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OK, here's a weird one:
Have you ever noticed that I almost never put a "music" tag on my LJ entries?
It's because I am never listening to music while I journal. The TV is usally on as background noise, but never music.
Why is that?
I was watching TV this evening, and I saw a commercial that started out,
"Music is very important to our family..."
And I thought to myself, "Music isn't important to me at all."
Wow. There's something you don't hear every day.
Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike most music, it just isn't something I seek out in my life.
I can go indefinitely without it being present without me missing it.
Does this make me weird?
It's such a cliche to hear, "music is so important to me," or, "I couldn't live without my tunes..."
Which is what struck me about this self-realization as being so odd, because it is odd in this culture.
Maybe odd in all human cultures.
It's not a conscious thing, or an intentionaly contrary thing. It's just a simple lack of interest. I don't seek out music.
But why would one of the most fundamental human acts - creating and listening to music - matter so little to me?
The thought that I don't have much interest in music has fluttered across my consciousness in the past, just as a passing observation. But until tonight, I never thought to fully explore the issue, which I am doing here now.
So I decided to ask, "what is my relationship to music?"
One of the hardest questions you can ever ask me is, "What kind of music do you like?" Because I don't have much of an honest answer beyond, "I like all kinds of music." (Which is true, mostly.) People ask that question in trying to get to know you. The kinds of music people like is a statement and a revelation about them, their culture, their age, their class, their politics, their tastes, their emotional state.
So let's look at the facts:
* I don't own any music CDs, records, tapes, etc. Zero. I used to own a few in my early 20s, but I think I outgrew them. In fact, the first thing I ever bought over the Internet, way back in 1995, was a CD of Australian Didgeridoo music, which I became bored with quickly. (I thought at the time I might like to learn to play the didge, but that was a pseudo-pagan, cultivating the eclectic kind-of-thing. I was never able to master the necessary circular breathing, and ultimately, I didn't really have any passion for the instrument - though I still like the way it sounds.)
Sometime around 1996, I bought a 6-disc set of CD's called "Best of the '80s" from a TV infomercial. Spent over $100 on it. And I listened to it for a while, mostly as a "blast from the past" - it was mostly all music I liked and remembered from my first two years of high school, when I lived at Ft. Irwin, CA, out in the middle of the Mojave desert, and had an 80-mile roundtrip to school on a bus every day. The bus had a radio on it, and the only station everyone could agree on was "The Mighty 690," an AM pop music station out of San Diego. So for two years, I listened to all the top pop hits of 1982-84, 2 hours a day. I got a reputaton among my schoolmates as being a spaz who sang along with the radio all the time. I worshipped "Men at Work." And I can sing you the complete lyrics of just about any hit song from that era. But when I got home at the end of the day, I didn't listen to any music.
That 6-CD set, along with the rest of my insignificant music colletion, got lost somewhere around the turn of the century - I don't know for sure where (I may have left it at the Juneau Empire). I never felt compelled to replace it.
I do own a CD player - when I got a new clock radio as a gift a couple of years ago, it had a CD player in it, but I think I've only used it once - to play a Bob & Doug McKenzie comedy album I checked out from the library. My DVD player also plays CDs, but I've never used it to play any CDs other than audio books. And I've never used my computer's CD drive for anything but to load software. The clock radio I only have ever used to play talk radio, on very rare occasions.
I used to own a stereo system back in my late teens and early 20s, when I was exploring who I was and what I was interested in. My newfound friends when I tried to be a social creature back then listened to things as eclectic as Prince, Bon Jovi, The Grateful Dead and The Beatles. So I bought some of those albums. But the friends went, and so did the music, eventually.
I also went through a musical theatre phase in my early 20s, and especially fell in love with Les Miserables. But that proto-gay phase was part of my exploration of wanting to be an actor, and it eventually passed.
* I don't have a radio in my car. BoyJeep didn't come with a radio. This was purely by accident. Scruffy, the Faerie I bought BoyJeep from, said the stereo had been stolen twice, and so he decided after the second theft not to replace it. There's a big gaping hole in the dashboard that I've not felt compelled to fill in the 6 months I've owned BoyJeep.
