Ransom Riggs
How Do You Listen to Music?
by Ransom Riggs - June 7, 2010 - 10:04 AM

When was the last time you sat down in front of a stereo — especially a real stereo, not just an iPod dock with the speakers six inches apart — and did nothing but listen to music? When was the last time that a song was your sole focus — the main event? I started thinking about this on a flight across the country yesterday, on one of the few airlines that don’t put a video screen in the back of every headrest. It was just me, my five square feet of thrombosis-inducing personal space, and my iPod, and for the first time in a long time I just closed my eyes and gave all my concentration to music. Listening to songs I’d heard a hundred times before, I kept hearing subtleties, quiet lyrics and background sounds and unusual harmonies, that I had never noticed before. And I thought: this is fun. Why don’t I do this anymore?

I think it’s because the place of music in our lives has shifted. Purists might argue that music’s been demoted — these days, music always seems to play second fiddle to some other activity: exercising, driving, eating in a restaurant, hanging out at a party. Music’s become an accompaniment, a background filler. A way to kill silence. The strongest evidence for this might be the devices we use consume it: no longer the fussy stereo systems of the past, once the centerpiece of any home entertainment system, sales of which have been in decline for years. Music is no longer allowed to be stationary, to fill a single room only. We want it inside our heads — which is essentially where earbuds put it — and we don’t seem to mind much the loss of sound quality that comes with that, or with the generally inferior format most of us have adopted, the MP3, which turns the bassy parts into mud and the brassy clash of a cymbal into a sibilant mess.

I guess what I’m arguing is this: we still love music, just not the way we used to. What do you think?

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Comments (45)

  1. It’s very strange how much I used to love music and listen to it all the time. But over the past several years, it seems to be becoming a smaller and smaller part of my life. I think that part of this is just part of growing up. Teenagers and college aged students have always associated large parts of their identity to certain bands or genres of music. But when you get a little older, your life gets more hectic, you care less about what people think of you, and it starts to seem like music just isn’t as important as it once was. But recently, I’ve had a small revival. When my 1 year old son starts misbehaving or throwing a fit, I put on some satellite radio and he’s instantly smiling, laughing, and dancing. I was thinking to myself the other day during one of these sessions, “Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve listened to music. I’ve really missed it.” We all need music in our lives.

    posted by Eric on 6-7-2010 at 10:22 am

  2. As a musician (piano, flute, guitar), listening to music has always been the focus of my intention. At least an hour or two each day I spend laying around really listening to music – the voices, pitch, tone, melody, transitions, syncing, and changes thereof. When you can focus on it and actually feel the music, it’s relates to almost something spiritual.
    In terms of sitting in front of a stereo: since high school, many people still listen to records. I’m in college now and it’s still something I like doing. My dad got me into it when he played me a record of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band and Madness (I’m an alternative and punk fan, but I have a soft spot for big band and ska). Just to sit in front of a record player and listen is such a relaxing experience. Not to mention, original records have much better sound quality!

    posted by Vicky on 6-7-2010 at 10:36 am

  3. Sadly, this is true. I am a music lover, but it’s almost always as background music. I have music to work to, to drive to, to clean to. It’s almost always background.

    However, when I attend shows by my favorite bands, those moments are so great because the music is all I can focus on. It surrounds the crowd, and you can hear ever nuance, every chord, every word that the artist or band intends for you to hear. At that point, everything else becomes background for the music.

    posted by Haley on 6-7-2010 at 10:36 am

  4. I totally agree with you. I started out listening to music on my Dad’s Technics stereo. It was the my Dads’ ark. It sits in the attic now. He’s started using an iPod. LIke Eric, my dad has lost some of the attention on music. Me, I’m used to my iPod. Every time I listen to a song, I always manage to hear something new. I’m 20 so I definitely fall into the iPod- iTunes generation. I haven’t lost sight of what I listen to though. It’s not filler for me. Not even close. I spend nights closing my door, cranking the tunes up, sit back, and enjoy.

    posted by Isaias on 6-7-2010 at 10:48 am

  5. I would agree; now that everyone (it seems) has a portable mp3 player, listening to music isn’t so much an event as it is a layer of everyday life.

    I think my views changed when I was given a refinished stereo from the 70s and a giant box of records.

