How I Treat Music

The majority of music was and still is written to accompany social activities: dancing, eating and conversation. Telemann has four volumes of Tafel Musik for dinner parties, and more Mozart was written as social accompaniment than his worshippers would want to admit. Handel's Water Music was one of a number of pieces (Telemann wrote a Wassermusik as well) written to accompany a royal trip on the river. It was a soundtrack, in today's terms. So was Handel's Music For The Royal Fireworks.

The music in an opera rarely stands on its own (so rarely that the bits that do are extracted for compilation albums) but is there to accompany, highlight and embellish the words and action. It plays the same role as music in a movie: reinforcing what can be seen, or hinting at something we can't see yet. Sometimes it is used ironically or to jar.

Some music was written for the composer's sponsors to play, to show off their skills, or for their own entertainment in playing it privately. (These days, contemporary jazz fulfils the role of music played mostly for the enjoyment of the musicians, because there is no audience.)

Some music was written for church services. Bach turned out over a hundred cantatas for just this purpose, and many composers wrote at least one Mass (until the twentieth century). Poulenc's best music is his religious works for voice choir.

Romantic music (Beethoven to the end of the nineteenth-century) was written for large audiences (by the standards of the time) to provide a roller-coaster emotional experience, at least for those who could keep up. One real cracker of a symphony could make an international reputation for a composer, maybe even set him up for life - if he kept his spending modest - and certainly put him in the running for a conducting or an academic post.

During WW2 the ever-meddling British Government found that workers flagged at around 10:30 in the morning and 3:00 in the afternoon. So they broadcast half-an-hour of brisk light music (a genre you can thank your lucky stars you have never heard) to pep everyone up. This blatant paternalistic manipulation went on until the end of September 1967. I mention this to separate it from the other use of music while working.

Modern music while you work relies on the home hi-fi and head-fi manufactured since the 1970-ish, and was driven by the spread of the personal computer. There's a reason for this: the more active your brain is used to being, the more content it is used to handling in a given moment, the easier it is to distract when there isn't enough content or activity to absorb it. Smart people doing routine things don't do well, because their brain is looking for something absorbing to do. At the other end, creative work needs the brain to be able to ruminate inside itself and not to be distracted by e.g. colleagues yammering away on conference calls. In both cases, the right kind of music (which varies from person to person) can act either to occupy the brain so the rest of you can do that boring thing, or can blank out the outside distractions and random thoughts so the brain can ruminate on subject. (I'm currently listening to The Avalanches Since I Left You and jolly good it is for that purpose too.)

Music is supposed to enhance our lives. Sometimes that happens because we listen to the music, and sometimes because we get lost in the music, and other times because it makes it easier to work, covers up awkward silences, is a pretty tune that adds to the scene, or lets us get into some serious emotional self-indulgence (Love Will Tear Us Apart on repeat after the partner walks away?). More than once, after leaving a job I should have left a few months earlier, I have felt a lightness of spirit and an urge to hum the march from Grand Prix.

Some music doesn't really accompany, it wants to be all you're thinking about: that's why it's called `Romantic' music. Use a Schumann symphony as background music and it won't do the job, but some Hottenterre flute pieces will do just fine. I wouldn't use John Coltrane as background either, though Eighties Miles does quite well. Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Debussy and most twentieth-century composers keep poking and prodding for attention: listen to this chord, listen to this tune, bang! wasn't that loud. I wouldn't commend Schoenberg's Verklate Nacht as brain-ruminating music. Go back before around 1820 or so and a lot of the music is as much an accompaniment for life as any amount of EDM, Ambient, Jazz, Eighties Rock, Tamla Motown folk or anything else made after about 1960.

Music is there to do what we need it to do. I play what I need or want to listen to. Some mornings I will let a Jazzed playlist roll on for a couple of hours, other times I'll stand over my CD's unable to make a choice because I don't actually know what I want. Sometimes I want to hear it over the speakers, other times over the Sennheisers, and other times over the bluetooth WM1000's. Horses for courses, music for moments.

Bad Photographs

I have utterly and completely lost the knack of taking photographs. I'm pretty sure Aristotle thought that was a sign that a man had fallen into a rut and needed to get out more. It may be in the Nichomachean  Ethics somewhere. Or maybe the Metaphysics. I'm not sure. I just can't see the pictures anymore. I could blame the damn iPhone, or the lockdown, or the fact that I don't get out much. The truth is that I just can't see the pictures anymore. That requires serious therapy. Aristotle is pretty clear on that.

