Music & Tech (JerJer's Junk)

You have some excellent thoughts Ben!  When you said you were preparing a response, I spent a few hours pondering some thoughts (about your initial post) while I was doing some 'mindless' tasks yesterday.  I personally took a deeper look into some of the related issues you were both alluding to and also directly addressing.  I must say that your post had me thinking about many issues from music to social media.  I really like the thinking and issues that your post raises!

First to note, as much as it seems like I might be on top of it, I really don't feel there yet but I'm kind of enjoying the process.  Secondly, I also thought about the definite fact that most don't nearly have the time to do what I'm attempting for myself.  It is quite unreasonable to expect most anyone to attempt such.  Honestly, I don't know where it will lead me nor how the final working and hopefully usable 'product' will be. 

However, you raised one very relevant issue that I spent most of my 'mindless work time' contemplating.  You referred to it as the 'listen once, forget for good'.  Sometimes that once isn't even a genuinely full listen...at times.  It was a reminder for me to not repeat some of the trappings that many music sites lend themselves to with my complicity.  You're right, sitting down at the many buffets of great quality music can lead one to gorge themselves incessantly...at the sacrifice of quality enjoyment.  Like you said, much of the music served up is quality, but what was missing, more often than not, was my enjoyment of the music as music is probably more genuinely designed to be enjoyed.  Maybe it is a bit of that consumer gluttony mentality that permeates our society today.   I'm not sure.  Like you said and just for me personally as I've had a chance to evaluate things from a distance for a short time.  For me personally anyway, I was possibly making too many long extended (possibly hurried) trips to the the 'fast food' restaurants and buffets of music.  Again, these thoughts apply to my personal feelings and are quite likely vastly different from the experience of others.

One refreshing part of my new and evolving process of spending time on song and site discovery or exploration is now the actual process.  As it is not being fed to me so much in one spot so much now, I'm finding myself listening multiple times and diving more often deeper into a artist information, biography, song information (backstory, if any) and etc.  I'm finding that the process of the research and exploration is the very vehicle that is giving or allowing me the opportunity for more full listens, multiple listens, and usually delving deeper into an artists' past catalog and current work.  So I'm finding whatever process of discovery I'm using at the time (whether videos, mp3 search, artists' site, other music site, Songbird or whatever) is making me and allowing me the very time to enjoy the music as deeply as I feel it should be...again, at least for me.  The music I find or encounter is being more thoroughly enjoyed than preoccupation or obsession with what I haven't found, where I haven't been, or where I want to go next.  It's a bit more of "Wherever you are...be ALL there."

Maybe I'm trying to put a little twist on the 'listen once, forget for good' and make it more of a 'listening once, maybe listening a few more times (to that or other songs by a given artist) WHILE maybe finding some 'older' work I missed, maybe finding a unique video version, maybe finding out more about the artist or their interviews, maybe  finding a unique blog about the artist/song, maybe checking out another music site encountered in the process of finding the artist...and so on'.  The course or exact path of exploration is never fully known beforehand so much as thoroughly enjoying the 'meal' as I choose to enjoy it at that particular time for whatever time I have allotted.  I guess my emphasis is on the fact that the process now is the very vehicle for allowing me the time to enjoy it however I want for the given time that I determine.  It is funny because I get up from the session thinking much more about what I enjoyed than preoccupied with the fact that there is still (and will ALWAYS be) a vast universe of music out there yet to experience.

In regard to your observations about rummaging through your T61 tags, I had a similar experience while doing my earlier 'mindless work'.  While I was also rummaging though my T61 tags, I was running through tags 'fav 1', 'fav 2' and on and on and on!  I was like wait a minute.  I remembered my playlist of 'Oh so me'...lol..and spent my time there.  It reminded me that I must enjoy (also for my personal musical sanity & integrity) 'my' music fully WHEN and WHILE I'm encountering it.  Fuller, deeper, and related listens are also keeping in check that insatiable desire to prematurely leap frog and jump all over a music site or sites.  I think that regardless of how much music we miss or that will always be lurking out there to discover, I want to more enjoy the 1% I find and fine tune personal discovery methods so as to more effectively maybe add another 1% without adding any significant time and effort.

For the moment, I think I'll pass on my thoughts and questions about social media as related to music discovery for the time being.  They are many and varied...quite a few banging around in my head currently but not organized.  I may want to think them out loud later as I have many more questions than observations.