You're more than welcome to your opinion. And if you engaged with the explanation of this, and you still think it's crap or nonsense, that's fine. But I think it's a more useful discussion to say why you think it's crap or nonsense, rather than just insult people and be dismissive.

It's all nice and all that you want to make up and be cheerful now, but that's not the way your original post sounded. Just letting you know. And, I have nothing invested in the opinions about this piece or my views on the piece. Did I say I actually LIKE it? No. I said it poses interesting philosophical questions. You want to think Cage is an idiot -- I don't really care.

I was trying to offer some context and perhaps some perspective for people who may not have thought about such things before. I thought some readers might find it more useful than a blanket dismissal and set of insults. But you apparently find it more useful to deny that you actually said anything negative and proceed to do exactly what you accuse me of, namely make assumptions and then insult me.

Have a great day!

Re:Really?

[AthanasiusKircher]

By the way, I have one final thought -- I actually have used the concept of this piece in teaching students about art. There are always factions. Some people immediately dismiss it, and no matter what we say in the discussion, they still think it is nonsense.

Other people listen to some arguments about it, converse with other students, and come to think there is something to be learned from the "principle" of the piece, if not the experience of the piece itself.

Others may find it actually changes the way they think about music and art in a real and permanent fashion.

My goal is not to get anyone to "like" it or even to accept it as intellectually interesting. It's just to propose it as a kind of experiment. Some people find it useful to think about, and they get something out of the exercise. If you don't, that's okay. I'm not judging you, nor am I insulted or offended that you don't appreciate it.

And I do apologize if I took the tone of your response to mean that you hadn't really thought about the piece. I did make assumptions. But I also replied to "you" as a reply to other people (e.g., people who modded your comment), because I know some of those people may fall into the categories I listed above -- they may be dismissive at first, but some may realize there's something else there.

Personally, I don't find it useful to insult other people. I try to respect other people's opinions, even when they differ from mine. When people don't agree, I like to engage and try to come to a mutual understanding; if the other party chooses to leave the discussion, that's fine.

You obviously find the need to declare other people to be "snobs" and to dismiss what they do as nonsense. That is indeed your opinion and your prerogative. I just rarely think that's a useful thing to do -- it's not very polite, it disrespects other people's opinions, and you often lose the chance to learn from a perspective other than your own. If you have some further thoughts from your experiences about why you view this piece as you do (and what else fits into your categories of "snobbish nonsense"), I'd be interested in hearing about it. But just to declare it to be such is more like an internet troll than having a discussion.

I made the error of assuming that you weren't informed about something, so I hoped to offer some knowledge to you. You appear to value calling people "snobs" and what they produce "garbage." To each his own, I suppose.

Re:Really?

[CanHasDIY]

You are indeed entitled to it. However, it is clearly not shared.

YOU might not share it, but if you read all the posts, some people do.

The piece, while obviously not performed often, has been a historical way-point for much discussion about the nature of composing, performing, and listening to music. In that sense, I think it is a success, and not a way for Cage "purely to stroke his own ego." Which is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it.

Indeed you are - it's our differences that make us unique, and our ability to have them without resorting to screaming matches that makes us reasonable people.

Re:Really?

[ClickOnThis]

YOU might not share it, but if you read all the posts, some people do.

Agreed. I should have qualified that it is not shared by all. Peace.

Re:Really?

[CanHasDIY]

YOU might not share it, but if you read all the posts, some people do.

Agreed. I should have qualified that it is not shared by all. Peace.

Back atcha, Broseph.

Re:Really?

[CanHasDIY]

Look, I generally agree with you. I didn't actually take offense at your notion. I accused you of insulting other people, which, frankly, if you look at the text you wrote, you did.

Seems to me the only people who would be insulted would be people who self-identify as 'art snobs.'

Or performance artists, I guess.

Waaaaaah. Cry me a river. Let me get a bucket and washcloth, so you can rinse the sand out of your vagina.

You're more than welcome to your opinion. And if you engaged with the explanation of this, and you still think it's crap or nonsense, that's fine. But I think it's a more useful discussion to say why you think it's crap or nonsense, rather than just insult people and be dismissive.

Did you actually read my post, or were you too busy getting all in a huff? I point out my rationale in the very first sentence:

Namely because, to me, it represents that self-serving form of 'performance art,' that has absolutely no artistic value but rather is an expression of the "artists" narcissistic desire to be the center of attention

I stand by that opinion.

I was trying to offer some context and perhaps some perspective for people who may not have thought about such things before.

Then maybe you should have just done that, instead of posting 16 paragraphs that amount to, "well, you just don't understand what music really is."

Which, FYI some people might find offensive as well, but apparently you're too busy being offended by my words, and pointing out that feeling, to notice the offense that your own statements could be causing.

In summation - I really don't give a rat's arse if my words offend people - "Fuck em if they can't take a joke," as my oldest friend likes to say.

"Study"

[grimStone]

what a horrendously designed experiment. Population bias? Sample size? Different musical tastes? I don't know about the rest of you, but i'd prefer silence over that what is "popular" these days.

Depends on the music

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been listening to this tune since yesterday, it just cheers me up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Right... I believe You.

[lunchbox134]

"...the students were asked to listen to popular music and rate how pleasurable they considered each song." I have to wonder how many hipster-types just dont find popular music pleasurable. I for one cant find much Pop music, as that is what pop basicallly means; or for that matter much popular music all that pleasurable. The overwhelming majority of it hits that subliminal message trigger in my brain. That and ask most music majors or theorists. much of it is composed of the same limited set of chord progressions.

Re:Right... I believe You.

[Anonymous Coward]

That and ask most music majors or theorists. much of it is composed of the same limited set of chord progressions.

Its all Canon in D

Re:Right... I believe You.

[Cinder6]

It really depends on the person. I can honestly say I plain don't care for music (though I actually enjoy old chip tunes from the NES/SNES days, but there's nostalgia enjoyed). I've heard a pretty wide variety of stuff, too. I could maybe name 30 songs I actually like, but I wouldn't be bothered if I never heard them again. I prefer silence or an audiobook.

Well, some people don't like single malts

[Anonymous Coward]

either, but I think they're probably reptilians or Greys in disguise.

The fuck kind of story...

[meta-monkey]

In other news, 1-3% of /. articles aren't complete shit.

Everyone I know hates music

[Cro Magnon]

As soon as I start singing, they throw rotten fruit at me!

Re:Everyone I know hates music

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there's your problem. You need to become friends with people who enjoy fresh fruit.

Now are these people trainable?

[hey!]

Let's discard the people who can't recognize tunes or recognize emotions in music -- although they are interesting in themselves. Can the people who don't like music be trained to like music? In other words do they lack associated life experiences with music?

Another question is whether a better understanding would lead to enjoyment. We tend *not* to like music we haven't been exposed to (e.g. foreign music or young people's music).

Personally, I like to listen to music when I'm building something; this also correlates to what works for me when listening to lectures. I seldom need to look at notes, but I have to take them otherwise my mind wanders. I can even doodle, it doesn't matter. Somehow having my hands occupied seems to help my mind track external stimuli better.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[ThatAblaze]

No.

I am one of the 1-3% mentioned. When I put my headphones on it's always an audio book. When I'm not listening to a book or doing something useful I find silence to be a lot more fulfilling than music. Music just gets in the way of constructive thought, and once you have heard a song a couple of times you've heard the song. Time to move on to something new.