    Part of the problem, I believe, is in how the editing process changes songs now. In the days of vinyl, the band might try a few times and take the best performance. Now, each member of the band performs separately, several times, and the best seconds of each performance are cobbled together. Every hint of warmth or error has been taken out of the music. It might as well be computer-generated, because there’s no human element.

    Listening to my old records, you can hear the strings on guitars being plucked. You can hear the band members talking to one another. You can hear variations in pitch. Rather than being detrimental to the quality of the music, they remind you that it was people who made the music for the people who love it.

    posted by Mandy on 6-7-2010 at 11:07 am

  6. I agree with Mandy, music is now like an everday part of life. But I still get enjoyment out of it, I’m always listening to music. When I’m walking, or on the bus, my earbuds are in. I listen to the radio, files on my comp, Pandora.

    Well, I think I’m the only person my age who still buys CD’s, I just like to have the actual object.

    posted by Dale on 6-7-2010 at 11:35 am

  7. Lately I have been helping my father and brother repair 2 jukeboxes built in the 1970′s. what makes it interesting is that each one came with literally hundreds of old vinyl 45′s. After making a few repairs here or there, the best way we have to test our work is to listen to them. Led Zepplin, Hendrix, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac. And many, many terrific groups to listen to.

    and we bought a new record player just to test out the records in the house as well.

    Dad also is a collector of Victrola record players (over 60). so we have some especially old records from 1930-1950 as well. absolutely fantastic mucis from some artists that many today, even myself have never heard of.

    posted by Kirkland on 6-7-2010 at 11:36 am

  8. There’s something very euphoric about putting a record on my turntable and just focusing on what I’m listening to. Culture really has changed in that sense. It’s sad, but it’s not something that I think won’t ever come back.

    posted by Braden on 6-7-2010 at 12:00 pm

  9. I understand this dilemma as a lover of music. It has changed somewhat recently with my discovery of quadraphonic and 5.1 albums. These more or less require you to sit largely in the center of the sound field and just listen. And it is fantastic. But even then, it can be hard to just sit and listen. I think we might all be a little too ADD for that anymore.

    posted by Kristofer Hough on 6-7-2010 at 12:01 pm

  10. Vinyl is becoming quite popular (I guess in an underground way) again. I have a bunch of it and I love listening to it when I’m at school and have a player in my bedroom. During holidays or the summer, it’s in my family’s living room and harder to find a chance to listen to it.

    posted by Jennifer on 6-7-2010 at 12:04 pm

  11. What also helped with focusing on the music was sitting down in an “enhanced” frame of mind, putting the LP on the stereo and pouring over the liner notes and the art work of the album. This helped you begin to understand lyrics, themes and statements the artists might have been trying to get across through their music.

    posted by alan on 6-7-2010 at 12:11 pm

  12. I listen to more live music than ever. On the other hand, I only listen to music in my car when there’s nothing grabbing my attention on NPR. I rarely play music at home and don’t much care for it while computing–even the beloved Pandora. Yup,I’m older now and I think the world is a much noisier place so peace and quiet is a good thing.

    posted by Alice V on 6-7-2010 at 12:17 pm

  13. I often listen to music when I am driving, and occasionally as background noise when I am active around the house.

    I must say though, I am also a musician and a performer. And when I listen to music, it is usually to figure out how to play the piece, or to find the nuances and subtle notes. I intentionally find those things when I listen to music with the intent to perform. Sadly, that also robs me of the raw fun of just listening to the song sometimes. I very rarely get to do so for just that pure enjoyment anymore.

    posted by Billy on 6-7-2010 at 12:22 pm

  14. It’s sad but true that the days of listening exclusively to music are waning. Through no fault of their own, younger people today have no conception of it and so fewer and fewer will pass that tradition down to their kids. People are plugged in and assaulted by multimedia on a minute-by-minute basis of every day at all times.

    To resist it, we’d have to decide to sit there and concentrate on one thing. But that’s not valued in our culture. What is valued is so called “multi-tasking” where you’re doing a dozen things at once and none of them very well.

