On music, b/c it really does matter
I've decided to take a break from the topic (which can be enlightening, cathartic, or downright depressing, and sometimes all three simultaneously) to talk about music. Not that I actually have that much to talk about, but I hoped some ideas might pop up as I typed. I'm currently listening to "Jazz" on Music Choice, the digital music station. I love, love, LOVE the Jazz station. They play everything from Miles and Coltrane to the Marsalis crew, John Pizzarelli, Sarah Vaughn, Jamie Cullum, John Scofield, and EVERYTHING in between. They go light on smooth jazz (get it?! ;-)), though that does get included at times, but vocalists such as Kevin Mohogany are included, and there's also latin jazz and other interesting variations (helpfully, not too much of the Frank Sinatra era--they have other stations tailored to that). I love this station, as there are no commercials, and there are always useful bits of information about the artists and the songs (along w/ title, artist, and name of album), so you learn while you listen (hmm...they could use that as their tagline :-)). I only get two hours of jazz a day at work, streaming live on the Netscape channel (cheap bastards; if you don't have aol, they cut you off after two hours), so I really get excited when I come home and get to listen to jazz.
Netscape and The River, my enlightened adult contemporary station that also streams on the web, 24/7 and for free, keep me focused all day. And God knows, I need music to keep me focused and calm and non-agitated. It may be in part to this condition I alluded to recently (SEPD, or socio-emotional processing disorder), which can make it hard to focus and concentrate. I'm not sure, but I do know that music has always been of utmost importance, and is why I was in djay in college and for 18 months professionally afterwards, and why I must have it on ALL THE TIME. I could absolutely live without TV, and have, but NOT without the radio and CDs. And now that I have my zen creative, aka my mp3 player, I have a very portable way to listen to a great deal of music in whatever order I choose on the spot. I will sometimes move from Donovan Frankenreiter to HotHotHeat (new indie band favorite) to Low Millions to Dogs Die in Hot Cars (the other new indie band favorite) to who-knows-what at the gym or on the subway, and it's awesome to have that power.
It's hard to believe I ever lived without an mp3 player, though I've only had mine since December. It's also been troublesome, this zen creative, and I've had to return it twice (and may actually need to return it again, as the headphone jack is acting up once again), but I'm hoping not. I probably should have gotten a mini iPod, due to its sleeker features, cooler colors (LOVE the pink), iTunes, and its apparently greater reliability. However, I got my zen for about $30 less, including more storage space (although there is now a 6 GB iPod for about $240) and an FM tuner, so it seemed a good bet at the time, and the sound quality IS amazing, WHEN it works. Sometimes I worry about going deaf. There is no indication that this is going to happen anytime soon, knock on wood, and in fact I have pretty good hearing. However, my paternal grandmother started going slightly deaf in her mid-60s (she died at 68, so we'll never know how far it would have advanced, and it hasn't been the case w/ my paternal grandfather, who just turned 95 and is going strong, at least in the auditory area), so I do worry occasionally. However, I am far more focused on my eyesight (which has always been poor and will always be weak, though I am not yet on the bifocals route, THANK GOD), and hope that whatever happens, my hearing will always be at least minimally intact.
I love to talk to others, to hear laughter, especially of my nieces and nephew, and birds chirping and waves crashing against the shore--all make my heart flutter, I kid you not, and fill me with tremendous joy--and I love and need to music to accompany my good moments and those that aren't so good. I even have it on, albeit softly, during advising on Tuesday nights. I find it so calming and comforting, and no one's ever complained, so I guess it's okay. I can't really listen to NPR at work, simply b/c I need to hear music rather than talk (though I need to remember to listen to "This American Life" and "Fresh Air" at other times, and I rarely remember to). I don't like rap, hard rock (e.g., Audioslave), most country (musicians like Lucinda Williams excepted), most classical, or bluegrass, but otherwise, I'm pretty open, and I absolutely adore the blues, new wave, some disco (Abba and KC and the Sunshine Band are favorites), acoustic, and jazz, as noted. I love to work out to it (even if the TV monitor is tuned to, say, the Red Sox, as it was today), walk to it, dance to it, fall asleep and wake up to it, and pretty much everything else in between. Although I don't care for my nieces in Western Mass's choices (e.g., Hilary Duff, Britney, the Cheetah Girls, and Lindsay Lohan, and need I say more?), I do love to see them singing and dancing along to CDs and The Disney Channel on Music Choice, and I feel happy to be able to share that with them. I hope they will have a lifelong appreciation for music and its ability to make you feel better, no matter what your mood.
I realized that being a djay wouldn't work--too corporate, even back in the 80s, and it certainly is today--but the role music has played (for example, I listened to the Jayhawks non-stop while I wrote my Master's Thesis, and it absolutely helped) in shaping my life and my ability to function hasn't lessened from when I was 10 years old and taping American Top 40 with Casey Kasem and reciting the whole list for anyone who cared to listen. I am a decent, but not superb, singer, so I was never in a band, though I was in Glee Club (barely got in, and only after a summer of voice lessons), but someday I would still like to collaborate with a musician on lyrics (b/c my poetry is far closer to song lyrics than to traditional stuff). These days, I spend a fair amount of time scouring salon.com and other websites for free, downloadable music (or occasionally paying $.99/song for something like Anna Malick's "Breathe: 2AM"), and this is how I learned about HotHotHeat and Dogs Die in Hot Cars (and now The Postal Service and other up and coming bands). And on a Sunday night, listening to Wayne Shorter, while I read The Sunday Globe and eat popcorn, I can relax and try to forget that I need to return to work Monday, where I'll be reminded, somehow, of the plays I'm not being cast in or the fact that I have no date prospects or am paid far too little at my job. But tonight, I get to bask in jazz, and that's not so bad.
