Quote:
Funny that people talk about so many things round here but music is hardly ever discussed -- music links are posted, but hardly any discussion about music (not music taste). The link I posted a few days ago was completely ignored and it raised what I thought were some very interesting points.
Lol you honestly sound a little wounded about that link. Well, I read it - and yes it was a great piece of writing. Here are some of my thoughts on it:
I doubt many of his students talk to him about music (it seems a little weird) but at least with my friends we do like to exchange music and talk about it. Perhaps we don't talk about the role it plays in our lives, but sometimes that's implicit as you get to know a person. It's nice now to be able to ask a person you just met, "What do you listen to?" and get a chance to flick right through their collection on their phone. I feel like I can build up a vague profile of that person, even if based on quite a number of assumptions. But yes, we don't often talk about *why* we listen to music or what it means.
I do mark off chapters of my life with particular tracks, and its a strange feeling when that track comes up and you 'key' in, and suddenly that track becomes meaningful in many more dimensions. Sometimes I feel like there is something particularly self indulgent in listening to say, a sad song to feel sad. Then again it feels natural... and like the article suggests, almost feels instinctual, as if I'm tuning myself.
The strange thing is that I tend to think that most of the times I'm a very passive and unemotional, and mostly at times a dispassionate person. A lot of the music I listen to I like because its repetitive, and I find the complex structure of repetition and variation rewarding for some reason - particularly Minimalist music, which always feels like repetition that builds up towards some great tension that is rarely (though in the case of John Adams very much so) resolved. Other times I'm drawn to music that is theatrical, or crass, or wears its heart on its sleeve. If there is one theme in my life, its the idea of sublimation: I always think I could maybe do great things if I didn't hold my self back. But restraint and abandon are the two binaries I live my life around. Like with film, like with music: I like things that are sterile, that suddenly explode wildly into the absurd or the violent.
When I listen to music, half the time I listen through a whole album, and other times I listen on shuffle. The strange thing is, although a lot of people disparage shuffling music (and I have friends who find the rapid changing of moods disruptive) I always feel like I just adjust my mood to whatever comes up. Of course, I do skip tracks on shuffle, but there still isn't much rhyme or reason to what strikes my fancy in any given second. It's gotten to the point where I can identity most of my music from the first 3 seconds or so, and decide if I want to move on or stay.
I have a friend who listens to Metal who is always showing me the music, and while I can appreciate it for its complexity oddly I am still not really a fan. Namely, I can never tell what I should be *feeling* when I listen to a Metal track. Often the immediate answer is angry (and I don't do angry well) but when I actually learn about the lyrics, often that's not even the case. To me, it sounds like interestingly arranged noise - an explosion of emotion, but I don't know who or what it should be directed at. And that instinct to want to pair the music up with an emotion tells me that I'm not nearly as unemotional as I like to think. I often listen to music and try to imagine what kind of scene would this be set to in a film. When the music can't be set to any scene, sometimes I love it even more.
I don't know if music has saved my life - I only really began listening in earnest when I went to university and realised that I could have my own tastes heh. I chase after new music because I want the thrill of the unknown, and listen to old music for the comfort of the familiar. I collect different headphones to see if I can gain any new insight into the music, but honestly it does feel a little distracting sometimes. The gear becomes an end in and of itself, but then again I am also a huge geek - at times it seems like headphones are the bridge between my rational and emotional sides, the marriage of grand science and high art.
I loved the idea of everyone having their personal song. I have always wanted to try really giving a crack at composition or really trying to write music. The trouble is, I don't even know where or how to start. Mixing up samples in Garageband just frustrates me because I get into a self critical dialogue where I feel stupid for not knowing how to intuitively know what to make or how to use the tools to make it.
The article suggests that listening to music is simply passive consumption, but the author also suggests that listening to music is generative - it has the ability to trigger and create emotions and scenarios. Like reading a book it might not be entirely passive. Perhaps there is a nascent creativity in all of it after all.
Botton's idea that music can create emotions that substitute for achievement seems a little off, because it seems to me the greatest creators are also the ones who love music and the arts of others the most.
As long a the interview didn't go like this:
