Go Put On Some Music

I started listening to records in my room when I still had a little suitcase record player with Pinocchio on the cover. Years ago I wrote a song about Karen Carpenter, based on a memory of listing to a Carpenters record, looking out my bedroom window, and singing along with every word. I couldn't have been more than 10 years old. When I got my first real stereo from Korvette's department store, it had a turn table and an 8-track player. It was a revelation. I got headphones at the same time (smart parents!) and the world opened up in a whole new way. Like many of my friends, I spent hours in my room listening to records. It was my refuge. My safe space. My place to dream. To learn. It was a buffer against the outside world. All the way through college, I spent hours listening to music. Commuting to work or school, I had headphones on and a cassette spinning in the old Sony Walkman. Long train rides from Boston to NJ. Drives into NYC. Music was always my way of creating a world around myself.

Somewhere along the way, I listened less and less. Maybe because I was playing so much music? I don't know. Oh, I would still spend some hours on long drives, but I discovered audio books too. Around the house, at least for awhile, I wasn't actively listening to music. I didn't even notice it. It's not like there was no music in my life. I was playing 80 to 100 nights a year, working on records as a side man and producer, learning hours of tunes for pick up gigs. There was plenty of music in my life, but there was a piece missing that I didn't notice.

In 2018, I decided to go back to school and finish my degree. I enrolled in the online school of my alma mater, Berklee College of Music. Suddenly, I had to read course work and write. I had to do homework!

I'll warn you right now, I'm not one of those music people who hates Spotify. I love it. I always thought it was great idea. The revenue model for musicians and writers from streaming is fucked. No doubt, but I believe that speaks to a much larger and older issue(s) inherent in the music business. So to be clear, I use the shit out of Spotify, and yes I pay for it, and I don't want to argue about it. Wherever you are with it is fine by me. I digress...

I had to do homework! It had only been 40 years or so. I'm sitting on the couch in my office, as I am now, with the laptop on my legs trying to get the work done and I feel like I have ADHD or something. I keep getting distracted, or just giving in to my own "I don't want to." Then I have a thought, that maybe the young kids listen to music when they study, so I go on Spotify and discover an avalanche of playlists for focus, study, homework, etc. I like my focus music to be instrumental only, or I start listening to the words and the singers, and there's so much great stuff out there. It really helped me get though my homework sessions, but I didn't take it beyond that.

In one of my final semesters, I had to take a music therapy class. One of the first things I remember from that course, is some discussion and discovery around music as a tool for managing your mood. It all came back to me. It made so much sense! I began to experiment with listening to music again. I began to attach music to all sorts of activities where it had been missing. I was reminded just the other day as I was on a long car trip with my little family. We're in the car. The kid id bored. There's holiday traffic. Some stress is starting to build, so I dial up a playlist that I think might be fun to listen to, and everything shifts. The mood alters. It all becomes lighter.

If I'm cooking in the kitchen, there's music. As I'm writing this, there's music. Not always for dedicated listening like I did when I was a kid, though that can happen too, but music has taken it's place again as a space defining, mood lifting, creativity inspiring, powerful tool. I'm grateful.

It doesn't matter what you're into. Whatever genre(s) floats your boat is beside the point. Go put on some music...