Music For Your Activities

Clod — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:02:07 +0000

Music ain’t just for listening. Here I reveal the utilitarian take on music and sketch out some preliminary suggestions.
Books are for reading and music is for listening. But they can be so much more. Other ways of using music will occupy me shortly, a utilitarian pitch (if you will). First, an illustrative analogy. Periodically, I am compelled to buy a few very large books in hardcover. Those times when I am so compelled correlate highly with periods during which I find myself on trains and planes for long stretches. Then I like to open a big heavy book and stuff my face into it so passengers, flight attendants, and others desiring attention will think twice before talking to me. Recent events remind that a big heavy book can also be a weapon. If my neighbor decides to make unwelcome sexual advances, I can use the book to crush his or her hands and wrists. If a deranged man and his close coterie of conspirators deigns it necessary to hijack my plane, Don Delillo’s Underworld or Pynchon’s Mason&Dixon or Nabokov’s Speak Memory or Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is going to smack him square on the side of the head, whereupon my fellow passengers will be inspired to pick up any heavy objects in their carry-ons and similarly smack the crap out of the would-be hijackers. Hence, heavy books ain’t just for reading.

With the rise of handy listening devices which facilitate music being played for many activities during the day, one is confronted with decisions never before considered practical. Example 1: you are going for a five mile run on a Sunday morning in some pretty municipal park. It takes you 52 minutes on a good day, plus a few minutes for stretching and whatnot. You are no longer relegated to really long cassettes. Now you can get a 99 CD player that is the size of a dime and costs $15 and runs with Microsoft software, and for an extra $1.50 you can get stock prices and world headlines funneled directly into your cortex. Example 2: on a warm August evening you feel like swimming half a mile in your pool in the backyard. So you do. You have a 125 CD player hooked up to play through speakers lining the pool walls and floor. For an extra $2.50 you can get holographic projections of Esther Williams synchronized swimming routines. Example 3: in your private gym with your private trainer, you have a 199 CD player which will cater to your every need. For a quarter you can also get random voice recordings of Beat poets interspersed with Britney Spears clips from her “Diary…” special.

Two themes run through these examples: a need to identify a grouping of CDs which will fulfill a predetermined function; and differing requirements for music which will catalyze different activities. For instance, if you are running for an hour or swimming laps for 45 minutes, you don’t want one minute songs that are dissonant and aggressive. You want long happy songs that absorb your attention. However, if you are about to do some heavy lifting or work on your jabbing, you may want something with an edge, verging on the confrontational. Following, some CD and activity pairings.

Lifting, Crunches, Stretching

Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet6ths, Wasp’s NestRoyal Trux, Thank YouMinistry, In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing UpRevolting Cocks, Linger Ficken’ Good & Other Barnyard Oddities

Swimming

Lush, SplitTortoise, Millions Now Living Will Never DiePsychedelic Furs, Psychedelic FursCan, Cannibalism 1Edith Frost, Calling Over Time

Running

Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back HomeMary Lou Lord, Mary Lou LordBruce Springsteen, NebraskaBruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of TownJohn Prine, John Prine

Cooking & Drinking

Daftpunk, HomeworkBeastie Boys, Ill CommunicationMC Solaar, Prose CombatSerge Gainsbourg, Comic StripBats, Courage

Organizing Things/Cleaning Things

Lee Scratch Perry & The Upsetters, Eastwood Rides AgainEnnio Morricone, Legendary Italian WesternsMassive Attack, Blue LinesBob Marley & The Wailers, African HerbsmanStan Getz, Bossa Nova-Vol. 53-Verve Jazz

IACPV RESEARCH » running

Music For Your Activities