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Sometimes I Just Don’t Feel Like Listening to Music

My friend has taken to introducing me as her “friend with a Ph.D. in music, but whenever I go to her house, she doesn’t have any music playing!” The other day, I was listening to an interesting program on CBC Radio, about a woman who wrote a book about Cowichan sweaters and lived on a reserve with her Aboriginal husband in the 1970s. I wanted the interview to continue, but it stopped so that a song could be played. I just turned the radio off. This is a regular thing on CBC’s Metro Morning too, where five minutes before the hour/half hour, they play some Latin-jazz salsa-y song that does nothing for me at 6 am. At least then, I know approximately how late I’m going to be.

Yes, it’s true. I teach music classes, I write music reviews, I research music, and I spent most of my life studying music, and sometimes I just don’t want to listen to music.

Stupid, isn’t it, to put this on a website dedicated exclusively to the celebration of some pretty awesome music. But I’m wondering if other people occasionally have a bit of secret guilt over the same thing.

Why don’t I have music on when my friend comes over? My cat doesn’t like music. Just kidding. Actually, it’s because the landlord pays for cable so I’m getting as much as I can out of the deal while it lasts. Just kidding. Seriously, it’s because my husband and I don’t share musical taste, and he comes out and turns off the CD player as soon as I start it up. I go into the bedroom and cry, he tells me to grow up, it drags out for a few hours...

Of course I’m kidding. There are very few areas where our tastes don’t overlap, despite not having any discs in common in our collections. He has often asked me the same thing, why don’t I ever put it on?

I don’t entirely know why. First of all, I do spend at least 3-4 hours per day on solid music listening. It’s not wallpaper, it’s my main focus during those periods, but it’s usually coming through headphones so I can hear everything clearly without disrupting anyone else. Second, well, it is my job. Nobody accuses an accountant of not doing math at home, or a grocery store cashier of refusing to repeatedly count the change in their pockets backwards from $20. Considering many of my responsibilities circulate around finding the perfect example of 6/8 meter or 12-bar blues, or finding the right words to describe someone’s heartfelt concept album about their childhood, sometimes a break from that is kind of appealing. It’s not like I stray far when I do something “fun”. I end up in a ballet class (oops, hearing music), or I read books (about Keith Richards. Shit.), or I watch a movie (about the banjo? Aargh).

Actually, that brings me to another branch of this topic. We have a bunch of movies piled up to occupy our weekend evenings, so every Friday night it’s the same thing: “What do you want to watch?” “I don’t care, you decide.” “No, you decide. I decided last week.” “Well, okay, let’s eliminate by what we don’t want to watch.” Inevitably, there is one night every week where I ban music documentaries. We’ve got both versions of The Decline of Western Civilization, films about the banjo, both versions of the Maxwell Street documentary, that White Stripes movie, a 5-volume history of rock, the list goes on and on... but sometimes I just want a movie with a story. This weekend was Water for Elephants, and it was admittedly pretty disappointing compared to the next night’s Maxwell St. movie, And This is Free. Nevertheless, I kind of feel like I’m in class, or doing class prep, when I watch a movie like that.

Boy, I sound like an obnoxious jerk, don’t I? How dare I say this when I’ve been fortunate enough to spend my life immersed in my passion, right?

Well...passion? Ok. Truth is, my “passion” changes pretty frequently. I gasped my way through a clarinet audition to my university music program, thinking it might be the easiest way to get in, and was thoroughly turned down. So the next year, my audition was on piano, and it was met with about the most insulting comment on the jury sheet that I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. Whatever, that’s what classical university music programs are built on, tearing students down continually so that they don’t embarrass the teacher on the concert stage. Fair enough. Anyway, it’s cool ‘cause I got in despite the comment.

This is it! I thought. I’ll be a Beethoven expert! Music history! It’s gonna be great. Turns out Beethoven’s been done. Okay, I’ll go with the Beatles. They’ve been done too. I finally figured it out in my final undergrad year when I made weekly trips to the public library, taking out every copy of Paul McCartney and Wings, Ian Tyson, Neil Young, Stan Rogers...and realized I was pretty hot for Canadian music in the end.

All of this silly navel-gazing has a point. My overall passion, yes, has been music, but my relationship with it, and work in it, continually changes. So I don’t necessarily think of it as a passion, but as a pretty interesting job that does sporadically require a break. That means I generally don’t have background music on in the house (anyway, what is that? I can’t concentrate on anything else when music is on, so it’s never background) and it means that sometimes I want to occupy myself with an activity that has nothing to do with music. Do practicing musicians feel this way? Do music critics? Is this a normal occurrence, or should I be looking for another job?

Well, I know I should look for another job anyway, because it turns out there are no full-time jobs for doctors of country music. I just hope I don’t have to start counting change backwards again.

Comment by Kim Ruehl on January 17, 2012 at 5:45am: A month or two ago, my girlfriend said "It's funny how infrequently there's music on in the house now that I live with a music critic." It's the only path to sanity, my friend. When I first started working as a music writer/critic/reporter, music was a 24/7 thing. I was still a performer, so I was writing songs on my downtime (quite obsessively and compulsively, albeit in waves), or practicing with my band. My partner at the time was a yoga instructor and also my keyboard player, so even going to my exercise class, there was music in the background of her selecting. Music was on while making dinner, while getting ready for the day, in my earphones as I typed away on a feature story at the coffee shop... I got to a point where I forgot how silence felt. Just the calm empty everythingness of a silent room.

