I used to love music. I’ve written the stuff. Actually, I still do, but I listen to far less now.
There are two issues. One is that I’ve always considered it rude to play something in a house when other people are there. Television is the worst, since it visually distracts; poetry is bad, since it steals the ear with language; but music, by its very loudness, is problematic too. Since I became attached, I’ve stopped listening using speakers. I do sometimes listen with earphones or headphones, but they have problems. Earphones become uncomfortable after a while, and headphones are sweat traps.
But I can turn that around. She indoors is rather fond of her iPad, and is often watching stuff which makes more than a little noise. Thus I should overcome my innate politeness and turn the sound on. Admittedly, her choice of softly spoken informative snippets and my choice of roof raising Motörhead (and everything else) do offer slightly different soundscapes….s
The other problem is technology. I used to have an wall lined with albums. I could see immediately my entire collection. They were well organised, by genre then a genre appropriate order (band name or composer, depending). I rarely remember names, but I did know the music. If I were in a particular mood, I could look at the wall and quickly spot something to fit. Moving to digital technologies allowed me to find another use for the brickwork, but the various player programs are absolutely shite at presenting the music stored on the computer. For example, Apple Music is perfect for those people who hate music so only have two or three albums, but it’s completely useless for those, like me, who actually like the stuff. It totally wastes screen space by showing, in ridiculous oversize, the full album cover. The company makes an effort to produce super high resolution screens, then completely wastes the new space by still showing the same miniscule quantity of information. I would love a simple list of albums, but that, it seems, is beyond the music detesters who designed the app. I’ve tried a good number of alternatives players, and they’re all bad in different ways.
I have to admit I’ve not gone near streaming. First of all, streaming apps are by subscription, which means the skint are no longer allowed listen to music. To my mind, that’s a way to torment the miserable by misfortune; to make their experience worse. Subscriptions are not an example of human goodness. Given I’ve an IQ greater than -7, so that cruel, rip–off, business model is utterly unacceptable to me: when I’m out of work, I need more music, not no music.
Secondly, and admittedly this is an impression I’ve not verified, computer music algorithms to select music like, say, X, are completely incapable of doing so. For example, I enjoy Basic Channel mostly because I enjoy their complex rhythms, but when I last asked an algorithm to play something similar, it selected just another dull bonk bonk splat. The automatic selection algorithms don’t, or didn’t, have a clue about their subject matter. I don’t know who came up with those algorithms, but I wish they’d known something about music.
Another important thing is playback, and this is where I had a particular problem that I’ve only recently solved. I had a set of Harman Kardon Sound Sticks, and they were good speakers. Unfortunately, they also lacked physical solidity, so when one of the sticks fell off my desk, that was it. I tried replacing them with a pare of Bose smart speakers, but their idea of stereo is my idea of seasickness. That was deeply disappointing. I have some old cheap computer speakers, but all they did was remind me why I didn’t use them. Anyway, I recently had another go, and bought a pair of Apple mini homepods. Their sound is impressive. The only problem is they won’t speak to my Mac, but I think that’s actually my DHCP server being overwhelmed. I already know I need to renew my home network infrastructure: I now think I’m need to bring that forward.
Anyway, those homepods include an offer of a test subscription of Apple Music. I’ll give it a go, if only to find out if their “select something like X” is capable of selecting something like “X”. I’m not optimistic: when I bought my last Mac, it came with a trial subscription of Apple TV, and I found the shows utter drivel. I got rid of my TV before the millenium because almost all shows are follow the convoy principle; go at the speed of the slowest. Perhaps the TV world should invent an anti–coffee, for all but the deeply dim to drink before watching a TV programme (actually, come to think of it, they have, but it’s called dumbing down).
So, wish me luck, returning to listening, occasionally, to music. I’ll have to do some research, quite a lot will have happened since I last explored the art in any depth. All I’ve discovered since then is Brandt Brauer Frick, who were certainly worth discovering. I have the remaining Stockhausen CDs to buy. And there’s a grand sea of common art to surf. Wish me luck!