10 MOST INTRIGUING MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS:6

6.Music Preference

Recently I met a Chinese traditional Zheng player (18 stringed zither), and we happened to talk about musical preference(what type of music you listen to, etc).What struck me is that she strongly identified that she does not like listening to Chinese traditional music in general or Zheng music in particular, but she does enjoy playing Zheng. In other words, she only enjoys Zheng when she plays it but in her leisure time she never ever want to listen to this type of music in any circumstances (unless she has to learn a new piece and wants to hear others' playing). Instead, she likes listening to popular music of China and does that a lot in her free time.

This also struck me because I feel that I have the same kind of feeling. I played Chinese traditional erhu music since i was 9 years old. In the beginning i really liked it and remember listening to it all the time in my free time. But now (or for quite some years) I have came to be just like her, enjoyed playing very much (especially in an ensemble) but never want to listen to it in any other time for any purposes other than learning. I also do not find myself listening to traditional Chinese music at all at my free time when I can choose my own music.

So what is in this paradox? I think it is more than just a matter of musical preference or musical taste and how it discrete when some one actually produces the music and when some one choose to listen to the music. I think it also has to do with ones familiarity to the music. I think I lost my interest in listening probably partly due to the fact that I have came to play and master virtually all repertoire on the instrument and knew every piece in detail. That way it might have deprived the joy of listening to something when you become so conscious about it. I try to think of another example, such as piano music, and I think i do have a tendency to not want to listen to the pieces that I already mastered. I also remember Nikolaj Znjaider saying that violin has been ruined for him--he can never enjoy and appreciate and respect a recording like listening to a pop song that you like.

But if I want to generalize this it might need further study: does that mean, say, if a musician played some standard repertoire in classical music then s/he would never be able to enjoy listening to it other than when s/he plays? And why is that? Does that say something deeper? Why could s/he still enjoy playing it? When does s/he get tired of that?

People say that one of the characters of music is that you can listen to the same piece of music for a thousand times or for decades and still appreciate it and every time you'll find something new. But is that really the case? if so, to what degree?