Discuss.*
*With apologies to Koebwil.
Yet another writer making a living by sharing his pet peeves.
I feel sorry for that guy.
About half way through reading, where he started talking about “blank space” it got me thinkking about John Cage, and his musical piece “4’ 33”’. He was into Zen philosophy (basically stating that there is no such thing as silence), for the song he got up, set up his piano, sat on his stool…and waited for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. It was a rather strange statement for someone like him to be making. The void of music used to be filled with the sounds of nature and the environment, but now the environment seems to be singing a thousand different songs at once. I think the only way we can stop it is to wear bigger ear muffs, or find a way to preserve the “sounds of nature” without looking like some kind of freak.
I thought the article was very well-written and appropo. My fiance has brought to my attention the “cult of music” that seems to dominate at least our sphere. On a recent service trip to New Orleans with her seminary, she said that every moment of the week, except for a few hours of sleeping time early in the morning, was filled with music.
The 16-hour van ride back so traumized her that for a few days afterward she refused to have the stereo on in the car. At first, my feelings were to the effect of, “What blasphemy! Am I really going to marry a hater of music?” But then, after a period of withdrawl, the silence and actual conversation in the car started to feel right, and I realized that I, too, had been brain-washed by the cult of music. Wendy doesn’t hate music, she just loves other sounds along with it. Thank God she brought me to my senses before I actually bought an ipod.
Intermittent music is especially nice in our shared space since there are only a few musicians we can both thoroughly enjoy, Pete Seeger being one of them. (I recommend “God Bless the Grass”, which I just picked up at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame after the Rolling Trials competition in Cleveland.) The 9 hour trip home included maybe 2 hours of music (the above album played twice), 3 hours of conversation, and 4 hours of silence. It was a very refreshing trip.
He has a point about noise pollution. Being forced to listen to other people’s music is horrible, when I was living in shared accomodation at university that was the biggest downside. Noise pollution isn’t limited to music though, things like people talking loudly on trains, car alarms and even wild animals can be just as bad.
Also, the link to ipods is, in my opinion, a load of crap. It seems like most journalists have forgotten that portable music players are not some revolutionary invention. They’ve been around for at least 25 years, and no matter how many songs you have available, it doesn’t change the fact that you can only listen to one at a time!
Too right it is…Particularly if you’re brother happens to have his guitar amp turned “right up to 11” in the next room.
He’s trying to exact revenge on our neighbours who are having a very noisy loft conversion done.
Why me?
The article says,
<<With the arrival of the MP3 format, music seemed to attain the incorporeal lightness and ubiquity of Ariel in Shakespeare’s Tempest. >>
What pretentious nonsense.
Typical Sunday supplement page-filling journo-rant.
But there is a valid point. Music has been devalued by the seemingly limitless supply. In the public space it has become wallpaper instead of art
With the advent of personal music players, it has ceased to be a public performance and become an isolated experience.
Most of the CDs in the shops are little more than branded noise.
You bring up a great point… although there is much to be said about the psychology of the new “wallpaper”… it has utilities beyond decoration in the retail world. Some have suggested that shoppers remain in stores longer when music is playing. Stores that wish to cater to younger crowds and keep out the “old fogies” are filled with loud techno or pop music. Restaurants that want visitors to get in and get out can play fast-tempo music to “accelerate” their customers.
On the contrary, personal music players (especially of the digital variety) make it easier for people to share their music with each other. Granted, the act of listening is an isolated experience, but people can still connect with each other by sharing what they like to listen to…
Speaking of music being an isolated thing, have you seen how many external speaker accessories there are for the iPod?
And if I’m not mistaken, I believe the iPod itself has a little wimpy speaker built-in, so you can kind of share the music…
My point is, people still want to share the music. I don’t think that’s changed.
Hell is the music played inside a Fry’s Electronics store. At least at the Renton Washington store. They play the absolute worst muzak possible. It is physically impossible for me to just browse the store without feeling that I need to leave ASAP because the music is just that bad. Think piano transcriptions with no rhythm and an electronic piano.