    You’re on your cellphone at the airport with your boss who wants a Powerpoint presentation by the time your plane lands. Interrupting this call is the text from your girlfriend who reminds you of her mother’s party tomorrow night and can you please pick up a card? While texting back, you stand in line to get some water and chocolate for the flight while music is blaring in the background. Waiting for your flight to board, you simultaneously listen to your iPod, glance at CNN on the airport TVs (Gulf oil spill, angry North Koreans, Lindsay Lohan’s new scandal) and try to read a book. Once boarded, the woman next to you is yammering about her trip to Vegas so while you try to politely converse with her, get your water and chocolate open, browse the in-flight magazine and order a ginger ale from the stewardess, you remember the Powerpoint presentation for which you boot up your laptop, plug in your headphones to “listen” to music, organize the pictures from your trip and browse the cached copy of mental floss you saved before you got on the plane *wink*.

    This is the defacto STANDARD in our society. We go to bed at 2am and get up at 6 to get MORE DONE so that we can save up to take a fun filled trip (with LOTS of fun activities!) to recharge our batteries in order to go back and get EVEN MORE DONE to get a BETTER job where we can DO EVEN MORE to go on a better trip where we can do EVEN MORE FUN ACTIVITIES BEFORE WE DIE!

    I’m as guilty as anyone else of these things but there was a time when closing the door, sitting between two speakers and listening to an album could take me a a different time and place without me even having to leave the room!

    If you haven’t done it in awhile, kick back and just LISTEN. Force yourself not to get up and do anything else and by about song 3 or 4 you will forget about everything else. You might even rediscover one of the greatest things on earth, MUSIC!

    posted by Phasmoid on 6-7-2010 at 12:51 pm

  15. My preferred method for listening to music has always been with headphones. That removes the acoustic oddities or your surroundings. It also explains why I never “got” acts that depended as much (or more) on choreography, outrageous appearance, or sex appeal as they did on musical ability. Music is what you hear thru headphones, the rest is marketing.

    posted by PartiallyDeflected on 6-7-2010 at 1:14 pm

  16. I’m a commuter and spend about 2hrs each day on the train. Often I read, sometimes I sleep (more often than not, both :) but another big part of my ride is listening to music on my iPhone. It can really set the tone for the day, or reverse a bad day on the way home. Sometimes it’s a bit filler, but I often put on my favorites and relax to the melody, follow the lyrics in my head. I’d like to think I haven’t lost the art of listening.

    However, I recently put the finishing touches on my library in our new house (my husband has his office with his computer, I have my books and sofa!). When we moved I had my parents bring my old stereo, so perhaps my phone won’t be the only way for me to listen to music anymore.

    posted by Kate on 6-7-2010 at 1:30 pm

  17. I’ve always been a fan of listening to and creating music. I went through a period a few years ago where I downloaded everything good. I would scour “best albums of XXXX” lists for cool albums by cool bands, and then dive a little deeper into the artists that especially intrigued me. I thought that was okay, and it was nice having the music readily available, but there was something lacking. Over the past year, I have started a new kind of scouring. On weekends, lunch breaks and sometimes even “mental health” breaks during my paid work day, I’ll dig through boxes of records at flea markets, thrift stores and ebay. I live in a smaller town without a decent record store, so when I go to bigger cities (Toronto especially), I’ll spend a few bucks at their record stores. Mostly what I’m looking for is good, interesting tunes that I can put on my turntable and just focus on. I look forward to it every day. Knowing that I have a pretty decent stereo at home, and access to so many people’s former record collections via the aforementioned outlets, makes me feel good to live in a time when everything else is so expendable. I know that when I have a particular bad day at work, or wherever, I have that safe spot at home, where the music comes alive in front of me (but feels like it’s happening all around me). There is so much stuff around, and with a little digging and research, you can find amazing music for cheap. and it has substance.

    posted by Trevor on 6-7-2010 at 1:45 pm

  18. I use my ears mostly.

    posted by Joe on 6-7-2010 at 2:04 pm

  19. I recently bought a used copy of Big Country’s “Driving to Damascus” and copied it onto my computer at work. As it was playing in the background I thought, “This isn’t bad, but not as good as their debut.”

    I was at home the other night, goofing on the computer, and decided to see if the disc I had bought really was just “pretty good.” I put it on, kicked up the volume a bit, and pulled out the lyrics and liner notes. Then I put the computer aside.

    I was blown away.