Music just seems like a low-productivity and meaninglessly repetitive medium, irregardless of the quality of the song being played.

This is something I've always believed, but this is the first time I've ever seen that belief validated in any way by anyone. I think society does an excellent job of training people to like music already, and of telling people that they are weird if they don't.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[hey!]

I'm not saying you *should* like music, questioning your personal experience with music, or challenging your position on the value of music.

What I'm interested is in whether the ability to like music or not is "baked in", either by genetics or early childhood experience. I think there's a good chance it could be, given the close relationship of music to language and what we think we know about neural plasticity and learning language. But that's just a hunch. Maybe it's a wrong hunch.

Who knows? Maybe if we figured out how to switch on music appreciation we might be a step toward enabling older people to learn to become fluent in foreign languages, something which is clearly practical.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[ThatAblaze]

I've felt the emotion inherent in a particularly poignant melody. I've enjoyed songs. It's not a switch, it's a priority. I prefer to take in information or to process information that I have previously taken in. I find music to be the same mental state repeated over and over again.

I actually think it's due to having more ability than the common person to self-modulate my mental state, not less. I don't need music to put myself in a particular state of mind. I can do that all on my own. When I am in a group (like a party perhaps) that is all experiencing a common mental pattern due to having the same music played (loudly), then music makes sense. When I am alone then music makes no sense.

Perhaps the ability to transcend the need for music is something that you could be taught. Perhaps we could find out how to switch on a greater range of experiences in your mind.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Cinder6]

I'm the same way as you, so you aren't alone.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am also part of the 1 - 3% but as a child I was taught to play a musical instrument the Violin, which to this day I can still play quite well, I appreciate the skill that some forms of music produce but have no feelings about the tune, I don't find music either fulfilling or unfulfilling its just noise to me.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the ability to transcend the need for music is something that you could be taught. Perhaps we could find out how to switch on a greater range of experiences in your mind.

Wait, what? Who said anything about *needing* music? Oh, never mind, I get it, you were trying to validate your position by being condescending. Carry on...

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is sort of like asking if people who don't like sex can be trained to like sex.

Why bother, man? Preferences are preferences. To each his own.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not interested in most songs the first few times I hear them. Most songs don't do anything. But the few that do, they reall really do. after about a hundred times they become meaningful, then they slowly disappear into the background for the next five hundred times. They work their way into your heartbeat, the good ones. They *help* you think. Without it, thought slows. Then around 1500 listens they start to become completely new songs. You are hearing your own experience of the songs, and everything you did while listening to them. At this point you own them, they're part of you. you don't hear the song anymore, really, you feel your own soul, your past and all the thoughts and feelings that passed through the song, and your unwritten future.

I think you're just listening to bad music. Or your mama didn't carry you when you were little, and you have no heart beat.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[tragedy]

This is something I've always believed, but this is the first time I've ever seen that belief validated in any way by anyone.

Unfortunately, this article doesn't seem to be validating you. It seems to be implying that you're mentally ill. Personally, I can enjoy music, but I don't seek it out. If the radio is on, I often leave it on. If it's off, it generally doesn't even occur to me to turn it on.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Psychofreak]

Wow. I feel relieved that this is a real thing.

I too have played trumpet and baritone in school band. I never achieved a high level of mastery, but I did try and apply myself to learning. I also sang choir for years throughout grade school and middle school.

The only type of music I find fulfilling
* has words
* the words can be understood
* the words tell a story that makes sense even separated from the music (such as Rush, Red Barchetta)

Phil

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[ThatAblaze]

Yes, it does seem to be implying a mental illness. I still consider that a step up from the "people don't work like that" attitude (as if I had said something absurd like "I like to walk around on three legs") that I've grown used to hearing.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[ThatAblaze]

Shall I argue with your well written point? Shall I define my existence by being the antithesis of the way you define yours? Why would I go so far?

Your first paragraph is valid. I would only add that by the time you've listened to your good song 1500 times.. by the time you have reorganized your playlist 100 times.. have you not spent days or weeks of your life listening to the same thing over and over again while receiving only a marginally different experience each time? Could you not have grown more as a human or experienced life more fully as a human by listening to or doing something new and different during that time?

Perhaps you would be a better person without your favorite song. Perhaps it has been a crutch. Perhaps you, sir, have no heart beat.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Music just gets in the way of constructive thought, and once you have heard a song a couple of times you've heard the song. Time to move on to something new.

As someone who enjoys and collects music, I find your views very interesting.

Do other forms of media elicit the same reaction? Paintings, movies, books, etc?

Have you ever played or been taught a musical instrument?

What artists or genres of music have you been exposed to? I know I find some genres extremely uninteresting and silence is a nicer option.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[RuffMasterD]

Better understanding does not lead to enjoyment. In high school my music teacher came over to tell me I got the highest mark he ever awarded after the final exam. I can appreciate the technical skill, novel combinations, cultural aspects, and clever lyrics that makes a piece of music 'good', but I just don't listen to music for pleasure. I can't even remember the last time I listened to music for the sake of it. I don't own a radio/CD/MP3 player. When I work music really gets in the way of my concentration.

The way I see it, if you like old school hiphop, and your neighbour likes jazz, then when your neighbour turns up the volume and opens the window you probably don't like what you hear. But your neighbour thinks it the best sound ever. I just feel that way about everyone's taste in music. Some people don't like mushrooms, some don't like maths, I don't like music, whatever.

I scored a full three standard deviations below the mean on that questionnaire FWIW.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no conspiracy theory, my man. As a music lover and musician myself, I can completely understand your position. Music just doesn't do it for some people, and that's perfectly fine. I'm in the same boat, except instead of music, it's drama/acting. I just don't value it, don't consider it interesting, don't consider it worthy of my time. I guess you could say that I just don't "get it" the way most other people do. I don't watch movies, don't watch TV, and it's never even crossed my mind to sign up for netflix. (Talk about society training people to engage in specific behavior -- watching TV and movies is second only to taking on debt.) Not because I'm "against" drama and acting, but simply because it doesn't interest me. So yes, it's possible for a person who is intensely artistic and passionate about one art form to be turned off by others.

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[wavedalton]

Music just gets in the way of constructive thought, and once you have heard a song a couple of times you've heard the song.

While I realize you identify as one of the 1-3% who doesn't like music, this statement is not true for many, many people, if not most. I'm sure this is an argument you've had to make many times in your life when the topic of music (one of the most common things to converse about) comes up, but just because you believe it doesn't make it true for everyone. Hell, you dislike music, so why would you look further into it?

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe. I remember my mother mentioning that neither she nor my father listened to much music. They preferred silence.
I didn't grow up listening to much music. When I heard songs in movies, I was usually bored because no real action was occurring.
I ended up liking a specific category of music: video game music. MIDI files from 1980s and 1990s video games are great, and vgmusic.com was my primary source of online music, with newgrounds or ocremix sometimes being useful. As a child, I did play video games as much as I could.
Although sometimes I enjoy that music, often I don't enjoy it much or at all. I spend more time at my computer with silence (or the uninteresting background sound of a fan), by choice. I'll go a couple or a few weeks listening to the tunes, and then several months and several months more not listening to any music.
At church, I find the church experience to be interesting based on the quality of the sermons, not the songs.
So, I relate a lot to the 1-3% mentioned by this article. (I'm rather surprised to see that the number might be that high... 3% Wow, there might actually be that many other people like me? That's re-affirming.) When a potential girlfriend wants to know if our music interests are compatible, and asks the question, "what kind of music do you listen to?", there's been times where I tried to think of a different answer, but just had to give the honest one that came to mind: "none". Their response would typically be one of initial disbelief, and wondering, "could that really be the case?"
My point in all this is that I think my answer to the second question ("do they lack associated life experiences with music?") is "yes". (And, I'm not saying that was a particularly bad thing.)

