Our music listening habits

 

 

Greetelings everyone, Amalia here.

 

 So, we figured that, seeing as we're a musician of.... indeterminate genre, some of you might (hopefully) be interested in what sort of music we actually listen to, and our general habits with that.

 

Now, you'd perhaps think that someone who makes music themselves would probably listen to tunes 24/7 and live and breathe music, but that's actually quite far from the reality, here.

 

See, we don't actually listen to music all that much in life, in the grand scheme of things. Typically, in the mornings, we prefer the quiet, enjoying some peaceful time for contemplation and meditation.

 

Our workplace is an industrial firm, but unlike many such places, the higher-ups don't want radios playing around the shop floors.

Seems daft to us, since it's known to increase productivity in those kinds of settings. But alas.

 

Now, when we get home in the evenings, that's our prime time for music listening. When we're getting on with doing some chores or cooking dinner, that's when the tunes are likely to start going.

 

...... or maybe not, if we prefer some quiet time. Time for us to talk, or to contemplate things, if something needs contemplation. And in any case, as the evening goes on and the hour gets late, we again prefer for things to quieten down as we get ready to finish our day.

 

 Ah, but what about the weekends? Surely we constantly blast music then, because how could a musician not do that?

 

 Well, nah. Keep in mind that the weekend is where most of the progress on our own music happens. Not to mention we get some time for video games and stuff like that. Again, we might listen to something while doing chores, or maybe when writing a blog post or such, but it's mostly the same story as it is during the week.

 

And to answer your thoughts: Nope, we're not listening to anything while writing this. It's 5 in the morning (We're a very early riser), and we're comfortably sitting here in quiet peace with a cup of Assam tea in front of us, doing some writing because well, it's my morning today, and i felt like it. Certain types of music -might- enhance this vibe, but neither of us are really craving it, either.

 

So as you can see, even though we ourselves -make- music, we really aren't a very active listener, ourselves. T'was a lot of writing to lay that out, but the point of this blog is for us to share and express ourselves, and so we shall. 😉

 

This is our "Just throw everything in"-playlist. Yeah, it's an utter mess, but we like it that way.

 

Another thing we both actually find fascinating about our own listening habits is how we handle volume.

 

Because you see, it seems massively ironic in a way, but....

 

We absolutely -despise- loud music.

 We know. We're a musician. You'd think we want our tunes to be played on full blast on the biggest sound systems that can be found.

 

But no. Not at all. And it's sort of difficult to sum up our feelings on the matter, but let me try.

 

For one, megaloud music is just flat out bad for your ears. I'm not your Mom, and you already know this in any case. Well, we actually need our ears to work decently well when making music, so we're rather keen on keeping them in good condition, so blasting music at full bore is right out. Our comfortable setting on headphones tends to be around the ~30-40% volume mark.

 

 Beyond health considerations, we, and especially Michael, just don't really appreciate music when it's played too loudly. I mean, when music is pumped out sooooo idiotically loud that the whole room or car is shaking with bass, then no, we're not sitting there and appreciating the nuances and details of the tune.

 

All we're doing at that point is feeling uncomfortable and wanting to get away from the sonic warfare being unleashed on us.

 

Of course, that's a worst case scenario, but even listening at, let's say 70-100% volume on headphones is just not comfortable to us. If we wanna -enjoy- music and really appreciate it, we have to turn it down so we can listen to it without discomfort.

 

Maybe the people who like to go full-blast just enjoy it because they're so deaf already that it's the only way they can hear anything?

 

 There's one more reason we don't enjoy loud music, and it's privacy.

Now, Michael and i are firm believers that you don't need to be ashamed of the music you like. If you like some weird, guilty pleasures, roll with it and enjoy.

 

....... but ya don't have to go playing it so loud that everyone else can hear, either.

 

The obvious example in these days is people going around in public with music on loudspeaker playing from their phone, completely oblivious or unbothered by the fact that they are, in fact, nothing but a living, breathing source of noise pollution.

 

But there's other cases of this, like neighbors in apartment complexes, listening to music on sound systems loud enough to go right through walls. (Dear neighbor, if you're reading this, have you ever heard of headphones? Destroy your ears in private, please.)

 

There's also people blasting music on their car stereos, with the windows down so everyone can have their thoughts shattered as they drive by.

 

Even concerts, where music plays loudly enough to be heard quite clearly by people half a kilometer away, who are trying to concentrate or something, listen to their own music or sleep. 

At least those are usually rare events, where you can just grin and bear it, rather than the everyday occurrences above.

 

And all of that amounts to the same thing, really. Loud music might be fun for the people who are actually playing it, if they're not concerned about their hearing or such.

But for like 90% of the people actually listening, it's simply just unwanted noise pollution.

 

It shatters concentration, it can keep you from enjoying your own music, and heck, it can even ruin tender moments with significant others and things like that.

The genre doesn't really matter at that point. Even if you're playing our favorite song, if we were trying to sleep, or having some deep thoughts, or even just enjoying some quiet peace, it's now ruined.

 

Okay, this might have turned into just me complaining about our neighbors. Let's wrap this part up.

 

The tl:dr of this part is: Overly loud music is pointless. It's just a way for people to ruin their own hearing while failing to appreciate their music beyond "Hurr, brain tingly when bass make ears ring!"

 

Not to mention that everyone in earshot has their quality of life lowered just a little bit by the noise pollution.

 

Please, people, listen to your music at sensible volumes, and preferably in private. Thanks, yo.

 

Now, moving on.

 

So what -kind- of music do we listen to?

 

Have another look at it. Can you find the genre consistency? No? Neither can we!

 

 

 

Well, after what i've written, you might expect that we listen to only the most quiet, calm classical music you can think of, but nope.

 

Our taste is somewhat eclectic. We like -interesting- music. Not necessarily with deep lyrics or anything, but music that has something interesting about it, that makes it stand out.

 

For instance, the curious sound of Gorillaz is a big favourite for us, as is Fatboy Slim. But then, we also like the catchy bluegrass sound of The Dead South, the sheer power of Dance With The Dead and also the dapper rhyming of Mr. B, the Gentleman Rapper.

 

A lot of the time though, we get out music from soundtracks. Music we can mentally tie to a video game or show that we like. Always adds a little bonus value, we tend to find.

 

Some things we categorically don't listen to would be say, metal, especially the more growly sub-genres.

Oh, and the more sordid kinds of rap. We do like a good rap, but when it's about misogyny, drugs and generally being a maladjusted chav, that's just a turn-off for us.

 

Oh, and yes, we do listen to our own music, from time to time. Not all the time, but we do enjoy our own music enough to give it the occasional listen. Hopefully that's not weird or anything. 😜

 

 But yeah, that's a bit of a look at our own habits when we're listening to music, instead of making it. Hopefully you found it somewhat interesting and whatnot!