ITT: things to do to improve your musical IQ

ITT: things to do to improve your musical IQ

I feel like Sup Forums doesn't help people appreciate music enough, so I'll give some tips to help us with that. These are things to do to help you understand an album more. Feel free to share your own tips.

>read about the recording and production and immerse yourself in the artist's story
>look up live performances or music videos to add the visual component and see how they play the music
>read the lyrics while listening to the music and look up references you don't understand
>read/watch some reviews or start a discussion on Sup Forums to get different views
>write down your thoughts while listening to the music, what goes through your imagination, scenes and stories the music inspires

pretty nice thread user, I do some of those things but mostly with my favorite artists, I think people on Sup Forums normaly just listen to an album 2 or 3 times and just give their opinion on the spot

I dont mean to be (thatguy)
But playing instruments really helps you appreciate music

going for a walk and listening to music without any other stimuli helps

This is really true

I thought this was going to be autistic, but it's actually just fun ways to enjoy an art form even more. Nice job, OP

>lyrics

that helps so much, I could only get into swans doing this, if I listened to those 2 hour records at home it just wouldn't sink in, it feels like a sountrack for your life

All good points

seconding this x100

Try to draw connections between artists through geography, sonic qualities, presentation (personas), etc. Think of how many different ways there are to characterize an artist and it allows you to think of music in different contexts.

Also, don't go on Sup Forums every day

I agree with this for the most part, but I really don't see any merit in reading/watching reviews on an album. Taking any opinion other than your own into account when it comes to music is toxic and detracts from the personal experience.

>>read the lyrics while listening to the music and look up references you don't understand

So true, like before digital albums when they came with a sheet of lyrics

I like reading reviews because people notice different things that I will then pay attention to

This is a solid point, which I'm sure is also what OP meant, but I meant more in the vein of letting them influence your opinions, which seems to be what most consumers of music journalism platforms do.

I agree, I think reviews are fine but can't stand people who just quote reviews the whole time. Reviewers can be awesome when you find a person with similar taste, who also reviews local stuff that would otherwise be impossible to find

agree, I hate how hip it is to hate on j.cole now since reviewers and facebook meme pages started to make fun of his political correctness

I don't think anyone literally lets reviews make their opinions for them. As much as people joke about being phony, everyone's fairly sincere about their tastes (of course people are going to like what they think sounds good). It's just that people tend to not know how to discover music so they're stuck with one or two sources, and they look like drones. That's why it's important to discover music through many different sources. Along with Sup Forums, I find out about new music through rym, allmusic, fantano, and scaruffi.

You don't find music through last fm?

I used to, but I got too scared off from the big changes they made a while ago. Is it better now?

not him, I like last fm because of the tags, really usefull

>write down your thoughts while listening to the music, what goes through your imagination, scenes and stories the music inspires

I am going to try this, thank you OP

Music theory and immersing yourself in the process of songwriting makes listening so much for interesting.