I have a problem. I pay out money every month (to the music-streaming service Spotify) so that I can listen to (more or less) whatever music I want whenever I want because I love the idea of listening to music but when it comes to it, I almost never do so. Consequently, not only am I not doing something that I think I want to do but I am paying money (approximately £120 per year) for the pleasure of not doing it! Why? And what is the solution?
The obvious thing for me to do is to cancel my Spotify subscription and save myself some money. I could still listen to a wide range of music (CDs, CDs saved as mp3 files, online radio, free Spotify with adverts etc.) but obviously I wouldn’t be able to listen to almost anything at anytime (assuming I had downloaded tracks to my phone say). This latter point makes me resist cancelling because I feel that it reduces the chance that I will listen to music. But that is crazy: I already listen to music approximately 0% of the time so I cannot really reduce that even further. What I really mean is that if I cancel my Spotify subscription I feel that it will reduce the chance that I will somehow change my behaviour and start listening to music. This means that I am paying for the privilege of being able to dump on myself more effectively for not doing something I supposedly want to do.
All of which leaves me looking towards other resolutions which, clearly, have to involve me listening to music. It really is simple – I have to answer one question: Do I want to listen to music? And if my answer to that question is ‘yes’, and I think it is, then I have to make some decisions about when and where and how I will do this. I could listen on my way to and from work – but I already use that time to listen to podcasts and audiobooks and I don’t want to lose that. I could listen to music at home – but I think the opportunities to do this are pretty limited because i) other people are around and would probably not want to listen to the same things that I would, ii) I would probably be doing other stuff and moving around at the same time and so wouldn’t really be able to listen properly and iii) I don’t want to be hooked up to headphones all the time. I could listen to music at work in my office – but I think that maybe I would find it hard to concentrate properly if I was actively trying to listen to music at the same time. Added to this, I find I struggle a bit to decide what I want to listen. All of which means I am a bit stuck.
To try to resolve all of this (and if you are reading this you are probably really struggling to get your head around how someone can turn something so simple into something so utterly complicated) I am going to experiment a bit. I am going to try putting on Classic FM at work just to get used to the idea of having ‘noise’ going on as I work. Initially, I will probably only do this when I am not engaged in deeper work that requires high levels of focus. By choosing online radio I remove the need to decide what to listen to (apart from choosing the station of course) which helps to solve one of the associated issues.
The curious thing is that I used to listen to music all of the time, but I suppose back then all of my ‘space’ was my own and although I thought I was busy all the time probably I wasn’t and music was something that helped to fill the world around me. I’ve had Classic FM on as I have been typing this and quite enjoyed having a layer of sound there in the background although I could hardly tell you what pieces have been played (Rossini’s ‘The Silken Ladder’ Overture [?] was one and some music from Jurassic Park films was also on earlier I think, music from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ is on now). So far so good. I will try to remember to report back on my progress at some point in the not too distant future, and for now Spotify will continue to receive my money, just in case this flicker of aural inspiration catches light into a full-blown fire again.
Tim O'Hare 