Re:Now are these people trainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you're read the book you've read the book. Once you've seen the movie you've seen the movie.

If such "people" exist, I don't believe they can

[MXB2001]

belong to the same phylum as I do....

All of this animosity and hatred between A/C's...

[mmell]

Please . . . continue . . .

Count Feynman as one who disliked music

[jmichaelg]

Richard Feynman said music sounded like noise to him. Didn't make any difference what type of music it was. He did however, like rhythm which is why he played percussion instruments.

Re:Count Feynman as one who disliked music

[Anonymous Coward]

In surely you're joking he mentions liking brazilian music multiple times.

Re:Count Feynman as one who disliked music

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? In various places he states his love and influence of various music from various countries - like Brazilian and Japanese (Japanese music is not particularly rhythmical...) He also stated that he regrets he cannot really play any instrument - maybe he deliberately downplayed percussion as a "true instruments" or maybe he downplayed his bongo skills (quite rightfully though, he suckled badly - at least according to what you can find on youtube). But you can't be more wrong in your assessment that he did not appreciate anything apart from the rhythm.

Re:Count Feynman as one who disliked music

[Anonymous Coward]

Who was Count Feynman? I've heard of Zombie Feynman, so maybe this is his vampire self? What next? The Mummy Feynman, or FrankenFeynman?

Re:Count Feynman as one who disliked music

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, now I know where all these posts of "I hate music." and "Music is a waste of time" are coming from. I knew it was only a matter of time. The slashdot userbase just wants to equate disliking music with some form of genius. Pretty typical.

Re:Count Feynman as one who disliked music

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only noise if the production of sound wasn't intentional, if you're doing something with an intent to produce sound then you're making music.

Maybe they could get hearing-ear dogs

[nbauman]

http://www.cell.com/current-bi...

Voice-Sensitive Regions in the Dog and Human Brain Are Revealed by Comparative fMRI

        Highlights
        This is the first comparative neuroimaging study of a nonprimate species and humans
        Functional analogies were found between dog and human nonprimary auditory cortex
        Voice areas preferring conspecific vocalizations were evidenced in the dog brain
        Brain sensitivity to vocal cues of emotional valence was found in both species

Summary

During the approximately 18–32 thousand years of domestication [1], dogs and humans have shared a similar social environment [2]. Dog and human vocalizations are thus familiar and relevant to both species [3], although they belong to evolutionarily distant taxa, as their lineages split approximately 90–100 million years ago [4]. In this first comparative neuroimaging study of a nonprimate and a primate species, we made use of this special combination of shared environment and evolutionary distance. We presented dogs and humans with the same set of vocal and nonvocal stimuli to search for functionally analogous voice-sensitive cortical regions. We demonstrate that voice areas exist in dogs and that they show a similar pattern to anterior temporal voice areas in humans. Our findings also reveal that sensitivity to vocal emotional valence cues engages similarly located nonprimary auditory regions in dogs and humans. Although parallel evolution cannot be excluded, our findings suggest that voice areas may have a more ancient evolutionary origin than previously known.

Re:Maybe they could get hearing-ear dogs

[volmtech]

My daughters miniature dachshund loves to sing with my wife. Her favorite songs are "You are My Sunshine" and "I Will Always Love You". Bring out a harmonica and she and our dachshund-terrier mix male will harmonize on the high notes.

Wrong quote used

[Anonymous Coward]

I love music. But think I would have been a 1% on their test.

" In the first, the students were asked to listen to ***popular music*** and rate how pleasurable they considered each song. "

Re:I don't like most popular music either.

[Anrego]

Uhh...

From the article:

"...the students were asked to listen to popular music and rate how pleasurable they considered each song."

Music

[ledow]

I have never bought a record, tape, CD, MP3 or anything else in my life.

Music is one of those things that just has no part in my life. I can appreciate it. I've been to concerts and ochestras. I quite enjoy it. But not enough to listen to it on loop 24 hours a day.

I spent many years spending hours travelling in the car with the radio on. It was for nothing else but to cure the "drone" of the car. I've not missed having it since I quit that job and don't travel far enough to even turn the radio on any more.

You know how the average person consider paintings? That's me with music. Yeah, I might have a few that I like, but I don't consume them all day long. I have enough to adorn my stereo to cover the occasional awkward silence and that's about it, and most of those someone has bought for me or I've been given for free.

I disable all music in games. It's the first thing I do before I even try the game - install, load up, turn off music. I just find it a distraction and don't get any value from it at all. (And yet, I have written games and put music into them because I understand some people like that).

If I do listen to anything, it's gentle, smooth music with predictable backings. Think "Sitting on the dock of the bay". I don't even have a single music file on my phone.

It's not something important to me, nor is it something I hate (there's a lot of music I hate, but it's not enough to be generalised hate of music). I can go to parties where music is playing and not go out of my mind, but my preference is no music.

Think of that next time you write a game and INSIST that the volume slider affects both sound effects and background music. You're just annoying me for no good reason.

Re:Music

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the 1%. ...LOL, captcha was "income"

Re:Music

[Anonymous Coward]

Drone of the car?!?!

That's sweet sweet pure car music.

Re:Music

[ThatAblaze]

Our society is so mindlessly pro music that whenever I've told people that "I don't like music" they look at me with a blank stare. It's just not something you are allowed to say in society today because some people define their lives by what music they like and what music they don't like. I, personally, find music to be a waste of time and meaninglessly repetitive in most situations.

Cudos to the people who made this study for bringing this phenomenon out into the open. For a long time the people who spend all day obsessing about which type of music they like have drowned out the voice of the people who would rather do something more productive.

Not that it's a revolution or anything. It only really becomes important when marketers or, say, someone you are on a date with asks you "what type of music are you in to?" The assumption there is that you must be in to some kind of music, because everyone is. But not everyone is.

Re:Music

[wisnoskij]

I was going to say "This ^. This is me", But you lost me at games.

I think music is fine, but sort of 1 dimensional and boring theoretically. When I have listened to it I enjoy it, but is has never formed a habit so I only do it when I make myself do it once every few years.

I do not understand why it really exists in society, but it is an incredibly important part of other media. You cannot make a game without music, for the vast majority of projects. It is so incredibly important, for that purpose.

Re:Music

[nblender]

I'm the opposite. If I don't have music playing, then my brain continuously replays the last thing I heard, ad-nauseum. After a couple hours of that, I get irritable and lose the ability to concentrate. I notice it most when sitting on the tractor mowing, or tilling, or blowing snow. Some mindless activity that requires little thought but still some concentration... If I can put something in my head, I become instantly happier.

I even wake up with the same song in my head that was there when I went to bed.

Re:Music

[wjcofkc]

What about Ravel Bolero?

