You are what you listen to

Everybody has heard the famous saying you are what you eat.  It’s universally understood that we require a balanced diet to meet our nutritional needs. If you eat foods that are nutritionally balanced you should feel much better than eating 6 custard doughnuts and drinking a case of beer. If you want to perform at a top level, you eat high performance foods. 

Looks good, makes you feel bad

With some downtime in lockdown I’ve come across some very interesting Youtube videos. Across university campuses and in downtown cityscapes a person will approach people with their headphones in and ask them, ‘What are you listening to?’. A very simple but immensely private question. You can immediately see people’s faces light up with pride, shock, or embarrassment as they announce the artist behind their private concert. As the person hurries away, the video is edited with a snippet of their song. Immediately, you can see that song in the way they walk. You can see it in how they dress.  In the way they carry themselves. You gain a glimpse into their consciousness, their emotions and their spirit. 

Appropriate music for a 5 year old birthday party

As humans, we love to solve problems. We invent tools and extremely complex machinery, to simplify, dissipate and automate our issues. But not all problems need to be solved and sometimes that’s why they are so enthralling. It’s what makes the spectacle so magical, and why music itself is the ultimate problem. There is a reason why top 40 music is very straightforward in tempo and variation. It’s so you understand the musical loops. The top 40 songs make you feel like you’ve solved the problem. You can easily sing along within one listen. On the other hand, it’s also why a lot of people find it immensely difficult to enjoy classical music. It’s not easy to follow a Chopin composition, full of incredible variation in tempo and scale. The musical loops are longer and more obscure. It’s incredibly difficult to solve the subtlety behind the composition. It leaves us with either a feeling of disappointment (having not solved anything) or an incredible longing to understand more. 

Where is the WAP 

I hope you now understand why top 40 music is so popular. It makes you feel good, it makes you feel like you’ve participated. But is that really helping you? Or should the music you listen to demand something of you? Although you don’t need a musical theory degree to enjoy classical music, every now and again you should find yourself taking a walk with Vivaldi. Find yourself listening for the subtleties in the composition. Give your consciousness more attempts to solve more complex musical problems. You’ll find that it affects the way you walk, talk and hold yourself. You'll find that you are what you listen to.