The thing about music is that it only requires one sense to use: the sense of hearing. It's not something you can see or feel (except very very extreme situations with the latter of those two) and it isn't even using the most necessary sense for us (the sense of sight). Because of this, music isn't something that requires as much dedication, so it can be heard whilst multi-tasking. This is the idea of background music -- this isn't a rarity either, there are whole [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_music] genres [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furniture_music] dedicated to background music played at a low volume so you can do other stuff over it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQLh3WanSfg&playnext_from=TL&videos=m2tWVhlzhk0]. Music can be used to fill a void without reducing the current actions considerately.
Fair enough, though there is a difference between it being played in the back ground, and it being "shot" straight into your brain.
This is why people are able to hold conversations/ listen to other people (to an extent) whilst listening to music, it's why they can do work whilst listening to music, it's why they can drive whilst listening to music: whilst it may be a bit of a distraction it doesn't require enough attention to be an issue. I rarely do it myself as I find it too distracting as a whole (with exceptions such as the track by Brian Eno I linked to earlier and other pieces of Ambient, since that's their purpose), but I'm really into music and listening to it critically (concentrating hard on the seperate instruments and textures); it's why I took GCSE Music and why I'm currently doing AS Level Music Technology. If people don't want to listen to music that way and just want something to fill the silence, fair enough I used to do that too.
Filling the silence is fine. When I drive, I put on the stereo and such. But when there isn't silence (like a friend talking to you) why do it?
Out of those 1,000 something songs, there's only about 20 that I like to listen to more than once in a day, so I get bored of my IPod real fast. But on any given school day, with any one of my friends, they all have at least one head phone in their ears all the goddamn time.
This is coming from someone who has just admitted that they're not that into music, so such a result from a comparison is almost inevitable.
Hence why I admitted my bias in the opening couple of sentences
From in class, to study halls, to passing periods; what the fuck are people listening too all day? You may have 4,000 sounds, but I don't think its humanly possible to want to hear any given song on at any given time.
That's why you have that many songs, so that you can change it depending on your mood. If I'm on the bus and feel like listening to Fall Out Boy, guess what I'll do [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgS4mLnk98A&playnext_from=TL&videos=rWrgaUn-3GQ]. However, if I want something even softer, I always have that option to do so [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P6buGd5dBA].
Sure, but you cannot say that you need to listen to those things. You want to. There must be times when you simply don't listen to music because you're not in the mood, right? Or days where you leave the IPod/mp3 ect at home because you just don't feel like it.
I've had people come up to me claiming that the day is going to suck hard because they forgot their IPod at home. I mean, that's a bit excessive.
A friend of mine recently told me that in class his IPod has recorded that he's listened to a song something like 800 times. No matter how much you like a song, I cannot find possible. How many times can you possibly listen to a group of songs, no matter how large?
Once again, the fact that you're not 'much of a fan of music' makes this comparison a bit predictable. But this also depends on how long he's had the iPod and how long he's had iTunes, as listening to stuff on your computer counts as a play on the iPod as well.
Lets say that the song is 3 mins long. 800 X 3 = 2400. There's 1440 in a day. That almost two full days of listening to one song. Not to mention the countless others he has on there. That is what I find bewildering. Again, probably becuase of my bias. I guess I am a man of moderation
It a way of blocking off mental awareness and consciousness.
If anything I find it does this a lot less than gaming or watching TV due to how little dedication it needs, it's just that the other two can't be done as often in public for that very reason, so music seems more antisocial when done in groups.
But excessive gaming/channel surfing is something thats a lot less common than this. That's why I consider this more of a "problem"
Only point I will agree with is the point about one-ear in headphones and one ear listening; not because of how it is anti-social, but because it doesn't give as good a representation of the music than otherwise (not because you're distracted). Being a Music Tech student, one phrase that is essential for me to know is the 'stereo image'. This is where the instruments sound they are coming from, and is a bit hard to describe, so just follow the instructions on this video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA] if you're interested in witnessing the effect of stereo image.
Cutting out the stereo image by only using one speaker potentially cuts out half the sound. Think of it as like seeing only half of Bruegel's painting of The Tower of Babel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_%28Brueghel%29].
Agreed. When I do listen to a song, I get deeply involved into it. I don't understand how people have it as background music constantly. The only reason I can think of is that it is a habit. And a habit that I don't believe is healthy.
