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Why does one person enjoy listening to Mozart while another likes Taylor Swift and still another enjoys Kendrick Lamar? Nolan Gasser set out to uncover the roots of musical taste and ended up with a wide-ranging book about music, its origins, its structure, but above all else about Why You Like It.
Gasser, the author of Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste, talks with us about his Music Genome project for Pandora, and his explorations into the secrets of musical preferences.
You can hear part one of the interview I conducted, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI 99.5 FM NYC, by clicking on the grey triangle above.
You can listen to Part Two by clicking here.
That was fascinating!!! Did he think that birds with their mating calls, “songs”, etc. came after or before “we” started being “musical”?? (Dumb question?)
I look forward to Pt. II!
Thanks, Part Two should be up on Sunday. Re birds, I think that birds precede humans by quite a bit, and I would guess that they were singing pretty early–but that’s just off the top of my head, I don’t know for sure. .