Most of the previous vehicles I have owned in my life have at least had an AM/FM radio or cassette player, but mostly I just listen to talk radio - I find listening to the spoken word more interesting while driving than music. Listening to music while driving bores me.
When I was just out of high school, my first car had a cassette player, and I listened to a mix tape that was given to me, but that was mostly because the guy who gave it to me listened to it, and I was trying to cultivate a taste in music similar to his.
* I don't listen to MP3s. Well, that's not exactly true. I listen to about 40 hours of mp3s a week at work, on my Mac's iTunes. But its all talk podcasts that I download - CBC, NPR, BBC - and no music.
I don't have an iPod, either. I'm in the process of buying a new iMac, and as a student, I am eligible to get a "free" iPod when I buy it. It's actully a rebate program, though. I'd have to pay for the iPod up front at the same time I paid for the computer. Seems a lot of hassle for an appliance I'd rarely use.
Back when Apple first introduced iTunes, I downloaded a few tunes, mostly as a novelty. It just didn't end up being anything I wanted to spend any money on. Same with the early music file-sharing services, like Gnutella and Napster. I downloaded a few pirated songs back in those days, mostly as a novelty, but I bored of them quickly. I don't think there are currently any music mp3s on my computer at the moment.
* I don't play any instruments. I did play saxophone in the 7th grade band, but I bored of it. I just didn't have the passion for it. I didn't ever learn to read music very well. I think that we may have sold that sax in a garage sale or something.
Back when I was about 7, I became fascinated with the piano, and even taught myself to play some simple things by sound - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Do Re Mi, Heart and Soul - but I was never encouraged in this pursuit, or made to take piano lessons, so like all passing fancies, it passed.
When I was around 20 or so, my family bought a keyboard, and I played with it some, but I didn't stick with it.
* I don't go to concerts. At least, not very often. Too expensive for something I don't really care for. Last concert I went to was about a year ago, when I was taken as a guest to a performance of the Vancouver Symphony. Classical music I had never heard of before, and wasn't familiar with. I tried hard not to doze off during the performance. I failed. I have never really understood the appeal of symphony orchestras. (Except for John Williams movie soundtracks, thanks to Star Wars.) Before that, I can't remember the last concert I went to.
When I was in high school, my brother was a heavy metal bassist in a band called Strikken. A real long-haired metalhead, Dale was. Went to heavy metal concerts all the time - this was the era of the metal "hair bands." Mom would bribe him with concert tickets if he got good grades and kept going to school. But she didn't trust him, so she would send me along as a "chaperone." Went to a lot of metal concerts in those days - Mötley Crüe, Kiss, Y&T, Ratt, even Ozzy Osburne with an unknown opening act called Metallica. I have a very good working knowledge of 80s heavy metal hair bands because of those concerts. And I ended up not being a very good chaperone, as I ended up drinking and smoking pot at a few of those concerts.
* I don't like to dance. Too much physical work. Too much like exercise. I don't move well, and don't have very good rhythm, so I don't go to dance clubs very often. (Probably why I don't get laid very often, because for many people, dancing is a ritualized form of a mating ritual). I also don't like crowds, so being in the midst of a bunch of dancing people makes me very uncomfortable.
I do dance on occasion, spontaneously, if the mood takes me, but it is an exception, rather than the rule.
* I'm not very good at math. I know this seems a strange thing to add to this exploration of music's role in my life, but I have heard that musical ability and mathimatical ability are somehow intertwined in the brain. Numbers don't come any more naturally to me than reading musical notes do. I intellectually understand that both are skills that need to be exercised... but I've never been about exercise. One of the truths about my life is that things that don't come easily to me, I usually don't do very often.
* I didn't grow up in a musical family. Other than my brother's obsession with heavy metal, which I am convinced had something to do with getting chicks and rebellion, no one in my family listened to music much. Oh sure, we had a stereo, but I don't remember it being on much. Special occasions, like christmas carols, would prompt it being turned on. But usually, it wasn't.
