I was on facebook this evening (as I often am when I'm not really in the mood for anything particular and want to waste some time while exposing myself to the interests and ongoing lives of friends and close acquaintances) when I saw a post by a recent musical acquisition of mine, Red Seas Fire. Here is the post:
"Here's a challenge for you all.
Once a day I want you to load up one whole album on an iTunes playlist (or whatever you use to listen to music), and I want you to sit and listen to it from beginning to end without interruption, without skipping a single track, and then once it has finished playing I want you to sit in silence for five minutes and consider how that music has impacted you emotionally.
We should listen to music how our parents listened to it.
If we stop listening to albums as a cohesive experience, then bands will stop making extended experiences for us to enjoy. If we stop connecting to bands emotionally, and instead only connect to single songs, then sooner or later we will stop loving music altogether.
Stop listening to music on fucking shuffle." -Red Seas Fire
Once a day I want you to load up one whole album on an iTunes playlist (or whatever you use to listen to music), and I want you to sit and listen to it from beginning to end without interruption, without skipping a single track, and then once it has finished playing I want you to sit in silence for five minutes and consider how that music has impacted you emotionally.
We should listen to music how our parents listened to it.
If we stop listening to albums as a cohesive experience, then bands will stop making extended experiences for us to enjoy. If we stop connecting to bands emotionally, and instead only connect to single songs, then sooner or later we will stop loving music altogether.
Stop listening to music on fucking shuffle." -Red Seas Fire
My immediate reaction was to share the post on my wall, despite trying to keep the cussing on my facebook to a minimum. (I have the awful habit of swearing like a sailor when I don't actively put my mind to keeping my language pure. It's actually gotten pretty awful lately, and I'm trying to cut back.) Here's why.
Music means a lot to me. If you haven't read my previous blogs pertaining to music, I will sum it up by saying, quite literally, I would go insane if I didn't have music. I've loved music since before I was born, and I will continue to love music until I die.
Now, since I was young, when I got music, it was usually in the form of a cd or a tape. I'd start at the beginning and listen through to the end. Now, my music tastes used to be quite narrow, but they've developed throughout the years. I've grown, not only in the number of styles, but also in the depth with which I listen. But I have never stopped listening to music from the start of an album through to the end. This is visible in my iTunes play count, as a lot of my albums have the most listens counted on the first half of an album, and a decreasing number as you progress further in the album. This is because my primary instinct when I put on a cd is to start at the beginning. Also, I almost never listen to music on shuffle. I like to listen to full albums by a band because all of the songs have a similar feel and production quality, and I like to listen to them in the context of the rest of the songs that belong to the same album. As much as I may enjoy one song from an album, I will almost always listen to the whole album.
It makes sense to me to listen that way. Would you turn on a movie, skip to your favorite scenes and watch those, then put on your favorite scenes from a different movie? Would you pick up a book, turn to the middle, read a chapter or two, then change books? You may think these are irrelevant comparisons, but let me tell you why they aren't.
Music albums, like books or movies, have a beginning, middle, and end. They have a particular arrangement of individual parts arranged in a particular order for a particular reason, and they were designed to be listened to in that particular order. Each song, chapter, or scene, has its own feel, tone, and mood, and, because of that, were placed where they were as part of the whole. When you take one song out of a movie, like a scene or a chapter, you're only getting a piece of that whole, which, out of context, may have a very different feel or tone than was intended. It will almost assuredly have less impact than it would if you enjoyed it in the order it was intended to be enjoyed in.
Shuffling music is like watching a movie or reading a book out of order. It just seems wrong to me. The artist wrote each individual song, then chose them to be place on the album together, arranging them in a particular order for a particular reason. They were meant to be enjoyed as a whole work, not individually and out of order or in the context of some other group's music.
I believe that shuffling comes as a part of the modern trend of hyper consumption that has taken over in recent years. People have developed a very immediate attitude about pretty much everything in life, always wanting more of something as soon as they can possibly get it, and running through things quickly. We do this with tv, movies, music, video games, food, whatever. Businesses like Netflix, Hulu, Gamefly, and Pandora have started to capitalize on this consumption, allowing you to enjoy the things you want as much as you want, whenever you want, for however long you want, and always providing more options in case you get bored or suddenly want something different. Shuffle allows something similar, but with your own personal music collection. It allows you to consume a wide variety of music without having to pay too much attention to the music itself, and letting you quickly switch to something different if you're not pleased with what comes up.