    I turned out the lights, and let the music wash over me. I felt like a teenager again. The CD is brilliant.

    I now hear it in a different way, even if I’m working away with it in the background.

    I guess I just have to make the time to really pay attention.

    posted by Michael on 6-7-2010 at 2:14 pm

  20. Actually, music has been used as accompaniment to other activities for as long as there’s been music. Think dancing. Think religious worship. Think chamber music where rich folks strolled in their gardens (the origin of the musical form “Air”)or ate their suppers or flirted and preened in the splendor of an opera house.

    The notion of concert music that people sat down for the sole purpose of listening to dates to about the time of Beethoven, with the invention of the subscription concert.

    Of course people listened to music for its own sake, too, but the notion that until the 20th century people sat stock-still in rapt attention every time music was played is simply not the case.

    French composer Eric Satie, for instance, deliberately intended his music to be accompaniment for other activities (first in his cabaret compositions, then as music for pantomime, then again at the Schola Cantorum).

    What aided the notion of music-as-wallpaper (which was called “ambient music” until that became its own style invented by Brian Eno with his *Music For Airports* in 1978. It can still be heard, I believe in the Atlanta airport tot his day) was the invention of mass musical reproduction and broadcast at the turn of the 20th century. Now people could have as much music as they wanted, all around themselves and at all times…which is one of the things they’ve wanted from music all along.

    posted by Maxrad on 6-7-2010 at 2:17 pm

  21. One of my fondest childhood memories is of lying on the floor in front of my dad’s stereo, while Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries boomed forth, shaking the floor (and my insides). I also developed a fondness for Franz Liszt. As I reached my teen years, I would crank Zeppelin and Hendrix. All of this played from vinyl through a Heathkit amplifier, which my dad constructed. The speakers were KLH Model Seventeens.

    I continued to enjoy music in the CD age, both rock and classical, until I got married. After that, I never really had time to sit and enjoy the music anymore, not without distraction, anyway. Nowadays, it’s always through my computer while doing something else or while driving in my car. The last time I tried to sit and just listen, I felt guilty for not doing anything productive and turned it off. What has happened to me?

    My dad’s Heathkit system gave up the ghost years ago, but I still have the KLH speakers. Recently, I replaced the capacitors in the speakers’ crossovers and re-doped the woofer surrounds, and was absolutely stunned by the sound. Nothing like the boomy mush you hear from so many modern stereo speakers. Tight, clean, crisp, with an detailed sound stage. These KLHs are now the main speakers for my home theater. I am shocked that these grand old speakers built in 1963–five years before I was born–sound so great in the digital age. These speakers may help restore my love of music. Now, I just need to find the time to sit and listen….

    posted by Jungle Rich on 6-7-2010 at 2:28 pm

  22. I actually listen to music, instead of watching TV frequently. Our local cable company has many music channels which I will listen to when playing on the computer, cooking or doing housework. It’s just much more relaxing than trying to pay attention to something on TV

    posted by Doug K on 6-7-2010 at 3:15 pm

  23. I’m a classical musician and have been sitting through live concerts and recordings for as long as I can remember. Although I play background music much of the time, it just doesn’t compare to letting yourself be immersed in the weave of the music. It can be incredibly cathartic.

    My husband also comes from a family of classical musicians, and his grandfather would frequently hold “listening parties” at home for his friends. This being in South Africa, they would often leave the living room door open to the lawn, where a local tortoise roamed. Whenever they put an LP of Wagnerian opera on, the tortoise would make its way into the living room and sit there until the record was finished. If they ever switched the record to Beethoven or another composer, the tortoise would invariably get up and leave.

    posted by EH on 6-7-2010 at 4:02 pm

  24. I listen to music everyday and I find it soothing to listen to music right before I go to bed (have occasionially fallen asleep in my headphones) it is one thing that I truely enjoy and I think you should always make time to do the things you enjoy :)

    posted by lydia on 6-7-2010 at 4:21 pm

  25. In your article, you said:
    “…the MP3, which turns the bassy parts into mud and the brassy clash of a cymbal into a sibilant mess.”
    However, this is not true. MP3 files do not alter what we hear in the music in anyway, in fact, MP3 files only take away what humans do not hear to compress the song into a smaller and more readable format. Therefore, MP3 does not change the music in any way in which it is humanely possible to notice.