The TV was usually on. I watched MTV fanatically in the early days of the music video channel, back when it was cool - and that was because the videos were just as important (if not more so) as the music itself. But other than that, I don't remember a lot of music in the house growing up.
Now that I have explored the "I don'ts" of music, it's time to turn my attention to the "I dos".
* I do get earworms, those annoying infestations of parasitic music that get coiled around the cerebral cortex, and won't leave, sometimes for days. You know what I am talking about - the catchy tunes or lines from a song that occasionally get stuck in an endless loop in your brain, and play over and over again. Often, something will remind me of a song, and part of that song will start playing in my head, ad nauseum. It's enough to drive a person crazy.
Because listening to other music will often "kill" these earworms, and since my days are often spent without much exposure to music, I have wondered if I am more prone to them lasting longer than in most people. I even had to come up with a memetic way of killing them - I discovered, purely by accident, that singing Home on the Range repeatedly will kill all but the most virulent infestations, but Home on the Range itself won't turn into an earworm itself. I don't know why. Surely it's just coincidence that particular song is the Kansas state song?
* I can remember tunes, and lyrics too. In fact, I have an almost encyclopedic memory of early 1980s pop songs and TV theme songs. Exposure is the key here, I think. I tend to remember trivia like you wouldn't believe, and song lyrics, as well as music trivia, fall easily into these well-exercised brain mechanisms. Apparently tunes are stored just as easily, as well.
* I do sing, and pretty well. I've been told I have a very good singing voice. A very powerful voice, as well. And I can carry a tune. At least, I think I can. I don't sing often, and as a 20-year smoker, I don't sing as well as I used to, but I do occasionally let loose with a song or hum a tune. But, like dancing, it's more the exception than the rule.
* I can be emotionally moved by music. It doesn't hapen often, but a song can evoke emotions from me. Often these are songs attached to emotional memories - where I was and what was happening when I heard it, who introduced me to a particular piece of music, or a particular association with a time, place, person, or event. Sometimes music that matches my mood - often dark or depressing music - will resonate in a way that amplifies what I am feeling. It can trigger crying.
Movie and soundtrack music is especially effective on me - sometimes. Soundtrack music is designed to emphasize the emotional sense of a scene - heighten the highs, lower the lows. Soundtrack music tells you how you should feel. (For instance, spooky music can make me even more anxious in a scary movie.) John Williams was always very good at doing this: Superman The Movie's soaring theme, E.T.'s wistful lament for "home," Star Wars's epic, mythological opening.
My all time favourite Williams composition is The Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back, a deep, pounding, powerful piece that has been known to send shivers up my spine. When it became available as a ringtone download for my phone, I bought it - one of the few pieces of music I've paid for in years.
* I do occasionally take a fancy to a song. An especially catchy tune, an association with an emotion, or an intellectual connection with a song can make it matter to me. A good example is O Canada. Canada's national anthem carries for me an idea of a place I want to be, and an a whole meme-comlpex of ideas and ideals that I aspire to. But I don't actually hear it - or sing it - that often. One exception is a ritual I have when I travel to Canada (frequently), on successfully crossing the border, I burst into a rendtion of O Canada in gratitude of being allowed to be in the arms of the "True North Strong and Free" once again.
But to be honest, I am trying to remember when the last time a new song grabbed me, and nothing is coming to mind. It's been a while.
* I do make up songs on occasion, or parody them. I'll make up new lyrics for songs to match what I'm thinking. Most recently, I've been doing this to the theme song for Star Trek: Voyager as I watch it on DVD. Usually it's something silly likeThe Voyager / with Janeway / and crew
to the repeating refrain in the song, periodically interrupted by verbal admonitions by Janeway to Tom Paris: "Mr. Paris! Don't fly under that solar flare!" "Mr. Paris! Don't fly so close to the planet's rings!" "Mr. Paris! Who instructed you to engage warp engines?"
Monty Python songs are also a favourite, because of their silliness. But my two all-time favourite Python songs, The Galaxy Song and The Bruces' Philosopher Song are favourites not because of the music per se, but because of the intellectual fun singing the lyrics brings.
So, given this exploration, what conclusions can I draw?
