Private Music / Public Music
I've been musing on this topic for a couple of weeks now, since reading Main Fig's post Things We've Lost. He begins with his son's request to move from earbuds to "a nice set of headphones" and ends up wondering how music has become nothing more than another kind of file on a computer, a file that is a thin and pale version of what was probably recorded. At this point I don't have any earth shattering conclusions or gigantic pronouncements, merely a few things for you to think about. But, as we used to say in high school camera club, let's see what develops.
Why is it sometimes we don't want anyone to know what we're hearing (Why yes, I was rocking Delhi2Dublin remixes while I cleaned the bathroom and washed the dishes) and other times we want to blast it to the neighborhood with with biggest subwoofer ever? Like the guy who parked outside my son's bedroom window during story time tonight.
Headphones were not invented until 1937 and did not come into popular usage until shall we say, the 1960's or '70's. So prior to that time, all music was public. Sure you could enjoy music alone, but anybody could walk in the room and know you secretly still listen to xxxxxxxxxx. Seriously though, most music was public, in the sense that it was created [or a recording was played (after 1877)] was for public consumption. In many cases it was played expressly for the purpose of bringing people together to create bonding and a sense of unity. Church hymns. Fiddling for a square dance. A brass band at Nazi war rally. "We Shall Not Be Moved" at an anti-war rally. Pep bands during March Madness. The Dead or Yes or Van Morrisson in Main Fig's college days. More like Joy Division or New Order in my year in the dorm, and a whole lot of Sonic Youth in the year I got an apartment. With four other people; it was still college y'know.
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But the music was for sharing. Sure there was probably some one-upsmanship, but it was more often in the spirit of "You HAVE GOT to hear this!" And yes, it was more of a guy thing, the whole fancy stereo with giant speakers and a huge album collection, but I had a pretty fine listening room/smoking room/bedroom up there on the third floor of the old house on Seerley Blvd near the University of Northern Iowa campus.
When do we ever do that "You have got to hear this!" now? On spaces like this blog and a million others we promote our latest audio obsessions, but we are several steps removed from one another. DJ Blanche and I often talk about organizing listening parties when we come into a bunch of new sounds, but we never seem to get it together. When was the last time you sat down will some friends for the sole purpose of listening to some music?
Actually, probaby the last time you did that was last time you went to a live music show. Isn't that about the only place we co-listen anymore? Sometimes it's too intimate. Strangers are seated right next to you, so we dim the lights and keep the room quiet. We all focus straight ahead on the musicians. I read a piece in the Orchestra Hall program the other week by one Minnesotan who found live music with hundred of close range strangers really difficult, but the power of the MInnesota Orchestra made it a transfomative experince for her. I've been there, hurrying down from the balcony afterwards surrounded by people so thrilled by what we'd just experienced that the barriers came down and we all started talking about what instruments we'd played in junior high.
Sometimes it's not intimate enough. When people keep talking right through a very quiet piece. When the guy next to you keeps trying to dance to Zoe Keating. When he started playing body percussion on himself during "Escape Artist" tonight I was this close to telling him to lay off the caffeine and just f-ing COOL IT! when I realized I was actually kind of dancing in place myself. I said nothing to him, but did move away. I glanced over during "Optimist" and he was man-dancing in front of the load-out doors. For all the (insert superlative here) things a live show can be, one cannot chose one's co-listeners.
Other nights all the audience wants to do is become part one single fused sweaty dancing hive mind--Balkan Beat Box last August at The Cedar, anyone? Those nights all strangers seem like family and the dorkiest dance moves don't matter in the light or the dark. We sing or yell along at the tops of our lungs and jump up and down as high as we can.
What about the music without the visual? To people below a certain age, music means a video. I know I hear more when there is not visual input struggling through the same synapses. Not to say the show at a live performance is not a big part of why we go, but try closing your eyes at a concert sometime. Do you hear more layers and subtleties? Does your brain reproduce what you just saw on stage, or does it start to make up images on its own? (With or without the substances Main Fig mentioned.)
Then think about this factoid. So prior to 1877 all music was live music. Everywhere all the time. Now a tiny, tiny fraction of one percent of the music in the world is live. Many people go for years without hearing any live music, much less the kind of stuff we Cedar-heads take for granted.
I truly miss sitting around listening to music, talking about that music, really getting into it. But most days, if I can work some music in as a background soundtrack to whatever I am working on, that's about the best I can hope for. Is that my parenting lifestyle or just our modern condition? And yes, far too high a percentage of that listening is on the iPod or computer, through the earbuds.
By the way, I would at least recommend ditching the horrible white ear buds and coming up with some decent noise cancellers. I have my Klipsh S4s for at home (they do not cross the threshhold into the dangerous outside world) and my sturdier ( and cheaper) MusX Classics for work. If nothing else they are much mroe comfortable and they do take the edge off the family hubub. Now I want to get into some of the latest (and safer for your ear drums) technology, the diaphonic ear lenses.
In the best of all possible worlds, I would love a return to the halcyon days of sharing listening with friends, with our without the aforementioned substances involved, at a time and place of our choosing. Love to get back to those "Here's the part where the bass comes in" days. Alas, don't see that happening any time soon. So I'll keep the ear buds handy.