I agree that people still want to share their music. Music has all sorts of social functions, including providing a cultural identity for different age groups and social groups. Swapping CDs or tracks is a tribal bonding ritual.
But I referred to the “performance” aspect.
Music as a product, purchased on a disc or as a set of binary code down the telephone line, and played through earphones, is a very different thing from music as a shared experience between performer and audience, or even between a large group of people all listening together to a recording.
That’s part of what I meant by “branded noise”. I go into our local CD shop and see thousands of CDs by thousands of bands. Even with a massive financial and time commitment, I couldn’t possibly identify, recognise or appreciate it all. So I tend to go to the same sections and buy vaguely familiar stuff.
Then I notice all the genres: “prefix metal” (death/thrash/heavy/etc.) and all the pre and post - soft, medium and hard core categories. And you know what? If I stray out of my usual ghetto and buy something “unfamiliar”, chances are it sounds pretty much like something I already own from one or more of the other categories.
So what do most people do? Choose a band/genre they like, and then “get into it” - buy all the albums, get the T shirt, etc. It’s as if establishing loyalty to a b®and is safer and easier, and yet it still earns some sort of credibility.
Frank Zappa complained bitterly about the American classical music scene. He raged against the tendency of the major orchestras to play the same “tired” classics and their failure to challenge their audience. He raged against the audience for wanting to hear the same “tired” classics and its failure to challenge the orchestras with a demand for a more varied musical fare.
But this was before the age of the personal music player. (Well the Walkman was around, I guess.)
What has changed? Why is it different now?
I’m not sure exactly what I’m replying to, but I still think there’s lots of musical variety to be had.
There are so many bizarre unknown bands out there that are actually pretty good, and some of them pretty unique.
Are you a computer gaming geek who likes humorous rap? Perhaps you ought to check out MC Frontalot. I also recommend MC Chris for that kind of thing, although it’s kind of a different experience.
Wait, maybe you’re into electronically-influenced melodic one man shows. Brad Sucks of www.bradsucks.net aims to please. (Brad Sucks is actually one of my favourite artists now. Very good stuff.)
It seems to me that people get unwilling to try new things after a while. Most people I know just listen to what’s popular, because music is about being COOL, not enjoying yourself.
I listen to everything from country to classical to electronica to rock to rap. I don’t care whether people think anything is good, or whether I’m some sort of a blasphemer to like multiple genres. It makes me sad that people like the guy that wrote the article are regarded as music experts.
Be mellow… enjoy the music because you like it… Don’t hate people with different tastes. Embrace each other’s differences and be even happier that you can witness such variety in people every day.
And don’t tell me my music sucks.
Woot! Pete Seeger!
Seems appropriate to me. The Fry’s experience is a messed-up one. We only go there because they have a bigger selection than most. Otherwise, eww.
No iPod, or docking station that comes with one, has speakers in it. I have the thing from Bose, which is high-priced but does a very good job.
I’m glad I am not offended by most pop music of the 60s, or the typical stuff played in many stores, malls, etc. Guess I’m in the right age range. But I think there’s plenty of not-music out there, just less than there used to be. When I’m out on the trails it still sounds great.
“In the supermarket they got music while you work,
Drives you crazy sends you screemin’ for the door.
Work there for a year or to and you can get to like it
I don’t work in supermarkets anymore.”
That song always plays through my head when we go into any public supermarket/restaraunt that plays music
Welcome to my career.
[QUOTE=maestro8]
You bring up a great point… although there is much to be said about the psychology of the new “wallpaper”… it has utilities beyond decoration in the retail world. Some have suggested that shoppers remain in stores longer when music is playing.
QUOTE]
Perhaps I am lucky, I seem to have developed the ability to switch off and not notice background music in shops…except at Christmas, when I become quite paranoid, and am constantly driven out of shops by the music in this three month long “festival”. I wish I could add Xmas music to my aural spam filter, but in this I have failed miserably. More annoying even than those nice Nigerian gentlemen who want to give me money.
Nao
What do you do?