Re:Music

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just going to bury this reply here, but on a student exchange program in Honduras, my best friend stayed with a Pech family. He is a great guitar player, but doesn't sing much. When they would sit around telling stories and singing, he wouldn't sing, telling them that he can't. The family was utterly confused by this, as the Pech language is a tonal language, so if you have a voice and can speak, you can sing (not necessarily well, though).

Re:Music

[kaehler]

When my wife watches a movie the sound track is very important her. She will ask me after the movie how I liked it and my response is "was there music?" I am also in the 1-3% group and people think something is wrong with me...

Re:Music

[Cinder6]

Yeah, there's always that awkward silence when somebody finds out that *gasp* you don't listen to music. I think people tend to find it a little more acceptable when I "explain" that I listen to audiobooks, because they absolutely cannot fathom the idea of driving in silence.

Re:Music

[Cinder6]

While I never listen to music, I think it has its place in games and movies. The music can help to convey the emotion of the scene, or the action going on in the game, in such a way that it heightens the experience. But it doesn't serve that purpose for me just as general listening. I don't need (or want) a soundtrack for my life. If I'm feeling down, I don't need a perky song to cheer me up or help me relax. Music, of just about any kind, tends to make me feel agitated. It's usually extremely repetitive and vacuous.

Re:Music

[Anonymous Coward]

All languages are "tonal". You cannot expect to speak Italian with your English intonation and have natives understand what the hell you are saying, even if you're not aspiring the stops or otherwise mangling the sounds.

Linguists are loosely using "tonal" for languages where the combination of pitch and stress has phonemic value (it's differentiating minimal pairs), and it's more complex than simple stress or pitch as used in Spanish, Russian, etc.

That's neither a well defined concept, nor has any theoretical or practical value.

Re:Music

[riverat1]

LOL (really!)

Re: Music

[Anonymous Coward]

Well video game music isn't really all that appealing to me either. I shut that off for the most part too. However, in the background is foobar 2000 loaded up with selections from the thousands of LPs, tapes, and CDs that I own (I made up for the ones you never bought). I strongly dislike MP3. I've bought a couple in that format simply because there was no CD option, but these days I prefer LP if I can get it. My tastes range from classical, blues, rock, metal, punk, alternative, industrial, rap, gospel, folk with a little bit of jazz and country thrown in for good measure. There's not much that I don't like except for maybe pop music that seems to think autotune is an instrument. I can't stand that. I makes me want to go slap the engineer, the artist, and everyone involved in making that horrible nonsense. Hard drawling country turns me off too. But other than that I'll listen to almost anything. And I do. I listen to music continually when I'm not at work, and once in a while I listen to it there too.

Somone further up mentioned tinitus. That's an issue caused by listening too loud. Get a good system and then you don't need it loud to get the details.

Re:Music

[Anonymous Coward]

Geeze, I understand you think you're special because you're so different and all, but to include your little passive aggressive "..rather do something more productive" is just being a fucking asshole.

Re:Music

[CCarrot]

While I never listen to music, I think it has its place in games and movies. The music can help to convey the emotion of the scene, or the action going on in the game, in such a way that it heightens the experience.

I don't think I've ever seen a better example of this than this trailer of Mrs. Doubtfire recut as a horror film.

I am firmly in the 1-3%, yet I find you are correct, there are times and places where music enhances other experiences. So long as it doesn't distract from the movie or game.

They may not have found it.

[gurps_npc]

Until I was 30 I disliked most forms of music. Frankly I was shocked that so many people thought sound designed to influence their mental state was a good idea. Especially when you most often have no choice about what is playing.

Then I found dance and I fell in love with tango.

If I had not found it I might still dislike music.

It does not surprise me that 1-3% of the population has not found music they like - yet.

Re:They may not have found it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the same....as I've gotten older (post 30 in particular) I've found that I like more and fifferent types of music (pop, country, rap, jazz, old, new, etc). Bieber will always suck though.

Re:They may not have found it.

[riverat1]

Have to agree with this. As I've aged my musical perspective has broadened to the point where I can find something to like in just about any genre of music. Not sure I've ever hear a Bieber song. Listening to Beethoven's 9th at the moment.

RIAA's Response

[Jason Levine]

RIAA's Response: These people *claim* not to like music? Why that's unamerican! If this catches on, the entire music industry will collapse!!!!! We must pass immediate legislation declaring "not liking music" to be illegal. To prove consumers like music, they will be required to purchase at least three albums from RIAA-approved labels every year. Failure to do so will be considered proof that the consumer is actually an Internet pirate stealing our works and will be sued into oblivion.

What Percentage of Adults are Deaf?

[ohieaux]

I've seen estimates from the US government at 2%. Sounds like 1-3% wouldn't be able to hear music anyway. Didn't RTFA, perhaps they accounted for that.

Re:What Percentage of Adults are Deaf?

[Anonymous Coward]

They had a survey of college students. They basically asked true/false questions of people about how music makes them feel, how they seek it out, how it connects them to other people, etc. They took the 10 least musically-inclined response as an experimental group, and basically compare their interest between two activities (listening to music vs. getting money as a game reward), and also compared against a control. They confirmed that the 10 people really just don't care about music. That makes it the first controlled experiment confirming some people just don't get any pleasure out of music (dubbed music-specific anhedonia), distinct from people who don't get pleasure out of anything (anhedonia).

Personally, I like music, but I can relate with those here who chime in to say the also don't get anything out of it. Some people just fixate on it a way that doesn't seem healthy to fixate on anything. After all, if someone walked around all day with something like an iChew strapped across his mouth so he never had to be without pleasurable tastes, we'd probably think he was a bit nuts.... (And sometimes nougat.)

Re:What Percentage of Adults are Deaf?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Ah, the good old days. Way back when, before Napster, I used to get on EFnet IRC #deaf and ask if anyone was trading MP3s. Good times.

Re:What Percentage of Adults are Deaf?

[Sir_Eptishous]

What?

Re:What Percentage of Adults are Deaf?

[Galilee]

You would be surprised at how many deaf people listen to music. It ends up being heavy on the bass so that you can feel the beat physically instead of just hearing it.

I don't listen to music

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes it gets embarrassing when people ask me what my favorite song is. But the truth is that I don't like music. It's distracting, rarely any good and the circumstances surrounding it (celebrities, the RIAA, etc) make it even more unappealing.

Re:I don't listen to music

[Anonymous Coward]

I do. I'm a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, I don't know if it gets any better than when he sings "When a Man Loves a Woman". I celebrate the guy's entire catalogue.

Re:I don't listen to music

[Anonymous Coward]

Just choose something from the Billboard Hot 100 and pretend to like it. Most people are posers who are not real music fans.

Finally

[hippo]

Someone has taken the trouble to study Simply Red fans.

Just 1-3%?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems that the majority of high up execs at companies don't like music so perhaps there is a reason why large numbers of the most successful people don't like music. It gets in the way of business. Industry in general does not like music, it costs money and gets in the way. I can just imagine the music that they listened to in college. It seems like getting an MBA or moving up in management today includes a deadning of the mind to avoid the distraction of useless things like music. Or any form of non essential intellectual stimulation for that matter.

Either that or individuals who focus on climbing corporate latters only perceive music to be a product so they completely miss what is music really is and only think of it in terms of what it does for them and their pocket book. What I am alluding to here is that just perhaps the narrow minded individuals succeed in climbing the corporate ladder and these climbers are made up largely of the 1-3% of individuals who are not stimulated intellectually by things like music. Hitler was stimulated by music and art but only in a narrow sense and very selectively. It seems that the same is true of corporate strong men and politicians. Just perhaps there is something in the genetic make up of these individuals that blinds them to intellectual stimulation and they develope their senses in only a focused narrow way.

