Not
I'm pretty good at not doing things. Not spending a bunch of money out with the gang? Check. Not remembering to eat? Check. Not keeping in touch with old friends (or new ones, for that matter) check. This "not" thing is one of my true talents; possibly my only talent. I can not do things with the best of them. I am world class not. So don't think you can challenge me because I have had years to develop this talent. As a kid, I could sit in the corner and do nothing like nobody's business. This was somewhat empowering because I was never afraid of "time outs" that were so popular as punishment then. Go ahead, put me in a corner until I learn my lesson, teacher. We'll see who blinks first.
So I was certainly up for the challenge of spending the week without music. I can do that. Negatives are easy for me. All I have to do is not listen to music for a week? Piece of cake. I'm here to report to you, though, that I failed. And not only did I fail, I failed within a couple hours of starting. It was a failure simultaneously spectacular and anticlimactic.
The plan was to start on Monday, so I turned my clock radio's alarm off on Sunday night. I didn't want to wake up to the "Morning Edition" theme and blow the whole deal right off the bat. So I woke up with the sun Monday morning and quietly read news on the internet. I was still pretty convinced that I would have no problem doing this.
I have the option of working from home, so I can easily control my environment. I don't have to listen to the desk speakers of the guy in the next cube or the office down the hall. I'm not stuck in some retail job where I have to listen to the shopping soundtrack at all times. I have been in each of these situations at one point in the past. Not now though.
So I was pretty self-satisfied when I went down to the car to get some lunch. I got in, drove down the road, tapped on the steering wheel along with "Bang the Drum All Day." Damn! I had driven several miles before I even realized that I was listening to music. Game over. And I don't even like that song. Curse you, Rundgren.
There was a time--not in my lifetime or yours--that people had to seek out music, rather than music seeking them out. A hundred or so years ago, there would have been no accidentally running into music. To hear music, you would have to play it yourself or find somebody else who was. This is hard for me to imagine and it makes me think about how much me value music. How much do we appreciate something that is always there, whether we want it or not? This must have something to do with why so many of us feel entitled to just download any music that strikes our fancy without thinking about how much it should be costing us. When the fabric of our lives becomes saturated with something, is it a surprise that we don't think twice about squeezing out a little bit for ourselves?*
After I got through yelling at myself in disgust, I turned the radio off. I had intended to get lunch at a drive-through because there would be no music there, but after failing I could get something better. So I went to a nearby sandwich shop instead, where they played me hits from the 70s as I waited for my sandwich. I resolved to try to stick with this no music program, just to see how far I could get. I accepted that I would probably fail again, but I was going to keep track of all the music that I heard, despite trying not to hear any.
The next bit of music that I didn't want to hear came from a video of Obama's MLK speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church. I feared that there might be music--this was a church, after all--but I wanted to risk it, so I hit play. There was less music than I feared there would be--just a little piano tinkling under the introduction speech. Obama's speech was music free.
That's it. At the end of day one I had heard a bit of music on the radio, a couple 70s rock songs, and a little piano tinkling. Day two went much like day one.
I woke up, loaded NAP in my browser and saw that Heidi had posted a video of Naples. Without thinking, I clicked it and there was the day's first music. I turned it off right away, but I had already failed day two. Worse, I was out of water so I knew I was going to have to go somewhere with music to buy it.** I chose Walgreen's.
Walgreen's was possibly the worst choice for somebody who was avoiding music. Not only was there an annoying song about somebody's angel being piped into the store, but there are also motion triggered sales pitches that accost you as you walk by. I was acutely aware of all of it and I was likely the only one, so nobody else appreciated that the store manager yelled out for an employee named Angel just after the angel song had finished, because I was the only one who had actually heard that song.
Later Tuesday, I had some computer problems which required that I shut down my computer. On restart, I heard the Windows XP theme.*** Several times. So since we're keeping score here, Tuesday's music consisted of a snippet from a YouTube video, an aural assault at Walgreen's, and the Windows XP theme. Not bad, all things considered.
Wednesday was better. At one point I had to set my phone's alarm as a reminder, so there was no way to avoid hearing that little jingle that it plays, but I at least knew it was going to happen. This is in contrast to calling Star Pizza later that day to order a pizza for dinner. I was immediately put on hold without having a chance to respond and I got to listen to "Owner of a Lonely Heart." At the end of the day, I decided to watch the next installment of the Up series. There is no music in these documentaries, save the dramatic intro that plays over the Granada Television logo. I figured that was worth it.
