Through a somewhat odd set of circumstances, I have become involved with a local cultural program where we are having very small venue (for now) free performances of different types of music, usually in an outdoor setting where optional dining is available. So far. we’ve done Jazz, Blues, Baroque is coming up (indoors for that one), then Blue Grass in the fall. Let me be the first to say that my musical knowledge is limited – I couldn’t pick out a Delta Blues song from a Chicago Blues except by accident. I can rattle off several composers names, but play me an excerpt and unless it’s one of the really famous pieces, I won’t recognize it. I’m not sure how much of a range I have, although I do enjoy classical in the right setting, rock, blues, country and western, jazz, folk, New Age, Celtic, reggae and whatever category music such as Native-American falls into in short bursts. To me, heavy metal sounds like garbage cans being clashed together and I wouldn’t mind if rap and hip-hop disappeared. If Electronica is actually a type that can go away, too.

My point here though is that people do have vastly different tastes in music, some quite passionately so. A friend of mine continues to astound me with his depth of knowledge of classical considering that he is not in academia. What is it then, that draws us to a certain type of music?