A Bach fugue or Elgar's Enigma Variations would only scare them or even anger them where they to actually listen to such things.

Re:Just 1-3%?

[PPH]

It gets in the way of business.

I think this has generally been disproven. Granted, there will be problems when selecting materiel to be played over a P.A. system that is acceptable to all. But headphones have ameliorated this issue.

I was reading a book about the design and production of the VT fuze during WWII recently. Plants involved in tedious production steps found that piping in music sped up production notably .... with one exception. A hit song for a time was 'Deep in the Heart of Texas'. When this was piped in, the workers would hum along with the tune, as they did with others. But there is a repeating part in the tune that consists of four accented beats. When that part came around, the workers stopped for a moment to tap their tools on their workbenches in time with the beats. The drop in productivity was measurable. But management decided not to ban the song, as it eventually dropped from the top of the charts.

The issue of upper management's perception of music, or outside intellectual pursuits as being anathema to productivity may have something to do with the selection criteria for MBA candidates. People who pursue such degrees might just be less capable of multitasking and not posses the mental faculties necessary.

See The Dilbert Principle and this.

For these people ...

[PPH]

... there is still rap.

Re:For these people ...

[kaehler]

...and Jazz.

You like silence?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought John Cage already copyrighted silence. Also, it implies that you do like listening to music, after all.

And did you remember to pay royalties for not listening to anything? It should be obvious that silence of other lengths is merely a derivative work, right... ?

Anti-Social?

[wisnoskij]

I always wondered if my relative dislike of music was a symptom of my anti-social personality. Does anyone know anything about this idea, does the original article go into other similarities these people share/the reason they are like this?

Re:Anti-Social?

[ThatAblaze]

I don't think so. I think society in general is still in the WHAT?? you can't not like music!! phase. There are still quite a few phases to go though before the general population will be able to comprehend that it's not a disability.

Re:Anti-Social?

[TeknoHog]

I think I can relate to that. I'm quite introverted so I need a lot of time on my own to "hear my own thoughts". I also don't like listening to music very much. OTOH, I'm kind of a musician, and I generally prefer instrumental pieces. I can feel similarities between social yapping and music with lots of lyrics. Making music is great, listening is kind of meh -- I guess it's like the difference between doing some sports yourself and watching it. (I've never understood the fascination of self-proclaimed straight men in watching other men work out.)

There are theories about introversion being a symptom of generally heightened sensitivity - we get more easily overwhelmed by sensory input, so we try to cope by locking ourselves within. As much as I like music, I easily get my daily dose of auditory input from all kinds of background noise.

Re:Anti-Social?

[lazy genes]

Fundamentally, music is just a form of whining. Some whiners are better than others.

Re:Anti-Social?

[Anonymous Coward]

Society in general uses music to identify social group membership. When people ask "what music do you listen to?" they really mean "what social group do you belong to?" If you want to belong to a social group, pick your music. You don't have to like it. You don't have to listen to it. But you do have to wear it as a badge of membership if you want to belong to the group.

Re:Anti-Social?

[bbsalem]

Fundamentally, music is just a form of whining. Some whiners are better than others.

This sounds too hard bitten to me, too Pragmatic, too Protestant Ethic as well, as though anything that excites emotion is a sin. Of course you are entitled to your opinion and even to project your lack of sensitivity as the article was about the fact that people differ widely in their tastes and sensitivity to music., but at the risk of overgeneralizing and sounding a bit too judgmental.

This raises the question, do you have a medium in which you excel? Graphics, drawing, painting, or written word, or some craft, woodworking or putting parts together, masonry or carpentry or furniture making? Art can have many forms of expression, even as two extremes "We have no art, we do the best we can." and "Art is anything you can get away with." Both are true.

Re:Anti-Social?

[lazy genes]

I like to discover new things. Its as much a form of entertainment to me as music is to others. One of my discoveries has to do with how weather affects human behavior. Unfortunately, it can only be used to pick the outcome of sporting events (NFL MLB) against the spread at 60%. I am looking for a commercial application for it. I have another weather related algorithm that predicts the movement of the jet streams in the upper atmosphere based on tidal movements of the polar vortex. I can make predictions a year in advance and beat the expected seasonal average by over 1.5 degrees per day. Unfortunately, NOAA thinks otherwise and won't even look at my results. I posted my predictions online and didn't even get one response. The one I like the most is an algorithm that predicts the folding of proteins. It describes the quantum movements of proline and glycine and proves that the brute force methods will not work in predicting folding. Unfortunatly, it is too complex to explain with my comunication abilities. This is the form of art that i like.

It's not about hating music

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says, that 1-3% of people are suffering from a psychiatric disorder that prevents them from enjoying music. Although, to be honest, I have no idea where they pulled those numbers from if they tested only 1000 people.

Re:I don't like most popular music either.

[Alain Williams]

Agreed. The slashdot summary is badly worded; the phrase don't like is ambiguous, it can either mean want it to stop or it does not speak to them (how the original article words it).

You use the different meaning than the article when you talk about is 'popular music'. In that I agree with you as, to my ears, most modern 'music' is not worth listening to and often grates my ears. I like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, etc, in the main but also trad jazz, some rock is OK. I get wound up by what I consider noise being blasted at me in some shops, swimming pools & other public places. I do realise that some people must like modern/pop stuff, but I do wonder how much of it will still be played in 20 years let alone 200.

That's me to a tee

[ItsIllak]

Not read the article (sorry, it's just tradition not to), but sounds like me - The only music I really tend to like is music that reminds me of my youth - nothing else much inspires me or attracts me.

Pretty close to that myself.

[BStroms]

People never want to believe that, but I've never much cared for music. I think music can enhance the mood of another form of media like movies or video games, and I can enjoy the lyrics to a funny song, in same way I enjoy hearing a good joke but don't want it told to me over and over again. That's as far as it goes. I don't listen to any music for the sake of listening to music. The only music I own at home are sound tracks that came with video games I've purchased, none of which I've ever used.

I find music annoying when it's playing while I'm doing something else. It really does bother me when it's playing at random places like bowling alleys or stores, serving no purpose but to make it harder to talk with other people. The louder it is the more it drives me crazy for that reason. I've never even downloaded a song, legally or otherwise, and would never turn the radio to music station when driving.

Still, it's not that I don't like music. It's just that the enjoyment I get from it is so low that I get much more entertainment just getting lost in my own imagination, an activity for which I find music to be an unwanted distraction. So even with nothing else to do, I'd rather sit there in silence than listen to music.

Re:Pretty close to that myself.

[CCarrot]

I find music annoying when it's playing while I'm doing something else. It really does bother me when it's playing at random places like bowling alleys or stores, serving no purpose but to make it harder to talk with other people. The louder it is the more it drives me crazy for that reason.

THIS is why I hate going to bars. I like drinking. I like talking to my friends and (sometimes) making new ones. However, I hate having to shout at each other to pass the damn chicken wings...

Re:Pretty close to that myself.

