Stop… and take the time to LISTEN to some music

We DJs play music to others. But sometimes, you really need to switch off and listen to some yourself. But do you? If not, you really should.

Sir Thomas Beecham music

Sir Thomas Beecham music

I like to believe that I lead a busy life, and find myself without enough time for all sorts of things. It’s complete self delusion of course — I’m merely lacking in focus and am thoroughly disorganised. I hastily stumble from task to task without a to-do list and seemingly achieve things by semi-planned but happy accident.

This morning however, as I sat down to plough through another project with a looming deadline, I came across a piece of music I hadn’t heard in a long time. It stopped me in my tracks (figuratively and literally), and before I knew it I’d compiled a playlist of music that transported me back to times before Hip Hop, House, and all those important dance music stops along the way. The morning has evaporated into a beautiful music haze from The Associates, Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Coltrane, Young Marble Giants, The Lotus Eaters, and Maria Callas to name but a few. My mind made me make and take the time to listen.

I found myself completely at peace, unable to fathom this strange feeling of stopping dead and just listening. In my day to day life, music is a soundtrack, a pleasant noise designed to fill the gaps of silence induced by working alone. It is the necessary noise that makes a working atmosphere. I’m not really listening to it though, it’s just on. But here I was, Flares in ears, just listening, and giving absolutely no fucks whatsoever about anything else, not even tea.

TRANSFORMED

Instead of having this feeling of OMG how will I ever hit this deadline, I am now calm and rested by the sound of stunning music. I allowed myself to just switch off completely and not think about anything but the beautiful sound coming into my ears. And it was a transforming experience. And that deadline is easily achievable now that my brain is calm.

It was a little like the first time you hear your favourite tracks through decent speakers. I heard all the things that had passed my by — the intakes of breath, background noises, fingers on strings… just because I had disengaged from thinking or caring about anything else and simply listened.

This sounds like some motivational bullshit doesn’t it? And perhaps to a degree it is. But if you lead a busy life, or one that you delude yourself into believing is busy, just stop for a moment. Find a quiet spot, pop on your headphones, close your eyes (an important step), and simply listen to some beautiful music. Detach yourself for a while and forget about the stresses and strains of modern life. Your Facebook friends can wait to find out what you had for lunch, that email will still be there in 30 minutes, and that text from your boss does not have to be answered until the track has finished. None of this stuff is so important that you have to do it this instant. Push aside all this trivial detritus that you believe to be important and take time for you.

Remember, music isn’t just to be played to a crowd. Just for once, be the crowd, and lose yourself in your own music.

OVER TO YOU

So you ever just listen to music? Like switch everything off, close your eyes and really listen? Is it the same music that you play to a crowd? Or something else?

Tags
Mark Settle
Mark Settle

The old Editor of DJWORX - you can now find Mark at WORXLAB

Articles: 1228

Related Posts

23 Comments

  2. I find myself listening to The Art Of Noise vinyl lately and enjoying the tracks from beginning to end, thanks to Disccogs i can now get the stuff that i wasnt able to buy back then being 12.

  3. Because I am a DJ, Sound Engineer & Record Producer, music is generally work for me. But when organising tracks for a new venue or gig, when I come across that gem. I can’t help but stop everything close my eyes and listen, then yell out to my wife and get her to stick the headphones on her head and share the experience. Otherwise I just drive and listen to music, you can’t answer emails etc while driving. Sometimes I’ve got nowhere to really go, I just drive.

    • I never thought about this but that’s where I disengage and really listen to my music. In the car driving. Especially if it’s a beautiful day and I have a good distance to go over some really good roads. I’m getting relaxed just thinking about it.

  8. I work in an architectural firm. Whenever I am having a tight deadline, especially in producing details, I pop in some cool music, which plays subconsciously in the background of my mind. I may not be attentively listening to the lyrics, just humming along as I trod on the wine-press. I have some preset playlists for these occasions, which I always play in sequence, never in random. And you won’t catch me pressing the next or previous track button either. Sometimes I’ll pop in a track, set a loop, eliminating the intro and outro, so that it will play continuously over and over without a break.

    Some of the great albums I like playing over and over in this manner include: Millie Jackson’s Caught Up/Still Caught Up, The Trojan Box Collections, Enigma’s MCMXC AD, Cross of Changes, Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi and Love, Sensuality And Devotion. Percussion Jazz and Roots Reggae dubs also tops in some of my favourite playlists.

    And yeah, this is hardly music that you can play in a show for a crowd, just my private-get-lost-in-the-moment collection.

    • When not dancing, I still enjoy listening to electronic music, however I steer toward the more laid back music and even ambient styles. Guy J’s latest album is a great example. CD 1 is extremely chill nearly ambient music and CD 2 is much more dance & club oriented.

  10. Sometimes I fall into the trap where the only time I’ve spent listening to music all week has been looking for new tracks to play out.

    Last week was one of those weeks so during a 45 minute drive I listened to Hernan Cattaneo’s Balance 026 CD 1 and got completely lost in it. Since it’s not what you’d typically play in a club, it had been a while since I last listened it and that only made it sound better.

    I also came across Stephan Bodzin’s Powers of Ten and it backed up my conclusion that the best electronic music isn’t always dance music.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hrOW_psDlc

  12. i almost feel like this is a whole sub-thread for DJWORX “things we listen to when we’re not searching for new tracks to play out” (and “stuff we found that we played out that shouldn’t work but does”!)

    So glad you kicked this thread off Mark – I’ve already been introduced to music I wouldn’t have found on my own (and I don’t feel that nagging pressure that I need to figure out if this is something I need to add to my crate)

  13. I’ve been digging into my funk crates recently and really enjoying that 70s sound. But, still can’t help checking out where that sample was used on Whosampled.. It’s like Tourette’s for me. You can take the DJ out of the club but…….

  14. It used to be just about music before djing was a fashionable job and a way to reach “the fame and fortune” and “your dreams” in fact to be a real and a good (not god :) dj you actually must listen to music and to feel it (remember?) and a total fan(atic) of the music and not of the gear used to play it (just as an example :) We can help but think if this article was inspired by our rant in another one some weeks ago…but hey sure it’s a thing of our ego :) We are human as well :)

Leave a Reply