Thoughts
One of the reasons why [[Quit Spotify|Quitting Spotify]] is so hard is that it is convenient not only from an economical point of view, but above all given the astounding availability of virtually any piece of music ever recorded. Actually, the value of music lies also in looking for it. The struggle of getting to actually wear your headphones and listen to what you want to is annihilated by streaming services, but probably it makes the overall value experience suffer greatly.Probably, as Gilad Edelman points out in You Should Listen to CDs, Streaming platforms just aren’t designed with the serious music fan in mind
. The hassle of getting into a shop and looking for what you want mutates into a pleasure if you consider it as part of the experience: breathing the atmosphere of a place that is becoming one of the rarest on the planet.
While suggestions Spotify or its similars advance are based on calculus and emotion-less considerations, getting into a physical place provides a matchless feeling that makes up for any annoyance. If you do not know what you intend to listen, it is not a machine providing you (feeding you with) a suggestion.
Message
In an era of empty music driven by money, I hate to ultimately evaluate an album based on the fact that it says something, rather than doing it on the basis of how well it says it. Having a message should be the natural, quintessential, feature of a music production. It is not anymore. (See Saviors)
Playing
Concerning playing the guitar and singing, in front of a bonfire as well as on stage with a microphone I am subject to the Dunning–Kruger effect, the cognitive bias whereby people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability
Learning
- The Best Albums of all Time, according to [Rolling Stone]
Music theory
- OpenMusicTheory, an open-source, interactive, online “text”book for college-level music theory courses.
Ideas
[Rolling Stone]: https://www.rollingstone.com/ ‘Rolling Stone’