Just about all of us have a different music taste from our parents. Of course, everyone has different tastes because music is such a personal thing, but the older you get, the more you find yourself defending your musical tastes. Still, you never really thought about how this might happen.
So Why Are Your Music Tastes So Different?
Want to know why your tastes in music are so different from your parents? One explanation might be that you’re listening to music differently than they did. For instance, you might have listened to your parents’ Top 40 hits when you were a teenager, but you may be more interested in indie music as an adult. It’s not that you don’t like your parents’ music. It’s just that you like music that fits your lifestyle now.
Lifestyle Changes
Your parents lived in a vastly different world to the one you inhabit now. Over time and as your parents’ lifestyle changes, so do their taste in music. You might find that it has changed from when you were born to now. Your life changes over time will dictate what musical influences have the most effect on your life. People have different preferences of music and even different levels of ‘musical taste,’ it’s a fact. Music can mean many things to other people. Some people like ABBA, some people like Herbie Hancock, Pink Floyd, and some people like Adele.
Technology
Arguably the most significant factor for why your musical taste often differs is how it has progressed with technology. Your parents probably listened to music played either from vinyl records or cassette tapes in their younger years. Whichever method they used, the fact is that they were expensive and could only hold a limited number of tracks. Nowadays, people have moved beyond even storing their music on a device and moved to the world of unlimited tunes delivered via the cloud. This post will cover the sheer amount of music later, but the technology aspect is still pertinent. For example, listening to music played from a cassette tape is unimaginable to most younger people. The sound is different, and there’s a slower pace to the way you absorb the music. When your parents would listen to music, they would need to go through a specific set of steps:
- First, find out that their favorite group has released a new album.
- Figure out if they have enough money to get transportation to the physical record store.
- Get to said store.
- Find the cassette buried among hundreds of other bands all vying for attention.
- Make the purchase.
- Go back home and put it into a cassette player.
- Relax and listen to the album played in its entirety.
When you compare that to the process nowadays:
- You find out immediately that your favorite artist or band has released a new album via social media.
- You open up Spotify or YouTube and play the song.
- Probably skip to another track of a different artist before the album has finished.
As you can see, it is a wildly different way of listening to music. Neither way is better than the other; they are simply different.
Amount Of Music Available
There is no shortage of music these days, and there are constantly new songs and artists coming out. The music industry has become so sophisticated at marketing their musicians that almost anyone can discover new music anywhere. If your parents wanted to listen to Morrocan folk music in their teens, there were not many places that they could buy the music. On the other hand, if you want to listen to Morrocan folk music, you can search for it, and it will pop up. Or better yet, use the discover features on your streaming service, which will perhaps also recommend Algerian folk music and Sudanese rap.
Cost
The cost of enjoying music has dramatically decreased over the years. The need to purchase a physical recording and speaker system is no longer necessary. Thus, it is now easier to access a wide variety of music at a reasonable price. Your parents would have inevitably had to choose who they wanted to listen to, which in turn would alter and cement their tastes. Because the younger generation has access to cheap and on-demand services, there is no such limitation.
The Ability To Learn Music
Learning to play a musical instrument can radically change how you absorb and process music. It is a mere fact of getting deeper into the sounds that enable the player to have a deeper appreciation. Your parents might not have had the opportunity to learn an instrument when they were younger, which also affects differing tastes. It has become far easier to learn how to play music these days with the advent of the internet. For example, the experts at acousticrealm.com provide lots of exciting tunes to discover, all only a click away. So if you wanted to learn how to play the piano, you could download a piano app onto your iPad, load up a lesson from the website mentioned above and start learning almost instantly. Learning a few songs will enhance your music appreciation.
Cultural Influences
The world loves to have a soundtrack for their lives, and it’s no surprise that music plays a big part in most people’s lives. People listen to their favorite songs on the way to work, during lunch breaks, or even while driving home from a long day at work. As a result, it’s essential to understand how music is a part of everyday life and how it influences the choices we make about our music. For example, your parents might have only been able to listen to the radio in their cars as kids, which would have been interspersed with news events. This sudden and sharp change is enough to change psychology and even associate bad news with specific genres of music. From cost to access, there are several reasons why your parents have such different tastes in music. However, cultural inferences may have also influenced how they listened to music compared to how you might hear today.
