I think it is interesting how different music appeals and how it appeals in different situations. Sometimes it will be a whole genre that appeals and other times the genre in general maybe does not appeal and yet there will be one song from that genre that appeals. And sometimes a song or a genre will appeal for one reason and not another.
As you may, or may not recall I am a guitar player. I generally play whatever I find interesting. Lately, I have been playing some blues stuff, a little rock, some of the surf guitar I like to play and listen to and some Spanish and classical guitar. Yes, this means I often play more than one type of guitar in a day depending on what I am playing. Truly, surf guitar, while possible to play on a classical style guitar, just does not sound right.
I listen to a lot of other styles of music depending on my mood and what strikes me that day. I listen to a lot more rock than I play and for that matter same with classical music. I do not listen to much blues. Though I play it regularly. It is a genre that does not hold my interest for long, yet it is the music I play when I play out with people. I play hardly any jazz, not for lack of desire, more for lack of practice. I love Django Reinhardt.
The past week or so I have been working on a classical piece and playing a Gypsy style piece quite a bit. What I find that I really like is to learn a piece of music really well, that is fairly complicated. I can strum, and pluck and strum for you all day. I can even learn a solo or two for rock or blues. Put an involved classical piece or Spanish finger style piece in front of me and that will be what I play when I want to test the sound of an instrument. That will be what I play when I am just messing around waiting for some one. The sound is often as soothing to me as it maybe complicated.
Classical style guitar is what most appeals to me to play. I am not a purist or a snob though. There are several songs that I like to play that are rock that do not necessarily have a complicated guitar part. Sometimes I like to play a piece just because it’s fun. Like ‘Wipe Out’. That for me is a fun song. Some songs have more than one guitar part and it will be the easier part that I find myself gravitating to. An example of that is ‘Magic Man’ I prefer to play the rhythm guitar part which is mostly a power G chord. And yet, rhythm guitar part for ‘Crazy On You’ especially if you are also playing the intro, is the challenging guitar part.
Having a fairly diverse taste in listening music lends to my having a rather eclectic repertoire of songs that I play. And really it all has to do with how music appeals in different contexts.