From britpop to bebop

From the moment that you start playing some instrument or you start to do something with the music (like mixing, arranging, programming some music-tool, etc.) you will think bit different about the music and you will notice things that you (as a pure listener) never noticed before. You will notice the sound quality in different way than "Is it loud enough?", you will note what the musicians play... This is the time when you also might change your opinion of your favorite music genre and you also might switch to another genre instead.

Phase 0: I was young and stuping, so I listened to commercial music...

Phase 1: I have started to play acoustic guitar in the age of 16. About a year later I bought my own acoustic guitar (Fender). I played genres like pop (IMT Smile, Kirschnerova), britpop (Oasis), "medieval" (Ritchie Blackmore), czech folk and country.

Phase 2: Then I've found out that most of that music is well known by my friends and family and they like it, but to play that kind of music is very boring (no improvisation, stupid bass-lines, etc.). So I bought a electric guitar (Yamaha) and a guitar multi-effect pedal (Zoom 505-II) and started to learn some solos from my favourite songs. I also  switched to different genres like blues (Eric Clapton), rock (Deep Purple, AC-DC, Jimi Hendrix), instrumental rock (Joe Satriani), ska (Polemic) and reggae (Bob Marley).

Phase 3: After that I noticed that learning to play the solos from my favourite songs was not going anywhere - you can play the solo from this and that song, but you can't do your own solo well and you can't improvise on the fly. Also the bass-lines in all the genres in phase 2 were mostly too easy (and that means they are boring). So the solution was to choose a different genres with better improvisations, bass-lines and philosophy. I switched to swing and latin jazz (Diana Krall, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck), jazz-rock fusion (Jean-Luc Ponty, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Al diMeola), jazz-funk (Maceo Parker, J.A.R., Mig 21), jazz-pop (Dan Barta) and smooth-jazz. I've sold my electric guitar and bought a semi-hollow jazz guitar (Ibanez ArtCore). I even took classes of jazz playing and improvisation from Peter Adamkovic (jazz pianist and teacher, link).

Phase 4: Because I was too lazy to drill enough and I didn't had much time because of my university study (and also because I couldn't decide which of my hobbies it the most important), I stopped taking the jazz classes and stopped to play as much as in previous three phases. I still play guitar occasionally, but it's not worth listening to it ;-) But I hope that I will return to drilling and playing one day (maybe withing the next months?). I listen to music from phase 3 and sometimes from phase 2. I rather don't want to remember on the music from phase 1 or 0.

As you note I have evolved from listening to commercial music to the listening and playing jazz and its variations. I know why I did so, I know why this music is so good and I hate commercial music (Madona, Shakira, Desmod) as I never had before. I also hate the music which is played on synthetizers (Scooter, Pulsedriver, etc.), but I like chip-music from ATARI.