By Thursday, I was getting the hang of it. But a strange thing started happening--in the absence of any outside music, by head started playing its own songs and worse, I couldn't stop it. It was like those many times when I have had a fever and my brain latches onto a song and I'm unable to stop the music from coming out of my ears. Music is supposed to go in, not out. There is an interesting scene in Touching the Void, where the broken-legged climber hauls himself over jagged, snow-covered rocks while beset by an insipid pop song that won't stop going through his head****. My situation was like that, minus the life-threatening part. Or, you know, the snow-covered rocks. I know when my time comes, the last desperate electrical signals my brain squeezes out will be some internal representation of "Shake Your Love." I know it. Anyway. Thursday's internal song was chiefly Radiohead's "All I Need," so things could have been worse. Throughout the day, I was forced to hum and--at several points when I wasn't really paying attention--beatbox along with the "sounds" in my head. I have no idea where they were coming from. Beatboxing aside, I heard no music on Thursday.
By this morning I had decided that I'd had enough. Not hearing music means isolating myself more even than I usually do. It was an interesting experiment, but in the end there's just too much "not" there. Even for me.
*Wow, now that's a tortured metaphor if I ever saw one.
**Tap water where I live smells and tastes like rust.
***I run XP as a virtual machine on a Mac and it's less stable than if I ran it natively, if you care.
****I imagined the climber saying this sentence when I wrote it and, being British, he would surely use "whilst" there.
So I was certainly up for the challenge of spending the week without music. I can do that. Negatives are easy for me. All I have to do is not listen to music for a week? Piece of cake. I'm here to report to you, though, that I failed. And not only did I fail, I failed within a couple hours of starting. It was a failure simultaneously spectacular and anticlimactic.
The plan was to start on Monday, so I turned my clock radio's alarm off on Sunday night. I didn't want to wake up to the "Morning Edition" theme and blow the whole deal right off the bat. So I woke up with the sun Monday morning and quietly read news on the internet. I was still pretty convinced that I would have no problem doing this.
I have the option of working from home, so I can easily control my environment. I don't have to listen to the desk speakers of the guy in the next cube or the office down the hall. I'm not stuck in some retail job where I have to listen to the shopping soundtrack at all times. I have been in each of these situations at one point in the past. Not now though.
So I was pretty self-satisfied when I went down to the car to get some lunch. I got in, drove down the road, tapped on the steering wheel along with "Bang the Drum All Day." Damn! I had driven several miles before I even realized that I was listening to music. Game over. And I don't even like that song. Curse you, Rundgren.
There was a time--not in my lifetime or yours--that people had to seek out music, rather than music seeking them out. A hundred or so years ago, there would have been no accidentally running into music. To hear music, you would have to play it yourself or find somebody else who was. This is hard for me to imagine and it makes me think about how much me value music. How much do we appreciate something that is always there, whether we want it or not? This must have something to do with why so many of us feel entitled to just download any music that strikes our fancy without thinking about how much it should be costing us. When the fabric of our lives becomes saturated with something, is it a surprise that we don't think twice about squeezing out a little bit for ourselves?*
After I got through yelling at myself in disgust, I turned the radio off. I had intended to get lunch at a drive-through because there would be no music there, but after failing I could get something better. So I went to a nearby sandwich shop instead, where they played me hits from the 70s as I waited for my sandwich. I resolved to try to stick with this no music program, just to see how far I could get. I accepted that I would probably fail again, but I was going to keep track of all the music that I heard, despite trying not to hear any.
The next bit of music that I didn't want to hear came from a video of Obama's MLK speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church. I feared that there might be music--this was a church, after all--but I wanted to risk it, so I hit play. There was less music than I feared there would be--just a little piano tinkling under the introduction speech. Obama's speech was music free.
That's it. At the end of day one I had heard a bit of music on the radio, a couple 70s rock songs, and a little piano tinkling. Day two went much like day one.
I woke up, loaded NAP in my browser and saw that Heidi had posted a video of Naples. Without thinking, I clicked it and there was the day's first music. I turned it off right away, but I had already failed day two. Worse, I was out of water so I knew I was going to have to go somewhere with music to buy it.** I chose Walgreen's.
Walgreen's was possibly the worst choice for somebody who was avoiding music. Not only was there an annoying song about somebody's angel being piped into the store, but there are also motion triggered sales pitches that accost you as you walk by. I was acutely aware of all of it and I was likely the only one, so nobody else appreciated that the store manager yelled out for an employee named Angel just after the angel song had finished, because I was the only one who had actually heard that song.
Later Tuesday, I had some computer problems which required that I shut down my computer. On restart, I heard the Windows XP theme.*** Several times. So since we're keeping score here, Tuesday's music consisted of a snippet from a YouTube video, an aural assault at Walgreen's, and the Windows XP theme. Not bad, all things considered.
