I was never a fan of the Childe Ballad form. Odes to lovers who turn slasher on the banks of the Ohio due to True Love and unplanned pregnancies were not my thing. My genres were blues, Jug band music, and, as it evolved, the singer/songwriter sort of fix on music. Add to this forays and deep dives into listening to Rag Time, Cool Jazz, New Orleans-influenced jazz, and pop. You’ll have to admit that I’m very eclectic.
My interests form a sort of weird spectrum. I was a folk singer in the sixties – mostly what was called a blueser among friends and associates from New York City’s Greenwich Village. But if you hung around the music scene there, you eventually heard almost all styles. You wound up having associates who played at jazz clubs, so you went to listen to their gigs. One friend edged away from “pure” folk into folk rock, so you listened to her material.
Being part of a scene meant not being an isolated individual. Little influences from other people’s approaches show up in what music you buy and listen to. There is a narrative flow as your interests develop.
You are exposed to the new and different. I get upset with those that insist that music be pure – Blue Grass has these elements and never includes those, Country must never have that, and the Lord forbids folk musicians to use electric instruments. Purity is the foe of innovation. Innovation is what keeps the music fresh and evolving. We do not get to sit on an imperial throne and decide what a particular genre should be; musicians and the folks that listen to their music get to do that.
What’s my favorite? I’m eclectic and enjoy almost all of it.
I loved being a musician, but it was actually my family who helped me develop my appreciation for all genres. They loved music so much that they listened to it, sang it, played it on various instruments and danced to it too. They didn’t care if you were any good.because that wasn’t the important part. I did go on to learn to read music and studied it, but most important I learned to enjoy it in all of its forms
Instilling an early love of music is critical. Your comment about it not being important if you were good is pretty important. We are too taken with perfection because we rarely listen to “front porch” music these days. We tend to listen to stuff that’s been accusing-tuned and studio recorded. They way you describe it is the real deal.
I have sort of visual dyslexia that made reading music very hard. When I studied Spanish Classical guitar I came as close as I ever could to mastering it, and it allowed me to puzzle out melody lines, but a slight reader I would never be.
I like words and all across the musical spectrum are great words.