    posted by Cheyenne on 6-7-2010 at 4:39 pm

  26. Pauline Oliveros coined a term for this type of thing “deep listening.” It’s briefly described here: http://deeplistening.org/site/content/about

    Pretty interesting stuff. I used to be really into that sort of thing.

    posted by Andrew D on 6-7-2010 at 4:51 pm

  27. I listen to music constantly — from the time I get up until I go to sleep, and even after until the timer shuts off. I still have some old vinyl, but what I find listening to digital is how much more I hear in songs that I never heard before when I heard it on vinyl. How I listen to music has not changed over the years; it’s always been like a soundtrack to my life, and it still is. I find what I choose to listen to reflects what’s going in my life rather than influence it. My idea of personal hell would be a long road trip without radio reception and a dead mp3 player!

    @ EH: I’d book it, too, if Beethoven came on! Mozart and Grieg, though, I’d hang around for!

    posted by Beth on 6-7-2010 at 5:01 pm

  28. I listen to music almost constantly. At work, I work at night in an empty building, when I sleep, when I am the only one home, when i walk, etc. I have a 5.1 receiver, two i-Pod speaker sets, and my i-Mac. The only time I don’t is when the grandson is watching TV or I am pedaling my bike.

    posted by gus on 6-7-2010 at 5:36 pm

  29. I also think the plight of music, media, and the details of life, in general, is sad. We are quickly becoming an artificial world – more so every day. Craftsmanship has all but gone out the window. I do think there will come a reactionary time when it will be “en vogue” (on a large scale) to listen to real vinyl, read a book or comic book made with real paper, drink a coca cola out of a glass bottle, watch a movie that is saved to real film, sit in furniture made with real wood, dress in clothes made from 100% cotton, and have original paintings on the wall with real brush strokes – not prints. I hope that people will eventually reach a fever pitch in their lives and rediscover ways for release in these simpler, nostalgic mediums or some ideal combination of old and new.

    posted by Bruce on 6-7-2010 at 5:52 pm

  30. I listen to music on the stereo, on my mp3 player, in my head without any music and live. As a musician, I get frustrated by the fact that I can’t really listen to the music I’m playing the way the audience can. The most astonishing performances I own are the performances of old pros on talk shows. Solomon Burke singing “Don’t Give Up on Me” on the Tonight Show, Moxy Fruvous singing “Splatter, Splatter” on Conan or Jon Hendricks singing “Gimme That Wine! on Conan. I never get tired of hearing these no matter the medium.

    posted by Tim S. on 6-7-2010 at 6:26 pm

  31. My boyfriend and I actually listen to more music on our stereo since we got our iPods, because it’s so much easier to DJ. We regularly stay up until 4 or 5 a.m. on a Saturday night playing music for each other – and we’re in our forties! I swear it’s the best thing ever.

    posted by vikkitikkitavi on 6-7-2010 at 7:33 pm

  32. Back in my day – assume 40+ – no really – u ‘felt’ music as much as had your eardrums mainlined it into your digi-xperience. Albums on vinyl had a lot to do with that. You guys are missing one of the joys that came with big speakers and analog-driven-by-needle sound. Feel bad for you all. Analog, parent-angering, wall-shaking FM album goodness was rock!! Boom Boom lame.

    posted by Timo on 6-7-2010 at 7:50 pm

  33. With my ears.

    posted by Dail on 6-7-2010 at 8:55 pm

  34. boom cars make me physically ill. anybody else ?

    posted by dirk alan on 6-7-2010 at 9:47 pm

  35. As a soprano in a city choir, there’s a good chunk of music which I get live during every practice. :-) Combine that with going to a church that has a rockin’ band, and friends and family who love a good hymn-sing, and I am not hurting for true musical experiences.

    I’m AD/HD, and in a strange twist, music (especially Baroque) goes a long way towards helping me concentrate. So it forms the background of my work day. Not that I don’t also enjoy it.