The first is that the parts of my brain that process music obviously work. Three things especially - earworms, memory access, and singing ability - suggest to me that there's nothing inherently wrong with the music processing parts of my brain. It's lack of interest that's central here.
Second, exposure and exercise matters. The lack of musical exposure growing up - though not a dearth of exposure - certainly left the music centres of my brain underdeveloped. This is in contrast to the language processing faculties, which were over-emphasized by my own interest. The boundary between the two kinds of processing - language and music - is lyrics, and that's where my strongest affinity with music lies. It's no surprise that lyrics - or an intellectual interest in something the song represents - will often grab me more than the music itself will.
There are two aspects of music that bear more exploration: Emotional aspects and social aspects. In many ways, these are the weakest parts of my personality.
Emotionally, I am often very flat, in part due to my long struggle with chronic depression. (For instance, I've noted that I do not smile as much as most people). Music is something that acts very much on the emotions, and in someone who has very underdeveloped or even nonexistant emotions, it should come as no surprise that something so emotional would hold such little appeal for me. Why seek out something that doesn't evoke much emotion in oneself?
Movie soundtracks, which are cues as to how one is supposed to feel at a given moment, are perhaps the most emotionally effective music I encounter in my life. It's like musical "instructions" to the emotions. But these emotional cues can be over-used by filmmakers, and I get very annoyed when I feel I am being emotionally manipulated by a film's score beyond where the film itself merits. If I am not actually feeling an emotion the movie is trying to evoke, then an emotional cue from the music feels forced and manipulative.
The kinds of music that I am perhaps most attracted to - deep, bassy, resonant music (like The Imperial March) - is often associated with the emotions I am most capable of feeling: anger, fear, dread, apathy, depression. This is also the most masculine of music - there's nothing much more butch than the bass, which I especially like - which is an area where I find my deepest emotional longings. The desire to have strong, masculine energy in my life - and which I am so often unabe to manifest in myself - finds expression in the deeper musical ranges. Strings are also the musical instruments most like the human voice, which is why deeper strings, like the cello and the bass, appeal to me.
Interestingly, though, the drums - perhaps the most agressive of the instruments - have less appeal to me. Perhaps this is because of the lack of agression I feel - something that sets me apart from so many men. I can carry a beat, but lack the "fire" to sustain it for long.
Music also has strong social aspects that are neglected in my life. People listen to what their friends listen to, and since I have few friends (really none that are not long-distance), the amount of musical exposure and reinforcement I am getting from them is minimal. This is, in turn, a self-reinforcing cycle: without a common musical interest, it's harder to find common interests with people on musical grounds. Music is also commonly associated with social situations and gatherings, which as an introverted hermit, I naturally avoid.
Music has a strong cultural aspect, as well, and I am so distanced from the culture at large, and even subcultures I have been asociated with in the past have musical heritages. Most of them are distant to me, even alien.
As I have written this essay tonight, I have wondered: "Is my desire to listen to talk programs instead of music somehow filling a need to have someone talk to me?" It seems reasonable - I talk to so few people in everyday life, that the only way I get my social needs to interact with - or at least listen to - other people is being filled by the talk radio I am listening to (as well as the TV). Talk radio stimulates the parts of my brain that like to hear human voices, when there's no one around to actually talk to. This, plus the desire to learn and be intellectually stimulated, might contribute to the amount of time I spend listening to spoken word, which pushes music out of my everyday consciousness.
So, does music matter?
To me, at least, it obviously does on some levels, or else I would not have written this. This essay has been in part a pure intellectual exercise, arising from natural curiosity - why is there so little music in my life? It doesn't really bother me - much - that I am odd in my lack of interest, though I wonder if there are others like me who don't make much room for music in their lives. But also there is a note of sadness and despair that runs through it - here's what I lack, poor pitiful me, won't you feel sorry for me?
Anyway, I think I have run out of steam, having been writing for about 5 hours now, so I think I should close it here.
Have you ever noticed that I almost never put a "music" tag on my LJ entries?
It's because I am never listening to music while I journal. The TV is usally on as background noise, but never music.
Why is that?
