Has quarantine changed your ears?

luka

Well-known member
I've started listening to music again. I'm softer gentler more patient more prone to jazz

 

luka

Well-known member
Me and the only sane man on the forum, yyaldrin, were talking about how there's less noise now, less interference, each figure stands out more clearly against the ground.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Not really. The ears are quietly wondering what all the fuss is about (down jinx, down). Most work is usually done under the influence of music. Most of life too. Intrigued by “listening to music again”. Were you in a rut?

Changed my eyes, perhaps, due to being able to read more. The chance to flex books that should’ve already been devoured, now it being easier to bunk off for an hour more regularly. Juggling family, don’t get much time alone, healthy for everyone to beef up their relationships with art &/or how you engage with it.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
think so yes. hardly listened to any slower hip hop or smoother soul since this stuff started. its all been turbo speed.
 

version

Well-known member
I live in a quiet area anyway, so not so much. I was about to say I'd perhaps been listening to more mellow stuff than usual, but then I remembered I was blasting Autechre and Peter Rehberg on headphones last night.
 

luka

Well-known member
I might have been in a rut. I'm not sure. But the not listening to music thing started about 15 years ago. I hardly ever put it on. Went right off it. Except when on drugs. Then I liked it again. But the idea of listening every day I find really disgusting like eating a family size bag of Doritos all by yourself.
 

version

Well-known member
I've noticed I'll often wear headphones without actually listening to anything. Maybe it's a subconscious thing that helps me concentrate and dampens any unwanted sound.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I might have been in a rut. I'm not sure. But the not listening to music thing started about 15 years ago. I hardly ever put it on. Went right off it. Except when on drugs. Then I liked it again. But the idea of listening every day I find really disgusting like eating a family size bag of Doritos all by yourself.

disgusting is good. embrace it.
 

luka

Well-known member
This thing must have made it very very obvious to everyone how much persistent background stress is caused by noise pollution.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Could get all Heidegger & phenomenological n shit. Night owl has come out with sounds.

Personally, given more opportunity to dig for music. Not to block the world out or flood it with distractions. Guess it’s taste & personality. Only known one extended period where music, all music, sounded trite, but that was a monstrous time so probably projecting.

See the link, switcheroo, has quarantine changed your interactions with writing? Is the tumult allowing a looser art in (jazz)? Whatever the situation, it is a bit weird right now. Ear work outs with music you love is good self care.
 

woops

is not like other people
Whatever the situation, it is a bit weird right now. Ear work outs with music you love is good self care.

I've been in a Luka-style rut for some years, bought a record player and some records to cure it, but still only really listened when someone was round.

I think this "thing" might have done the trick though,

I got really into Radio 3 for a few days (after quarantine) and enjoyed not only the classical, Gershwin etc but also the jazz and the leftfield/mainstream stuff they play on there, that I would never otherwise have listened to,

Then I found my way online at home after a long break from that, hence my recent increase in posting, and I've listened to quite a few bits. AFX Autechre exquisite jungle from here and other stuff besides. Most of it I've really enjoyed. I find the key is to listen while you're occupied with something else that doesn't use your brain, like cooking or eating or in the bath or whatever. Just sitting and listening is difficult to maintain.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Speaking for myself, what this has done is take the guilt out of staying in and doing "nothing".

Somehow reading a book or listening to music doesn't feel like doing anything.

I remember being a teenager living in a village where nothing was happening outside and listening to music and reading for hours and hours with no sense that I was missing out on anything.

Usually in London you are definitely missing out on something somewhere.

Anyway, I have been listening to music more since this started. And listening to it, sometimes, without doing much of anything else. Very teenage throwback for me.
 
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Leo

Well-known member
I find the key is to listen while you're occupied with something else that doesn't use your brain, like cooking or eating or in the bath or whatever.

yup. I discovered this about 20 years ago when I painted an apartment by myself. I'd move all the furniture into another room, drag in the floor covering and a shitty old cd boombox, and just play stuff all day while mindlessly spackling, priming and painting walls and ceiling. took about two weeks total to do the entire place, I was unemployed at the time so just took my time. had probably a half-dozen cases where an album just clicked, you almost don't notice it happening but periodically find yourself stopping in your tracks and thinking "whoa, this is really good." yeah, same thing can happen with cooking.
 

luka

Well-known member
And I agree with Corpsey when he says there is an aspect of time travel to this experience, of recovering a past iteration of the self, or a past mode of experience.
 

luka

Well-known member
Having nothing whatsoever to do. This is why I definitely recommend switching the Internet off every day too, for however long. I've had my phone switched off the whole time also so no one can talk to me.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
yup. I discovered this about 20 years ago when I painted an apartment by myself. I'd move all the furniture into another room, drag in the floor covering and a shitty old cd boombox, and just play stuff all day while mindlessly spackling, priming and painting walls and ceiling. took about two weeks total to do the entire place, I was unemployed at the time so just took my time. had probably a half-dozen cases where an album just clicked, you almost don't notice it happening but periodically find yourself stopping in your tracks and thinking "whoa, this is really good." yeah, same thing can happen with cooking.

how else would you listen to music? sit in a chair and stare at the wall? i've never done it any other way? not that i'm painting my ceilings constantly but i'm never doing nothing, at the very minimum i'm browsing the internet.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
Having nothing whatsoever to do. This is why I definitely recommend switching the Internet off every day too, for however long. I've had my phone switched off the whole time also so no one can talk to me.

don't you go mental when you don't speak with anyone all day long?
 
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