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I miss scarcity

This is not a complaint. Or, if it is a complaint, it's half-aimed at me. Mostly this is a reflection.

In the old days, I got to know music really well -- in great detail, sonically, musically, reading all the credits, the liner notes, etc. A friend would have an album I didn't, so I'd go to his house to listen. We'd talk about the music. We'd talk about how album sides hung together or didn't. We were thrilled by double albums.

Now, a torrent of information is everywhere. I listen alone, often to a single song, often not listening to anything over and over again.

You will tell me, "That's your choice." I'd half agree. It's like agreeing that "It's my choice not to live off the electrical grid." 

As I read and teach about AI, I am learning that our tools often prioritize speed and information glut. It seems, initially, like a cornucopia but it becomes a wash of "content." I must admit, I'm losing my talent for managing all this content, and I'm losing my love for it. And it's making me into a different person, somewhat, and I am not so sure I want to be that person. End of reflection.

Wizard Conjuring Cosmic Chaos Art Print featuring the drawing Let There be Content by Benjamin Schwartz

hilde45
privatefuture
56 posts
 

I’ve been on a deep dive analyzing how I came to like the music in my life, looking at how I became aware of it and why it mattered at the time. I know what I like and I like what I know.

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ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice
9,420 posts
 

"...For some of us, music is attached to a moment, a place, a person...."

When hormones are raging when we are young we are far more emotional and establish incredibly strong connections with music... as well as people and places. So, it seems almost universal that folks keep this connection their whole life. But the tendency to make these connections fades as we get older and live much fuller and wider lives. Some folks just stay with the music they grew up with and never move on or feel connected to other music. 

For some of us the universe of music we know and love just gets bigger and bigger.  While most of the deepest connections with music for me was from age 12 or so  through 30. I established others later through most of the countries I lived and worked in.

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hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,998 posts
 

@soix 

I think there might be a bit of nostalgia/rose-colored glasses involved here.  I for one could never imagine going back to just listening to the CDs I own. 

That's why I said "not trying to weigh it all out." The line you quoted.

The challenge of questioning technology is not to try to put issues into an "either/or" framing but to see what is gained and lost, specifically. The gains of exploring new music and easy access to entire catalogs is, well, pretty obvious by now. This is the easier thing to talk about. This is a post about thinking about what is also lost.

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