How does the music you make align with your listening taste?

[James W]

Just a few thoughts I've been having on this topic. I was wondering how and to what extent people's playing or composing align with the music they are a fan of.

I mean, you would expect it to be there to varying extents. Personally, the music I listen to the most and indeed is the genre where my favourite albums are from is very broadly speaking jazz. But at the same time there is lots of music that is not jazz that I prefer to listen to than some jazz that I am not too enamoured of. But there are different strains of jazz and traditions within it - two figures, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, I admire particularly and both explored different kinds of jazz through their lives, Coltrane particularly within a short number of years. Neither ended up playing standards solely through their careers - not that there is anything wrong with that of course. Speaking personally again, this is the strain in jazz that I most admire, though I want to master playing standards while exploring other things such as my own compositions or even free improv. Doing these things side by side are a necessity for me, but for people like Trane and Miles their stylistic explorations were making history as they did them, and there was no looking back (at least not to a great extent).

I guess only some very lucky people would consider the music they make to be among their favourite music. But I guess most musician's journey is to achieve a greater alignment between what they make and that which they're a fan of. There is no secret in this, it takes lots and lots of work - but you also need the time and discipline to do that work.

[James W]

On the other hand, if you have a very varied taste in music, it's perhaps unreasonable or at best idealistic to think that it's all going to be reflected in the music you make, maybe...

[AllanAllen]

I listen to 80% swing, doesn't even have a guitar usually. If it does, it's likely Freddie Green style. The other 20% is like... anything. industrial, country, hip hop, punk, shoegaze. Not much folk outside of John Prine and Woody Guthrie. It's weird how Woody wrote all these powerful folk protest songs and the genre is completely neutered now.

[RLetson]

If my listening were constrained by what I'm capable of playing, my record library wouldn't take up as much space as it does. And how does a guitarist fit string quartets and Renaissance madrigals and Bartok into his playing?

I do work within some traditions I love, even if my execution isn't always up to the best they have to offer--folk-fingerstyle, singer-songwriter, standards and swing. And I'd never call myself a jazz player, though my musical sensibility is influenced by it, especially in time and phrasing. And I wish I could play rhythm like either Pizzarelli.

[djg]

I listen to 80% swing, doesn't even have a guitar usually. If it does, it's likely Freddie Green style. The other 20% is like... anything. industrial, country, hip hop, punk, shoegaze. Not much folk outside of John Prine and Woody Guthrie. It's weird how Woody wrote all these powerful folk protest songs and the genre is completely neutered now.

[enalnitram]

The music I make does not align with my listening taste, at all. And I'm fine with that. The music I prefer the most has a mix of precision and emotion. I don't pay attention to style, so much, as criteria for what I like to hear. The music I like the most has those two things. Some artists I prefer: Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Yo Yo Ma (the trio with Thile and Meyer is a fave), Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Joshua Rifkin, Gustav Leonhardt. Emerson Quartet (Shostakovich quartets are a fave).

Bill Frisell and Thelonious Monk are idols of mine for playing without so much precision, and that go for the emotional side and are extremely unique. I love them both for that. But there is this precision thing when aligned with emotion that is magical to me, and I love that the most.

I myself don't play with a lot of technical precision or emotion (I'm a thinker). Getting into my body is not something I do naturally. When I play music I am aware I would not be one of my own fave artists, and I don't meet the criteria for stuff I love to listen to. But that is not why I play. I think of music almost like a meditation practice for me, not a product that anyone else is consuming.

I do have some ways of writing that I think are unique to me, ways that chords and notes fall together that can't necessarily be explained easily by existing theory, and that come out sometimes both when I write and when I improvise, when I turn my thinking off and follow my ear or intuition. Maybe some of that stuff could be turned into my musical legacy or some lofty thing, if I had to? But in my mind it is all therapy, and some have told me they like it and some others' behavior has signaled they don't.

If I wasn't me and I was listening to me, what would I think? I'm just not thinking at all about that.

[mr. beaumont]

I listen to a LOT of different kinds of music.

I pretty much only play jazz-ish stuff. A lot of solo guitar.

Actually, that's one thing I almost never listen to--solo jazz guitar.

[James W]

If my listening were constrained by what I'm capable of playing, my record library wouldn't take up as much space as it does. And how does a guitarist fit string quartets and Renaissance madrigals and Bartok into his playing?

