Listening To Music... I Mean Really.

I'm listening to a 1989 recording of Chick Corea's Akoustic Band with Dave Weckl on drums and John Patitucci on upright bass.  Its awesome.  I think Chick, in fact I think all three of those guys just bring the fire every time they pick up their axe.  I happen to have this recording on vinyl.

 

I also have an amazing vinyl record player that I got for christmas a few years ago.  There is a company called Crosley that still manufactures vintage style record players reminiscent of the 1940's.  Mine can stack 6 records, play cds, and has an old analog dial for the am/fm tuner.

Vinyl is great.  It sounds great.  It looks cool and, oh yeah, it sounds great!  You lose almost no sound quality in the conversion from studio to home speakers.  But there is another reason that vinyl records are superior to their technologically advanced children.  They actually support the idea of listening to the music!  Follow me here.  You have to physically pick up this large disc, place it on the turntable, pick up the needle, and gently set it down into a specific groove.  After only half of the album is finished, you then turn the record over to finish listening.  Of course you can do other things like cleaning or homework or whatever.  But you can't make a mix(well, you need some software and the right equipment) or listen to the music in your car or do too many other things before the record player needs your attention again.  Think about it.  When was the last time you actually listened to music?  Most people including myself would probably say they listened to something within the last 24 hours.  But even while I write this, I'm not actually listening to Chick Corea.  I'm still taking a sound bath, trying to figure out what my next sentence will be in this blog.  

It's so easy to turn on the tv, or do other things instead of sitting down and listening to music.  We've become so much of a visual/fast paced society that it's difficult to just sit down and listen.  I hope I don't sound preachy-- I'm writing this article as much for me as anyone else.  So last week I told myself that every night before I go to bed and before I turn on the tv I would listen to 1 album of my choice on vinyl and with headphones.  No cleaning, no blogging, no email, no internet, no family or friends(unless they wanted to join in on this mini project), no writing, no distractions.  Just uninterrupted listening to music.  This turned out to be an amazing idea which I'm sure lots of my musician friends and hopefully other friends might already do.  Sure I've actually, really listened to music before.  I'm a musician.  But usually I was trying to learn how to play something.  I was probably transcribing a passage of a great pianist or learning the chords or lyrics to particular song.  But just simply listening?

I felt relaxed but still engaged with what was happening as the notes filled my ears.  I became more aware of each instrument as well as the 'sound' of the recording.  The panning, the mixing, the space, the arrangement, the performance, the quality all became so evident to me. Since last week I've really listened to Rubber Soul(Beatles), Cosmic Slop(Funkadelic), You Must Believe In Spring(Bill Evans), Guero(Beck), The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan(I can't remember who recorded this), and disc 1 of The Well Tempered Clavier performed by Glenn Gould.  What have you listened to lately?