Used to listen/collect CDs at midwit levels of interest/taste until about 20y ago when shift to mp3s broke the habit. Used to think I have musical anhedonia but I do get in the mood once every few years, and rarely a song on the radio (wife listens constantly) will catch my ear
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I have a new theory now. I’m the musical equivalent of monolingual. My brain got so wired so early to the just-tempered scale, I fundamentally can’t get into chromatic scale music except at a shallow intellectual level, and I lack the natural “ear” to be fluent in 2 scales.
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Ie unconsciously my brain got machine-code locked to just-tempered (raga) because that was almost 100% of what I heard till I was 10-12y old. And it’s just “off” enough from chromatic (western) that I can’t really adapt. And 90% of music around me is chromatic now, even Indian.
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To be clear I can’t actually consciously tell them apart. Takes a lot more musical training and talent to do that. I suspect this is also why most western-attuned ears simply can’t get into raga at all. But notably when I do get in the mood every few years it’s always raga.
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And when a song on American radio catches my ear it is nearly always a slightly “weird” human voice and a song that involves vocal play that borders on just-tempered as in hooks my attention in a slightly “raga” way even if it has no relation/influence at all
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I recall from music theory reading that all music, including western, was just-tempered in antiquity and the scale centers the natural human voice as the standard. Chromatic centers the natural geometry of instruments like the piano, and human voices/ears have to be trained to it
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I suspect most midwit ears can only “deep” listen to one or the other. As in pay direct attention on purpose. You can shallow listen to either in the background of other tasks.
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Interestingly enough I can’t do accents or impressions either, or tell slight differences in accents apart. I guess listening is an actual talent.
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Another data point: I find the harmonium (pumped reed organ) extremely grating. It’s an equal-tempered western instrument sorta hacked into service as an approximately just-tempered accompaniment instrument in semi-classical and pop Indian music.
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Replying to
Does anyone use it in western music anymore?
The accordion is annoying in a very similar way.
Maybe it’s just my ignorance but are you talking tuning/temperament? Just vs well vs equal etc?
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