[bbsalem]

Some public places play loud music because they think that it makes a situation where people aren't talking to one another more exciting than if it was quiet. It might be an interesting experiment to run to pipe white noise into such a setting to see if the effect is different. White noise generators are more common than you think, any place with a water fountian serves that purpose, which is why the effect of fountains in public places is so interesting as regards noisy music in bars. I know of a cafe modled on ones in Europe with a fountain. There the fountain serves to raise the noise floor over the noisy throrghfare in front of the cafe, but a high noise floor from a "live" room and fountain and expresso machines is a cheap if annoying way to give conversations some privacy. It may be the Italian answer to privacy of conversation in public, but it can be annoying. I have stopped going to that cafe because I realize that quieter places can be found,

The other reason places play music is to entertain the help, to structure their time. Now, I dislike music in public places, as well as the public address system at my local supermarket and so I come prepared with my own portable music. If the place's music is played low, I will put up with it, except that if places play classical music they universally play it softer than pop. The reason for this may be that classical recordings have generally a wider dynamic range than pop recordings, so they learn to avoid the loud parts by setting the level low for all. Another reason may be that classical music in public is viewed as something to be muted for fear of people who don't like it and that pop can be played louder as a result. I used to get upset if I couldn't really hear some interesting or favorite classical piece played too softly, now I BYO and don't care what they play unless it is too loud to hear what I am playing. This is for the case where I want to go out to get a coffee and am not expecting to talk to someone.

Yeah, but it just isn't the same for some of us...

[rts008]

There are lots of 60-70 year old rockers out their still playing concerts.

How very true, but I had two similar experiences recently.

Several years ago(2-3?), ZZ Top was in town for a show.
Myself, the wife, and stepdaughter all went.
The two gals had a great time, and enjoyed the show.
Me? Well, I spent approximately 3/4 the show trying to figure out what I was hearing, occasional clear bits would shine through the muddy noise, and I could ID the song.

I just chalked it up to some weird mixing and/or accoustic envoirment.(outdoors)

Then later that same year, Ozzie Osbourne was playing close by.
I treated my stepdaughter to the concert for her birthday.
This show was indoors, and again the very same thing happened.

I guess my dodgey hearing had detereriated more than I had realized, and I came to the regretful conclusion that live shows are not worth it anymore fore me. ;-(

I very seldom listen to music.

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost never listen at home, never listen to it while driving, and at work I listen to white noise with over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones all day because of misophonia.

But I love playing the piano.

Re:I very seldom listen to music.

[bbsalem]

Almost never listen at home, never listen to it while driving, and at work I listen to white noise with over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones all day because of misophonia.

But I love playing the piano.

You sound more sensitive to music than most. Do you have music in your head all the time? Do you want to concentrate on only those pieces that you are playing at the piano and no have any other music on your mind? Can you sight-sing from sheet music? Maybe that will help you control what music is in your mind at any one time. I don't play piano well enough to manage all the music in my awareness, so either I play those pieces on a personal player or I read from the sheet music, a score, or a reduction.

Put Led Zeppelin III on replay

[Trax3001BBS]

Not a problem, since it can be attributed as a psychiatric disorder in some; you give them some LSD
http://science.slashdot.org/st... (since the flood gates have opened).

Dark Side of the Moon on the home theater, Wizard of OZ showing but no sound , it'll will show em what it's all about.

Re:I don't like most popular music either.

[Anonymous Coward]

#46422485 here.

  Well, I've read the linked article, it states "In the first, the students were asked to listen to popular music and rate how pleasurable they considered each song. In the second, the students were given money for quickly pressing a target."

Which kinda makes the conclusion "music of any kind" in the summary a little bit far fetched.

I enjoy classical music too, as well as minimalist music from composers and artists like Luduvico Einaudi and something very different like Funk and Soul, it all depends on my mood and just happens that this is not 'popular music'. You won't hear that stuff in on regular radio stations.

Must be the gingers

[sm177y2300]

since they have no soul.

Define music

[nurb432]

If you find what they consider music they would like it. Problem is most of what is considered music is complete trash, and barely more than coordinated noise.

Re:Yeah, but it just isn't the same for some of us

[hurfy]

Both perhaps.
HArd to believe the big boys would be that bad. Went to Kiss concert and I wanted to knock the guy off the soundboard for the warmup band...sooner or later I'd have found the volume control for lead vocals myself..he sure couldn't seem to find it. Kiss themselves sounded ok tho...no comment on the tech that effed up the video displays tho.

Can we assume these un-music people never get a song stuck in their head ?!?

Indifferent...

[CohibaVancouver]

I don't 'dislike' music, but I'm pretty indifferent to it. My phone is loaded up with audiobooks and podcasts - I listen to those while commuting (on transit), walking the dog or puttering in the garage. There's no music on it at all.

In the car I'll naturally gravitate to the CBC (or NPR if I'm near the border).

If the band on SNL is interesting, I'll listen as opposed to skipping ahead, but I haven't actually bought any music in years.

reported to the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never bought a record, tape, CD, MP3 or anything else in my life.

That can only mean that you're stealing it; consider yourself reported to the RIAA for copyright infringement.

Re:reported to the RIAA

[ledow]

Go for it.

I own a single physical Jive Bunny CD (or did, many years ago) that my parents bought for me with a stereo system (that got thrown away 10 years later and had never been used).

Aside from that, I have a handful of things people have given me or bought for me. That's it. The most music I ever deal with is in work, believe it or not (I work in schools, they sometimes play music in class / PE / assembly) and I'm shit-hot on my copyright licensing because my job depends on it (and it's not as single once performance is involved).

Oh, and I have a couple of free MP3's that I got from Amazon MP3. They were literally giving them away, that's how good they are.

I probably have more music that I've licensed myself for putting into games that I've made than I've ever had bought for me, though.

Re:HEY, I'm and old guy trying to be objective

[shoor]

My creds, I saw the original broadcast of that first Beatles' performance on Ed Sullivan; I was 17 at the time (and really envious of all the attention they got from those girls.)

Now to try to make an objective comment, or at least to try to figure out the phenonemon from an objective rather than a 'get off my lawn'/'children no longer respect their parents' perspective.

The technologies of recording and broadcasting must have profoundly affected our relationship to music. I say 'must have' because I've never lived in an environment that wasn't saturated with opportunities to hear music. In fact, music is thrust upon me, and I have to tune it out. I do think the money people cheapen music, just like they will cheapen food, or clothing, or whatever. I'm nostalgic for the old fashioned disc jockey experience, and college radio stations where the student DJs would find stuff they personally liked with various idiosyncracies.

I read somewhere about an Irish fiddler who may have been the first to record Irish fiddle music. His record was a big success, so after that, all the other Irish fiddlers started copying his style, abandoning their own unique styles, which are pretty much lost now. (Sorry, I don't remember details like the name of the fiddler, or when the record was made, though I think it was the early 1920s, but there's a lesson in there somewhere.)

Fresh new music has I think usually come from places that were a bit isolated, but which could then be introduced to the rest of us through the new 20th century technologies. Jazz exploded on the scene with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, not because they 'invented' jazz or were the best of their day, but because they were the first to be recorded.

Early rock and roll or thythm and blues was not encouraged by the industry, but the young picked up on it. And I think nowadays, the industry is always catering to the young, because they are the ones who will spend money on this stuff. Each new generation of musicians grows old with their own fan base, except that yes, nowadays, there don't seem to be any new generations of musicians that capture a loyal base the way Elvis Presley, the Beatles, or Led Zep did. (BTW, I'm 'too old' to appreciate Led Zep myself.)