    But I also own a fine pair of earphones – the big, bulky kind – for when I want to really listen. It’s cheaper than a sound system, and nearly as good. Nothing beats a fine piece of music through a fine medium.

    posted by Andrea on 6-7-2010 at 10:09 pm

  36. Most of the time music’s in the background — listening while studying, bicycling, bus-riding, etc.

    But when I want to make it an event, I just pull out a record. Abby Road is a special favorite of course but Tupelo Honey and Rumors actually make me sit and listen to the songs.

    posted by Ashley on 6-7-2010 at 10:19 pm

  37. Pink Floyd is what I use especially Dark Side Of The Moon. I have the record and an actually record player and when I play that album I just let go and let my body fall with the changing moods of the songs.

    posted by Osvaldo on 6-7-2010 at 11:00 pm

  38. MP3 compression is “lossy”, which means that the sound is altered when it is compressed, because key information is being thrown away.

    Previous commentator Joe “uses his ears” and though likely meant in jest, intelligent and critical listening is key to the enjoyment music.

    To discerning ears MP3s sound like mush. That is why Neil Young described Apple as the “Fisher-Price” of music.

    posted by Listener on 6-8-2010 at 3:37 am

  39. I recently fulfilled my long-held ambition of getting a high-end sound system for my living room.

    It has been such an awesome experience. For the first time I am hearing the subtleties and nuances that the producers and sound engineers put into recordings that I thought I knew.

    I have not had as much sheer musical joy in years. Money well spent.

    posted by Andrew on 6-8-2010 at 4:23 am

  40. I listen to music — really listen to music — every day on my commute to and from work. It helps that I walk instead of drive, although I’m certain that I will meet some sort of painful traffic-related experience one day. It also helps that I’m not much for the hustle-bustle of social networking, or constant texting. What I do to help me focus on the music is to visualize the song, basically I make my own music video in my head. It makes me focus on the instrumentation and lyrics…not so much the cars threatening to mow me down.

    posted by Leigh on 6-8-2010 at 6:14 am

  41. “the MP3, which turns the bassy parts into mud and the brassy clash of a cymbal into a sibilant mess.”

    Not true. MP3, by nature, only takes fewer samples of an audio file – the amount it reduces is barely enough to affect even the highest frequencies we folks can hear. Any degradation in audio quality is a result of REALLY badly encoded mp3s, which in this day and age aren’t necessary at all – a typical iPod has more than enough room for a fair amount of 320kbps, 44.1kHz mp3s, which represent every frequency in the human hearing range, and then some.

    posted by Broseph on 6-9-2010 at 12:47 am

  42. @Maxrad – Satie once called it “knife and fork music”, I believe. The idea, of course, being that the music is paid no more attention than the tinkling of silverware.

    I find I lose the enjoyment of all the music I have if I don’t take the time to listen to it. As a former performer, (Ha) it’s easier to appreciate the artists, as opposed to the celebrities. Lady Gaga only makes it through one play in order to dissect the music, whereas Leo Kottke needs several listens to really hear the piece.

    posted by Katchup on 6-13-2010 at 4:13 am

  43. If you’ve ever heard of Asperger’s Syndome (or Autism), a common trait is that we tend to rock our heads back and forth. Inherited from my mother, before I could even stand withoug support I was rocking to music, and I still do it today. So that’s how I listen- I stand and rock, hands intertwined before me. It comes as naturally to me as dance does to others, and feels so good to do that dancing doesn’t hold a candle for me.

    ALthough I have near-perfect pitch, I lack coordination to a degree, so I never was as interested in actually playing music like my mother (who is a gifted musician and can boast a repetoire of around 30 different instruments).

    posted by Araxie on 6-27-2010 at 3:45 pm

  44. Every now and then, my husband and I will light some candles and listen to Miles Davis. It’s still so nice to just sit in a dark(ish) room and listen to great music. I still have quite a few records too, but no record player…(one of these days!)

    posted by Logan on 7-7-2010 at 6:06 am

  45. Phasmoid hit it pretty close… our technology driven super competitive over achieving culture has pretty much destroyed our ability to appreciate any form of art, especially music. Music is a form of communication, and that’s why I listen to it – the artist has something to communicate and has a musical skill/talent/gift with which to speak. Or, he’s going through the motions to make a $$, in which case it’s usually obvious and I have no interest. I do listen less these days though, it’s because of depression and a bad relationship.

    posted by Dave on 9-18-2010 at 10:04 pm

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