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Well, I don’t suppose this is really going to be a “rant,” per se. Rather, I was thinking about a couple of reviews I’m going to be writing soon, and started wondering how well-defined and well-known the meaning of “Accessible” is in the context of music. It came up a lot in my college music classes, particular when discussing 20th Century Classical music, and I find that I tend to place almost everything that I listen to along a sort of Accessibility Scale in my mind. So, I’m going to attempt to explain my interpretation of the “Accessibility” concept here. I was able to find one formal definition, in a music dictionary called Dolmetsch Online:

Accessible – approachable (personality), easy to understand (idea, concept), requiring little intellectual effort (music, work of art).

This is a great concise definition, and the last phrase perfectly reflects the elitist tone with which many “serious” musicians and reviewers use the term. I strongly disagree that music must be difficult to enjoy in order to have value, but there do seem to be people who hold such an opinion.

While the definiton of “Accessible” is straightforward enough, I think that its specific meaning differs from person to person, because musical taste is partially developed, rather than wholly inherent. While some people are more flexible than others, we can generally get used to different styles of music. In a broad sense, we’re all used to Western tonal music. Most of us are also used to verse-chorus song structure. Since Top 40 radio is based on these concepts, it’s generally pretty accessible to everyone. This demonstrates an important distinction – the fact that something is accessible to you doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll like it. I’m certainly not a fan of most Top 40, but I can recognize the verses and choruses, and I can quickly decide whether I like the vocal style, the arrangment, the bass line, etc. I have a solid frame of reference, and I think that goes hand in hand with defining how “Accessible” something is.

I have a theory that people like to listen to music that is fairly, but not completely, accessible to them. We like to push our limits, but not too hard. Since preteens and teenagers haven’t been around long enough to get bored with standard radio fare, they listen to Top 40 and other super-mainstream music. Indie rock, which could be described as more varied and challening than Top 40, finds a warm reception in most college towns and radio, where people have had their fill of the straight-ahead stuff. Classical music is frequently associated with the older generation, which is appropriate given the complexity that has developed in this umbreally genre over the past 500 years or so. The excessive familiarity that comes from constantly working with music helps to explain the elitist sneers of my self-proclaimed nemeses, the “serious” musicians and reviewers. Of course, there are many other factors that contribute to musical taste (nostalgia is another big one), but accessibility seems to be an important piece of the puzzle.