Ramblings From Justin Penney

I definitely play more music than I truly listen too. I play some instrument nearly constantly when I am at home. I think it's making me a worse musician.

Last night I got a Charles Mingus album, I haven't seriously listened to Charles Mingus since I was 14. I put it on my iPod, grabbed my nice headphones and went upstairs to bed. I laid there listening. Just listening. I wasn't browsing the web, writing code, working on some support ticket, driving, singing along... I just listened. I haven't done that in a long time. Music is so entrenched, so available at all times that I never seem to stop and just listen. I guess I feel lazy if I do nothing and just listen. I have this urge to talk, type or whatever.

When did this happen. When did listening to music have to be an adjunct to another activity? Why do I feel like it's not OK to just put on an album, sit down, and enjoy. I should! I know I should!

Obviously some music is purely visceral in it's experience, but that seems easy to tell. It's raw, simple, make you want to move. I'm not denying the power of music to be there for normal life, just upset that it no longer seems fine to just listen.

In our MP3 library I have 44 GB. That's 33 solid days of music. Also that's only about half of our physical CD collection and absolutely none of my vinyl or cassettes. There's a lot of music hanging around. Total gluttony. Even though I know I've given at least a cursory listen to nearly all of that 33 days worth, I haven't really listened or studied it. It's been a soundtrack of my life.

Thought it's less often now, I used to just sit in front of the computer chatting, programming, browsing for hours with my entire library on repeat. I was always on MP3.com downloading songs from bands I found. Just completely inundated. I know every song but my relationship with it is casual... or nostalgic. Sure my tastes have changed in the last 10 years, but I look back at 10 years of no intimacy with this music. Actually the last 2 years as my use of alcohol and other diversions as increased I've formed real relationships with albums again. I don't mind repeating myself. I am completely content to leave the same few albums on my iPod and listen to the indefinitely. I don't know whether that's healthy or not, but numbing my hyperactive brain helps me focus in on something, and music is where it's at for me.

Music is everywhere! You don't even have to look to have new bands fall in to your lap. Just fire up a web browser and you'll hit something. A teenager can setup a passable studio for a few hundred dollars and have software instruments that sound so good and so polished that anyone can do it. The barrier to entry is so low for people with even a passing interest in music is completely gone. Just download the Acid demo from Sony and see what I mean. You just load in some samples, loops, soft instruments and go. You paint your creation on the screen in a fairly intuitive manner. Bands release Garage Band files so their fans can remix. It's awesome, amazing and absolutely horrible. There isn't a need to hone a craft. We can edit, slice, cut, paste. Those are great tools and options and I truly am glad that everyone can play with that and see what happens. I'm glad that it's easy and affordable for kids to get reasonable equipment and do something.

I remember how frustrating it was in my circle of friends getting up funds to record. It was so costly to small town kids. Supportive parents helped a lot, and we made some reasonable recordings, but we were so limited. 6 hours to track our masterpiece album was nowhere near enough time to develop. I eventually purchased a partially broken used 4-track and made some recordings with that but they really were sub-par based on the vision that we had. It was hard. It took a lot of time, money and experimentation.

With all the ease of creation, and to some degree, distribution we are missing an important piece: filters. It's so raw, the volume is so massive, there is no way you can listen to it all. In the past, the labels did it. Indie and punk labels were especially good as they would tend to have a cohesive sound. Now I barely know any labels.

This is yet another area where my generational straddling is really difficult to navigate. I'm not Gen-X and I didn't grow up with the Internet in my face all the time, I had to hunt it out. I'm also the child of hippies that were very album focused. So here I am, no generation, a shit-ton of music and a finite amount of time to enjoy it. Or absorb it.

# posted by Justin @ 11:30 PM