Self-realization - Music
Apr. 3rd, 2004 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitchen_kinkI just spent a little time adding a bunch of stuff to my Amazon wish list, which seemed apt since I'm often thinking about gaps in my music collection, but never feel that money spent on CDs is good money.
It's a strange thing. Living with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ert, who obsessively organizes his music on a server and plays it in varying playlists through a gadget called a SlimP3, I've grown accostomed to hearing songs in no particular order, usually strung together by genre or what sounds good together by, predictably, an ex-DJ. It's pleasant, most of the time, and when he plays something that annoys me, I just ask him to change it. It also means that there is often, if not always, music going on that is semi-appropriate to whatever activity is occupying me: eating, showering, cooking, cleaning, working.
But the whole thing has subdued in me something that has been very important to me for a very long time, and something that I think is being slowly destroyed by the cult of mp3 and the iTunes music store:
Albums.
I am someone who likes to have music around, randomly, yes. But I am also someone who has been known to spend hours just lying around, or cleaning house alone, or something similarly non-absorbing of my mind, and concentrating on music. I have done this since I understood what kind of music I liked. At the age of nine, my friend Susan and I would listen to the Grease album together. We even made up an Olivia Newton-John style aerobics-cum-dance routine to the title track. I listened to Michael Jackson's last great opus, Thriller, repeatedly (it was the first record I ever owned), and learned all the words and sang along. Same with Prince's still-great Purple Rain, Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual, and, later, Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. Later I listened to entire Smiths albums while moping teenagerly in my bedroom with the door closed, learned the musicals The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables literally from end to end (I was a very high soprano then, and would sing along), picked up albums like Renaissance's wonderful Tales of 1,001 Nights and the original Broadway soundtrack to Hair - for the pure purpose of learning them, and singing along in my room. This made me very, very, very happy.
This habit continued through college, with Indigo Girls (more singing), Tori Amos (ditto), and other girl-rock. Later I started getting into less sing-alongable stuff, mostly by men: Dave Matthews, They Might Be Giants, The Cure, Rush, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, and Sting.
I always listened to them end-to-end. I had (and still have) a three-CD changer. I rarely put it on "shuffle."
One thing I truly miss about living with Scott is how well we meshed in this regard. He perfectly understood the need and desire to put in a CD, grab a drink, and just sit around and listen. He was, and I'm sure continues to be, an active listener of music, an appreciator of both lyrics and music (though he knew little about the latter, and really loved it when I would describe to him strange time signatures and other tricks performed by complex bands like Tool and Soundgarden), and a lover of albums. He would buy an album for one song, but then he would wear out the new CD, playing it all the way through and getting the flow and feeling of one song into another, growing fonder of it as he went. He was forgiving of weak or filler tracks, and rarely skipped one.
I have not done this in ages. I realize that while I was with Scott, I was also listening fairly heavily to his music, not mine. Though we shared many tastes, his tastes ran a bit harder, but what I at first felt subjected to began to turn into my daily bread of music. I learned to adore Tool in all of its complexity. I was educated in the richness of the Doors' catalogue - particularly the later blues stuff and the extemporaneous live tracks in which Jim would incite audience riots. I tripped using only my mind and the music of Pink Floyd, sat on the floor with Scott for hours, listening to Marcy Playground's underappreciated first album over and over again, trying to figure out who they reminded us of. In our last days, we listened to A Perfect Circle's Mer De Noms together - truly the best album of 2000 - and put our ears to the speakers trying to figure out the lyrics of "Orestes."
We listened.
My wish list is now filled with albums that I miss listening to in their entirety: the second Days of the New album, which flows effortlessly from one song to the next. The White Album, which rarely pauses for breath, and the splendid Abbey Road, with its unbroken progression of tracks - Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Golden Slumbers, and Carry That Weight. Tool's Lateralus, which is like a journey through emotional states too rapid and absorbing to track. And Ragtime, musical soundtracks being a mainstay of the type of story- and lyrics-dominated music I've listened to for my entire life.