My problem with this is that when you shuffle, the music becomes almost like background noise. It all blends together in this massive stew of genres and styles and feels and everything loses its individual power. The strength of a specific piece of music becomes lost as it is played out of context with two pieces that don't reflect a similar feel, thereby robbing the piece of its power and purpose. There's no flow of mood or emotion, no organization at all. It's just chaotic jumps from one piece to another, all disconnected and separated from the albums that they come from. Often times, I find myself skipping short interlude pieces from albums, intros or outros, or endings of songs that fade into the next song while shuffing. It's these pieces that make albums colorful, that smoothen out the flow and allow us to progress from one song to the next, whether or not they have drastically different tempos or volumes or moods. Out of context, they just get in the way of us mindlessly enjoying our music.
Along with this is the dying art of active listening. For those who don't know, active listening is putting on a piece of music, then paying close attention to it and picking it apart to analyze each part in itself, and then part of the cohesive whole. This is as opposed to passive listening, where you just kind of bob your head or sing along to the music while doing other things, not really devoting full attention to the music. What makes active listening amazing is that while actively listening, I've discovered underlying melodies or interlocking pieces of songs that I've never noticed before, even after having listened to a cd a dozen times or two. It increases the overall depth of the music and enables me to enjoy it in a way that I never have before.
Now, I understand that sometimes people shuffle because they're not in the mood to listen to any one specific artist or album, and they'd like to just listen to whatever comes up. I've had similar moods in the past, and have made playlists specifically for shuffling. However, all of the songs on the playlist came from the same genre of music so that the playlist would at least remain consistent in one aspect. Nowadays, I usually use shuffle as a means to find something I'm in the mood to listen to, at which point I switch over to that individual album and start from the top.
My point here is that if you listen to an album out of order, or songs out of context, you miss out on the musical experience the artist was trying to give you when they wrote, arranged, recorded, produced, and distributed that particular work. When I listen to a piece of music, I try to take it as the artist presents it so I can appreciate it how they intended while still having my own personal perspective or emotional response.
As a sort of epilogue to all that, I understand that I can be snobbish when it comes to the music I listen to, and that things I say can come across as elitist or exclusionary, and I don't wish for that to be the case. Music is a wonderful thing, regardless of how you choose to enjoy it. There's no right or wrong way to do it, and therefore no one is at fault for listening to music any differently than I do. In keeping with that, I do strongly recommend taking the challenge presented by Red Seas Fire. If you don't really listen to music seriously or actively now, this would be a great way to start listening to your music in a whole new way, and I think you'll appreciate it differently than you ever have before. If you do listen to music seriously or actively already, this challenge will push you to do it more often, ever increasing your understanding and appreciation of music you already know and love. I fully intend to at least try to meet the challenge, and maybe even keep a journal about it. Who knows.
Thank you once again for reading, audience. I hope you enjoyed my perspective and opinion on music. Let me know what you think and how you listen to music. Tell me about an album you love and why. Say anything at all, really. You'll have my ear. Till next time.
Music means a lot to me. If you haven't read my previous blogs pertaining to music, I will sum it up by saying, quite literally, I would go insane if I didn't have music. I've loved music since before I was born, and I will continue to love music until I die.
Now, since I was young, when I got music, it was usually in the form of a cd or a tape. I'd start at the beginning and listen through to the end. Now, my music tastes used to be quite narrow, but they've developed throughout the years. I've grown, not only in the number of styles, but also in the depth with which I listen. But I have never stopped listening to music from the start of an album through to the end. This is visible in my iTunes play count, as a lot of my albums have the most listens counted on the first half of an album, and a decreasing number as you progress further in the album. This is because my primary instinct when I put on a cd is to start at the beginning. Also, I almost never listen to music on shuffle. I like to listen to full albums by a band because all of the songs have a similar feel and production quality, and I like to listen to them in the context of the rest of the songs that belong to the same album. As much as I may enjoy one song from an album, I will almost always listen to the whole album.
It makes sense to me to listen that way. Would you turn on a movie, skip to your favorite scenes and watch those, then put on your favorite scenes from a different movie? Would you pick up a book, turn to the middle, read a chapter or two, then change books? You may think these are irrelevant comparisons, but let me tell you why they aren't.
