Silence

[jadams501]

So I've had a backbreaking few months of work, and the past few days i've listened to almost no music at all (i will admit to a few tracks from dylan's hugely underrated Street Legal album). The prospect of listening to most of.my favorites, and letting those dysfunctional people into my aching head, has been largely unappealing. And, i've really enjoyed listening intently to silence, or more properly ambient noise within the acoustic space of my apartment. It was a real challenge at first because i've had so many tunes echoing in my mind, but i've come to quite enjoy my respite from all the sounds.

I've done this before, and usually it results in hearing music with fresh ears and a renewed appreciation for those musical craftsman who have a powerful sense of space and atnosphere, particularly in the recording space, and have the courage to let their music coexist with silence rather than trying to drown it in superfluous layers of noise and processing.

Spaceman has been consistently strong in this regard. Anyone else increasing their music appreciation through silence?

[TheWarmth]

The closest I get to silence is the hum of my tinnitus, so I generally perfer to have some kind of background noise, even if it's just the whir of a fan. I can imagine your approach resulting in greater appreciation of your favorite artists, though.

[bbbhenko]

i sometimes do, but usually not for more than a day or two... but i do agree that it is a refreshing experience not to routinely expose oneself to music by habit. in particular, i always listen to music most intensively on my way to and from work but i choose silence instead (sometimes even with my headphones on, wierd as i am...) at least a couple of times a month

this topic reminds me of the liner notes to "discreet music" by brian eno. i think that he writes that he was in the hospital for a period of time, when someone put on some classical music for him but on a far too low volume. the experience of not being able to get out of bed to increase the volume, having to listen to the faint sound of the music being mixed with the ambience of the room, gave him the idea to what became ambient music.

[BzaInSpace]

Very recently in fact - I had no wish to hear any music the day following the recent Spritualized Glasgow show. I was still... there in that white light madness.

Often after long recording sessions I want silence for a bit, a good 12 hours or so ideally, everything starts to sound like mush after a while and your ears need a rest too. I find coming back to it refreshed I am way more consistant with mixing levels and whatever and can pinpoint stuff to be sorted immediately.

However, Silence is overrated, and I way prefer the early stuff.

[runcible]

However, Silence is overrated, and I way prefer the early stuff.

[somakoma]

The closest I get to silence is the hum of my tinnitus, so I generally perfer to have some kind of background noise, even if it's just the whir of a fan. I can imagine your approach resulting in greater appreciation of your favorite artists, though.

high pitched notes here.. can not trust my ears at all above 14khz

the only thing worse than "silence" is when a cheap dvdplayer or an old TV is in standby mode..
When exhausted and the blood pressure is at its highest.. some of those sounds make my own built-in clean tinnitus notes start wobbling like ten thousand chipmunks and smurfs having some dubstep rave inside a silver spaceship heading for alpha proxima at the speed of light.

phil spector sometimes cut off all frequencies above 13 khz and I never really liked guitars with too much high frequency noise..
but I do miss the high freq part of the "ting" sound some cymbals have..

oh well.. proper cymbal coloration and silence, we´ll meet again some day! (next life)

[flokie]

Very recently in fact - I had no wish to hear any music the day following the recent Spritualized Glasgow show. I was still... there in that white light madness.

Pretty much the same here, it wasn't until the next evening I really felt like putting on any music

I don't get to experience actual silence very often, only occasionally on holidays! I live on a busy street, so I'm used to background noise all the time.
And I also suffer from tinnitus, although I'm still hoping to beat it! It varies a lot, barely noticeable some days, to my ear feeling totally blocked - in which case the hearing loss is very noticeable and frustrating. At its worst when I get sinusitis.

the only thing worse than "silence" is when a cheap dvdplayer or an old TV is in standby mode..

Yes! It doesn't make my own tinnitus wobble (more likely to be caused by a cold), but sitting in not thinking about these, and there's this high pitched hum, and you get confused as to whether it does come from your ear or not, until you realise. Now that I think about it, CRTs can do that high pitch even when actually on, and that's even more annoying and does cause the occasional tinnitus pitch wobble thing. I find I generally manage to make abstraction of it though, even with little background noise.