Two Years Ago: Taste is a Cloud
Another post from two years ago:
Even though we humans are 99.5% identical, that 0.5% makes all the difference in the world and no two people are alike, even if they are siblings. I wrote that none of the software predicting what I might like works for me… This morning I built a bridge between those two statements. The predicting software is assuming that taste is linear, but it is not. Taste is a cloud, just like the genetic mix that makes each person so different. It is personal and cultural and rooted in time… What I mean is that my reason for liking a particular sound or melody is predicated by a very complex and completely different set of parameters than exists for the next person.
Therefore I might love A but not at all like B, while the next person loves both or neither… In fact the painters or authors I like, which poems by Naruda I love, whether I prefer coffee or tea (actually I love both) might be more of a key to which music I like than asking me about musical genres!
Taste is a cloud, not a list. Taste is incredibly complex. It’s like that interview question, the one a journalist might ask when they haven’t listened to your music and don’t have a clue what you are about: what influences you? Hm, how about everything, every ray of light, every particle refracting and reflecting those rays of light, every sound and every surface reflecting that sound, every person I have touched and who have touched me, every story I read, every word I heard, every scent… all that has created my taste, my inspiration, my particular take on things, which is as complex as my personal DNA and which is fluidly changing constantly!
