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July 09, 2006
You Are What You Listen To
I’ve generally found this to be true. “What kind of music do you listen to?” It can be the trickiest, most perplexing, loaded, even offensive question to be asked. I would certainly never ask it, for the process of getting to know someone–becoming friends with them–goes hand in hand with coming to understand and uncover their musical interests, just as one gradually comes to an understanding of someone’s personality. Asking that question is asking a person to explain their life story and reason for being in the space of a few breaths.
And futhermore, who really knows where their music taste, or their life for that matter is headed? The palettes of listening and of life experience are so broad, you could end up anywhere. In the span of just a year, you can turn into a surprisingly different person. I know I have that feeling anyway.
Describing music in words is another tricky animal. You can’t just open your mouth and pour out a stream of noise to describe the sound of a favorite artist, or to inidiacte your taste and listening habits in a succinct and understandable way. But if you could, what would come out? Could it be something like this?
Now I’m going to negate myself about needing a lengthy explanation to mediate musical taste with other people. This method I speak of is a shortcut, invented by media artist and musician Jason Freeman. The file I linked to above is the result. The iTunes Signature: An encapsulation of one’s current listening habits generated in the space of a few seconds. If eveyone carried this little file around with them, it could be something of a business card for quickly comapring taste.
There can be some quirks of course. Some of the songs in my signature are things I listened to repeatedly because they were sound design for projects, or music for music videos I’ve been working on. Other than that most of the songs in my signature are tracks from my podcasts. Naturally these songs have a high play rating as I generally listen to a playlist I am making again and again, refining it, changing the track order, making replacements, and dropping out songs that won’t fit in smoothly. Anyhow, make your own signature, and share it with friends. It’s quite exciting to see what will come out. Thank’s to Alex (above, left) who shared this with me a while ago, though I only got around to blogging about it now.
Posted by shane at July 9, 2006 01:50 AM