I was watching TV this evening, and I saw a commercial that started out,
"Music is very important to our family..."
And I thought to myself, "Music isn't important to me at all."
Wow. There's something you don't hear every day.
Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike most music, it just isn't something I seek out in my life.
I can go indefinitely without it being present without me missing it.
Does this make me weird?
It's such a cliche to hear, "music is so important to me," or, "I couldn't live without my tunes..."
Which is what struck me about this self-realization as being so odd, because it is odd in this culture.
Maybe odd in all human cultures.
It's not a conscious thing, or an intentionaly contrary thing. It's just a simple lack of interest. I don't seek out music.
But why would one of the most fundamental human acts - creating and listening to music - matter so little to me?
The thought that I don't have much interest in music has fluttered across my consciousness in the past, just as a passing observation. But until tonight, I never thought to fully explore the issue, which I am doing here now.
So I decided to ask, "what is my relationship to music?"
One of the hardest questions you can ever ask me is, "What kind of music do you like?" Because I don't have much of an honest answer beyond, "I like all kinds of music." (Which is true, mostly.) People ask that question in trying to get to know you. The kinds of music people like is a statement and a revelation about them, their culture, their age, their class, their politics, their tastes, their emotional state.
So let's look at the facts:
* I don't own any music CDs, records, tapes, etc. Zero. I used to own a few in my early 20s, but I think I outgrew them. In fact, the first thing I ever bought over the Internet, way back in 1995, was a CD of Australian Didgeridoo music, which I became bored with quickly. (I thought at the time I might like to learn to play the didge, but that was a pseudo-pagan, cultivating the eclectic kind-of-thing. I was never able to master the necessary circular breathing, and ultimately, I didn't really have any passion for the instrument - though I still like the way it sounds.)
Sometime around 1996, I bought a 6-disc set of CD's called "Best of the '80s" from a TV infomercial. Spent over $100 on it. And I listened to it for a while, mostly as a "blast from the past" - it was mostly all music I liked and remembered from my first two years of high school, when I lived at Ft. Irwin, CA, out in the middle of the Mojave desert, and had an 80-mile roundtrip to school on a bus every day. The bus had a radio on it, and the only station everyone could agree on was "The Mighty 690," an AM pop music station out of San Diego. So for two years, I listened to all the top pop hits of 1982-84, 2 hours a day. I got a reputaton among my schoolmates as being a spaz who sang along with the radio all the time. I worshipped "Men at Work." And I can sing you the complete lyrics of just about any hit song from that era. But when I got home at the end of the day, I didn't listen to any music.
That 6-CD set, along with the rest of my insignificant music colletion, got lost somewhere around the turn of the century - I don't know for sure where (I may have left it at the Juneau Empire). I never felt compelled to replace it.
I do own a CD player - when I got a new clock radio as a gift a couple of years ago, it had a CD player in it, but I think I've only used it once - to play a Bob & Doug McKenzie comedy album I checked out from the library. My DVD player also plays CDs, but I've never used it to play any CDs other than audio books. And I've never used my computer's CD drive for anything but to load software. The clock radio I only have ever used to play talk radio, on very rare occasions.
I used to own a stereo system back in my late teens and early 20s, when I was exploring who I was and what I was interested in. My newfound friends when I tried to be a social creature back then listened to things as eclectic as Prince, Bon Jovi, The Grateful Dead and The Beatles. So I bought some of those albums. But the friends went, and so did the music, eventually.
I also went through a musical theatre phase in my early 20s, and especially fell in love with Les Miserables. But that proto-gay phase was part of my exploration of wanting to be an actor, and it eventually passed.
* I don't have a radio in my car. BoyJeep didn't come with a radio. This was purely by accident. Scruffy, the Faerie I bought BoyJeep from, said the stereo had been stolen twice, and so he decided after the second theft not to replace it. There's a big gaping hole in the dashboard that I've not felt compelled to fill in the 6 months I've owned BoyJeep.
Most of the previous vehicles I have owned in my life have at least had an AM/FM radio or cassette player, but mostly I just listen to talk radio - I find listening to the spoken word more interesting while driving than music. Listening to music while driving bores me.
