No More Shuffle!

Currently reading a piece by Chris Cutler in the new Arcana Vol. IV edited by John Zorn. The piece is about how at one time not so long ago, music could only be experienced live. As soon as the technology was developed to record, our understanding of and relationship with sound was inextricably altered.

As much as I love music, and have for as long as I can remember dating back to my first fisher Price turntable during my single digit years, this troubles me. I don't feel like writing my own long treatise on the matter at the moment, (perhaps in time) but suffice it to say that the more "available" and "accessible" music becomes, ie: always present on the internet with little search needed, and so often present in our cars and our ears and.....etc., the less I find myself really listening.

I have for a long time felt quite a distaste for iTunes for many reasons, the two primary being that digital music allows us to listen less attentively and the existence of shuffle.

So for now at least, I am done with shuffle. Must our lives always be shuffling? Have we that little patience and focus left? So far these last few days, I've really been enjoying listening to entire records again. I suggest you try it.

Posted by jeff pitcher at January 14, 2010 02:11 PM

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