Yes!! It's about enjoyment and the emotional response. My "weakness" is female vocalists. The Sarahs (Brightman and McLaughlin) are 2 of my favorites, but I'd never leave Diane Krall out.
I listen to just about everything with the exception of modern country music, and I'd have to agree -- I'm a sucker for certain female vocals, and for truly great piano, especially when not accompanied by anything else. Probably why anything done by Tori Amos when it basically just her and a piano, without all her computer work, draws me in so much. With plenty of empty space around -- pauses of silence, alternating between a captivating voice, silence, and a piano melody, its usually a guaranteed recipe to suck me in, especially if the vocals, piano, or both are a bit on the dark side.
Certain old blues artists and folky artists do the same when its just a vocal and a piano or guitar -- its the combination of everything as well as the vocals and instrumentals seperately...
...but only having a couple instruments or vocals, keeping things sparse always fits a darker tune, and often its almost like the pauses, the intermitent silence act as its own instrument.
Sometimes this is part of the environmental connection for me -- and with the sparser recordings, I think it connects with my brain more in 'fooling it'. The music itself can move you, but when its just a guy and a guitar, and the system and recording provide more of a "they are here" (in the room) environment vs. a "you are there" (recreating event), its a bit more real to my head, and thus it thinks even less and gets sucked in more. Whether on my own system, anyone else's, or dealers -- no matter how good, my head is never going to get over the fact that there are walls in the room, and you aren't fitting an orchestra in there. You get the emotion, you get a really cool representation of the event, but hearing a female vocal and nothing else project in the room from a point in space has a bit more possibility in feeling 'real' if that makes any sense... If I happened to have a small concert hall in my home as listening room with massive speakers, I'd probably think even less, and get sucked in even further with larger scale music that involves instruments that are supposed to be loud, and that involve many people. Anyone want to sponsor my curiousity to prove a point?
I've always like 'darker' music in general, whether you consider it by sound, or by lyrics, or pace, but especially so when listening at home. I think this is also a 'match the mood' type scenario -- if I'm really listening to music, its by myself, with the lights out, often late at night -- usually at a time when I'm looking for that connection in solitude, that something personal and introspective. The environment, time, and need end up matching the music. Possibly just looking to relax, or be introspective, or get sucked in.
There are times when Jane's Addiction, or Zeppelin, or anything much more high energy ends up in the stereo, but they are more likely to be played in the car -- the connection is different there -- I'm usually looking for something to pick me up, or something that makes you want to put the foot on the gas, rather than zone out, be introspective....and accidentally run red lights..
Why is it then that there's so little activity in the Music Circle?? It always seems to me that audio forums generally make some statement that "Music is what it's all about" but then gear is what gets the most responses/views.
I think most of the lack of activity, myself included is innocent. A lot of people are always on the hunt for other's viewpoints to get more out of systems, and they also find it easier to talk about and describe equipment than music. Outside of "I really like it" or "the guitar sounds terrific", since music is more emotional I personally find it harded to describe, though more satisfying to write about when it is possible.
Much easier to speak about things more tangible -- parts, components, the little change that this brought, comparing one item to the next...
I greatly appreciate people's reccomendations of music more than anything, but for a lot of music, you want to listen to it more than discuss it. If you already have it, you're happy. If you don't you're curious. If you're curious enough, you go get it, and you are happy too, so outside of an initial reaction to it, may run out of things to say after a post or two... So it ends up that you'll hear a lot of recommendations and thank you's, but not as many discussions or in depth viewpoints. Just an opinion....
