💾 Archived View for oberdada.pollux.casa › gemlog › 2024-05-10_music_addiction.gmi captured on 2024-06-19 at 22:50:27. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2024-05-12)
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When geminispace.info shuts down it will be missed. I have found the list of new gemini hosts particularly useful and hope it will resurface somewhere. Although many new capsules greet the visitor with a Hello World or the hoster's generic message, some already have enough content to indicate if it might be interesting to follow. Many of these capsules do not turn up at all in the usual aggregators, or not very often, so being able to spot them as they are launched is really useful. On the other hand, the "newest gemini pages" feature may have been relevant early on, now it is dominated by what seems to be automatically generated content.
gemini://geminispace.info/newest-hosts
gemini://njms.ca/gemlog/music-addiction.gmi
I understand perfectly well that many people prefer having music in their ears instead of being exposed to the unstimulating, sometimes harsh sound environments of cities. Personally, I have never had the habit of listening to music that way. I did have a walkman, but can't recall bringing it with me outdoors. Instead, inspired by Cage, I would listen to the sounds of the environment as if it was music. If you walk, there is already a metrical grid to project any sound events onto. The rhythms and timbres can be quite fascinating.
Music fasting, if I recall correctly, was something proposed by Peder Bastian, a Danish musician who had written an influential book in the 1980's. His insight that you sometimes need a break from constant music exposure is a piece of common wisdom that many other listeners surely have rediscovered for themselves by reflecting on their music habits.
When I compose music or work with sound art I spend a lot of time listening carefully, critically. I think that's why I don't listen all day to other music. And also because of increasingly tired ears. My listening habits now are dominated by news analysis and some podcasts (Peter Joseph has a really good one, although his thinking is sometimes so complex that a written version might be preferable), and of course an occasional dip into deranged metal bands.
I see no point (almost) in moralising about music listening habits. If you need to regulate your mood, then that's often an efficient way. For moralising, get a copy of Adorno & Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, or really anything by Adorno. It's not hard to guess what he might say about recommendation algorithms and playlists.