The Skittles Argument

Here is a bowl of Skittles. If you don't like Skittles, substitute chocolate M&M's.

Hundreds of them.

Help yourself.

Oh. Yes.

Ten are poisoned. Fatal poison.

But dig in. Please. What are the odds?

You won't, of course.

The downside is too great and the upside is fleeting.

It's the reverse of that awful mess that is Pascal's Wager. This is the one where we should believe in God because the upside is infinitely wonderful and the downsides are minor inconveniences. (One flaw in the argument is that the upsides only happen when we are dead, so you have to believe in the after-life as well. Another is that Pascal is assuming that the way the Catholic Church says you should live is the way to heaven, especially the donations-to-the-Church bit. But you're not supposed to point that sort of thing out, as it is considered bad manners.)

There's a whole class of arguments like this. Where one of the choices has penalties or payoffs way over anything we are prepared to risk. Like death or permanent injury or disability.

Some people argue against nuclear power on this basis. Sure the odds of the reactor blowing up are minuscule, but then again, Chernobyl.

The Skittles Argument was recently used by women explaining why they refused to have anything to do with men. Because one might be an abusive ***hole and you can never tell. Until it's too late.

Now it's used by men to explain why they are steering clear of dating and marriage. They don't know if the Skittle is poisoned, but what you do know is that forty per cent of men who pick a Skittle end up paying alimony and child support.

One flaw with using the Skittles Argument is its assumption that we cannot identify the poisoned Skittle. However, people aren't Skittles: very often, we can spot the Poisoned Skittle, and even if we get it wrong, we don't lose much by getting it wrong.

I'll modify that a bit. Very often, a psychologically healthy person can spot a Poisoned Skittle.

Which leaves a lot of people who can't. Because they have faulty calibration and don't know what a Poisoned Skittle looks like (ask me how I know about that). Or because they have faulty goals, which the Bad Boys / Bad Girls meet so well.

A variation of this flaw is assuming that everyone will react to the Poison the same way. Maybe it only affects people with existing conditions, and most regular people will be asymptomatic. Most people with existing conditions know they have them because the Doctor has already told them. There is no test for being asymptomatic, so everyone else has to assume they run a risk of feeling rough for a few days. Which is probably enough to say that even the fabulous taste of Skittles isn't worth the risk of finding out you're symptomatic.

So when what's at stake is everyday contact with everyday Skittles? That's as if we had a bowl of things that looked like Skittles, but most were just gum, and only a few were real Skittles, and who would grab a handful then?

How I'm Going To Use Favourites in Qobuz

My inner teenager interpreted "Favourites" as songs and albums I want to hear again soon, like maybe in an hour and then this afternoon. Which is at least as often as the favourite song of the moment would be played on the radio.

Not being a teenager, I don't listen to music like that anymore. Not even Spinning Around



which I would put on the headphones at work if I needed a pick-me-up before heading off for the gym. Or Money Guns and Lawyers



but I wouldn't call those "Favourites". I'd call those "motivation".

Which meant I was not doing well with finding a use for the functionality.

While thinking that I should be able to use it for something else useful.

One afternoon of now distant memory I was lazing in the shade in the garden, because it was way too hot to be sunbathing, and I was streaming Goldie's The Journey Man Remixes as an experiment. Timeless is one of the great albums of all time, and when I tried his next one back in the day, it was way too dark and Jungle-y. So I never followed up. Three tracks into the The Journey Man Remixes and I knew I would want to hear it again...

...and that's what my Favourites list will be. Songs and albums I want to hear again reasonably soon and would probably have bought on CD if it was back in the days before streaming. It's also going to be albums-I-used-to-have-and-got-rid-of-but-now-want-to-hear-again. Like Duke Ellington's New Orleans Suite. (If you have never really heard the Duke, I suggest giving him a listen. Qobuz has a bunch of his stuff.)

I could go on some sort of Favourites-building binge, but I'd prefer to build it up album by album, which is what I've been doing.

Going Bareface Within The Rules

I cannot wear a mask anymore.

You don't need to either.

Go to this link Amongst the blurb, you will find this...

If you have an age, health or disability reason for not wearing a face covering: you do not routinely need to show any written evidence of this you do not need show an exemption card 

This means that you do not need to seek advice or request a letter from a medical professional about your reason for not wearing a face covering. 