I'm not sure why that is (That no Elvises or Led Zeps show up anymore), except maybe there is no place for a new sound to grow and mature away from heavy marketing influence. I have a CD of 'ska' music from Jamaica. It's old, primitive stuff, but the musicians there had a chance to hone their sound until it became polished, solid reggae. I think that's because Jamaica at the time was isolated enough, without being too isolated, that they could do that. But where is a place like that now? Instead the music industry marketeers are ready to grab and squeeze everything as soon as it shows as a blip on the radar.

When I search out new music to my liking it's usually older music in genres I didn't pay much attention to before, older Country, old Jazz and blues, partly that's because the lower quality stuff has been filtered out for me already. If I try to listen to new stuff, I have to wade through a lot of mediocre and downright awful along with everyone else.

I like to listen to bands I hate

[Anonymous Coward]

This week I really hate OneRepublic. I can't stand the blatantly conformist messages in their lyrics.

I personally don't like music.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just listen to DnB. -just sayin'.

Finally we're recognised.

[AbRASiON]

Actually to be fair, I probably don't quite fit the criteria. I don't entirely dislike music but I genuinely don't particularly care much about it. I would never, ever listen to music alone. Example relaxing to a book and music (or ghasp, just music alone) simply not an option.
I've never been to a concert.

I listen to about 10 to 20 hours a year, generally I use it to assist cleaning the house (although podcasts are replacing it there) I also sometimes have music running when I'm grocery shopping or on public transport, simply to block out other humans.

I can't stand getting into someones car and they insist on driving somewhere with music running when we could be having a decent conversation instead. I've taken a week off work before to chill out at home on the internet and effectively been in silence for 7 days. Silence is golden.

I also have EXTREME difficulty picking up lyrics, I just can't hear lyrics properly. I don't know how people know what people are singing without lyric websites. (Yes, my hearing is fine, infact it's very good, still hear high frequencies at 36)

I like music less, but listen more

[swillden]

The last ten years or so,, I've found that I just don't care that much any more about music. I actually listen to a lot of music these days, but that's an environmental issue, not because I like it. I listen to music pretty much all day every day while at work because I work in an open plan office and the headphones, and the music they play, are the way I eliminate distractions so I can focus. I don't really listen to the music, though... I have no idea at any given time what song played last, for example. I do, however, find that I get tired of repetitive music. Subscription Internet radio is perfect... I can start it playing from a vast collection of music, almost guaranteed I'll get few if any repeats, and completely guaranteed the music won't be interrupted by people talking (which would distract me).

When I'm driving or something and want some audio to actually pay attention to, I listen to audiobooks, not music.

I like music, but not clubs or concerts

[Anonymous Coward]

I like music, especially "melodic" pieces, a lot. I have almost 1,000 MP3s on my phone and listen to them all the time, I regularly buy new songs on the net. I don't like all songs that I ever hear, only specific ones, but they come from all genres including classical music, pop, rock, independent, old and new songs etc., except maybe heavy metal. I can sing decently and consider myself quite melodic.

But here's the catch: I don't really like concerts or clubs, especially if they just feature known songs that you can always get electronically, as opposed to bands presenting totally new songs for the first time. I never understood how people find consuming music in a concert more satisfying than listening to the same music in CD quality on a stereo or using headphones. I've been to concerts and clubs, and mostly it's just loud. The noise drowns out any nuances; sometimes you have a hard time hearing the melody at all.

Do other people feel this way?

Re:I like music, but not clubs or concerts

[Anonymous Coward]

Concerts and clubs are purely social gatherings where people go to meet each other. No one is there for the music except the musicians, and they're there to play and to be heard, not to listen.

I'm (almost) one of'em

[NikeHerc]

I was probably in my mid-20s when I began to realize popular music was not only boring, but stupid as well. Most songs have about 25 words that get repeated over and over and over, ad nauseam. At about the same time I ran across a Moody Blues tune (the name won't surface at the moment) that seemed to have some elements of classical music.

Intrigued, I started listening to classical and kicked the pop habit. Give me Beethoven's Ninth over anything else that's ever been recorded.

I wonder whether others who aren't fond of most "music" also don't need to be entertained passively on a 7x24 basis and can find or create their own entertainment.

Who funded this study, Facebook or BitTorrent?

[Animats]

First question on the quiz: "When I share music with someone I feel a special connection with that person."

Are they thinking friendship, love, or co-defendant in a copyright infringement case?

Odd survey

[Malc]

What is the difference between "agree" and "completely agree"? You agree or you don't.

All my scores were in the range 32-48, which seems oddly low considering I can't work without music and can get agitated or distracted without it. Yet some people's choices of music (e.g. crap like Celine Dion) also have the same effect as silence.

Andy Warhol

[Anonymous Coward]

I despise Warhol's most famous works because it is shameless advertisement for the status quo. Consumerism, narcissism, idolatry. The exact opposite of Pasolini in his Corriere della Sera articles.
No matter Warhol's real intentions if he had any (artist intention is ultimately irrelevant, the artist does not speak, his work does).

Odd questions

[mccalli]

I came out on the music reward scale at 32, well below their mean of 50. However, I spent fifteen years learning to play, I write for myself and have also published an album.

I don't use music as wallpaper, which is very much what the questions seemed geared around. Also questions like "Music calms me (agree 1-5)" - well, which music? Some of it very much does not calm me, and some quite definitely does.

Not sure that data collected by the questionairre wil be useful in drawing the right conclusions.

Stop listening to music on the radio/tv

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe those few people just haven't found their thing.

If Metallica isn't their thing, then perhaps the instumental music of 'Renaud Garcia-Fons' will be.

There is no ringing in your ears

[SmallFurryCreature]

The ringing is your brains signalling your taste center has never grown in, as you grow older but not wiser the ringing will increase trying to signal you to develop some taste and individuality.

Really? Metallica?

Have you no shame whatsoever?

There is a name for these people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Blue Meanies!

Blue Meanies

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't believe the blue meanies really exist, but I've now been proven wrong.

Low on the scale

[spitzig]

I would say I'm low on the scale. I am not judging this based on an online quiz, but anecdotal evidence(talking to people).

I rarely listen to music. If the situation is such that listening to music is practical, I usually prefer something else. In bars, I prefer conversation. Often I find the music irritating because it hinders conversation. I carry music on my phone, but usually prefer to listen to audiobooks. Occasionally, I listen to music because I'm in a certain kind of mood. I also find it good as white noise while I'm in a public place trying to read a paper book, and don't want to hear conversation. Much of my taste in music is too distracting for white noise, though.

General response to the article, though: REALLY? People like different things?!? I am shocked. In related news, I have no interest in sports.

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[account_deleted]

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Don't be so extreme

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of people saying stuff like, "Music is stupid, I don't feel the need to listen to it 24 hours a day", or "I'd rather do something productive", or "I don't let music define who I am, etc etc."

You guys realize MOST people are not that extreme about music right? Almost everyone just listens to it casually and that's it. Not sure where the extreme views are coming from...

A spectrum of interest maybe?

[sjbe]

It's not a DISlike of music, it's just no interest.

I can't say that I have no interest in music. I do listen sometimes but it's pretty occasional and it requires a LOT of my attention to be enjoyable. I almost never listen to music in the car or other places and most of the time it just annoys and bores me. I cannot actively listen to music and concentrate. A lot of supposedly "great" music like the Beetles or the Stones draws nothing more than a "meh" from me. I generally think it is highly overrated. Even the bits I do like (not confined to a particular genre) I don't care to listen to very often. I wonder if I'm somewhere on the continuum close to the 1-3% who don't enjoy it at all.

