listening FOR vs listening TO

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ok i am currently hoikin all kinds of likely and unlikely LPs off the shelves ftb we need a themetune for "A BITE OF STARS A SLUG OF TIME AND THOU"

here's the thing (it's obvious but it's interesting): you listen to stuff totally differently and hear things ordinarily don't when you're trying something out as a potential soundtrack -- closer i think but also much more impatiently

i: you listen for "anachronism taint" <--- in this case that means, does the future of this music's "feel towards the future" mess with the "feel towards the future" of the stories we will mainly be featuring? (cf eg aweseom use of adam ant in that marie antionette film as an example of "anachronism anti-taint")
ii: you listen for drive and stasis -- some music pushes hard towards the next section of itself, which is no good if you just want to extract THAT bit
iii: vocals are an enormous pain (esp the "singers" for SF-y type music jeez)
iv: tiresomely the best bits are RIGHT INSIDE a song, which i could do more with if i had some kind of young person's sampler i guess :(
v: haha THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS is an unjustly overlooked release tho small cop in this particular context
vi: i used to like doin something like this as a kid incidentally -- pick and choose bits of my parents' classical records as tonepoems for eg the hobbit! (clue: sibelius's "swan of tuonela" goes with EVERYTHING!)

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

put into my head somehow (call it an easter egg): the virtual staa on Kant on space aliens (and fourier on giraffes) (http://virtualstoa.net/2003/08/01/105975862901968296/)

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Re iv: Audacity is free and easy to use for editing if you are recording stuff from your Mac's line in.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ooh good point! then i could also actually play my choices to traitorhand who can't do vinyl OR cassette tapes, it's like he's some kind of the_pinefox or something!?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes! i can input sound from my record-player amp even tho it is older than you-the-reader by 5-15 years! (disclaimer: not true if yr koganbot)

[koganbot]

What is A BITE OF STARS A SLUG OF TIME AND THOU, and shouldn't it really be A BITE OF SLUGS, STAR ANISE, THYME, AND THOU?

[koganbot]

Other listening options that might rearrange one's hearing:

Listening for to dance to
Listening for to get other people to dance to
Listening for to get other people to shop to
Listening for to write about
Listening for to do your own version
Listening for to fall asleep to

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

slug = this (http://dubdobdee.livejournal.com/136111.html#cutid1): which begins broadcast 1 april (hence panic)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

What's funny is that for me "listening for" almost always trumps "to" in the immediate aftermath of year-ends and such, and it takes a really long time for "listening to" to regain its status. I dunno what the turnaround on it is, but I imagine it's at least a full year before the dust settles and I go from "what would I put on a mixtape for someone else" mindset to "what do I feel like listening to?" (And a mixtape I make in a given year with a bunch of good tracks from OK albums will always age better -- well, will age, period, as opposed to disappearing back into the ether -- than the albums.)

Although I guess there's always a handful of albums from a year that qualify out of the starting gate and never get old (Marit Larsen's album comes to mind). So ummmmm I think my point here is that in my mind, small-potatoes canon-making is a "listening for" endeavor, and the "listening to" semi-canon is always a huge mess of stuff that I couldn't be bothered to organize very well (unless I put it on a mix or something).