Monday, July 7, 2014

Listening to Music Now (Part 2)

Here's a few questions to get you thinking about how you listen to music now:

Where you listen: on the computer, on hi fi equipment at home, at work. At a music venue, at church.

When you listen: What is your physical and mental state when you listen? Certain kinds of music require mental energy, other types can catalyze movement, but if you only listen in one way you miss a lot.

How you listen: Do you pick it apart or encounter it as a whole? Do you feel it or think about it? Do you disappear into it or launch off of it?

Why you listen: What are you listening for? To reinforce something, stir you, or challenge your reality? Again, it's easy to get into ruts and miss the variety of worthwhile reasons to listen. I've talked to a number of people who don't really listen to music anymore. One of the reasons is that once they outgrew the high school reasons to listen they didn't find new ones. They do exist.

What you listen to: this is where the options have opened up in such a massive way that we really can not yet really understand the change that has occurred. Until fairly recently, unless you had a lot of money and free time your access to the massively varied music that exists was fairly limited. No longer. If you can spend $120/year you have access to more music than you'll ever be able to adequately explore. Genres and subgenres spanning decades, continents, philosophies, emotions. It's insane.

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