Your Music : it’s a matter of taste
Steven Wright

It’s often said there’s no accounting for taste, but that’s not really true. Increasingly, taste in music can be accounted for. That’s what this book explores.

Advances in the science and psychology of music have been shining new light on our music preferences. We can now start to answer questions like: How does your taste get formed? Why might it be different from the tastes of your close friends and family? And why might it change as you move through life?

Your Music – it’s a matter of taste is an engaging and readable synthesis of current knowledge explaining how, why and when some music works for you, while other music doesn’t. It’s for anyone who enjoys listening – whatever they listen to.  The reader isn’t required to be a musician nor any kind of musical expert. Academic jargon is avoided, and when potentially new concepts are introduced, they’re described in everyday language.

Unlike other books which discuss or touch on music taste, Your Music doesn’t attempt to organise music or music fans into categories.  Instead it celebrates breadth of taste. It explores our ability to change our tastes and to acquire new tastes.

Books on music have tended to convey strong flavours of their authors’ own positive listening experiences, which could differ substantially from those of readers. Your Music stays taste-neutral throughout, and the listener/reader is kept at the centre of interest.

Other titles have referred to, or tried to teach music theory. However, what we call ‘music theory’ doesn’t describe all music – it only applies to Western tonal music. Much of it is also likely to be beyond the grasp of many readers. Your Music instead explains, in everyday language, how preferences are acquired and formed, primarily through listening.

Similarly, Your Music entirely avoids the use of music notation. Notation can describe aspects of various types of music and can be very useful to musicians and musicologists. But some readers would feel excluded when confronted with it. And it can’t explain tastes.

Your Music doesn’t limit itself to insights from psychology, neuroscience or sociology, but draws on all of these, along with other ways of understanding and thinking about music preference.