The Music of Unmusic
January 10 2010

Boys and girls: the Pianobabbler remembers a time when, to open a door, you had to pull it by hand.

A time before arugula, sushi, probiotics, and the pleasures of polyphenols.

A time when you had to put a key in the car's tushie, to open the trunk.

When minutes, even hours, might go by before you could check your email.

Shocking.

Even more shocking: back then, at some times and places, you might not hear any music. You might enter a restaurant, and pick up nothing but chatter. (Although, equally shocking- you might also hear a living musician, play a living instrument, before your living eyes.)

You might walk down the street to the sounds of nothing more than the city itself.

You might exercise, read a book, or have a coffee unaccosted by an unending stream of music.

Imagine.

Tritely, music has become ubiquitous. Ubiquitous, meaning- everywhere. Every where. In our homes, in our cars. In our malls, on our streets. Restaurants, coffee shops. Stores, offices, airports, washrooms. If no one is pushing music, we pull it with our iPods.

Always on. Always. All ways.

In that distant past the Pianobabbler recalls, you had to work to hear your music. You had to find a radio and dial in. Put on a 30 minute LP. Park yourself before a TV at the right time.

Music has since then taken up streetwalking. Out on every corner to tempt you. Sample my wares, big boy.

Every day we listen to 165 minutes of music, on average (source.) That's active listening. Passive listening- the music raining down at Starbucks and the mall -must add hours to the average.

Should this make us happy? No doubt the market-bumbling music industry enjoys consumption's rising trend. And McDonald's will have you eat more burgers.

But do we do music a service by listening, listening, listening? Can we attend to music's endless detail without re-hearings? Has unlimited music, with unlimited availability, made us better, wiser, happier?

You know the answer.

Yet we listen, listen, listen, even more, ever on.

The time has come for unmusic to prevail. Let's listen to our bodies when we exercise. Our senses when we're dining. Our spouse when we're having coffee.

Let's deem fallow a music principle. Farmers won't plant a field some years; the inactivity increases future yields. Let's plant no music in our ears from time to time.

Let's find the music in unmusic. The silence whose sound John Cage turned into a composition (4,33), and Simon & Garfunkle into a hit.

Let's listen less, but better.

Let's disconnect from our iPods, and connect to our surroundings.

Shhhh. Hear silence. Enjoy.

The pianobabbler has babbled.

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