Mood: Bored.
Music: New Wave City on 1bigmix.fm! (NetRadio....)
Game: World of Warcraft, Puzzle Pirates, CoD2, EVE Online(?)
Book: Special Forces, Tom Clancy.
Muffin: Jersey Blueberry.
This morning, it had occurred to me that when I was in high school, I listened to 92.7 WLIR ("The Station that DARES to be different!") Mainly New Wave, some Alternative, some Punk, some Gothic...just non-mainstream stuff. And I thought myself pretty cool to be listening to "the latest music" on the planet...and too bad if you heathens couldn't enjoy it too.
But then, today, I realized that I don't listen to new music at all any more. It's as if when I was in high school and college, my music appreciation glands were formative and rubbery...capable of absorbing all sorts of music (I listened to a lot of different stuff, even as I do now...but NOT country.) But as I've grown older, I realize that I listen to more and more of the same stuff...the stuff I USED to listen to when I was younger. Yes, I still listen to a small amount of newer stuff...but it's largely stuff in the same vein as the old stuff.
I suppose you could call it having a musical preference...which I clearly have. But it isn't that part...it's the fact that new music is being produced probably even faster than it used to be...but I don't listen to any of it. I suppose the lack of quality radio in New York is a part of it...but I'm having a fabulous time listening to the New Wave channel on 1Bigmix.fm through Windows Media Player. It's all the stuff I listened to in high school and college.
My inability to appreciate the stuff that Chelsea listens to isn't about the fact that she listens to bad music (except for that bloody country and western crap...) but that I seem unable to appreciate things different than what I liked to listen to when I was younger. Is that a function of me wishing I was back in high school (which I definitely DON'T wish...I hated high school...) or just the fact that my brain has a section that classifies "music you like" and it's all full up? Or did that part of my brain just say "OK, we got it...now you can't change it?"
I believe it's Noam Chomsky that believes that neurolinguistic mechanisms exist in the human brain and that when you're a baby/child, those mechanisms absorb language and physically adjust themselves in some undetectable way to "learn" the language. Then, as one gets older, those mechanisms become more rigid, and unable to "learn" as fast or as well. People who are "good" at languages have mechanisms that never become fully rigid, while people who have linguistic problems might have faulty mechanisms, or mechanisms that start partially rigid.
In computers, it's like blowing code into EPROMs.
I'm now wondering if everything isn't like that. Likes and dislikes, and so on.
It would explain why I only get really serious enjoyment from my 80s music.
Or maybe I'm just getting old and set in my ways.
Whatever...I'm going back to my Duran Duran and this stupid project plan.
Posted by Glenn at October 27, 2005 03:58 PM