However, some people may feel more comfortable showing something that says they do not have to wear a face covering. This could be in the form of an exemption card, badge or even a home-made sign.

Read that carefully: you do not need to seek advice or request a letter from a medical professional about your reason for not wearing a face covering.

There is no-one who can approve your exempt status. Which means there is no-one who can dis-approve it.

The same blurb says

There are some circumstances where people may not be able to wear a face covering. Please be mindful and respectful of such circumstances. Some people are less able to wear face coverings, and the reasons for this may not be visible to others....

The Government says other people should mind their own business. It does not say there are exceptions. It does not specifically allow the Police or other officials to challenge you.

So how do you get to be exempt, if there's no-one to approve it?

That's what they were hoping you would ask.

Take a deep breath.

You are exempt if you say you are.

(That's what they were hoping you would not work out.)

Download the label ). Print it - colour for added effect. I had to experiment with size to get it to fit the lanyard I bought.

Wear it in the places they want you to wear a mask. It gives the shop or wherever an out if some ****ing busybody asks. You had a badge.

I have been using this for the last week.

Nobody has challenged me yet. Everyone is fed up with this.

#ImDone

Boris failed the Third Date Rule. You know the one: if she doesn't have sex with you by the end of the third date, she doesn't find you attractive. Wish her a prosperous life and move on. Don't look back. (Women have their own version of this.)

My first date was April 12th with non-essential retail opening, and haircuts. Second date was May 17th for indoor dining and the like. June 21st was Freedom Day.

That just got moved.

To the 29th of July - and you could see Boris wishing he did not have to say those words. The 19th is a distraction.

#ImDone is a lot of other people saying Sorry, but we're not putting our lives on hold anymore.

Go to this link, print the exemption card, get a lanyard and wear it. You don't need anyone's permission to do it, and you don't have to prove it to anybody.

Ask people wearing masks to remove them when they talk to you. Except waiters and shop assistants - unless you really cannot understand them.

Those things you have been putting off until this **** ends? Start doing them. Except for the overseas travel and nightclubs.

Look carefully at what the rules are. You can do a lot of the things you have stopped doing. Meeting people for lunch, or after-work drinks. Popping over to the GF's place for the night. Going to the beach at the weekend, or if you live nearby, in the evening. Playing computer games with the lads. Or Sunday football.

And most important, you can do a lot of those things you haven't been doing because, well, pandemic and safety and doing your bit?

Start doing those.

That's what #ImDone is about.

It's all those people who have been "good" and "cautious" deciding that they're done with that.

It's all those people who were waiting for this **** to end on a promised date, so we could do the things we wanted to do. (My state.)

It's not pretending there's no Virus. It's not breaking any laws. It's not being irresponsible.

It's leaving the stadium because you can't bear to see your team play like that anymore.

Favourites on Qobuz

In the good old days, your favourites list was on your shelves: it was your CD and/or vinyl and/or tape collection. Some of it, anyway. It isn't a real record collection if you don't have a couple of drunk-purchase clunkers in it.

I've been experimenting with streaming. I didn't get it with Tidal, because, well, you know, Tidal's preferred genre. I didn't get it with Spotify because I couldn't break free of the playlists. With Qobuz, I've found a way of working.

Browse in the record store, choose one CD by a composer or artist, if it's good, stream the rest. And I'd like to add those composers or artists to a list.

I browse in the record store because the online sites have not managed to reproduce that experience and functionality.

Why don't I take a photo of what takes my attention and stream it later?

First, that's a grift.

Second, the fact I have some money in the CD means I will spend more time and attention listening to it.

I wrote off Lars Graugaard's Engage and Share CD as a bad choice after a first listen. I gave it another whirl when I had moved my Marantz system around, and it sounded a little better. I gave it another whirl on the Hegel / 6000CDT, and it was much more interesting. I may well stream some more of his work.

I don't need to build up a favourites list of everyone I have CD's by: that's what the CDs are for.

There's another way of discovering new music that I'd forgotten until I bought a copy of Gramaphone and DJ Mag recently. Old-fashioned print. By people whose job it is to seek out new bands and listen to new releases.

That's what I want to put on my Favourites list - assuming Qobuz have them. I want to be reminded that Coil is a band well worth listening to more often.

As ever, I have to massively over-think this first, before doing what some teenager would do by instinct, and I'm sure I would do by instinct if I was a teenager now. But I'm not.