I am about to make a big discovery, or realization — or just statement — about music and listening. We think these two quantities always belong together. Music is something we listen to, and we listen to music. Not so, not necessarily.
I would suggest that listening is akin to tasting in the sphere of food and drink. Of course we often eat without tasting our food, more than in the sense of “I taste this to see if the hamburger and Coca-Cola are okay, if they taste like they should, like they always do.”
After that, taste no more, ladies. Just EAT.
Eating in music would be hearing. If our ears are open we hear music, but we don´t necessarily listen to it. It´s like eating or drinking something that you are very used to; you merely verify and ascertain that this is what you ordered or bought. But tasting — as in really feeling what the food on your plate tastes like, at this very moment — does not enter the picture.
There will be much more to say about this, but I just want to jot down first impressions. Entire genres of music, it seems to me, are not really meant to listen to: techno, folk music (which might be surprising), and (less surprisingly) a lot of modern pop music coming out of the factories. I mean the hit-factories.
Since such “hit songs” are created to offer minimal resistance to our musical “teeth” (they are the opposite of al dente) the hit-makers restrict, cut down and minimize surprises. They want us, the listeners (rather the hearers) to feel “at home” from the start. The song should be like meeting an old friend we haven´t seen for some time. No surprises, just hearty recognition.
“Hit” is actually a wrong term. If these songs at least tried to hit me! No, massage or lull to sleep are correct terms, or, to be a little vulgar (which this music also is, so I am not apologizing) jerk you off in a non-obvious way, so that you hardly notice your own tiny orgasm.
But more anon.
