Just watched "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" and really enjoyed this movie. It helps that I speak French, because I could be 100% engrossed instead of reading the subtitles - but even so I think it's a film worth watching. It somehow mirrored emotions and a headspace I've been in since New Years, and it feels good to direct the feelings towards a screen instead of inwards. I've also foolishly (but perhaps also because of sleep deprivation) called classical music "cheesy" a few days ago. Felt like an immature teenager hot-take even while I was saying it. And the movie definitely made me regret my words even more. I think the biggest thing that has ruined classical music for me, is that dumb broom animation by Walt Disney. It's just so intertwined in my mind, I can't un-couple it and listen to classical things with a fresh ear and good mental imagery. I've tried to find some good classical stuff to listen to today, but it's all just so vast I don't know where to start. I'm too impatient so I end up skipping around a piece, never settling in. Music is the medium I've always had the most trouble connecting with. I get bored, annoyed, frustrated I'm not actually finding what I want to listen to. I've had my moments with music, but they come rarely. They are not easily-replicable. And I'm always surrounded my extreme music lovers, it almost feels like i'm handicapped sometimes. Even with the mega shitty start of this year with the government probably announcing our harshest lockdown yet tomorrow, I'm optimistic about the coming year.
Classical music is a minefield for the novice, that's for sure. You can get bored so quickly, if you just sit down and try to consume it like a pop song. The best way to introduce yourself to it is to have it playing in the background while you are doing something else, and focused on a task. Don't THINK about what you are listening to... just let it wash over you. A great place to start would be on a Spotify playlist. I just searched the word "Classical" and came up with several good playlists - Calming Classical, Classical Focus, Classical Essentials. Play one of these in the background while you are focused on a project and working on something. If you like something, click the heart. Otherwise just let it ride. If you don't focus on it, you will feel it more... the movements will change, and you'll feel the difference ... and over time you will get an intuitive feeling for the structure of classical music. Instead of intro, verse, chorus, verse, middle-8, chorus, verse, outro, like a pop song, you will begin to viscerally understand how each movement of a classical piece differs, and how they are related. That will help train your ear for what to listen to, and how to "consume" the sounds and movements and sections of each piece. At least... that's my advice, if you want to get in to listening to and appreciating more classical music....
I'll give it a try! Maybe it's just because I'm not used to it, but when I've tried a little in the past I find orchestras just pull too much on my attention. It gets loud, quiet, fast, slow and I can't help but stop whatever i'm doing to pay attention. But once I start paying attention I get bored and start skipping around the piece, or jump to the next one. But then that's my experience with a lot of music. I think driving is one of the few activities during which I can get absorbed into music, but then the sound quality is usually shit. Or live performances, where I can observe the artists and crowd - and that won't be a possibility for a while. I sorta blame my parents, we barely ever had music playing at home growing up and it's been an uphill battle my whole adult life. I'm secretly hoping there is an obscure genre I haven't discovered yet that will blow my mind. Or that I will find the "right way" to listen to music. I'm at a point where I like many very different things, I have genres and artists I like, but I really struggle to match it to my mood, so I will circle around the rolodex of my favorite playlists getting endlessly frustrated until I stumble upon the right thing by accident.
when i listen to music while exercising it helps me focus on it and avoid the skip-this-part, wait-i'm-zoned-out syndrome, might be worth trying if you haven't
Wow. I can't comprehend that and it makes me genuinely sad. I can sympathise though, like when I read that mantis shrimp have 12 colour receptors instead of the measly 3 humans have and we'll never be able to comprehend what that experience is like.Music is the medium I've always had the most trouble connecting with.