Saturday 17 November 2007

It's been in the back of my mind for some time to do some reading on what listening is. As I've gradually become convinced that good listening is what makes a good musician, I figured that learning some basic scientific facts on how listening works might be a good idea. Having read some Pauline Oliveros (I can't find a copy of Software for People anywhere though) I was looking for something a bit less mystical. 

Living a short bike ride from a large university library has its advantages, so last night I was trawling the Physiology, Psychology and Anthropology shelves for suitable reading. And the first thing that struck me was how little material there was. I was expecting to be have a choice of reading, but in most departments there was only one book, compared to several or a whole shelf-full devoted to sight.  Enough to keep me occupied for a few weeks though.

I also couldn't resist picking up a copy of Noise/Music: A History, which looked like my kind of book, but on a cursory two-minute flick-through I spotted two obvious factual errors and more mentions of Hegelianism and Adorno than is really credible in a book published in 2007. There are some good things in it, but I get the feeling that when academics write about rock music or its relations, they often feel the need to overload their prose and make it superficially 'academic', to justify writing about such stuff in a research-funded environment. It can make the results less than readable and sometimes rather meaningless, whereas an unashamed rock journo can get to the heart of the matter more quickly without having to justify his research grant.

I could easily devote another week full-time just to getting my study tidy, so I have to try to find a balance between improving my workspace and actually doing some work. I've got a growing pile of notes to learn now too, so I'd better get my fingers working again on something other than incomprehensible guitar noise.

Yesterday, I also left a roadsign peeking out from a large building by the Clyde.