When I was just out of high school, my first car had a cassette player, and I listened to a mix tape that was given to me, but that was mostly because the guy who gave it to me listened to it, and I was trying to cultivate a taste in music similar to his.
* I don't listen to MP3s. Well, that's not exactly true. I listen to about 40 hours of mp3s a week at work, on my Mac's iTunes. But its all talk podcasts that I download - CBC, NPR, BBC - and no music.
I don't have an iPod, either. I'm in the process of buying a new iMac, and as a student, I am eligible to get a "free" iPod when I buy it. It's actully a rebate program, though. I'd have to pay for the iPod up front at the same time I paid for the computer. Seems a lot of hassle for an appliance I'd rarely use.
Back when Apple first introduced iTunes, I downloaded a few tunes, mostly as a novelty. It just didn't end up being anything I wanted to spend any money on. Same with the early music file-sharing services, like Gnutella and Napster. I downloaded a few pirated songs back in those days, mostly as a novelty, but I bored of them quickly. I don't think there are currently any music mp3s on my computer at the moment.
* I don't play any instruments. I did play saxophone in the 7th grade band, but I bored of it. I just didn't have the passion for it. I didn't ever learn to read music very well. I think that we may have sold that sax in a garage sale or something.
Back when I was about 7, I became fascinated with the piano, and even taught myself to play some simple things by sound - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Do Re Mi, Heart and Soul - but I was never encouraged in this pursuit, or made to take piano lessons, so like all passing fancies, it passed.
When I was around 20 or so, my family bought a keyboard, and I played with it some, but I didn't stick with it.
* I don't go to concerts. At least, not very often. Too expensive for something I don't really care for. Last concert I went to was about a year ago, when I was taken as a guest to a performance of the Vancouver Symphony. Classical music I had never heard of before, and wasn't familiar with. I tried hard not to doze off during the performance. I failed. I have never really understood the appeal of symphony orchestras. (Except for John Williams movie soundtracks, thanks to Star Wars.) Before that, I can't remember the last concert I went to.
When I was in high school, my brother was a heavy metal bassist in a band called Strikken. A real long-haired metalhead, Dale was. Went to heavy metal concerts all the time - this was the era of the metal "hair bands." Mom would bribe him with concert tickets if he got good grades and kept going to school. But she didn't trust him, so she would send me along as a "chaperone." Went to a lot of metal concerts in those days - Mötley Crüe, Kiss, Y&T, Ratt, even Ozzy Osburne with an unknown opening act called Metallica. I have a very good working knowledge of 80s heavy metal hair bands because of those concerts. And I ended up not being a very good chaperone, as I ended up drinking and smoking pot at a few of those concerts.
* I don't like to dance. Too much physical work. Too much like exercise. I don't move well, and don't have very good rhythm, so I don't go to dance clubs very often. (Probably why I don't get laid very often, because for many people, dancing is a ritualized form of a mating ritual). I also don't like crowds, so being in the midst of a bunch of dancing people makes me very uncomfortable.
I do dance on occasion, spontaneously, if the mood takes me, but it is an exception, rather than the rule.
* I'm not very good at math. I know this seems a strange thing to add to this exploration of music's role in my life, but I have heard that musical ability and mathimatical ability are somehow intertwined in the brain. Numbers don't come any more naturally to me than reading musical notes do. I intellectually understand that both are skills that need to be exercised... but I've never been about exercise. One of the truths about my life is that things that don't come easily to me, I usually don't do very often.
* I didn't grow up in a musical family. Other than my brother's obsession with heavy metal, which I am convinced had something to do with getting chicks and rebellion, no one in my family listened to music much. Oh sure, we had a stereo, but I don't remember it being on much. Special occasions, like christmas carols, would prompt it being turned on. But usually, it wasn't.
The TV was usually on. I watched MTV fanatically in the early days of the music video channel, back when it was cool - and that was because the videos were just as important (if not more so) as the music itself. But other than that, I don't remember a lot of music in the house growing up.
Now that I have explored the "I don'ts" of music, it's time to turn my attention to the "I dos".
