Excessive volume levels
I think that this is a problem and it may exist because it's easy to crank up an ipod to full volume without annoying the neighbours.
Lower listening quality
Possibly people are paying less attention to music when they listen to it. One thought is that there is nothing wrong with music designed to be listened to with reduced attention. Often the duration is longer than normal music and so you can still perceive the same amount of detail though it is more spread out.
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
Steven was talking about the whole cocoon idea where we bring our own music in order to provide comfort in unfamiliar situations or to shut out the scary outside world. Perhaps this is really a cultural shift towards people preferring their life to have an artificial movie soundtrack (as Steven describes it). Well, as scary as it sounds, I think this is half interesting. Maybe we are all just striving to make our lives like the stereoptypes we see in the movies, but actually I think it's fun to crank Philip Glass and walk around the city and pretend you're living in Koyanisqatsi. Also observing the quiet businessmen on the train to a soundtrack of Mr Bungle can be quite hilarious.
References: Steven Whittington. "Week 1 Music Technology Forum - Listening Culture." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 31 July 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment