From classical to jazz to pop to rock to hip hop, we all appreciate a particular genre of music or some enjoy many styles. We also connect certain specific styles or genres of music for a specific occasion. We dance or sing to some tunes, relax to a style of music, worship with a different style, and party with some. But, we all have a style of music that is always close to our heart.
Since my childhood days, I have been curious about why people enjoy a specific style or genre of music. My personal interest in music started with Western classical. From Gregorian chant (middle age music) to 21st century classical there is a deeper connection in my heart to this style. The main reason for it is was my dad who encouraged me to listen to western classical music a lot during my childhood days. The purity in classical music is something that captures my heart. Hymns, choral music, and worship songs are all beautiful pieces of music that have been part of my life and this has been helping me a lot with a spiritual connection to God in my day to day life.
Indian classical music is another beautiful form of music that I enjoy listening to both in live concerts and recorded formats. It is the pure sounds of vocals, strings, keys, wind, and Indian percussions that are a breeze to my ears. Zakir Hussain has been my favorite Indian percussionist (tabla player) since my childhood days and I greatly appreciate his musical style.
Apart from classical I also enjoy jazz, thanks to Berklee college of music which helped me to cherish playing this genre. The improvisation part of this musical style helped me to explore the instrument with more creativity and confidence.
During my childhood days, it was hard for me to accept the fact that people can have different tastes in music. I often used to wonder why some people find it difficult to enjoy classical music.
As time went on, I started learning a lot from exploring what others enjoy in music. At my young age, whenever I listened to opera my grandmother used to say please turn off the howling music. She seriously thought that people are howling. Even when I try to explain the beauty of it she was not able to understand. She had a different taste in music, she used to listen to church songs written in our mother tongue Tamil with Indian folk music style and she absolutely loved singing them. She obviously was listening and singing music that she understood in her own language for several years and hence she was not able to connect herself with the opera style and lyrics. At that age, it was hard for me to comprehend but I learned something of her style and considered it as a beautiful experience.
During my teenage years, a group of friends used to discuss how it is meaningless for them to listen to instrumental music without vocals. I remember one of my classmates mentioned that she cannot wait for the vocalist to begin as soon as the instrumentalist starts with the introduction (prelude). This might be because of the strong vocal influence on Indian movie music which is still quite popular among a large group of audiences in India or it could be a universal thing as well. Voice is the easiest available instrument to all and it is easy to make an expressive connection to music with voice and that could explain it as well. As a 90’s kid, I grew up listening to composer AR.Rahman who in my view is a skillful master of the art of fusion and Indian music.
After my married life, I got introduced to even a wider genre of music. I was already familiar with pop and rock music but hard rock was a whole new genre to me. My husband grew up appreciating all styles of music which has a great impact on my musical interests as well. When he played Led Zeppelin to me for the first time I thought why would someone scream at the top of their voice instead of singing and then he added Pink Floyd, Metallica, Deep Purple, Def Leopard and many such artists to my listening list. My initial reaction to this kind of music was aghast. But slowly I started appreciating the different tonalities of the instruments and how the vocalist modulated their voices to create certain effects on their music. My earlier assumptions on appreciating certain kinds of music changed at this point in time. I started believing people can be trained to listen and appreciate new genres as well even when it is not influenced by their childhood environment.
One thing that I had always appreciated in my dad was his careful choice of lyrics in the music that we were introduced to. Music that is with inappropriate lyrics was not allowed in our house and I am following that trend with my children and students as well. This is because I believe that music is powerful and it has a great impact on shaping the minds of children and so being mindful of the lyrics that they listen to is very important.
Now, a whole era of musical genre like hip hop, electro, fusion each with many sub-genres has come into existence. This is the era of my daughters. I indeed learn a lot from their musical interests also. They both enjoy playing piano in classical music style but as classical music requires a lot more hard work they prefer interleaving their practice with other genres of their interest as well. In my opinion, it is always good for children to explore and appreciate a wide range of musical genres and have an understanding of these styles even when they are getting trained to play or sing only one particular genre or style. This would help them to improve their creativity in music
In this blog I have only outlined a few styles and genres. There are a lot more of them apart from the above-mentioned styles that I enjoy listening to. Music is part of everyone’s life and I would love to hear from each one of the readers of my blog about their personal interests, their preferred musical style, and its impacts on their life.
Serena Anthony Music Academy 