Chosen In Good Taste

About three years ago, my high school music teacher told the story of when his wife walked down the aisle to “When I’m Sixty Four” by The Beatles. Somehow, the saxophone quartet consisting of four of his best friends had messed up the timing of the song, and she was stuck at the altar for a few extremely awkward seconds, waiting for them to finish. 

The point of this anecdote, in relation to our rehearsal, was to highlight the importance of communicating cues and timing before a performance, but, as is the case with most eccentric high school music teachers, he decided to turn on the speakers and play the song for us. 

At that point in my life, my music “taste” mostly consisted of what was popular at the time, artists like Laufey and Conan Gray. But after that rehearsal—tangential for my teacher, life-changing for me—I went home and listened to all 12 Beatles albums over the weekend. In the following months, I expanded to their solo discographies and other classic rock artists like The Beach Boys, Eric Clapton, and The Rolling Stones. 

This butterfly-effect moment raised some deterministic questions: Is it possible to experience a piece of art without outside influence? Is “taste” simply an amalgamation of the people around you, including people who influence you through advertising and algorithms? Do we have free will when it comes to taste? 

One could argue that, in deciding to accept or reject my music teacher’s offering of a new song to add to my taste, I had exercised free will. Every subsequent decision to play the next song, move on to the next album, and find more classic rock artists was also an act of my own volition. 

Yet, this still does not answer why I liked the song. 

There are virtually infinite ways to justify taste, and an equal number of ways to refute them. Perhaps you trust the judgment of someone recommending a song. If you’ve ever had a friend force you to listen to what you thought was the worst song known to man, you would know that this is clearly not true. 

Maybe it is a purely physical process—certain chords and harmonies sync up wavelengths that are more biologically pleasing to hear. We find artwork with the golden ratio more tasteful because it appeals to some innate, mathematical function in our brains. The human mind follows certain patterns. For example, we tend to notice the two human subjects in Holbein’s painting, “The Ambassadors,” before the eerie, distorted skull at the bottom of the composition. 

Other than these macro predictions about how our eyes move or how our ears register sound, the rest seems to be individual. For example, some people focus on the lyrics of a song rather than the music, and vice versa. But it does not seem like we consciously choose how much weight we give to each aspect of an artwork. A novel contains many elements: plot, dialogue, character building, style, voice, et cetera. Two people can never experience a novel in the same way—no matter how hard they try—because they value each of these loci of creativity differently, for unknown reasons.

This logic seems to imply we have no free will at all, which is a problem that is beyond the scope of this article, or even beyond the processing power of the human mind. 

Since we cannot determine where taste truly comes from, let’s turn our attention to another conundrum: What even is taste?

First of all, there is clearly an artistic aspect to taste. People will often defend their favorite pieces of media by explaining how a message was well-communicated or how it demonstrates technical prowess. Generally, we decide how effectively the artist drew emotion from the audience. The complexity of the emotion is not particularly important—a “good” dance song makes its listeners happy and excited, which is a demonstration of good technique. Then again, this selection is extremely subjective, but at least there are some things we agree are bad without much contest, like “Friday” by Rebecca Black. 

However, there is also a social element to taste. People who only like popular things, mindlessly conforming to the majority, are sometimes referred to as having “bad” taste, or even “no” taste at all. The uniqueness and individuality of one’s taste thus determine its quality. Not only that, one’s uniqueness must be in moderation; otherwise, they will be deemed “avant-garde” or a “pick-me,” and excluded from the popular definition of good taste. The problem with this is that no one truly believes their own taste is bad—not unique enough, or too unique. Everyone perceives their own taste as perfectly good, even if they don’t publicize it as such.

This suggests that taste is psychological. The things one likes, even though they are created by people who have no relation to them, become part of one’s identity. Insulting someone’s taste is offensive because they have specifically curated interests that reflect their being. Fans will leap to defend flop songs by their favorite musicians and morally questionable actions of their favorite writers, singers, and actors because they have conflated their own personhood with the art they like. 

Studies have shown that musical preferences are unlikely to change after the age of 14. Once you are capable of critical judgment of art, it is not so easy to relinquish those opinions, as they become a part of who you are.

Taste is convoluted and hopelessly idiosyncratic, and so far I have failed to define it. But perhaps we only need to rely on our intuition to understand taste. 

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter,” John Keats wrote in “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” We can talk endlessly about why we love our favorites, but at the end of the day, we like them for their “vibes”—reasons that language cannot express. Any attempt to explain a piece of art in language becomes its own poetry. Taste speaks to us in ways that seem deeply personal, too sacred to enumerate, even to ourselves. 

Though I am quite satisfied with how my taste has formed through my experiences, I feel a bit embarrassed when someone asks me what music I listen to and I am forced to say, “The Beatles.” It feels too vulnerable—people don’t know how much I look up to my music teacher, or the profound memories set to their tunes. I cannot help but feel like I am divulging all of this by telling people my favorite band. 

We do not choose our taste—but perhaps it chooses us.

Ellie Guo ’29 (eguo@college.harvard.edu) is constantly questioning her taste.