Why don't I just go through the SlimP3 when nobody but me is home (which is often enough), pick out albums, and listen to them that way? I might begin to. But it's difficult. The contraption has such a poor search interface. I can't even remember what music is in it, what I might possibly like to hear. It's not like looking at a concrete music collection on your CD rack. I used to measure time this way: I would load three CD's into my player and hit "Continue," let them all play through. When they were done, when I had to change the music, I would know about three hours had passed. I had a sense of time, of task. I would get up, choose new music, go on to something else. On dates I'd have in my house, the music ending or starting over was a handy cue to move on to the next portion of the evening: from dinner to dessert, from dessert to the couch, from the couch to the bedroom, or to parting, and goodnight.
I must find a way to regain this. In the meantime, please share your experiences with music. I'd love to know how technologies have shaped your listening habits, and how you listen to music, and whether that has changed throughout your life.
It's a strange thing. Living with
ert, who obsessively organizes his music on a server and plays it in varying playlists through a gadget called a SlimP3, I've grown accostomed to hearing songs in no particular order, usually strung together by genre or what sounds good together by, predictably, an ex-DJ. It's pleasant, most of the time, and when he plays something that annoys me, I just ask him to change it. It also means that there is often, if not always, music going on that is semi-appropriate to whatever activity is occupying me: eating, showering, cooking, cleaning, working.But the whole thing has subdued in me something that has been very important to me for a very long time, and something that I think is being slowly destroyed by the cult of mp3 and the iTunes music store:
Albums.
I am someone who likes to have music around, randomly, yes. But I am also someone who has been known to spend hours just lying around, or cleaning house alone, or something similarly non-absorbing of my mind, and concentrating on music. I have done this since I understood what kind of music I liked. At the age of nine, my friend Susan and I would listen to the Grease album together. We even made up an Olivia Newton-John style aerobics-cum-dance routine to the title track. I listened to Michael Jackson's last great opus, Thriller, repeatedly (it was the first record I ever owned), and learned all the words and sang along. Same with Prince's still-great Purple Rain, Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual, and, later, Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. Later I listened to entire Smiths albums while moping teenagerly in my bedroom with the door closed, learned the musicals The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables literally from end to end (I was a very high soprano then, and would sing along), picked up albums like Renaissance's wonderful Tales of 1,001 Nights and the original Broadway soundtrack to Hair - for the pure purpose of learning them, and singing along in my room. This made me very, very, very happy.
This habit continued through college, with Indigo Girls (more singing), Tori Amos (ditto), and other girl-rock. Later I started getting into less sing-alongable stuff, mostly by men: Dave Matthews, They Might Be Giants, The Cure, Rush, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, and Sting.
I always listened to them end-to-end. I had (and still have) a three-CD changer. I rarely put it on "shuffle."
One thing I truly miss about living with Scott is how well we meshed in this regard. He perfectly understood the need and desire to put in a CD, grab a drink, and just sit around and listen. He was, and I'm sure continues to be, an active listener of music, an appreciator of both lyrics and music (though he knew little about the latter, and really loved it when I would describe to him strange time signatures and other tricks performed by complex bands like Tool and Soundgarden), and a lover of albums. He would buy an album for one song, but then he would wear out the new CD, playing it all the way through and getting the flow and feeling of one song into another, growing fonder of it as he went. He was forgiving of weak or filler tracks, and rarely skipped one.
I have not done this in ages. I realize that while I was with Scott, I was also listening fairly heavily to his music, not mine. Though we shared many tastes, his tastes ran a bit harder, but what I at first felt subjected to began to turn into my daily bread of music. I learned to adore Tool in all of its complexity. I was educated in the richness of the Doors' catalogue - particularly the later blues stuff and the extemporaneous live tracks in which Jim would incite audience riots. I tripped using only my mind and the music of Pink Floyd, sat on the floor with Scott for hours, listening to Marcy Playground's underappreciated first album over and over again, trying to figure out who they reminded us of. In our last days, we listened to A Perfect Circle's Mer De Noms together - truly the best album of 2000 - and put our ears to the speakers trying to figure out the lyrics of "Orestes."
We listened.
My wish list is now filled with albums that I miss listening to in their entirety: the second Days of the New album, which flows effortlessly from one song to the next. The White Album, which rarely pauses for breath, and the splendid Abbey Road, with its unbroken progression of tracks - Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Golden Slumbers, and Carry That Weight. Tool's Lateralus, which is like a journey through emotional states too rapid and absorbing to track. And Ragtime, musical soundtracks being a mainstay of the type of story- and lyrics-dominated music I've listened to for my entire life.
