Post by Jude on Dec 7, 2016 17:05:53 GMT 1
I've had the idea for this post for a long time. I might actually start doing this soon so it seemed like a good time to get around to actually posting it.
For quite a while I've thought it would be interesting to listen to how music has changed and progressed over the last century. Initially I just thought it would be interesting to listen to the top ten songs of each year since 1900 or something (or whenever they started keeping track). The more I've thought about the process though the more I want to know about different genres and movements over the decades. I did zero music classes in college so I'm really starting at the beginning. I know some composers I like but not how they fit into the bigger picture, and I know some about things that have happened in my lifetime, and listened to a lot of classic rock in high school. But what I really want to achieve is a better understanding of the big picture. I'd like to get to the end of it having listened to a lot of good music and have an understanding of how different kinds of music in the past was a reaction to what came before it and how it effected what came after it.
I am also only talking about Western (society) music of the last couple hundred years. I know that all kinds of stuff was going on in other parts of the world, but trying to follow all of it at once would make an already daunting project insurmountable.
So I'm open to ideas about how to approach this. I plan on reading pages about different genres on wikipedia and information about bands there and on spotify. Are there other good sources for overviews of music history online? I honestly haven't searched much, but I will look around. Has anybody else ever formally studied music history?
I'll also try to keep this thread updated with what I'm currently learning about/listening to and my thoughts on it. Although I probably won't really start until after the first.
For quite a while I've thought it would be interesting to listen to how music has changed and progressed over the last century. Initially I just thought it would be interesting to listen to the top ten songs of each year since 1900 or something (or whenever they started keeping track). The more I've thought about the process though the more I want to know about different genres and movements over the decades. I did zero music classes in college so I'm really starting at the beginning. I know some composers I like but not how they fit into the bigger picture, and I know some about things that have happened in my lifetime, and listened to a lot of classic rock in high school. But what I really want to achieve is a better understanding of the big picture. I'd like to get to the end of it having listened to a lot of good music and have an understanding of how different kinds of music in the past was a reaction to what came before it and how it effected what came after it.
I am also only talking about Western (society) music of the last couple hundred years. I know that all kinds of stuff was going on in other parts of the world, but trying to follow all of it at once would make an already daunting project insurmountable.
So I'm open to ideas about how to approach this. I plan on reading pages about different genres on wikipedia and information about bands there and on spotify. Are there other good sources for overviews of music history online? I honestly haven't searched much, but I will look around. Has anybody else ever formally studied music history?
I'll also try to keep this thread updated with what I'm currently learning about/listening to and my thoughts on it. Although I probably won't really start until after the first.