As the iPod becomes ever more pervasive, once again the relationship between music (or recorded music) and life is changed. Some people are wired. They have one earbud in, as they talk, walk, and do everything: Life with a soundtrack. With the shuffle function activated, randomly recurring tracks make thematic links, interpreting the repetitive tasks, and events of existence.
In new television shows, there can be long passages with no dialogue, just a musical soundtrack, often with playlist info displayed on the screen. This replicates the experience of some lives — the accompanied life. George Steiner has wondered about the developmental impact, on ears and minds, of large doses of recorded music with strong beat. In these television shows, the sonic balance between spoken words and music has shifted. Now, the music is louder.
In his films, beginning in the 1960s, Jean-Luc Godard uses music in ways that sometimes seem to obscure the actors’ lines. There are sudden blasts of sound. He was finding beauty in the potentiometer: Turn it up! Both earbuds in, one in — today, physical experience is catching up to art…
Earbuds are damaging. Loud music or loud anything is a problem for he hair cells in the ear. Once destroyed, t this point there is no way to regenerate them, so people need to take excellent care of their ears and protect them from harm.
However Tomatis type music, specially filtered, is great stuff. It takes advantage of neuroplasticity to add to the neural net and promote greater focus, concentration and memory as well as stress reduction and removal of creative blocks. It is useful for all creative work though originally designed to head off auditory fatigue in musicians and especially singers at the Paris Opera.
The Ear an d the Voice, A Tomatis, Scarecrow Press, is available on Amazon if you are interested in reading about it.
A new CDR with a complete program of music will be avialble by the end of April on Vox Mentor. Bone Conduction is also available and complete programs as well.
This is a field that is still in experimental stages, and exciting for the possibility of creating lasting change and improvement after critical mass is reached.
Didn’t know Godard was a sonic pioneer, interesting read, thanks.