Sometimes online, I stumble upon posts of people born before music streaming was a thing and they explain how listening to new music back then was an experience.
They would go to the shop, buy a CD or vinyl after struggling to choose. Then they'd come home, and listen to the music they had just bought. Nothing more, simply sitting there and listening.
This is really foreign to me as I've always seen music as a commodity. Music is the thing you put in the car, while washing the dishes, when you have a long walk to go somewhere, what's on at the radio when you're grocery shopping.
It is never about the music itself, more like an enjoyable background noise that you pay some attention to, but never all your attention.
And it makes sense that it works that way for me, because music has always been so easily available in nearly infinite quantities so it seems like a nice but unimportant thing.
And I don't mean unimportant in the sense of "I don't care about music, I could live without it", because I'd be so desperate if music were to disappear! I mean unimportant in the sense of it's just a thing that is there, like cars, trees or toothbrushes, they're there and you don't think much about their presence, they're a given.
Nevertheless, this idea of music as an object of its own that I could pay my full attention to seems really appealing to me. When I think about it, it makes sense, music is art and art can often be enjoyed simply for what it is, without needing to do something at the same time. When I watch a movie for the first time, I'm surely not gonna be washing my dishes at the same time. When I read a book, I can't be coding at the same time or both would suck.
So why shouldn't it be the same for music?
And yesterday, the perfect opportunity offered itself to me.
For dinner, I had gnocchi with broccoli and soy cream, my current favourite meal, and as always, it knocked me right in the gut. Too much carbs, and by 8pm I felt like going to bed.
The thing is if I go to bed at 8pm, Neko, my dog is going to wake me up at 3am to go pee... So I had to battle my sluggishness at least until 9:30pm.
After washing the dishes, it was still only barely 9pm, too early, so I decided "well why not use the half an hour I have to lay in bed and listen to music for once?".
I went in bed, swiftly followed by Matcha, one of my cats, who curled inside my arms as we tried to focus on the voice of Momoko Gill.
And it turns out that we both failed miserably!
Matcha was quickly asleep, purring away and dreaming of chasing pigeons. As for me, I was trying so hard to listen to the music, trying to understand the words and enjoy it, but since it was unoccupied by another activity, my mind would just wander eternally.
I couldn't focus on the music for more than a few seconds before a thought came to distract me and by the force of things, music became a background noise again. Background to my tired brain trying to lure me to fall asleep.
The battle was tough, but I resisted. I think I liked the album, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you for sure, because in all honesty, I didn't really listen to it.
And so I wonder, how did people use to listen to music? How did their mind not simply wander away and they forgot that they were supposed to be listening?
Maybe it's simply that I was tired and not able to focus, I'll have to try this another time when I'm fully awake.
Or maybe it's a question of habit, people were used to doing this already, their brains were trained to see music listening as an activity of its own. Then I guess I'll have to train my brain as well until it becomes natural to actually listen to music.
The next morning, I re-listened to Momoko's album while taking Neko to the park and I really enjoyed it.
The part of my brain that tends to wander away in thoughts was preoccupied by checking that Neko wasn't eating duck shit off the ground, it was much easier to let the other part of my brain focus on the music this way.
I wasn't fully present to listen to the music, it was mostly background noise to cover the sound of cars, yet I still listened to it more than when I tried to focus on it entirely, I definitely still have some work to do ^^
If you have any experience listening to music or have tunes to recommend, I'm all ears.
It'd be fun to discover some local artists from where you're from 👀