Why you shouldn't listen to music

Subject: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Marion
Date: 12 May 03 - 11:43 AM

Hello all. I suspect that many of you are like me in that when you listen to recorded music, it isn't strictly art appreciation for art appreciation's sake - it's partly to scout for good songs to start doing yourself. So here's a suggestion on how to do that.

When I put an album on for the first few times, I make a point of not paying attention to it; I let it be background while I do something else that uses my attention. Then I make a mental note of which songs manage to pull my attention away from what I'm doing, in the theory that what grabs me will grab other people. Could be one or two songs per album, very rarely more, sometimes less.

This technique might be useful to you - although I know some people say that they aren't able to ignore music.

Marion

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 12 May 03 - 12:12 PM

I suppose in a way this is a technique I already employ although not intentionally. When I buy a CD I always put it onto cassette tape tp play in the car so am concentrating on driving rather than the music. Often I have found that a particular song stays with me and sometimes I discover I have 'learned'it without really trying.

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: C-flat
Date: 12 May 03 - 12:30 PM

The quest to find good songs to perform often prevents me from enjoying other music simply because it doesn't fit in with my criteria. I've overlooked some great songs in the past by listening too hard for something else!
I find I only truly enjoy listening when the music is just "on" and I'm otherwise engaged.
It can also be a problem when I go to see other performers, much to the annoyance of my partner who isn't remotely interested in what equipment is involved, what tunings are employed, or what my opinion of the sound technicians is!
I think she has more fun than me too!
I am trying to learn to "switch off" long enough to have a good time but it's one day at a time!!

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Firecat
Date: 12 May 03 - 02:06 PM

I've got the radio on as background at the moment, and I do when I do the washing up. If I hear a song I like the sound of, I'll turn it up so I can listen to it.

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 12 May 03 - 03:27 PM

Would someone please pinch me?

We have to figure why we shouldn't listen to music?

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Marion
Date: 13 May 03 - 01:10 PM

Don't worry, Marty, it's just a tongue in cheek title meant to draw attention to a serious suggestion. You don't have to do anything - but you can if you want to.

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 May 03 - 01:21 PM

Now Marion...watch those 'tongue in cheek' titles. You've still got some people worried about how they "stood in your way" for so long, ha ha!

I now follow anything vaguely ironic with the words "ha,ha".

My good friend Peter is horrified at the idea of music as background, but my ways of absorption are somewhat similar to yours.

Rick

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: kendall
Date: 13 May 03 - 07:12 PM

I'm one of those who is unable to listen to music and do anything else. One exception, "BOLERO". hehehe

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 May 03 - 08:37 PM

I've found a number of gems by transcribing the lyrics and posting them here. The song may not grab me on a recording, but posting a song makes me pay attention to it. Maybe the recording isn't top-notch, so perhaps I can come up with my own, distinctive interpretation that will bring out the meaning of the lyrics.

But usually, I just listen to Judy Cook and steal her songs.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: GUEST
Date: 13 May 03 - 11:45 PM

I try to limit my music listening. When I have a new disc or tape, I will listen to it when I'm in the 'right mood'... My method is to play it when I'm working, and listen casually to the whole cd a few times. Like Marion, i start noticing my preferences, and pick my future songs by what grabs me... Funny thing though,... what I choose today, might be different than what I would choose on another day.

...so,... my subjectivity is in need of celestial guidance.
ttr

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 13 May 03 - 11:53 PM

...but my cookie doesn't always like the same music I do.
ttr

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Marion
Date: 14 May 03 - 02:37 PM

Another thing I do sometimes when I want to learn something is what I call brainwashing. Before I get down to the business of figuring it out, I tell the CD player to repeat the one song endlessly - or even make a tape of the song ten times in a row - and use it as background when I'm doing something else. There's no clear way to tell if this helps me learn the song, but my suspicion is that it does.

Re: I now follow anything vaguely ironic with the words "ha,ha".

Rick, maybe you should start doing that in conversation too.

Marion

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 14 May 03 - 02:55 PM

Yep, Marion. since I play 'by ear', the repitition technique is very effective for me. Thanks for the suggestions, and your wisdom is clear! ttr

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 14 May 03 - 03:20 PM

Rarely does a recorded version of a song make me want to grab a guitar and learn it. If I'm going to get floored by a song it's usually going to be from a live performance. Sometimes it'll happen at a concert by a "name" performer and sometimes it'll happen at a jam or song circle. What usually happens is that I'll carry the thing around in my brain for a few days and then seek out a recorded version so that I can learn it. I must have heard Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" on various radio programs a dozen times through the years, and was never really impressed by it. Then I heard a fellow do it at a campfire jam about a year ago and it refused to leave my brain. I knew that I had to go home and learn it.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: toadfrog
Date: 14 May 03 - 04:40 PM

Well, Marion, I find myself listening to stuff exactly the way you describe. Depressing, that. Repetition works better than anything else, except that it can lead you to singing a lot of mondegreens unless you are careful.

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: sweetfire
Date: 15 May 03 - 09:30 AM

I find what most of you are surgesting works! It's great that i can put a Cd on as background, switch off and only wake up when something good comes on. But it's best not to do it when you are revsing, as i found out. Working a song out is a great reason to procrastinate! (excuse spelling if it's wrong)

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 May 03 - 10:56 AM

Question to anyone/everyone: do you listen to, and enjoy, music that you would *never* perform yourself (different genres than your specialty, stuff that requires different instrumentation, etc.), or do you make it a point to *avoid* listending to music outside your chosen field?

