101 unlistened-to Brazilian cds

I finally found the Sambas-de-Enredo 2007 cd in a Lojas Americanas store today. They also had a big rack of cheap cds of lots of classic Brazilian artists - Chico Buarque, Elis Regina, Cassia Eller, etc. etc. I collected a stack to buy but then put them all back, realizing that (a), I'm broke, and (b), my shameful secret - I never listen to Brazilian cd's! I always intend to, but almost never do.

Truth be told, there are probably fewer than 15 Brazilian cd's that I've actually managed to listen to all the way through. I have a huge stack of Brazilian cds that I've listened to only the first 1 or 2 tracks of, if that. Often I wonder if I actually like Brazilian music at all! Because I can never seem to make myself listen to any of it! I love to PLAY it... but not listen to it. Not to cd's, anyway. This, of course, is a hideous musical flaw, because it means I don't know the repertoire.

Partly it's that there is no place that I can listen to cd's here. I can't play music in my apartment, because my roommate is always working; can't take my ipod on the street, because it'd get stolen instantly; can't listen to music in the car, because I have no car.

Partly it's lack of time; I always feel such intense, burning pressure to practice. If I have even a speck of free time I know I must, must, must practice! I have felt this pressure since I started percussion three years ago. It is relentless. It has never let up.

But there's something else too. To be honest, I get incredibly bored listening to cd's. This is not just Brazilian music - it's almost all music. There are decades-long gaps in my knowledge of American music, too. It is a very rare cd that can hold my attention all the way through. It's grueling! I have to force myself to sit still - if my attention flickers for a moment, which it usually does halfway through the second track, suddenly I discover that I have wandered away into another room, or left the house entirely. To make myself get through a whole cd, I have to plan a whole day around it, and then glue myself to the chair by approaching it as scientific research: "Now I will listen to this whole cd and I am NOT allowed to leave this chair." It's exactly as appealing as sitting down to study the latest issue of General & Comparative Endocrinology. (Really.) Sometimes the cd annoys me so much (by being boring and predictable) that I get really angry at it.

Does this mean I don't actually like music???

But every now and then a song will punch through and I will fall so terribly in love with it. I remember getting completely furious at a big Chico Buarque compilation cd - I hated almost all of the tracks and was stomping around swearing at the cd player, but was determined to get through it - but then I fell instantly in love with "Vai Passar". I listened to it probably 20 times in a row, immediately memorized the lyrics, found the chords on-line, transposed them to a different key that I could sing in, adapted the chords for Bulgarian tambura (the only instrument I had handy at the time), learned to play it, that night. It grabbed me completely.

Rarely, VERY rarely, an entire cd will grab me (Jorge Aragao has managed to do this twice! And Monobloco and Timbalada, once each.)

And invariably, those few times I find songs I like, they turn out to be all-time classics, the most beloved song of the artist's career, or the best song of the year, or the decade....

So maybe it alll just means I have ridiculously high standards for songs. Or a violently strong predisposition for certain keys or chord progressions... or certain kinds of rhythmic texturing and orchestration.... The melody seems almost irrelevant, actually. A musician boyfriend of mine was often able to predict which songs I would fall in love with, based only on their harmonic structure. (Rule #1 was, it had to be predominantly minor or hijaz. Never major!)

I haven't figured it out yet.... but I hope I can find some way to lower my standards, or expand my range of tolerance.... Because I really have GOT to learn more of the repertoire. Of all kinds of music, not just Brazilian.