I have a fairly large music collection but mostly because my wife has acquired the majority of it. I've only ever bought a handful of music albums in my life and even those I'm not sure I really got my money's worth from. Music doesn't offend or annoy me but it holds minimal fascination for me. I was forced to take music lessons as a kid (which I mostly hated) and I respect the talent it takes to be a good musician but it isn't something I want to spend any of my life doing.

Different strokes for different folks

[sjbe]

Huh, if I were pressed I could name at least 30 Beatles songs I like and would listen to now.

I couldn't name one. I don't dislike the Beatles but I think their music is highly overrated. I realize a lot of people like them and that's fine, but to me their music is objectively no better than the current bubble gum pop stars. Certainly nothing I'd ever pay money to hear or seek out intentionally. I feel the same way about a number of other famous bands including the Rolling Stones. I've never been able to reconcile their popularity with what I think is the quality of their music.

I go to 1 or 2 concerts a month

I haven't been to what people would call a concert in over 20 years and don't really have any interest in them. They're loud (sometimes painfully so), I don't really enjoy much of what they tend to play, I dislike large crowds, and I'm generally bored after a half hour of listening to live music. The fact that it is a live performance doesn't add to my enjoyment meaningfully. I like some music but even the stuff I like I don't listen to often. Can't remember the last time I intentionally listened to music in the car.

I couldn't imagine my life without music.

It's easy. Go on a trip somewhere and don't take your MP3 player or radio. You'll find other things are out there to keep you entertained.

Re:Different strokes for different folks

[riverat1]

I don't dislike the Beatles but I think their music is highly overrated.

Maybe you had to be there. I was about 10 years old when The Beatles hit the scene. Not all of their music is great but much of it was really groundbreaking at the time. Same thing for the Stones.

Most of the concerts I go to lately are at small venues (~50 people) and they tend to be string band music so the volume isn't a problem and I'm close to the artists so I can really appreciate their artistry. I've been to a number of concerts in my life that I can still close my eyes and transport myself back to them. BB King making love to Lucille (that's his name for his guitar) where I was in the front row. Back before I was really in to classical music I went to see Van Cliburn just because he was such a big name and he just blew me away with his playing. I could go on.

I spend plenty of time not listening to music. I often go on week long whitewater rafting trips where we only have music is someone brings instruments along. In my car I listen to NPR more than anything else and they don't have a lot of music.

I understand that some people like you aren't that in to music but for me it's an integral part of my life. Different strokes for different folks as they say.

Re:Different strokes for different folks

[sjbe]

Maybe you had to be there. I was about 10 years old when The Beatles hit the scene. Not all of their music is great but much of it was really groundbreaking at the time. Same thing for the Stones.

Perhaps you did have to be there. I'm not quite old enough, though I'm close. But on the other hand even if it was groundbreaking at the time (something I'm not entirely convinced of) that doesn't mean it should be held in high regard simply out of nostalgia. It's all subjective of course but I can point to lots of other music even from the same era that I think was more interesting and/or requires more skill. To my mind the Beatles were simply a better than average boy band. Their earlier stuff in particular I find especially vapid.

The Stones I understand even less. I really have a hard time appreciating their music and I've heard plenty over the years. I think musically they are perhaps more talented than the Beatles but their stuff is harder to enjoy for me at least.

Old music is a "best of" the era compilation

[sjbe]

I do realise that some people must like modern/pop stuff, but I do wonder how much of it will still be played in 20 years let alone 200.

Not much. The stuff you hear from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s is basically a best of compilation. The stuff that sucked (most of it) never get gets played. Same thing was true 200 years ago and the same thing is true of the works being generated now. The vast majority of it will be relegated to a figurative garbage heap and never listened to by any meaningful audience ever again. People find the stuff that was good and they save that and then declare that the stuff being played now is crap, forgetting all the crap they had to listen to to find the stuff that is now "classic".

Scapegoating

[sjbe]

The issue of upper management's perception of music, or outside intellectual pursuits as being anathema to productivity may have something to do with the selection criteria for MBA candidates. People who pursue such degrees might just be less capable of multitasking and not posses the mental faculties necessary.

Why are you trying to demonize a group of people who went to school to learn how to run a business as somehow mentally deficient and inferior? You realize you are making the EXACT same arguments a white supremacist makes about black people?

Re:Scapegoating

[PPH]

You realize you are making the EXACT same arguments a white supremacist makes about black people?

Not at all. Black people didn't self select a life of slavery generations ago.

Going into management in many companies involves submitting to the organizational culture, or group think. Try to buck that in order to improve your department or the company as a whole and you risk your career at the hands of your fellow managers who start to feel threatened.In many outfits, management is like a fraternity. You don't keep up the frat house traditions and you'll find yourself out on your ass.

Were we back in the plantation days, I'd look at my slaves sand say, "I could get more productivity out of them if I educated them, didn't fuck with their families and private lives by trading them around, improved their working conditions, and give them a financial stake in the operation of the farm." And the other plantation owners would have ganged up and lynched me. Actually, no. Because what I proposed was illegal in most of the slave states. I'd have just gone to prison for teaching them how to read.

In this sense, management is a lot like the slave owners were. The organizational culture (slavery in this case) is more important than actually doing a better job. That's not a club I'd like to join.

Other learning disabilities may relate.

[bbsalem]

First, I do not deny the claim made in the OP, that some people may not be able to process music and derive pleasure from that. I am quite the opposite and may be far more sensitive to music as opposed to any other art form, but like many visually impaired people, this may not come as any surprise.

An incident of about 15 years ago comes to mind. I had a collegue in a technical support group who seemed to have some difficulty rapidly processing speech. Others in the group wrongly thought he was stupid, which was clearly not the case as he was able to keep up with his case load and resolve customer problems in a technical area.

I discovered a big clue to this one day. I happened to have a MIDI file of Contrapunctus I from Bach's Art of Fugue which he heard. The experience was for him obviously painful and disconcerting. Now, I had no other evidence that he disliked music, but his tastes obviously didn't run to Bach. The issue was that he didn't seem to have the ability to deal with the multiple voices all at once. Of course he is not alone, one had to bring some native abilities to that as well as some experience and even for me listening to a complex piece for the first time can be disorienting, but in a period of lime, several hearings, the logic of pieces emerges for me, and there are people who are more adept that this than I. What I do know is that music lights up those parts of the brain that are also used in processing speech, the structure of language, its semantics and syntax, and musical form seems to share structure with language. This person seemed to be slower at picking up content from speech than is normal, which is not the same as lacking the ability to think about what was said as effectively at everyone else, eventually. This speed of processing might be a clue to why people may not respond to music or how it shapes their tastes.

This may help to explain why many people seem to be more aware of lyrics than the music. For them vocal music is more like peotry set to music and many of them seem to prefer music with words than instramentals alone. I am just the opposite. I have to work to get the lyrics, my awareness taken up with the music, the details of counterpoint and harmony. It doesn't matter the genre for me either, the effect is the same, I remember the textural details of a composition or an arrangement of it even going back to early childhood, and long before I bother with the lyrics, so it is easy to recognize a cover of a pop standard.