I think (modular) music changes my mind 
Edit: is my mind also a modular system? 
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Some interesting reflections on the subject in the present context and more hereā¦
āSimon McBurney is joined by legendary pioneers Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno and Nitin Sawhney to explore the act of listeningā
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re: perceiving change in oneās listening, made me think of this paper (thereās the notion that experiencing a peculiar listening situation may enhance the listenerās awareness towards dimensions of sound ignored until then).
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For me, it was really the process of learning how to listen to different styles of music that helped me move into new listening realms.
Like ambient is a good obvious choice. You donāt listen to ambient in the same way or for the same reasons as you would pop music. Ambient tends to be more of a textural thing, which makes long drawn out minimal tracks a positive. This also works for techno and experimental music listening. Dub music in a lot of ways as well.
Then thereās jazz. Jazz can cover a lot of different styles of listening from harsh noisy free jazz to almost ambient to funky fusion to the more ātypicalā bop sound and many more.
Once I discovered these ideas it occurred to me that being able to understand music or sound is largely a function of how you approach it in your own head.
Once I got beyond the kind of exploratory period where I searched out as many different sounding musics as I could so I could teach myself how to listen to them, I got more into trying to listen to styles or types of music to match my mood. And from that I got into trying to use other styles to alter my mood.
Not coincidentally this was around the time I became very good at DJing.
These days I really like listening to music played from vinyl over my hifi. This is the ideal manner of listening. I rarely to never use headphones. I listen in the car as well. I donāt have music playing all the time. I enjoy the sounds of my environment as well as silence.
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In a kind of magickal way, humans make music and in turn, music makes humans!
Iām fascinated by the growing field of music therapy. If I had a clone, heād be studying that!
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This book was the first book I was made to purchase by my guitar instructor when I first began learning to play. To 14-15 year old me, I was definitely too distracted to appreciate it. Its been a while, and I believe there was a fairly rigid stance against electronic music (this is from the mid-late '90s I believe), but still interesting to read a chapter every once and a while.
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Woah! I canāt wait to watch this whole thingā¦
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