I was at the gym yesterday. And I was listening to the “Radio Lab” podcast – an episode about music. And they made the point that music is everywhere. In our cars. On TV. Phone answering services. Elevators. Grocery stores. Movies. Alarm clocks. Shopping malls.
Everywhere.
And they said this is probably a bad thing. But they never elaborated on why…
Of course, I couldn’t help but ask why… And I decided it probably was bad, but not for the reasons they might’ve considered.
I think it’s bad because we hear music so much that we aren’t really able to hear it anymore. It’s just a part of the background noise of life – like in a movie. The new “white noise” of our everyday existence. Our brains have probably learned to tune it out.
And I think that’s pretty bad…
I make music. And I sometimes make music for others to hear. And I’m starting to hope that you really listen to my music when you hear it.
But you might not.
In fact, I might not.
Bad.
There are two kinds of music.
The music of life, that is all around us. Some of it is annoying, like jackhammers, car horns, and garbage trucks at 5 am.
Then there is performance artist. That is the music where we hear the notes, lyrics and singers voice.
I don’t see either of these are a bad thing, except some performers like Tiny Tim.
I would rather expose my brain to the backgound noise of any song rather than a jackhammer. One I just tune out, the other gives me a headache, much like Tiny Tim.
HAHA!!! You just HAD to put a link of him on here.
I think it’s bad but never really thought about it. I used to always have music on in the background, but I’ve stopped.
I enjoy silence – not that you get a lot of it in the city, or anywhere for that matter – but it helps me hear God’s voice – the still small version of it – much, much better
i agree with you!
Music has become a ‘must have’ in today’s society.
It promotes a sense of relaxing and mellowing out from our life’s issues – it distracts us from them temporarily and allows us to more freely spend our money in shops and other places of business or just helps us to ‘tune out’ from our more depressing problems we should be dealing with in more substantial ways in our lives.
Accordingly there is a huge demand for music to be produced that either makes us feel good about ourselves (so we can spend truckloads on new clothes or fatty foods and other consumer goods we don’t actually need, but make us ‘feel good’ somehow) or that we can feel we ‘relate’ to in our depressions by showing us that we are not the only ones who feel this bad all the time, and as a result there are far more people than ever before trying to get in on the ‘action’ and making music to sell to the people who need it for the reasons above.
it is very similar to what has happened to most sports that a mere 50 years or so ago were largely amateur sporting events where sportsmanship and skill were the most important factors but now involve megabucks and almost all need for true sportsmanship has been pushed way ‘down the list’.
Just as the best elements of sport have been sacrificed for the principles of money and greed at the highest levels (and filtering down to the bottom levels) so to are the finest principles of Music and it’s creation being sold out to the lure of making profit.
We as listeners are becoming trained so as to be more accepting of lesser quality of music in favour of what sells the best.
That is indeed bad and is only getting worse as more and more ‘artists’ who don’t ever understand that music is about something far deeper in the soul (as you do) than the mere search for a money-making song are drawn into producing the kinds of music we tend to hear everywhere we go.
It (Music) is becoming less and less about talent and ability and more and more about manufacturing a simple and cheap ‘product’ that the masses consume and become drowned and desensitised by.
Or so i see (hear) it.
<B
Amen
Amen
Amen
believe it or not, there are freaks of nature….err, i mean people who actually HEAR music all the time. wherever they go. even when there’s no music playing. creeeeeeeepy.
the way i keep myself hearing music, really hearing it, is to dive into styles i wouldn’t particularly like. this started in high school when, during a poetry slam (competition for nerdy kids who love poetry), we had to analyze the lyrics to a rap song. i was (and still am) amazed at how brilliant the lyrics can be! although i don’t always agree with the things some might rap about, even what they do is music. it’s not too far-fetched from what Franz Schubert or Robert Schumann aimed to do in their Art Songs of the 19th century.
even if i don’t particularly care for a certain style of music, i am learning to appreciate it for what it is. music. that way, i hopefully hear more…
I’ve listened to a radio show on those people who hear it all the time… They are literally tormented, until they embrace it as a part of their lives. It’s so sad. I think I’d lose my mind!
Ditto on the style dive. And, consequently, that has directly impacted some of the more adventurous stuff I’ve written this year.
I’ve found that music isn’t necessarily the issue, but just noise in general. I have nixed music while driving…well, not all the time, but most of the time…just to have some times of silence. In such a noisy world, it is easy to always have something going and never have time to just chill, reflect, pray, and listen to God.
This is a great point, Jason. I think the “noise” can get to us – pounding into our brains like bullets.
Maybe that’s why I get crazy when I’m out in the city too much? haha. I’ll take a long country stroll any day. But the subways and streets of Boston? whew…. Make me nuts.
What’s that? Oh. My bad. I did not have in my hearing aids.
hahahahaha!!!!
To me, music is very similiar to photographs. We walk around every day seeing millions of “photos” but it takes someone with patients and love for his/her profession to draw me into the photo, or in your case music.