Music is more than background noise

2.15pm 5/10/18

“Once I had a woman I could call my own
Once I had a woman, now my woman she gone
Once there was a river, now there’s a stone
You know it’s evil when you’re living alone

Water of love deep in the ground
But there ain’t no water here to be found
Some day, baby, when the river runs free
It’s gonna carry that water of love to me” — Water of Love, Dire Straits

I was reflecting recently on how my life has changed ever since the experience of residential living — ever since I stopped commuting from place to place. Being in a strictly residential college with all the activities and social opportunities being around you seals you tightly in a bubble, as two articles on my college’s resident magazine The Octant would quickly point out. So much of that means that things are just given to you. Friends are given to you; food isn’t a decision so much as a given. Ostensibly so we can focus on academics. This devolves intentionality. Intentionality.

This reflection in particular was prompted by the starting of our band, Model United Nations for the upcoming Bread and Jam concert so graciously hosted by some Yale-NUS College students. Again, a traditional band. As part of that experience, we searched out songs that were classic to us and we all enjoyed — think The Killers, and less “Girl, I’m Kendrick Lamar, A.K.A. Benz-is-to-me-just-a-car”. I sat and listened to When You Were Young a good 20 times, focusing on every instrument, every buildup, every change.

And I realized — music has become background noise for me. I consume it passively, like the lo-fi-hip-hop playlist that plays while I catch up on linear algebra.

Fig 2: Fun to freestyle over tho. Shoutout to Khanya, Abhaya and Boden.

One key change: I noticed that I no longer listen to new music or whole albums. What happened to the Ryan? Previously I had to viciously search for them and I had the opportunity to consume them on the commute; and there they were the central focus of my attention for an hour. I must have turned over The Bends, Is This It, OK Computer, In Rainbows, Definitely Maybe, Dig Out Your Soul, Black Holes and Revelations, The 2nd Law, the like, countless times. I watched so so many music videos on Youtube and listened to every! second! of the song! Dakota by Stereophonics?

Now music features in my life almost as an afterthought — oh yeah, it’s kind of like lounge, it sounds good, (because they all are so well processed these days!), like ah, Poolside, and I don’t know the song names or the lyrics or the bands. I couldn’t whistle you the tune of any of their songs unless they came along. Is that some sick nostalgia? But no, I feel nostalgic for old music that I’ve only just heard proper for the first time this year. Events like EATMEPOPTART feed on such nostalgia intensely;

I found that feeling revisited when I was in New York, because I once again had commutes, I once again spent time walking in the streets, something I don’t do nearly enough here, and something I don’t do alone anymore, but with company, always with company. When I’m alone in my room, I’m always thinking or studying or coding, and StuDiEs ShoW ThaT listening to lyrics when studying distracts you. Hey, I’m not willing to take that risk — I want to do well too. Yes, I have a spotify playlist called “u are trying to pass linear algebra aren’t u”.

Speaking of Spotify, I wonder about the modernizing, a general shifting of society in the way that we consume music and the way that music is disseminated to us – not so long ago, music was such a rare commodity. And then the walkman came. And then people had iPods. And then iPhones and earphones were ubitiquous. And now our device is integrated with other devices and we have automatic music coming to us. Music boxes? What are those. Analog what?

I think about my friends, who go against this grain (though they are preciously few and far between @Minsoo Bae @Alysha Park to name two. P.S Alysha I miss you a lot!!!). Who keep record collections, and listen to new music, and love all forms of it. Must I make the time now to go to record stores, and read online forums discussing Radiohead vs Muse again? Even after all this time I spend interacting with friends, with coding, with reading, and writing? I definitely want to see more of that in myself.

The general point: in our persons, we have two selves — the thinker and the doer.  Yes, the thinker who idealizes their life and plans for it — who desires 2 hours of solid guitar practice and scale practice a day, and 4 hours of study, and then learning VBA and messing around with Machine Learning libraries, and the doer who sleeps in and takes chill days to consume content without thinking about it. (Videos, TV…)

The broader feeling: intentionality. To be intentional with the choices we make and not just let ourselves be pushed around. To have agency and make decisions. To decide what kind of music we like. (It’s comfortable and clean to outsource our decisions to algorithms, but then they aren’t our decisions anymore. And I say this as a budding Computer Science major.) But I digress.

I hope the thinker in me will constantly remind me to appreciate music. To constantly be present, to use the brain and not the spine, as Danvy would say. So we raise a glass to the thinker, the one who wants a better life for both of us (both the thinker, and the doer).  Let’s not make music background noise anymore.