Wednesday was better. At one point I had to set my phone's alarm as a reminder, so there was no way to avoid hearing that little jingle that it plays, but I at least knew it was going to happen. This is in contrast to calling Star Pizza later that day to order a pizza for dinner. I was immediately put on hold without having a chance to respond and I got to listen to "Owner of a Lonely Heart." At the end of the day, I decided to watch the next installment of the Up series. There is no music in these documentaries, save the dramatic intro that plays over the Granada Television logo. I figured that was worth it.
By Thursday, I was getting the hang of it. But a strange thing started happening--in the absence of any outside music, by head started playing its own songs and worse, I couldn't stop it. It was like those many times when I have had a fever and my brain latches onto a song and I'm unable to stop the music from coming out of my ears. Music is supposed to go in, not out. There is an interesting scene in Touching the Void, where the broken-legged climber hauls himself over jagged, snow-covered rocks while beset by an insipid pop song that won't stop going through his head****. My situation was like that, minus the life-threatening part. Or, you know, the snow-covered rocks. I know when my time comes, the last desperate electrical signals my brain squeezes out will be some internal representation of "Shake Your Love." I know it. Anyway. Thursday's internal song was chiefly Radiohead's "All I Need," so things could have been worse. Throughout the day, I was forced to hum and--at several points when I wasn't really paying attention--beatbox along with the "sounds" in my head. I have no idea where they were coming from. Beatboxing aside, I heard no music on Thursday.
By this morning I had decided that I'd had enough. Not hearing music means isolating myself more even than I usually do. It was an interesting experiment, but in the end there's just too much "not" there. Even for me.
*Wow, now that's a tortured metaphor if I ever saw one.
**Tap water where I live smells and tastes like rust.
***I run XP as a virtual machine on a Mac and it's less stable than if I ran it natively, if you care.
****I imagined the climber saying this sentence when I wrote it and, being British, he would surely use "whilst" there.
15 Comments:
For some reason when star pizza played Yes for you, it sent me into a laughing fit. I somehow pictured you throwing the phone down with disgust like when someone reaches into a bag of chips and grabs the dead roach inside it instead.
This was a great post and a great experiment... i wonder what would've happened if you had done like 30 days of this. maybe make a documentary, a la Super Size Me or something.
i feel like such a bad parent. my kid is by my side crying his eyes out because the dog got a "time-out" and i'm laughing out loud reading your blog like a cold-hearted nincompoop.
As an aside, that Up series is awesome.
I agree about the Up series.
Very funny. Man, in the city (or does it matter?) you'd have to plug your ears not to hear music. But you know, back in the day - like a hundred years ago - I wonder if it wouldn't have been any more difficult. People sing all the time. I just feel you would have run into someone, the town knife sharpener, the girl selling cockles and mussels, the guy who picks up the dead in a wheel barrow.
Do you think there would have been more people singing a hundred years ago than there are today?
One of the arguments that Daniel Levitin makes in his book is that it used to be the case that music was a more ingrained part of culture, and that it still is in many parts of the world, and the idea that only some of us are "musicians" is a relatively new and culturally specific one, certainly in regards to singing. I think the specific story he tells is about someone going to Africa and saying that can't sing, and the Africans in question treating him roughly as if he said he couldn't breathe.
I would go along with that idea. Music is like most things, we are encouraged not to think about or experiment with. Because if everybody can do it, why would they want to buy it?
So, this was sort of a sensory deprivation experiment? A sound isolation chamber?
Wasn't it in the news recently that most people start hallucinating after 24 hours of sensory deprivation-- something about famous people wanting to raise awareness about various forms of torture?
Also, I just saw some Beckett this weekend and your post reminded me of Not I.
I suppose it was sensory deprivation of a sort--I did listen to other sounds. These mostly included the bonks and beeps my computer throws at me when it gets frustrated. But maybe the music in my head was sort of like a hallucination. That's an interesting thought.
This story on NPR this morning is somewhat related. Not that anybody is reading these comments anymore.
I'm reading these comments, but mostly I'm thinking about how much more fun it would be if you were standing right here and reciting your blog and ensuing comments in the voice of Lemmy Kilmister, to the tune of "Ace of Spades", or maybe in your best Abe Vigoda voice.
How about we mix it up? I'll read them in the voice of Abe Vigoda AND to the tune of "Ace of Spades." Don't forget the joker!
I've heard music in my head before too, as well as various other sounds. Sometimes I thought my head was receiving something via some kind of signal.
But then I actually thought the dots in front of my eyes were actually atoms.
I don't know what that music/sound thing is, but it's happened to me many times. I've even asked other people if they heard it too.
So, I'm probably crazy.
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