Not liking Music

[tastebud]

in just about every culture in the world

this being the most salient support for some kind of inherent human predisposition to enjoy music imo. it's amazing what other cultures do to create musical sounds... and of course how long people have been doing this. pretty much since time began.

music brings people together. i've never actually met anyone who categorically claims not to like music, but i'd say that if such people do exist they probably aren't letting themselves enjoy music.

i'm with crispy & pigeon on this one.

it's wonderful to see people in other cultures putting together the most amazing sounds with the most basic basic tools. and then the utter joy that this provides to them. some guys drumming in morocco recently as an example. they were amazing; so enthusiastic and i don't think they had a drum between them.

 

[Pigeon]

Aaah, but was that appreciation, or boredom??

I'll have you know that my rendition of "I'm so lonesome I could cry" is celebrated throughout the length & breadth of Birmingham.

Granted, so are UB40- but still....

 

[Dubversion]

actually met anyone who categorically claims not to like music, but i'd say that if such people do exist they probably aren't letting themselves enjoy music.

i think that's an untenable assumption, to be honest. Who's to say?

 

[bruise]

i don't think it's connected to people who are tone deaf - i know a couple who are completely tone deaf, but still like music of many kinds - so i guess an absence of rhythmic sense doesn't do it either.

ONE two THREE four is limiting. there's also

ONE two ONE two (2step / marching bands)
ONE two three (waltz)
ONE two three TWO two (take five)
one TWO three FOUR (ska)

or even

ONE two three TWO two three THREE two three FOUR two three

for any Cocteau Twins fans out there

well there's not really a single sport that does it for me. Cricket, almost.. but it's largely the case that i find competitive sports almost 100% irrelevant.

I get the same reaction from sports fans as the non-music fan is getting on this thread.

i made the mistake of telling a football fan friend that i prefered watching Basketball to watching football - so he started almost researching basketball stats and when the superbowl was and all that stuff (ok, not superbowl - whatever the equivalent is). he didn't realise I meant literally that - i prefer watching basketball to watching football. but i don't follow it in the way a sports fan does. just it's more entertaining to watch. i'd prefer to watch neither, frankly.

 

[Iam]

I'll have you know that my rendition of "I'm so lonesome I could cry" is celebrated throughout the length & breadth of Birmingham.

Granted, so are UB40- but still....

So can we conclude that the people of Birmingham don't like music?

 

[Pigeon]

So can we conclude that the people of Birmingham don't like music?

Sir- we can not!

 

[lights.out.london]

Birmingham Rocks

 

[bruise]

So can we conclude that the people of Birmingham don't like music?

add 'still' after 'we'

 

[MooChild]

Watch with the brum bashing cheers

I love music

 

[Iam]

Me and my big gob.

 

[bruise]

Watch with the brum bashing cheers

why? it's the only thing that unites the rest of the UK

 

[tastebud]

i think that's an untenable assumption, to be honest. Who's to say?

I dunno Dub, there are heaps of papers and things on this. There's a whole load of evidence to suggest that it's innate. Neuro stuff - several different areas of the brain reacting to music, etc.

TBH I was just hypothesising based on how much I, and people around me, love music... but there is actually a lot of neuro evidence out there to support my case - also the simple fact that we started playing music pretty much as soon as time began and that there isn't a culture in the world that doesn't.

A succint summary from a paper I found:

Our fondness has deep roots: we have been making music since the dawn of culture. More than 30,000 years ago early humans were already playing bone flutes, percussive instruments and jaw harps--and all known societies throughout the world have had music.

Indeed, our appreciation appears to be innate. Infants as young as two months will turn toward consonant, or pleasant, sounds and away from dissonant ones. And when a symphony's denouement gives delicious chills, the same kinds of pleasure centers of the brain light up as they do when eating chocolate, having sex or taking cocaine.

Therein lies an intriguing biological mystery: Why is music--universally beloved and uniquely powerful in its ability to wring emotions--so pervasive and important to us? Could its emergence have enhanced human survival somehow, such as by aiding courtship, as Geoffrey F. Miller of the University of New Mexico has proposed? Or did it originally help us by promoting social cohesion in groups that had grown too large for grooming, as suggested by Robin M. Dunbar of the University of Liverpool?

 

[William of Walworth]

Racking my brains to recall whether I've ever met anyone who doesn't like any type of music at all.

Failing to remember anyone ....

I'm sort of with Dub though, it's pretty hard for me to get my head round the idea that someone doesn't or can't like music (or footy )
but like Dub and most people, there's whole fields of other stuff that I neither comprehend nor like .... so it must be the same for the non musicians ....

ETA : Also, my parents are greatly into Classical and know an impressive amount. I've always struggled to get into much Classical music at all
And their incomprehension of anything about the sort of music I'm into (and my tastes are quite broad), means that the culture/generation gap between us is even greater ...


Worth remembering, also, that a small number of people are literally tone deaf ....

 

[Dubversion]

I dunno Dub, there are heaps of papers and things on this. There's a whole load of evidence to suggest that it's innate. Neuro stuff - several different areas of the brain reacting to music, etc.

oh, i appreciate that, but it doesn't necessarily follow that since we're essentially hardwired to respond to music, that everybody will 'like' music in the sense people here mean. IE, give a fuck about it, listen to it by choice etc.

 

[tastebud]

oh, i appreciate that, but it doesn't necessarily follow that since we're essentially hardwired to respond to music, that everybody will 'like' music in the sense people here mean. IE, give a fuck about it, listen to it by choice etc.

