My mum shared this with me. I find it 100 x more doable, and interesting to listen to classical music with the help of a narrator.
This guy breaks down the King’s coronation tune from Handel and if you have any interest in music, it’s just really cool. Follow the link: https://youtu.be/k-x7ZrKh2Us
As a teenager I used to think I would listen to my walkman for the rest of my life. It was so essential to me – the cassette tapes I had painstakingly curated, the stock of fresh AA-size batteries, the headphones I found in an airport in England. The ritual of plugging it all in and pushing play. It just didn’t get any better.
One day in my early 20s I found my dad’s LP collection and an old hifi setup. I heard classics like Otis Redding and Springsteen in such clarity and power. Besides the fidelity, there was the long beautiful process of choosing the record, cleaning it, playing one side through and flipping it over, reading the liner notes, poring over the album covers, adjusting the needle and the audio settings. A new ritual was born. My life changed.
Now in my 30s I have my iPhone and an Apple watch. New tech, new ritual. I can call up any song I want no matter where I am. The digital liner notes are getting better every day and the sheer convenience of Bluetooth and music on the go is changing my life again. Don’t even get me started on Spotify’s daily mix and discover weekly playlists. That revolution in curation is a topic for another post.
Older forms of technology can all still be used of course. And often they retain their original power even though the convenience factor is low. Vinyl has made a come back. Audiophiles also tout the benefits of CDs and cassettes. For me this means I now have an arsenal of ways to access the Music drug. The music is the constant, Platonic form while the tech revolves and morphs around it in a clumsy, circular dance.
Perhaps one day the headphones will be nothing more than chips in our brains. A neuralink device Elon Musk sells for a fee. What might a music listening ritual look like for this scenario?
I get comfort from the fact that the music never changes. Taste and quality may vary, but a song is a song no matter what. The catalogue keeps on growing, but the essential form and function of a song is set. It is information in the form of a sound wave being received by the brain. Only the tech for delivery varies.
Hyperion has become a sleeping aid for me. That sounds like a poor review of a book sending me to sleep, but that is not what I mean.
For various reasons I have had to get up a lot at night recently. This is fine, but lately my mind has begun to race around, skipping from one thought to another which keeps me awake. Hyperion is what calms me down and focuses my mind on just one thing. The stories are so great and eventually I nod off to fantastic images of talking dolphins and portals across time and space. It’s kind of trippy to have so many nights with those stories running through my head.
Usually I am able to turn of audible before I fall asleep. Otherwise the story just keeps playing in my head and the next night I am hours behind and completely lost! I can mostly figure out what has happened, but after twenty hours of narration and a few nights leaving the story running on my headphones whilst I snore away, I definitely have some gaps.
Last night I finished the sixth and final chapter and I just have the prologue to go tonight.
Still highly recommended.
Happy Thursday chimps.
About a year ago I tried to meditate using the headspace app for a while…it didn’t really stick. I struggled to find the right time of day to use it, even though when I did manage to do it, I really liked it.
Last night I was struggling to fall asleep. My brain was over drive so I downloaded the Headspace app again and logged in to try one of their sleep meditations.
The soft voice of the narrator guided me down a river with trees on the banks and fish in the water. Within minutes I drifted off.
It seemed to make me focus on just one thing (the fish story) and that was enough to send me to sleep with headphones on my ears.
it made me want to keep my subscription and try the meditation stuff again.
Is getting bored a good thing?
In the age of Facebook, Netflix, Spotify and Fortnite it’s easy to let the system take control. If you allow them, these streaming, entertaining, dopamine tripping platforms will keep you glued to your seats all day. They won’t let you get bored.
This thing is, getting bored serves a function. As far as I can tell, the whole purpose and spiritual breakthrough of Yoga is to cope with boredom and through this to reflect on life. No time for that in a video game.
Some other activities where boredom is there to be overcome:
Taking a walk with no phone in hand. Just walk.
Listening to an album from start to finish. Just listen
Running for 30 minutes straight. Just run.
When were you last bored?
Who is responsible for the music you listen to? And the interviews you hear? Who decides when your voice gets recorded or not?
In a post industrial world, we have more choice than ever as to how and when we consume things. Take your music streaming service of choice – it likely has ~50m songs to choose from at the tap of a button. This can be overwhelming, which explains the success of Spotify and its algorithms. These ‘tailored playlists’ take the responsibility away from you and the music you hear.
The idea of audio responsibility then, asks us to behave in a more engaged way around music and anything else we feed our ears.
A couple of tips to get started on the road to audio responsibility:
Here’s to taking responsibility. 🙂
I was given this very cool but, as far as i could tell, completely useless set of brass horns a few years ago when I got married:
For years I have been wondering what to do with it.
Then it came to me:
One of my favourite things to do is to combine 2 x Google services to enhance my music listening experiences. I like to work my way through this book: 1001 albums to hear before you die. I have the book open to read in my browser in Google Play Books. As I read I listen to the albums on Google Play Music. A Google double whammy.
If you read about a piece of music while you listen to it, the experience is more enjoyable than just listening. Our brains respond to trusted recommendations and descriptive writing in interesting ways – the music seems to open up as you read about it. It is really fun identifying all the features of an album with headphones on, at the same time as it is described in words in front of you.
Google may not have the highest bitrate in its streaming service, but its flexibility and complementary nature of its other offerings mean that it has become a staple in my listening habits.
New, and made for the travelling chimp who needs to block out the rest of the world while going about their chimp business. Yes please.
Chimpwithcans 