I think that everything you hear has *some* influence, however subtle, on your musical approach to performance. In this era, it's really impossible to duplicate the experience of, say, a sailor or a highlander living 100 or more years ago, who may never have been exposed to music outside the tradition into which he was born.

Unlike those folks who began and nurtured these various traditions, we can't help but hear orchestral music, commerical jingles, pop, jazz, this, that, etc., and our singing and playing unavoidably reflects this experience in some way. By exercising our indiviudal tastes, we exert control over the degree and the manner in which these influences appear in the sounds we project.

American country-blues players like Mississippi John Hurt and Mance Lipscomb described themselves as "songsters," which meant that, in addition to the straight-ahead blues numbers for which they're best known, they also perfomed the popular "Tin Pan Alley" songs of the day in their role as commiunity entertainers, much like today's local rock n roll "cover" bands. Those guys did not consciously limit themselves to the genre to which we assign them today, and probably became the singular artists that they were in part *because* of the musical diversity they persued.

Similarly, many of the most noteworthy acoustic guitar pickers display their virtuosity by playing transcriptions of music originally intended for completely different instruments, notably ragtime piano and country fiddle.

Musical cross-fertilization is not only a good thing, but probably an absolute necessity for any kind of originality or personality to come though. Of course, we can't help but be influenced by whatever we hear, even accidentally, but the more we seek out diverse listening experiences, the more our voices and our playing styles are likely to develop as uniquely and recognizably our own.

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: sweetfire
Date: 15 May 03 - 03:12 PM

(There is no way i could sing what i listen to, because i don't think many people at a folk-type-music-session would appreciate a rap in the middle with controversial lyrics!!)

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: GUEST,Virginia Blankenhorn
Date: 16 May 03 - 11:06 AM

I guess it works for some of you, but the idea of listening to a recording over and over in order to learn it fills me with alarm. If I do that, I find myself not just singing the song, but also hearing all the stylistic echoes of the performance I learned it from. This may result in the "hidden guitar syndrome" -- sort of like listening to somebody sing along with their walkman.

Being musically literate helps, because what I prefer to do is jot down the tune, get hold of the text, and put them together in my own style. Hopefully, nobody then says, "oh, she got that off so-and-so's album"...

Virginia

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 16 May 03 - 03:22 PM

Sure Virginia, mimicry is not quite representitive of a person's own 'style', but playing by ear is a choice some people make consciously. If you are filled by alarm because of this, I'm sorry... and I know you are not alone. Music Teachers, Professors, Administrators, and those of classically trained schools of thought have agreed with your point of view... by extending a sophistic and conditional hand towards me...

Though grateful for this concern, I must repectfully disagree. I am proud of the fact that I play by ear... insofar as the folk tradition is concerned... and the longer it takes to 'get it', the better it is when I do!

All the best, and may inspired playing come to you frequently! ttr

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 May 03 - 05:29 PM

I wouldn't avoid listening to a recording for fear of duplicating the original version -- I've never been *able* to mimic a recorded prformance too closely, even when I wanted to.

I think when you perform a tune using your voice and your hands on the instrument, you can't help but introduce a bit of "originality," (or, at least, personality) for better or worse, incorporating your own quirks -- shortcomings as well as enhancements.

I would think it's especially "safe" to learn from a recording when you play a different instrument, and/or if you have to transpose to a different key in order to sing it.

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Marion
Date: 18 May 03 - 10:59 PM

PoppaGator asked: Question to anyone/everyone: do you listen to, and enjoy, music that you would *never* perform yourself (different genres than your specialty, stuff that requires different instrumentation, etc.), or do you make it a point to *avoid* listending to music outside your chosen field?

Yes to the first part, no to the second.

I'm curious to know if anyone has given you the opposite answers - actually, I'd be surprised if anyone did.

Marion

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 19 May 03 - 01:27 AM

There is a great deal of music that I'd never inflict myself on "in performance". Now if I could just get OTHERS to leave it alone as well. (silent ha ha)

Rick

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 19 May 03 - 04:22 AM

STOP IT...... I LIKE IT.

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Jeri
Date: 19 May 03 - 07:04 AM

I listen to some styles I don't particularly care for. Sometimes, if I listen long enough, I'll develop a 'taste' for that sort of music.

I also learn from recordings, as well as sheet music. I don't copy what I hear (I couldn't anyway), and I hear possible places the music COULD have gone. It's like learning ANYTHING from someone else. First you learn how it's done, then you make it yours and put your own stamp on it. I suppose there's always the possibility that you like one person's playing so much you CAN'T not want to play/sing it that way, but there isn't any harm in using their arrangement, with credit, if it really is that good.

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Virginia Blankenhorn
Date: 19 May 03 - 09:04 AM

I do agree with what's being said here -- and of course I have learned songs from hearing others many times over. This is essential when you're first learning a style -- and since the style I'm thinking of is the Irish Gaelic sean-nós, you better believe that I listened to an awful lot of good singers (and learned a lot of their songs quirk-for-quirk) before I "got it". Because I've now been singing in that style for over half my life and am fluent in Irish, I am now able to jot down the bare bones of a melody and then sing it in the appropriate style, without being distracted by the original singer's voice in my ears as I sing. Seemingly others of you aren't troubled with this "doppelganger" syndrome -- it's one of those good news-bad news things.

In any case, I was just offering a personal perspective -- not expecting anybody to feel that I was criticising their method. Sorry!

Virginia

Subject: RE: Why you shouldn't listen to music
From: Cluin
Date: 20 May 03 - 12:29 AM

Music rots your brain and turns you into a sex maniac.

Well, dat's my excuse anyways, an' I'm stickin' to `er, by gar