When we listen to music, what are we listening to?

"We can't shut out sound automatically. We simply are not equipped with earlids." (McLuhan, 111)

To me, what I hear in the environment can drastically change how I feel about a piece of music and what the song means to me.

If I'm in a kindergarten classroom, hearing kids running around, talking to one another, and I'm listening to a children's song, I'd feel... warm, safe, and be getting flashbacks of my childhood.

 

 

But if I'm alone in my house at night, doing homework... the lights are buzzing, closets are squeaking, winds are blowing, a stream of air knocks open my barely locked door... and this song comes up in my speaker...!

That's a somewhat extreme example, but you get my point : )

For this project (EVERYTHING WE DO (IS MUSIC) SOUNDSCAPE), I decided to base it off Symagination No.1, which is a piece that I worked on during this past winter break. I've spent hours working on the mix -- listening to it through my noise cancelling headphones in my dorm, meaning that I'm not getting any sound from the environment.

But recently, on my way back to my dorm, I was shuffling through songs in my iPod, and this piece came up -- I was wearing a pair of regular earbuds, and I could hear the sound of the rain hitting the ground, people walking, passing by.

Suddenly, I got this feeling that I've never felt before when listening to this piece: I suddenly felt like I'm this character who, has a story to tell.

It was almost like, at that moment, the sound of the environment gave the piece its meaning.

I immediately pulled out my phone and started recording the environment.

When I got back, I put the recording of the environment together with the original recording of the piece, as an attempt to explain what happened during that, sort of magical moment.

 Magic Moment with Symagination No. 1

Some extra stuff:

I feel like every time I listen to music, I'm not just listening to music -- I'm experiencing music.

By that I mean, the musical experience can be a combination of a lot of things: 

• the piece of music itself
• the sound in the environment that I hear
• what I see when I listen to the piece
• where I am when I listen to the piece
  
• how I feel at that time
• who I'm listening to the piece with
• whether the music brings up any memories
• ... 

 There are so many variables that I think no two musical experiences are the same.