You Don’t Listen to Music.
When was the last time you listened to music? I mean really listened. Listened and didn’t do anything else.
Just…
…listened.
I spent some time at the Soft Centre in Melbourne, a recording and immersive mixing studio owned and run by wizard engineer Christian Scallan. I was there learning about mixing in Dolby Atmos which was an ear opening experience to say the least.
During the tutorial Chris offhandedly pointed out the extent to which music has become a background experience. It so often dwells behind the task at hand. Phone in hand the tiny speaker plays the song that serves the instagram video. With a cinema ticket in hand you can hear it through an incredible immersive audio system, but still playing main support for the headliner, the images. Perhaps with dishes in hand it plays in the kitchen. Or booty in hand it plays in the bedroom. Maybe you’re dancing hands high in the air at a club. Wherever it is, the capacity for music to shape a moment is incredible. I’m filled with awe at how unassumingly it stitches together the seams of life's experiences!!
Still, it’s not all wonder and awe.
If you're anything like me, the relentless playlist dominance of Santa Claus is Coming to Town during a last minute mad scurry of Christmas shopping under the halogen sterility of a shopping centre easily fails to fill me with wonder. Likewise advertising jingles that still ring in my head decades after the products have been discontinued at best give me a chuckle and at worst drive me to a temporary melodic madness. Or when the neighbours spend 9 months renovating with a builder whose taste in radio station and minimum volume level is so intolerable your only choice is to retire your work from home office pyjamas and rejoin the morning commute.
However despite its less tasteful employment, I love that music works everywhere.
I’d be remiss not to say that so often peace and quiet is equally or more so savouring for the soul.
That said, I'm still a little convicted by the question Chris asked.
“How often do you just listen to music?”
How often do you turn down the lights, throw on an album you love, turn off your phone, curl up somewhere comfortable and really listen. We do it all the time for a book, a film, to binge a TV series, or scroll social media. Have you taken that time for an album or even playlist lately?
Maybe not lately
Maybe not ever.
It’s not a better way to listen to music but it certainly is good.
Some music is almost wrong to listen to like this. There are genres where distraction from the pure listening experience is an implied imperative. The obvious being dance music. You’re meant to dance to dance music, not sit down and pay detailed attention. Inclining a stoic ear toward a waltz: a betrayal of the music and the body by the mind. An intellectual accent that soars right past the point.
Another example would be sleep soundtracks.
You’re not meant to listen.
You’re meant to sleep.
Which admittedly, for the most part is a fairly still activity.
Stillness and attentive listening don’t always go hand in hand for me. I don’t need to be dancing but I need to be moving somewhat. I like to throw headphones on and go for a walk at night when most people are in bed and there isn’t a lot to see or be distracted by. It’s really lovely just wandering around aimlessly guided by the journey of an album. Perhaps the fact I’m on a journey, even if only around the block, helps.
I remember one such occasion walking along the Weise River on the border of Germany and Switzerland late at night listening to Frank Sinatra's Live at The Sands. The details of that record were amplified by the darkness on my walk. With no one around and barely light enough to see I was far more in the music than I would have been otherwise. My mind projecting the Vegas theatre of the songs into the black of the night. I love that album dearly as a result as I truly can see what it sounds like.
If you haven't just listened to music lately perhaps you now feel compelled to.
If you do please write and let me know what the experience is like.
I’d love to hear from you.
Get in touch at hello@solecanopy.com