Good point, but when I said 'music you make' that might include composing which might be string quartets or madrigals etc.

[pamosmusic]

Jesse rules

[pamosmusic]

I pretty much just play jazz and jazz adjacent stuff and that is my favorite music, but not overwhelming. I go through long phases where I’m mostly listening to pop music. Love classical music. Blues stuff is big for me. Even weeks where I listen mostly to history podcasts,

[emanresu]

I am a fan of a few musicians but never done anything consciously like their's.
Also I am a fan of a huge pile of tunes/songs from musicians I do not care about at all.

Never done any copying.. except Bach, but this was like a habitual thing. I played a few of those too much
and then those things appeared in my own pieces. Not phrases but you know - the generic hwhay of how notes would go.
But that was an exception, I think.

Oh, for sure, I have a few songs that sound suspiciously close to Nirvana's. When I was 14.

[Aiq]

I was drawn to improv first through rock: Cream, Garcia/Lesh, Allman/Oakley then Davis and Coltrane. Tony Rice during my years in the acoustic wilderness.

I like to think I can appreciate most music but if there is not a strong instrumentalist and improvisation I lose interest quickly.

Hopefully this informs the psychedelic cocktail music I “play”.

[rictroll]

I'd love to be more like Ralph Towner, John Stowell, John Abercrombie, and Terje Rypdal.

But guitar is my second instrument and there are a lot of things that need to be worked on.

One strives and develops...

[rpjazzguitar]

When I go out to hear live music, which I do a lot, I usually go to hear people I know. Most often, people I've played with. Fine musicians but mostly not nationally known. Some not even well known in the area. Part of that is a location issue, since it's a long drive to get to the national-act venues. But, I like hearing friends play.

I've spent a good deal of time in the past listening to all kinds of recordings. Things I play and things I don't. Now, mostly stuff I'm working on either for an upcoming gig or something I want to get better at.

[John A.]

I listen to all kinds of things I don’t play (e.g., classical, assorted ethnic/world music, various flavors of rock and pop, country), but everything I play (i.e., straightahead jazz, blues and related styles) I also listen to.

TBH, though, I listen to a lot less recorded music than I used to, and much of my listening nowadays is trawling for repertoire.

[kris]

I like to listen to outstanding musicians and learn from them.
I often focus on phrasing and I like to analyze the notes that musicians play.
I mainly focus on jazz, but I don't limit myself to jazz.
I"ve always been attracted to what and how the giants of jazz practice.
There are a lot of interesting interviews on the Internet.
Jazz is very hard work.You won't cheat anyone here.

[Jimmy blue note]

The guitar is a tool for creative thinking for me. When I play, it's not with the goal of fitting into any particular genre but what comes out might be heard as jazz.
I do listen to a lot of different types of music. I listen to a lot of spoken word. I read a lot of literature and the cadence, syntactic arc and emotional arc very much inform my music. I paint watercolour to be humbled by beauty out of my control. I listen to bird song and that is very informative to my music; the use of sound in space and how I perceive that interactive play.
I listen to Bach, Debussey, Bartok, Arensky, Brahms, Zappa, Springsteen, Mark Kozelek, Joni Mitchell, Lateef, Jaco, Ben Monder, Max Light, Baby Metal, Keith Jarrett, Fred Hersch, Ryuchi Sakimoto, Surf, Puccini, Bartok, Springsteen, Chappell Roan, Nomi, Bacharach, Frisell... for starters and EVERYTHING I listen to feeds my idea of what is possible and gives me a structural option whenever I find myself asking "Why did I play THAT again?"

So when I do play Stella, I'm not thinking "What do I do in a II V here?" but rather "How do I set this intervallic gem into a rhythmic, harmonic and melodic context so it hints what I feel when I'm listening to Nessin Dorma?" Why am I playing all that other "stuff" when I can find something closer to the truth by playing less of what I know, and more of what I'm aware of?

Answers come from all the things that move me. That's where the music comes from.
A wise friend once shared---
"A talented guitarist with only a great knowledge of music and wonderful ability to play his instrument is like:
1) A beautiful golf course without balls.
2) A radio and a station without a broadcast.
3) A swimming pool without water."
-Mick Goodrick

[Greywolf]

I listen to a ever widening scope of music for inspiration, lately west and north African .
I practice everything from Folk and Blues , to Jazz and Reggae. It all creeps into how I play .

[benhatchins]

I can't play everything i like to listen. This question hits close to home for a lot of musicians. What you enjoy listening to doesn’t always match what you enjoy playing, and that’s totally normal. Sometimes technique and emotion pull you in different directions. The replies are thoughtful without being pretentious. It’s like realizing why you’re calling the Chegg customer service number even though you already know the answer. Self-awareness goes a long way in music.

[brent.h]

I guess they align (?), but I'm not so sure.

When I compose, I'm trying solve musical puzzles. When I listen to stuff, it's usually to research and get ideas to solve the puzzles.

I compose videogame music that follows the old song forms AABA, ABAC, etc. While I love these forms in and of themselves because they encourage concision and tightness in writing, these forms are necessary because they are short and loopable.

Listening informs my musical decisions at various points of my composing process, which goes something like this:

1. I write out chord progressions, let my ears guide me. Sometimes I listen and lift chord progressions from tunes and edit them, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I use a bit of theory to write stuff (e.g. The Blackadder Chord or The Tristan Chord), sometimes I don't. Sometimes I refer to my long ass list of chord progressions and movements for inspiration.

2. Next I listen to jazz and non-jazz genres to research grooves I like. The grooves must be absolutely clear and danceable. Research what every single piece of percussion is doing in that genre. In a samba, what is played? In calypso, what is played? What are the rhythms? Where are the accents? Once I know this, I will infuse my chords with the right rhythms to create a signature groove for that song.

3. Then, I figure out the arrangement. I write 80s-90s style VGM, so a feature of the style back then was to have only a few channels/instruments so limited voices. I have to know exactly where the chords are, where they're going, and have some idea where the melody might fit. Things have to be tight tight tight. Sometimes my chords are Freddie Green shell chords. Sometimes I listen to genres so far away from this tune I'm working on to get some idea of what to do next.

4. Finally, write out the melody. I usually sing it, play it, record it as a voice note. Then edit and adjust. This is the hardest part for me. I spend days and weeks obsessing over every single note. Some tunes are so challenging because I only have a few bars (like only 16) to build a story, hit the climax, then come back down in energy, then prepare for the next loop. Pretty stressful.

I released an album in 2022. Not gonna lie, when I put this out, I did think how nice it'd be if jazzers played my tunes. This was 2 years before I started playing jazz myself.

Now that I've gotten some experience playing other composers' music, I have learnt about what my fingers and ears tend to like, how to lean into it (or not), and what kind music truly pulls at my heartstrings - it's always 1920s and 1930s stuff without much improvisation. If I were to start composing again, I would definitely use melodic fragments or ideas or moods from 20s and 30s music.

In sum, I'm not sure about alignment then, but I'm pretty sure about future alignment.

[DawgBone]

I play blues but listen to a very wide range of stuff. Not very much rock, rap, or post 80's country though.

[Mark M.]

I have always had eclectic taste in music: blues, jazz, folk, classical, flamenco, West African music, Arabic music, bluegrass, traditional country. Over the past few years I have been tailoring my guitar collection to reflect my diverse tastes, allowing me to play or study any anything that interests me. As a result, expensive carved archtops are gone from my collection, replaced by resonator guitars, a nice Telecaster, Coodercasters, fine flat tops, classical and flamenco guitars, a mandolin, and a bass. I still need an oud and a mandola to round it out.

After years of only playing jazz, I’m finding that by playing other styles has made me a better musician. My jazz playing is better, more intuitively and naturally played. I’m a better sight reader, etc.

[AllanAllen]

After listening back to live recordings of myself, I have a lot of ground to cover before what I play is anywhere near what I listen to.

[JGinNJ]

For the most part, 100% alignment. At least lately. My recorded music collection is more diverse than straight-ahead jazz, but that's mostly what I listen to and try to play.

I have found, though, that it can be fun to play genres that I wouldn't recreationally listen to. Most bluegrass I despise listening to, but I had fun going to a jam a few times. Gypsy jazz kind of grates on me after a while, but I like the tunes of Django's era and playing on top of la pompe.