musical likes and dislikes

I find it interesting when people say they "appreciate music for what it is"

music does not harm anyone when listening to it, physically at least, and makes people happy to listen to the music they like. So this is what is appreciated?

appreciating that different music makes different people happy.

For those who appreciate music for what it is, something that makes others happy, I challenge you to listen to music you would most likely not, and listen to the song fully, without negativity, try and listen to it open-minded remembering that this makes certain people happy, while not putting those people in a category because of the music

listen to unearth
pay attention to the instruments, the guitar rifts and solos, the tempo of the instruments, and the depth of the screams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ-qdXjgtNs

Then listen to
Andrea Bocelli

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPRESlT4Ccg&feature=PlayList&p=00DE56BA5E2D5FA2&playnext=1&index=4

listen for the same things, with both songs there is intensity, in a different way, a completely different way.

Listen to both then answer this:

MY QUESTION:

can you appreciate both songs? How exactly?

talent or practice?

I think the dichotomy brought up on page 195 is fallacious. This is why:

They claim-- either, high levels of musical achievement is based on 'talent' (neurological structure) or 'practice'

a.) you could have a musically talented child that was born into poverty and never able to experience an instrument because of the price, to practice on and therefore never grows with that talent

b.) you could have a musically talented child that practices and the talent does grow

c.) you could have a musically talented child that doesn't practice until much older and the talent doesn't seem to be there anymore, like when the person practiced as a child,

d.) you could have a child that doesn't get good at playing music until she/he has practiced for over 10 years

e.) or a child that picks up an instrument for one year and plays better than the d.) child

I think there are so many scenarios to list them all. a.) through e.) can achieve high levels of music or not considering there environment and many other elements in their lives which have nothign to do with talent or practice.

The point is, talent may motivate the child more to play where one without talent plays twice as much to get where the one with talent is as a musician, but any way, all musicians must practice, you can not base high levels of musical achievement on either talent or practice, because those who are talented must as well practice.

There are those that have to practice more than others because some grasp things faster and slower than others, but to throw out a dichotomy like that, I can't help but be skeptical.

MY QUESTION:

I was pretty baffled at Levitin quoting himself-- "I planned it, writing that Frank ' sings with all the satisfaction of a man who just had somebody killed.'"

what is the satisfaction of a man who just had somebody killed?

Objective and Subjective

In class we spoke about about neurological transmitters in the brain, that which transmits sound into music, and whether this is objective or subjective.

I believe it is both:

Objective-- when you look at all humans, generally, all have these neurological transmitters inside a brain all humans also possess. If one was to put this on a chart in an objective view, the deviations would be very small...

So we look at it as a whole-- all humans have these transmitters so we see it as objective, something we all possess.

If you would zoom in on the chart, it would show that these transmitters can be subjective, it shows the slight differences between humans' transmitters-- the more you zoom in, and all are slightly different so the deviations become larger.
Now you can see that after zooming in, like a fractal- which is infinite,
there are many different types of transmitters for the many different types of humans and so it becomes subjective.

In this chart, the fact that we all have these transmitters (objective) is still there but what's more important is the large deviations from what type most humans have compared to what type the least amount of humans have.

The fact there are different types makes it subjective.