Now, I make a point of NOT listening to music during certain times of my day. I don't generally listen to it when I'm writing at all, unless I'm reviewing an album (something I try not to do, because I don't find my voice as a critic very useful or enjoyable, and the way my job has shaken out, I don't really HAVE to review records very often). Sometimes when I'm working on Zilphia things, I'll listen to a loop of different people singing "We Shall Overcome" or "This Little Light of Mine," but I find there's value in the silence, when my brain has room to stretch out its own roots, come up with its own ideas, shape its own thoughts.

When I listen to music outside of work these days, it's purely to enjoy it...or to enjoy something. I'll put it on at a dinner party or something. I listen on the plane because I hate flying and it helps me to relax. But mostly, honestly, if I do it, it's because I want to truly stop and listen. It's an event. It's the only way to retain my passion for the stuff - to let it rest until it's time for it to take center stage. After all, I've been around music - whether studying it, making it, or writing about it - for 30 years now. Like any relationship that's been going that long, music and I just can't be in that constant PDA phase anymore. Music and I have made babies together and taken trips together and built a life together. Now we can just kind of relax together between the moments when we're focusing entirely on each other.

I say don't sweat it. I try not to.

Comment by Derek on January 17, 2012 at 7:18am: I'm in no way a professional musician, but I set sometimes I won't touch my instruments for days or even weeks. I need that break from playing music. It comes in cycles.

I also have cycles in my music listening habits. On occasion I will consciously turn off music to get a break. Granted, it's usually after I've gone to a concert or long jam session. But it also occurs when I've repeatedly listened to the same music. It takes a new album or song to knock me out of the funk. I guess it's partially why I come here, to find new music and whet my appetite for music again.

Comment by Easy Ed on January 18, 2012 at 8:02pm: Kind of funny that when music was how I earned my living, I probably listened to it a lot less than I do now. It became a commodity or a means to an end, something marketed and sold for money. When the business left me, it opened up or reawakened my passion and not only did I start to listen more, but it got those creative juices flowing and my need to make music increased as well.

One of the good things about not having a real honest to goodness job these days has been having more time on my hands to write here, and the byproduct of that is my mailbox is usually stuffed with new music for me to review. I love having that opportunity of exposure to new things, and I can't even begin to describe the joy of discovery that has come back into my life. I do try and "keep office hours" so to speak, and the music flows through the speakers (or the headphones) from about seven in the morning til four in the afternoon. And than I give it a rest.

But your post comes to me on an interesting day. As I'm "all digital all the time", today I uploaded about fifteen new CDs to my iTunes. As I usually do, I quickly scanned each one to make sure it would be something I will be interested to spend time listening to so it doesn't get lost in the library. And lo and behold, I think that about two or three survived the dreaded delete button. I found myself just absolutely bored with what I heard, and much of it were new releases from artists I really like a lot and had been anticipating. So I don't know whether it was ear fatigue, or some cosmic shift of my tastes and preferences. But when all you want to listen to is a Leadbelly out of print album from the forties, well...somethings up.

Two other passions fill my time, usually when it gets dark. I'm hooked on cable...Storage Wars, Full Throttle Saloon, Jersey Shore, Jerseylicious, COPS, Hoarders, Intervention and yes....those how-to-build-a-house shows are on my tube often. And the news. Lots of news. And I read periodicals and books and books and books.

Oh yeah.....there's the wife, kids, dog and cat too.

Comment by Will James on January 19, 2012 at 10:11am: "First of all, I do spend at least 3-4 hours per day on solid music listening. It’s not wallpaper, it’s my main focus during those periods" - and you're wondering why you don't listen the rest of your waking hours?

Comment by Gillian Turnbull on January 19, 2012 at 1:07pm: Heh, yeah, I guess. Thanks for the perspective, Will.

To the rest of you: nice to read your comments and your personal take on things. You're such great writers.

Ed: your tv habits wouldn't survive in my house. I'm all about Millionaire Matchmaker ;)

Comment by Peter Thompson on January 20, 2012 at 8:35am: I often listern to speech radio as an alternative to music , I find that I can become saturated with music and require a break . there s so much to listern too though, the choice is endless .

Comment by Melody Walker on January 21, 2012 at 1:12am: As a songwriter I find it's sometimes totally necessary to keep out all those other sounds for a while to let the original ideas in. I once heard a story that Bobby McFerrin went a year trying to avoid hearing any recorded music in any form in order to clear his creative palette. No idea if that's true or not, but I often think of that story when remembering that silence is okay.

Comment by Jim Moulton on January 27, 2012 at 1:05pm: I listen to so much music that I get to review, sometimes, I need a break and will listen to talk radio or watch a dumb cable reality show. I feel bad telling someone that I don't like their CD, but I can't lie to them. Most people seem to appreciate honesty.