Waiting for Music. cover art

Waiting for Music.

Waiting for Music.

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Summary
 Waiting for Music. The lost art of attentive listening. Countless books have been written about the concept of “Waiting for God”. The way I interpret the idea is rather similar to Wu Wei in Daoism. Essentially, a passive approach is the way to go. Or rather, not go. In fact, don’t go anywhere, just be. The lesson to be learned is that our civilization mindset makes us so obsessed with progress that we’re never just being. And being, not doing, is where contemplation unfolds. Where we glimpse the beyond. Here. Now. Not over there on the horizon, after we’ve bought this, or learned that, or achieved this, or quit that. And with AI taking over the world, the pace of everything is now increasing at an exponential rate. But even prior to AI, smartphones had already ended the era of waiting. Nobody is prepared to wait anymore. Just watch people, it’s shocking. Whether it’s at a bus stop, the checkout in a grocery store, or even drivers in their cars at a red light. Subscribe to get the latest posts in your inbox. It’s like we’re living in a zombie movie! People move around like normal, but they’re not here, they’re inside their phone. Just look around. They’re everywhere! If they have to wait more than a few seconds, their phones are whipped out faster than the cowboys whip out their guns in those quick-draw duels of Western movies. To be fair to the smartphone zombies, their draw speed is rather impressive. They’d beat Clint Eastwood, that’s for sure! This inability to wait can be called many things, like impatience or a lack of attention, but whatever you want to call it, it’s ruining us and our world. And that includes music. I remember reading that infamous study from way back in 2014 by the music analysis company The Echo Nest, where they discovered that a quarter of all songs played on Spotify were skipped within the first five seconds of listening. That was 12 years ago. What would it be now? Two seconds? And because people aren’t willing to wait through a song’s intro, songwriters simply aren’t using intros anymore. So our short attention spans are permanently changing the world and everything in it, including music. Subscribe to get the latest posts in your inbox. I hardly watch any TV shows or movies (as I’m a book nerd), but when I do, I have to watch the old ones, because anything new is way too intense. When I watch a movie, I love those old-school long intros. The longer, the better. It sets the scene and gets you in the right frame of mind to begin the journey. But nowadays, movies don’t have intros either, for the same reason songs don’t. They hit the ground running! They have to, otherwise people will watch something else. When I watch or listen to things from my childhood in the ‘80s, it’s amazing how long everything takes to unfold. I don’t read new fiction books, for numerous reasons, but I’m guessing this trend will be found in them too. It used to be taken for granted back in the day that if you were listening to a song, or watching a movie, or reading a book, you were not wanting to rush through it, you were wanting to savour the experience. But now we live in a world where everything has been turned into content. I hate what that word has been re-defined to mean. People proudly call themselves Content Creators. What do they make? Content. But what actually is content? Subscribe to get the latest posts in your inbox. The Oxford Dictionary defines content as “the things that are contained in something”. So what are the “things” that content creators are making? If someone creates music, that’s not a thing, it’s music. If someone creates a poem, that’s not a thing, it’s a poem. Humans don’t create content, they create songs, and stories, and paintings, and dances, and gardens, and films, and food, and poems, and performances, and woodwork, and so on. If someone is proudly creating content, then please don’t waste your time consuming it. Spend your valuable time (which is finite and running out every minute), experiencing the many beautiful and inspiring artforms that humans create. Why consume content, when you can bask in the wonder of human creativity? Subscribe to get the latest posts in your inbox. And here’s a hopeful note to end on. Not all creative humans are giving in to the demands of the herd for short content with no intros and nothing other than hooks. The ever-evolving Steven Wilson, who used to be my neighbour in London (true story!), just released his inspiring new album “Requiem For A Village”. I’m not going to waste your time or mine by trying to describe it here, because just like chocolate, describing it doesn’t get you any closer to tasting it. But if you have the patience to wait for music, then I highly recommend giving this album 54 minutes of your full attention. It’s well worth it! Truly. Either way, I invite you into a daily practice of waiting for music. ...
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