Update on the sleep-over, the kids got some sleep! 2am - 9am!!!! Nothing like a good threat when it counts. Actually the mothers were all chatting outside, well a bunch were, and I mentioned that I had told D quite firmly that she had to get some sleep, so they went in and did too.....and the mother of the birthday girl is a daycare teacher....
They got some sleep.
Then youngest had to have a nap. Indeed, she was put to bad around 12:30 and didn't get up again till around three, though she says she didn't sleep, she was actually mostly civil, for which I am very happy.
I got a nap in too, which was very very nice.
I also got a 2 hour march through the hills, which was a delight. Tomorrow is hunting day, so not quite the same.
Still loading music to the iPod, the newer music is what is going to be a bit of a hassle.....
Weirdly, I find it easiest to do with the man present. He has a formidable memory. We have about 300 CD's that we brought over this year when they were finally disinterred from the basement....he remembers what they all are, which songs are on them, which he likes, and generally, which ones I like too!
Amazing.
So hear's my question. Honestly, with the iPod, what I really prefer is listening to podcasts. I have listened my way through most of a Yale University English Literature course, and a bunch of other bits and pieces. I have stuff from the Metropolitan Museum of art and some audiobooks. I think I will try and find some I want to hear more. I am loading music on, but I honestly don't listen to music that much. That feels faintly embarrassing to admit and sounds kind of weird, but when I listen to music, it is generally because I want to listen to the music, not as ambient noise. It is, I think, the result of having spent, and still spending, so many years with lots of kids around and they are n.o.i.s.y. I like the silence. I like someone whispering intelligent and thought provoking things into my ear.....
I listen to music to, consciously, change my mood, usually if I am down and need a kick in the behind to get shifted into a more upbeat frame of mind. Despite this, I love music and we have some great stuff to listen too. I find also I like songs that tell a story, or that have associations for me.....and something that just makes me feel happy.
So, here's the question.
Why do you listen to music when you do?
I'd really like to know.
9 comments:
My music listening usually coincides with house chores. I get so much more done when I have some peppy music in the background - Aretha Franklin, the Stones, whatever. I also listen to cd's on my drive to work - about half an hour. We are a ways up the coast from Victoria so radio reception is a bit shoddy. I usually end up with something from Seattle or Vancouver. This week my cd of choice was Diana King - I bit of pop, some mild rap and a lot of reggae. Not sure yet what next week will be.
The reason I love going to concerts is that you have no distractions. Another place is the car where the distractions are minimal if you are alone. At home its hard, I can't sit there and do nothing and having a male non-multitasking oriented mind doing anything else detracts from the music.
Off to the Toronto Boat Show for the first time in 20? years
Sea Dog
I have music I do things to eg Prokofiev's romeo and Juliet or Satie, and I have some things I can use as background eg some Mozart, Beethoven, and some things that will make everything stop, and if I am in the car I will sit and listen to long after I have stopped eg Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams or Rachmaninov Vespers. Pop music of my youth I still sometimes listen to but it is more background, and there is not pop music that I would just sit and listen to. I like folk music and listen to that but not in the dropping everything way. Some things like the Messiah I will put on and sing all the way through it either while doing other things or just sitting (but with no one else around)
Interesting question. At lunch, for instance, I prefer something instrumental, jazz or classical, to give the words spoken across the table a chance. Also if I want to sit down with a book. But when I want to listen actively, it can be anything I like, classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues.....
On the whole though I mostly don't care much about lyrics, unless they are particularly interesting, I listen to the language of music, rhythms and sounds. And I can hardly ever sit absolutely still, I just have to mark the beat somehow. I used to be a bass player in my teens!
I'll usually listen to music when I need to isolate myself from background noise (at work), and when driving, to stay awake ;)
Doug, Eldest does the same when cleaning her room, good and loud and upbeat!
Sea dog, and at concerts the sound is, one hopes, marvelous. Enjoy the show! It is always fun.
Helen, I think as one of my life goals I should learn to sing my way through the Messiah and the Ode to Joy, however badly, just so I can sing along with it. The local choir practices from 10pm till midnight on a weeknight and has the most appalling repetoire of music. They even sing the Beetle's Yesterday, which I have to admit I abhore.
Swengexpat, there is something about the beat......
ElP, I cannot not listen. I cannot work with it on. I used to be able to, when I was a teen, or I could do what I thought was work anyway. Not sure how good it was, but driving, yes. Though I do prefer an audio book. I'll have to get a jack so I can hook up the iPod to the car stereo next summer and I can download things and listen!
Well I mostly listen to country music these days because I can at least understand the lyrics and the music reminds me of the Rock I listened to in my teenage years. The words are just different. Rock today is a little scary,some of them just wrong. I flipped through the other day and the main line to the song I heard was " I kissed a girl and I liked it" sang by a girl. How did they ever think that one up!
That song's been out for ages!!!!
I downloaded a bunch of music onto the iPod I got given and was astonished to see how much of it was classed as country.
Seems I listen to country too!
Post a Comment