* I do get earworms, those annoying infestations of parasitic music that get coiled around the cerebral cortex, and won't leave, sometimes for days. You know what I am talking about - the catchy tunes or lines from a song that occasionally get stuck in an endless loop in your brain, and play over and over again. Often, something will remind me of a song, and part of that song will start playing in my head, ad nauseum. It's enough to drive a person crazy.
Because listening to other music will often "kill" these earworms, and since my days are often spent without much exposure to music, I have wondered if I am more prone to them lasting longer than in most people. I even had to come up with a memetic way of killing them - I discovered, purely by accident, that singing Home on the Range repeatedly will kill all but the most virulent infestations, but Home on the Range itself won't turn into an earworm itself. I don't know why. Surely it's just coincidence that particular song is the Kansas state song?
* I can remember tunes, and lyrics too. In fact, I have an almost encyclopedic memory of early 1980s pop songs and TV theme songs. Exposure is the key here, I think. I tend to remember trivia like you wouldn't believe, and song lyrics, as well as music trivia, fall easily into these well-exercised brain mechanisms. Apparently tunes are stored just as easily, as well.
* I do sing, and pretty well. I've been told I have a very good singing voice. A very powerful voice, as well. And I can carry a tune. At least, I think I can. I don't sing often, and as a 20-year smoker, I don't sing as well as I used to, but I do occasionally let loose with a song or hum a tune. But, like dancing, it's more the exception than the rule.
* I can be emotionally moved by music. It doesn't hapen often, but a song can evoke emotions from me. Often these are songs attached to emotional memories - where I was and what was happening when I heard it, who introduced me to a particular piece of music, or a particular association with a time, place, person, or event. Sometimes music that matches my mood - often dark or depressing music - will resonate in a way that amplifies what I am feeling. It can trigger crying.
Movie and soundtrack music is especially effective on me - sometimes. Soundtrack music is designed to emphasize the emotional sense of a scene - heighten the highs, lower the lows. Soundtrack music tells you how you should feel. (For instance, spooky music can make me even more anxious in a scary movie.) John Williams was always very good at doing this: Superman The Movie's soaring theme, E.T.'s wistful lament for "home," Star Wars's epic, mythological opening.
My all time favourite Williams composition is The Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back, a deep, pounding, powerful piece that has been known to send shivers up my spine. When it became available as a ringtone download for my phone, I bought it - one of the few pieces of music I've paid for in years.
* I do occasionally take a fancy to a song. An especially catchy tune, an association with an emotion, or an intellectual connection with a song can make it matter to me. A good example is O Canada. Canada's national anthem carries for me an idea of a place I want to be, and an a whole meme-comlpex of ideas and ideals that I aspire to. But I don't actually hear it - or sing it - that often. One exception is a ritual I have when I travel to Canada (frequently), on successfully crossing the border, I burst into a rendtion of O Canada in gratitude of being allowed to be in the arms of the "True North Strong and Free" once again.
But to be honest, I am trying to remember when the last time a new song grabbed me, and nothing is coming to mind. It's been a while.
* I do make up songs on occasion, or parody them. I'll make up new lyrics for songs to match what I'm thinking. Most recently, I've been doing this to the theme song for Star Trek: Voyager as I watch it on DVD. Usually it's something silly likeThe Voyager / with Janeway / and crew
to the repeating refrain in the song, periodically interrupted by verbal admonitions by Janeway to Tom Paris: "Mr. Paris! Don't fly under that solar flare!" "Mr. Paris! Don't fly so close to the planet's rings!" "Mr. Paris! Who instructed you to engage warp engines?"
Monty Python songs are also a favourite, because of their silliness. But my two all-time favourite Python songs, The Galaxy Song and The Bruces' Philosopher Song are favourites not because of the music per se, but because of the intellectual fun singing the lyrics brings.
So, given this exploration, what conclusions can I draw?
The first is that the parts of my brain that process music obviously work. Three things especially - earworms, memory access, and singing ability - suggest to me that there's nothing inherently wrong with the music processing parts of my brain. It's lack of interest that's central here.