Music albums, like books or movies, have a beginning, middle, and end. They have a particular arrangement of individual parts arranged in a particular order for a particular reason, and they were designed to be listened to in that particular order. Each song, chapter, or scene, has its own feel, tone, and mood, and, because of that, were placed where they were as part of the whole. When you take one song out of a movie, like a scene or a chapter, you're only getting a piece of that whole, which, out of context, may have a very different feel or tone than was intended. It will almost assuredly have less impact than it would if you enjoyed it in the order it was intended to be enjoyed in.
Shuffling music is like watching a movie or reading a book out of order. It just seems wrong to me. The artist wrote each individual song, then chose them to be place on the album together, arranging them in a particular order for a particular reason. They were meant to be enjoyed as a whole work, not individually and out of order or in the context of some other group's music.
I believe that shuffling comes as a part of the modern trend of hyper consumption that has taken over in recent years. People have developed a very immediate attitude about pretty much everything in life, always wanting more of something as soon as they can possibly get it, and running through things quickly. We do this with tv, movies, music, video games, food, whatever. Businesses like Netflix, Hulu, Gamefly, and Pandora have started to capitalize on this consumption, allowing you to enjoy the things you want as much as you want, whenever you want, for however long you want, and always providing more options in case you get bored or suddenly want something different. Shuffle allows something similar, but with your own personal music collection. It allows you to consume a wide variety of music without having to pay too much attention to the music itself, and letting you quickly switch to something different if you're not pleased with what comes up.
My problem with this is that when you shuffle, the music becomes almost like background noise. It all blends together in this massive stew of genres and styles and feels and everything loses its individual power. The strength of a specific piece of music becomes lost as it is played out of context with two pieces that don't reflect a similar feel, thereby robbing the piece of its power and purpose. There's no flow of mood or emotion, no organization at all. It's just chaotic jumps from one piece to another, all disconnected and separated from the albums that they come from. Often times, I find myself skipping short interlude pieces from albums, intros or outros, or endings of songs that fade into the next song while shuffing. It's these pieces that make albums colorful, that smoothen out the flow and allow us to progress from one song to the next, whether or not they have drastically different tempos or volumes or moods. Out of context, they just get in the way of us mindlessly enjoying our music.
Along with this is the dying art of active listening. For those who don't know, active listening is putting on a piece of music, then paying close attention to it and picking it apart to analyze each part in itself, and then part of the cohesive whole. This is as opposed to passive listening, where you just kind of bob your head or sing along to the music while doing other things, not really devoting full attention to the music. What makes active listening amazing is that while actively listening, I've discovered underlying melodies or interlocking pieces of songs that I've never noticed before, even after having listened to a cd a dozen times or two. It increases the overall depth of the music and enables me to enjoy it in a way that I never have before.
Now, I understand that sometimes people shuffle because they're not in the mood to listen to any one specific artist or album, and they'd like to just listen to whatever comes up. I've had similar moods in the past, and have made playlists specifically for shuffling. However, all of the songs on the playlist came from the same genre of music so that the playlist would at least remain consistent in one aspect. Nowadays, I usually use shuffle as a means to find something I'm in the mood to listen to, at which point I switch over to that individual album and start from the top.
My point here is that if you listen to an album out of order, or songs out of context, you miss out on the musical experience the artist was trying to give you when they wrote, arranged, recorded, produced, and distributed that particular work. When I listen to a piece of music, I try to take it as the artist presents it so I can appreciate it how they intended while still having my own personal perspective or emotional response.
As a sort of epilogue to all that, I understand that I can be snobbish when it comes to the music I listen to, and that things I say can come across as elitist or exclusionary, and I don't wish for that to be the case. Music is a wonderful thing, regardless of how you choose to enjoy it. There's no right or wrong way to do it, and therefore no one is at fault for listening to music any differently than I do. In keeping with that, I do strongly recommend taking the challenge presented by Red Seas Fire. If you don't really listen to music seriously or actively now, this would be a great way to start listening to your music in a whole new way, and I think you'll appreciate it differently than you ever have before. If you do listen to music seriously or actively already, this challenge will push you to do it more often, ever increasing your understanding and appreciation of music you already know and love. I fully intend to at least try to meet the challenge, and maybe even keep a journal about it. Who knows.
Thank you once again for reading, audience. I hope you enjoyed my perspective and opinion on music. Let me know what you think and how you listen to music. Tell me about an album you love and why. Say anything at all, really. You'll have my ear. Till next time.
Did you know that some DVD players have a shuffle function now? It baffles my brain. Why would you watch a movie with the scenes shuffled?
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