Words and Guitar

I have (loosely speaking) given up listening to music for Lent. People have asked why I'm doing this crazy, crazy thing. So I'll try to explain.

I considered: giving up coffee, but I need to do maths; giving up alcohol, but after the Lent of going straight edge it didn't seem like it would be difficult; giving up some kind of food, but frankly I need to eat more not less; switching from reading novels to only reading poetry, then I saw the stack of borrowed books gathering dust on my shelf; giving up films, but at the moment I don't go to the cinema enough. Then I considered music.

When I started using my discman I disliked how it cut me off, not only from the noise around me, but from all the random everyday events that feed into my haiku. But it takes a long time of waiting for a haiku inspiring event to occur, while the pleasures of a discman are instantaneous and I am a shallow weak willed creature. So I developed an addiction.

I don't use Lent to kick "bad" habits, I think virtues can be made of vices, I use it to make a temporary change in my behaviour so I can feel the difference it makes and learn more about myself. Developing a habit then giving it up wouldn't teach me anything, so I had to do more than just give up my discman.

I'm far from the first to think about the effect of portable music players, the dialogue that's been going on on has made me think about people's relationship with music now and before any kind of device for recording/replaying music. The idea that listening to music meant performing it or watching someone else perform it I find impossible to imagine. I use music to lull me to sleep and to wake me up, to cheer me up or calm me down, to help me focus or to forget; I use it like the mood organ in Do androids dream of electric sheep;. Giving up something like that would surely teach me something.

So I'm giving up music with the following exceptions: music in a shop or somewhere I go that have no control over since it's unavoidable, this means not telling my flatmate that Robbie Williams is rubbish and making him turn it off; music on talk programmes I'm watching/listening too, since it's mostly unavoidable, but no musicals and no Kombat Opera; I'm allowed to go to clubs and gigs, since these are the kind of shared experience that I should be experiencing more of, it's a world apart from Feeling Gloomy in my bedroom.