Second, exposure and exercise matters. The lack of musical exposure growing up - though not a dearth of exposure - certainly left the music centres of my brain underdeveloped. This is in contrast to the language processing faculties, which were over-emphasized by my own interest. The boundary between the two kinds of processing - language and music - is lyrics, and that's where my strongest affinity with music lies. It's no surprise that lyrics - or an intellectual interest in something the song represents - will often grab me more than the music itself will.
There are two aspects of music that bear more exploration: Emotional aspects and social aspects. In many ways, these are the weakest parts of my personality.
Emotionally, I am often very flat, in part due to my long struggle with chronic depression. (For instance, I've noted that I do not smile as much as most people). Music is something that acts very much on the emotions, and in someone who has very underdeveloped or even nonexistant emotions, it should come as no surprise that something so emotional would hold such little appeal for me. Why seek out something that doesn't evoke much emotion in oneself?
Movie soundtracks, which are cues as to how one is supposed to feel at a given moment, are perhaps the most emotionally effective music I encounter in my life. It's like musical "instructions" to the emotions. But these emotional cues can be over-used by filmmakers, and I get very annoyed when I feel I am being emotionally manipulated by a film's score beyond where the film itself merits. If I am not actually feeling an emotion the movie is trying to evoke, then an emotional cue from the music feels forced and manipulative.
The kinds of music that I am perhaps most attracted to - deep, bassy, resonant music (like The Imperial March) - is often associated with the emotions I am most capable of feeling: anger, fear, dread, apathy, depression. This is also the most masculine of music - there's nothing much more butch than the bass, which I especially like - which is an area where I find my deepest emotional longings. The desire to have strong, masculine energy in my life - and which I am so often unabe to manifest in myself - finds expression in the deeper musical ranges. Strings are also the musical instruments most like the human voice, which is why deeper strings, like the cello and the bass, appeal to me.
Interestingly, though, the drums - perhaps the most agressive of the instruments - have less appeal to me. Perhaps this is because of the lack of agression I feel - something that sets me apart from so many men. I can carry a beat, but lack the "fire" to sustain it for long.
Music also has strong social aspects that are neglected in my life. People listen to what their friends listen to, and since I have few friends (really none that are not long-distance), the amount of musical exposure and reinforcement I am getting from them is minimal. This is, in turn, a self-reinforcing cycle: without a common musical interest, it's harder to find common interests with people on musical grounds. Music is also commonly associated with social situations and gatherings, which as an introverted hermit, I naturally avoid.
Music has a strong cultural aspect, as well, and I am so distanced from the culture at large, and even subcultures I have been asociated with in the past have musical heritages. Most of them are distant to me, even alien.
As I have written this essay tonight, I have wondered: "Is my desire to listen to talk programs instead of music somehow filling a need to have someone talk to me?" It seems reasonable - I talk to so few people in everyday life, that the only way I get my social needs to interact with - or at least listen to - other people is being filled by the talk radio I am listening to (as well as the TV). Talk radio stimulates the parts of my brain that like to hear human voices, when there's no one around to actually talk to. This, plus the desire to learn and be intellectually stimulated, might contribute to the amount of time I spend listening to spoken word, which pushes music out of my everyday consciousness.
So, does music matter?
To me, at least, it obviously does on some levels, or else I would not have written this. This essay has been in part a pure intellectual exercise, arising from natural curiosity - why is there so little music in my life? It doesn't really bother me - much - that I am odd in my lack of interest, though I wonder if there are others like me who don't make much room for music in their lives. But also there is a note of sadness and despair that runs through it - here's what I lack, poor pitiful me, won't you feel sorry for me?
Anyway, I think I have run out of steam, having been writing for about 5 hours now, so I think I should close it here.
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From:
no subject
One question: How much would you be paying for an iPod through your school? I wouldn't mind one of my own and I might be interested in a cash-for-trade if the price was right.
From:
no subject
For you, I'd be willing to do it. The cheapest one is $129 with a full rebate, and it goes up from there. Go to Apple.com, and do a test run through the iMac purchase process for students (put Western Washington University as your school) and you'll see the options.