Okay, sure, fair enough.

Yeah, I can't say that I really *get* these people myself. I also don't really understand how you can either

 

[Dubversion]

Okay, sure, fair enough.

Yeah, I can't say that I really *get* these people myself. I also don't really understand how you can either

I never said I "got" them, to me they sound crazy. But then i'm sure there are sports fans who say the same about me.

 

[The_Reverend_M]

I never said I "got" them, to me they sound crazy. But then i'm sure there are sports fans who say the same about me.

... and we can relate their love of 'the game' back to primitive hunting instincts (the ball being 'the prey'). So it's all inbuilt, pre-programmed stuff innit.

 

[LDR]

I know people who aren't into music and I agree with Dub that it's not any different than people who aren't into sport. I like both and feel the same kind of passion for them but I can understand why others don't

I don't really enjoy having to eat and I'm not much of a film watcher at all and I guess some people think that's strange. I find people who like sleeping a bit funny as it just seems so pointless to me.

People are different and that's what makes them interesting and great.

 

[tastebud]

I never said I "got" them, to me they sound crazy. But then i'm sure there are sports fans who say the same about me.

I really don't think it's the same thing though - there are emotions and things attached to music...

it brings me back to the original point. I think we're innately disposed to like music, for one reason or another. We're not innately disposed to like sports imo. Yeah there are parts of the brain linked to sport; competition, aggression, etc, but it's not so instinctive imo. And I bet this would stand up scientifically. There must be a tiny % of people that categorically state that they don't like any music, ever - if any % at all - but there are heaps of people that don't like any sport.

 

[LDR]

I really don't think it's the same thing though - there are emotions and things attached to music....

And there's not with sport?

Come on! I'd even go as far to say that sport can move people in ways that music can't.

 

[Dubversion]

I really don't think it's the same thing though - there are emotions and things attached to music...

it brings me back to the original point. I think we're innately disposed to like music, for one reason or another. We're not innately disposed to like sports imo. Yeah there are parts of the brain linked to sport; competition, aggression, etc, but it's not so instinctive imo. And I bet this would stand up scientifically. There must be a tiny % of people that categorically state that they don't like any music, ever - if any % at all - but there are heaps of people that don't like any sport.

You're the expert, but anecdotally I don't think experience bears out whatever the pure science of it is. As I said, there's a difference between 'responding at an innate level' to music, and actually proactively liking it. The OP isn't suggesting this person doesn't experience certain synapse triggers on hearing a sucession of rhythmic sounds, simply that they don't really like music, and it's a bit of a stretch to try and conflate those two things, although I do see what you're getting at.

 

[tastebud]

And there's not with sport?

Come on! I'd even go as far to say that sport can move people in ways that music can't.

Hmm okay, whilst not feeling the same way, I'm sure you're right. But I just think it's different.

Music's deeper and that

 

[Dubversion]

Hmm okay, whilst not feeling the same way, I'm sure you're right. But I just think it's different.

Music's deeper and that

You're cheating like anything! on the one hand, you're trying to use the cold dead hand of science, on the other you're coming it at it from a cognitive dissonance / instinctual / subjective angle.

So you lose and therefore you smell

 

[User 301X/5.1]

My Dad doesn't really like music.

I have questioned him about this because I don't get it.

He never ever listens to music "on purpose".

The only music that he will refer to as something he likes is music from a certian period in his youth but it's the fact this music reminds him of this period in his life rather than the music itself that he likes.

How on earth can you walk around on earth and not occaissionally here a tune that makes you think - ohhh thats nice???

 

[tastebud]

You're cheating like anything! on the one hand, you're trying to use the cold dead hand of science, on the other you're coming it at it from a cognitive dissonance / instinctual / subjective angle.

So you lose and therefore you smell

damn you! I just wrote a reply saying that we were kind of agreeing for once but now I'm glad I didn't.

i realise that i'm influenced by my own thoughts and feelings on the matter. but I seriously do think that the fact that we *do* appear to be innately disposed to enjoy music is an important thing to reference. that's all really.

 

[Dubversion]

you still smell

 

[tastebud]

you still smell

your mum. AND... your family tree!

 

[User 301X/5.1]

I have a personal opinion of why music is inherently important to *us*.

I think there are probably more than 3 spacial dimensions (string theory / m theory suggest additional "curled up" spacial dimensions - some people say a total of 9 spacial dimensions others say 10).

I think that appreciation of music is acutally appreciation of the structure of the universe. The progression of music *thru* time is actually a reflection of how time is *knitted* into the spacial dimensions. The way that music resonates and bouces around the hidden dimensions is what actually *pushes our buttons*, when we like a peice of music its like looking at nice picture but the canvas is actually spacetime.

I think people who say they don't like music are in some ways less fortunate, it gives you a beautiful and abstract connection with the universe that you just cannot get in any other way.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

It seems reasonable to me to argue that it is a 'hard-wired' response in some way to like music, but I don't think it follows that some people might not have that. If anything is definitely innate surely it is the instinct to procreate, but some people clearly don't have that - to similar amazement from those that do.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

It seems reasonable to me to argue that it is a 'hard-wired' response in some way to like music, but I don't think it follows that some people might not have that. If anything is definitely innate surely it is the instinct to procreate, but some people clearly don't have that - to similar amazement from those that do.

Good point!