Music Snobbery

Of the myriad war crimes and atrocities with which I am frequently charged (scaphism, investment banking, etc.), that of musical snobbery is perhaps the most frequently leveled. Musical snobbery is essentially fourfold:

(1) Listening to types of music (or particular artists) not (as) many other people like (in my case: jazz, classical)

(1a) Listening to those types of music exclusively

(2) Claiming to appreciate that music (and all music) on a level beyond that of most other people

(3) Arguing that the music you like, and the reasons for which you like it, are superior to both the listening preferences and reasons of those who do not share your taste.

(4) Believing that what you listen to and how you listen to it are, in a real way, important.

Now, let us examine these four pillars of snobbery, and see where I stand.

(1) Until recently (past few years), I was definitely guilty of this. This is the weakest pillar of true snobbery, because it doesn't (as I have discovered) stand up to critical scrutiny. There are good things to be found in all kinds of music, country and disco and polka not excepted. Blanket generalizations are more the product of a non-discriminating mind than that of a conscientiously critical listener. While in school, I have come into contact with musicians who perform in quite a wide variety of styles. Meeting true craftsmen and artists in widely disparate genres and allowing your taste to be guided (though not wholly formed--see quote below) by people whose understanding of their arenas of musical exploration is much deeper than your own (see (2) above) has been an excellent means of broadening my listening horizons to find truly worthwhile listening in country, pop, rock, R&B, rap, and others. In addition, becoming more well equipped to evaluate different genres of music according to their own inner workings (which are usually in some ways different from genre to genre) allows you to draw from a much bigger toolkit in evaluating and appreciating all music, leading to surprising and rewarding connections across seemingly wide musical gulfs. 

So, with (1) addressed, stay tuned for (2) soon.

T.S. Eliot, on developing taste in poetry:

"For the development of genuine taste, founded on genuine feeling, is inextricable from the development of the personality and character. Genuine taste is always imperfect taste--but we are all, as a matter of fact, imperfect people; and the man whose taste in poetry does not bear the stamp of his particular personality, so that there are differences in what he likes from what we like, as well as resemblances, and differences in the way of liking the same things, is apt to be a very uninteresting person with whom to discuss poetry."

--The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism