Presidential election, 2016

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-13-2017, 06:06 AM)gabrielle Wrote:

(01-10-2017, 04:47 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some Xers have a very limited view of music, because they are too confined to their own time, which lacks inspiration.  Do not wish to argue that point.

Because on a deeper level, you know that's not really true?  Geez, you should realize that by now after everything I and others have shown you on the music threads.  I know you liked some of it.

It is certainly true that if someone limits their appreciation of music to the pop/rock songs of their youth they are missing out on a great deal that would educate and enhance their sensibilities and improve their experience of life.  This would be true of Boomers and their 2T youth as much as any one else.  

I know that some Gen Xers on here have negative views of the Awakening.  A rather Puritanical condemnation of what they perceive as excesses of the era.  People like to blame their elders when they're unhappy with their world.  Ironic that certain people who tout individualism and self sufficiency and pulling up the bootstraps seem to do the most whining about this.

I've long noted the shifts in styles of music over the 20th Century and continuing on into the 21st.  There seem to be decade long periods as styles of music had their dominant years, Sousa marches, blues, jazz, swing, the early bouncy 50s rock, then the increasingly divergent schools of rock since.

Part of it is developing technology.  Guitars, synth keyboards, effects processors and amplification can make rich sounds with just a few musicians. Big bands and orchestras might no longer be necessary.  Part of is is technique, with the accents and complex rhythms of newer styles attracting young audiences to the detriment of older styles.  Part of it is music echoing the soul and spirit of the times.  You play the blues when the world is blue, and rock when the world needs to be rocked.  

To some people, the world might always be blue.  To others, the world might always need to be rocked.  It is natural that different people will be drawn to different periods, styles and messages.

My music library borrows from lots of eras, Sousa, Joplin, Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, Bernstein, Peter Paul & Mary, the Beatles, Bette Middler, and many others.  As I get older, I've been paying less attention to new stuff.  Still, occasionally a song sounds through the fog.  My young nieces and nephew lead me to purchase Frozen, and I'll too often pull up iTunes to play Let it Go.  A while ago, as a former nerd, born to a time before nerds had their own chick, I bought Firework.  I don't know if it's an accident or a message, but the newer songs that have drawn my appreciation tend to echo a theme of breaking out of one's cocoon, of exploding into a sense of fulfillment.  I'm not sure how much that's me, or how much it is in the youngsters too.

Yes, perhaps one might grow by having a more diverse music library.  However, to some extent, for many, music might best match where one's soul is already at rather than being a tool for expanding the soul.