Why don't I just go through the SlimP3 when nobody but me is home (which is often enough), pick out albums, and listen to them that way? I might begin to. But it's difficult. The contraption has such a poor search interface. I can't even remember what music is in it, what I might possibly like to hear. It's not like looking at a concrete music collection on your CD rack. I used to measure time this way: I would load three CD's into my player and hit "Continue," let them all play through. When they were done, when I had to change the music, I would know about three hours had passed. I had a sense of time, of task. I would get up, choose new music, go on to something else. On dates I'd have in my house, the music ending or starting over was a handy cue to move on to the next portion of the evening: from dinner to dessert, from dessert to the couch, from the couch to the bedroom, or to parting, and goodnight.
I must find a way to regain this. In the meantime, please share your experiences with music. I'd love to know how technologies have shaped your listening habits, and how you listen to music, and whether that has changed throughout your life.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 12:39 pm (UTC)How I listen to music depends very heavily on what is going on at the moment. If i'm just looking for background, i may pick an online radio station, or put my entire collection on random (mmmmm, 23 days of music).
If i'm working on something specific, i'll tune what i'm listening to for that.
In the car - I have CDs that i listen to, specifically for the purpose of driving to - or for setting my mood while on the way to going somewhere.
When I get a new album, I enjoy listening to it all the way through, at least a few times, before putting it into the full on rotation.
Now that i've got all my music in one place, I think it's time for me to start doing more targetted playlists. But sometimes, I still do the 'drop a single album on becaus eit's what i'm in the mood for' and listen to it end on end.
(Of course, one of these days i'll have to get back to actually writing/creating/recording my -own- music, rather than merely listening to the creations of others... but that's a whole post in and of itself).
no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 03:12 pm (UTC)Have you tried browsing the slimp3 by "Artwork?" in that little pull-down menu at the top? It's not the same as looking at a rack of jewel cases, but it's a lot closer than looking at a list.
Awright. Breaktime over.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 04:48 pm (UTC)This is me, for most kinds of music. I cannot focus on doing something else if good music is playing; it draws me to it. I've found I can listen to trance and do other stuff (I'm listening now) but will be easily distracted by favourite songs.
I don't do albums as much, although I have some tapes that I've listened to extensively, including the "filler tracks" at the end. They are a unit in my mind and those filler tracks had better be there or it is incomplete. I also made some "mix" tapes/CDs that become units in much the same way.
I have a strongly associative memory too; I won't remember a book until I start reading and then it will all fill in. So if some song is missing, I'll definitely know it and the album will feel odd. There are a lot of individual songs (mostly remixes) that I don't want to "spoil" this way so I listen to them sparingly.
Streaming music over the net has definitely (re)shaped my listening habits, since I can get to hear stuff I never would have found on my own. Also the advent of CD burning and MP3s has allowed me greater freedom to program my own mixes and hear them everywhere. Tapes were just too inconvenient compared to drag 'n' drop!
I was out in Redmond WA working for a month and definitely noticed the lack of music, since I couldn't listen at work and hadn't brought much music with me to the hotel.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 05:37 pm (UTC)I have loaded my 200 favorites into a CD juke box in my studio.
Some days I listen to the ablums in order, some days I hit *shuffle* and just let it suprise me with deep cuts from albums I forgot I even owned. It also has a fovorites list with about 20 of my all time favorites.
I burn copies of the newest CD's I havepicked up to carry around in the car with me.. Playing them from top to bottom while I am driving along. Once I know them start to finish I usually go and by new CD's. :-)
LPs
Date: 2004-04-03 09:18 pm (UTC)*swoon*
Date: 2004-04-03 10:33 pm (UTC)Could you...could you...do that for me....
*swoon*
no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-05 12:28 pm (UTC)(i secretly, sometimes, listen to albums on my laptop in my little room. and now, newly ipod enabled, i can not-so-secretly listen to them at the gym (or on the bus or ...) yay!)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-08 04:47 pm (UTC)