Ultimately, it is as you perceive it…

In music, what each person likes, what they listen to (and if they truly listen), is very fluid and highly subjective. We can easily understand a friend’s different taste and disagree with them, but it’s not always so easy to explain various preferences. Can you imagine a conductor, a staunch avant-garde supporter who won’t hear a word against Xenakis, also enjoying Heavy Metal?

A large percentage of listeners are accidental. They will listen to whatever is around without any particular criteria or special attention. A radio playing, music from a tavern’s loudspeaker, the radio in a taxi. However, this doesn’t mean that such listening doesn’t create habits… Repeated exposure to the same or similar stimuli creates familiarity. Someone might say they don’t understand music, but they’ve formed preferences long before saying so. At this point, the music we ultimately understand has many parallels with our mother tongue. We learned it very early on and take it for granted. This is also why some “commercial” genres begin their journey with a huge comparative advantage in terms of dissemination. The ingredients of the recipe are well-researched, tested, and already there, ready for use.

But there is another world. These are music lovers of all kinds, who listen differently. They have opinions, preferences, and for them, Music is certainly not just entertainment or a boring cultural duty. However, Music is not only what we hear but also what we think or feel inspired by sound. At this point, extramusical elements always play a role: the appearance of the musicians, the appeal of the singers, the audience’s behavior, the venue where the music is played – all are strong elements of identification. These are the exact same elements that, conversely, will repel others.

In conservative 1950s Greece, Rebetiko, Jazz, and contemporary “art” music were met with perhaps varying degrees of hostility, but certainly negatively. In this regard, both the urban society of the time and most intellectuals were in complete agreement. Rebetiko was the music of hash dens, the lumpenproletariat, and the marginalized, while Jazz and contemporary music “did not suit the Greek soul and temperament.”

But how does a listener change or broaden their tastes? How do they try something new beyond what they already know? How does the uninitiated get closer? This is always an interesting question, and many distinguished conductors, performers, and theorists have grappled with it.

There are various things that can be done here: books, articles, broadcasts, and special programs. The related books by Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland are considered classics, but there are many more recent ones. In Greek, many valuable books have been translated by Nefeli Publications, including Igor Stravinsky’s “Poetics of Music.” It is also worth mentioning at least two Greek works: “Diabolus in Musica” by Haris Vrontos and “Music for Children and Smart Adults” by Michalis Grigoriou.

In closing, let us remember – once again – Manos Hatzidakis: both with the Third Programme and with the Orchestra of Colors, which radically changed the usual concert programs.

He who seeks always finds!
Provided there is willingness and interest…