Netscape and The River, my enlightened adult contemporary station that also streams on the web, 24/7 and for free, keep me focused all day. And God knows, I need music to keep me focused and calm and non-agitated. It may be in part to this condition I alluded to recently (SEPD, or socio-emotional processing disorder), which can make it hard to focus and concentrate. I'm not sure, but I do know that music has always been of utmost importance, and is why I was in djay in college and for 18 months professionally afterwards, and why I must have it on ALL THE TIME. I could absolutely live without TV, and have, but NOT without the radio and CDs. And now that I have my zen creative, aka my mp3 player, I have a very portable way to listen to a great deal of music in whatever order I choose on the spot. I will sometimes move from Donovan Frankenreiter to HotHotHeat (new indie band favorite) to Low Millions to Dogs Die in Hot Cars (the other new indie band favorite) to who-knows-what at the gym or on the subway, and it's awesome to have that power.
It's hard to believe I ever lived without an mp3 player, though I've only had mine since December. It's also been troublesome, this zen creative, and I've had to return it twice (and may actually need to return it again, as the headphone jack is acting up once again), but I'm hoping not. I probably should have gotten a mini iPod, due to its sleeker features, cooler colors (LOVE the pink), iTunes, and its apparently greater reliability. However, I got my zen for about $30 less, including more storage space (although there is now a 6 GB iPod for about $240) and an FM tuner, so it seemed a good bet at the time, and the sound quality IS amazing, WHEN it works. Sometimes I worry about going deaf. There is no indication that this is going to happen anytime soon, knock on wood, and in fact I have pretty good hearing. However, my paternal grandmother started going slightly deaf in her mid-60s (she died at 68, so we'll never know how far it would have advanced, and it hasn't been the case w/ my paternal grandfather, who just turned 95 and is going strong, at least in the auditory area), so I do worry occasionally. However, I am far more focused on my eyesight (which has always been poor and will always be weak, though I am not yet on the bifocals route, THANK GOD), and hope that whatever happens, my hearing will always be at least minimally intact.
I love to talk to others, to hear laughter, especially of my nieces and nephew, and birds chirping and waves crashing against the shore--all make my heart flutter, I kid you not, and fill me with tremendous joy--and I love and need to music to accompany my good moments and those that aren't so good. I even have it on, albeit softly, during advising on Tuesday nights. I find it so calming and comforting, and no one's ever complained, so I guess it's okay. I can't really listen to NPR at work, simply b/c I need to hear music rather than talk (though I need to remember to listen to "This American Life" and "Fresh Air" at other times, and I rarely remember to). I don't like rap, hard rock (e.g., Audioslave), most country (musicians like Lucinda Williams excepted), most classical, or bluegrass, but otherwise, I'm pretty open, and I absolutely adore the blues, new wave, some disco (Abba and KC and the Sunshine Band are favorites), acoustic, and jazz, as noted. I love to work out to it (even if the TV monitor is tuned to, say, the Red Sox, as it was today), walk to it, dance to it, fall asleep and wake up to it, and pretty much everything else in between. Although I don't care for my nieces in Western Mass's choices (e.g., Hilary Duff, Britney, the Cheetah Girls, and Lindsay Lohan, and need I say more?), I do love to see them singing and dancing along to CDs and The Disney Channel on Music Choice, and I feel happy to be able to share that with them. I hope they will have a lifelong appreciation for music and its ability to make you feel better, no matter what your mood.
I realized that being a djay wouldn't work--too corporate, even back in the 80s, and it certainly is today--but the role music has played (for example, I listened to the Jayhawks non-stop while I wrote my Master's Thesis, and it absolutely helped) in shaping my life and my ability to function hasn't lessened from when I was 10 years old and taping American Top 40 with Casey Kasem and reciting the whole list for anyone who cared to listen. I am a decent, but not superb, singer, so I was never in a band, though I was in Glee Club (barely got in, and only after a summer of voice lessons), but someday I would still like to collaborate with a musician on lyrics (b/c my poetry is far closer to song lyrics than to traditional stuff). These days, I spend a fair amount of time scouring salon.com and other websites for free, downloadable music (or occasionally paying $.99/song for something like Anna Malick's "Breathe: 2AM"), and this is how I learned about HotHotHeat and Dogs Die in Hot Cars (and now The Postal Service and other up and coming bands). And on a Sunday night, listening to Wayne Shorter, while I read The Sunday Globe and eat popcorn, I can relax and try to forget that I need to return to work Monday, where I'll be reminded, somehow, of the plays I'm not being cast in or the fact that I have no date prospects or am paid far too little at my job. But tonight, I get to bask in jazz, and that's not so bad.
posted by Sue B at 4:30 PM
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