man tells all

a column by bass player and musicologist Hans Mantel, on his current state of mind

maestro mantel

iPod therefore I am

It was inevitable, I suppose, that I too would eventually succumb to the lure of the MP3player.

This most Japanese of inventions must be one of the most successful consumer articles ever made.

Vast amounts of music in your pocket on a machine that’s no bigger than a regular cell phone,

sometimes smaller. Years ago the Sony company came up with the concept of personal music that

would not (and this is the Japanese aspect of it) invade other people’s aural space. From cassette

players it went to the cd and from there to the MP3 players that are all the rage now. It’s not only a

music player but also a fashion accessory; both my teenage girls, in accordance with the current

“cool” rules, wear them with only one of the earpieces doing its designed job while the other one

dangles aimlessly at the end of its thin cable.

Upon my asking where the attraction lay in hearing only half of the stereo picture,

I got two reactions.

The first one, as in so many instances when I try to probe the workings of the

teenage brain, was a facial expression that, to quote P.G. Wodehouse, resembled that

of a vegetarian who finds a caterpillar in his salad.

The second one was more interesting:

“Because I have to be able to have a conversation!”

As I pondered this in the subsequent days I started to realise that the experience

of listening to music means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

Nor was this new to me; I never understood how people can surpress music to

a sort of cognitive background. In my high school days students would have long

conversations in a disco in front of the speakers with the music at full blast.

Somehow they could surpress the music in their heads.

How lucky they are.

I can’t do that.

If I go a restaurant to have a sumptuous meal in stimulating company

and with scyntillating conversation, the last thing I want to hear is music

(or usually muzak) over the house system. I cannot help but listen to it regardless

of the quality of the music. I get furious when I am forced to listen to music in

that type of situation and, needless to say, if the music is of the usual abyssmally low standard,

I start looking at my knife in a new light. I’m a peaceful man,

but the next violinist who comes to my table while I’m dining and conversing

should be aware that when his name is soon in the papers it will not be

in connection with his upcoming concert but with his gruesome demise,

the police’s amazement about what you can do with a G string

and the coroners quote “This is the first time I had to extract a violin.”

It can get worse: if I’m in engaging company and the background music is great

it’s the same problem. One half of my brain is trying to sustain the conversation

while the other half is listening to the music. With my hemispheres in mortal combat

over dominance, I realise that I can’t win. Both activities suffer.

I decided I was going to cut myself off from everything else when listening to music

and bought an MP3 player for listening in other places than my own study.

On vacation I like to take long walks along empty beaches and let my mind run free,

soak up the sun and enjoy the scenery and solitude that this litoral activity provides.

I was unprepared for what happened: the music on my iPod was great, so was the beach.

But when I came back I realised I had not experienced the quietness of the scenery,

the serenity of the solitude or any connection with nature.

Nor had I fully enjoyed listening to the music since I had been doing other things

that are detrimental to my concentration; picking up shells, looking at seagulls,

walking in the surf etc. It was a lose-lose situation.

I had been dimly aware of this before; on tour I’m always the only musician

who doesn’t have some sort of music player with him. Reason being that I don’t want

to have a Frank Sinatra soundtrack with my visual memories of the Himalayan foothills

or the Zambezi river. I need the original sounds.

The MP3 player is to be used wisely when the music is that accessible.

Music placed on it describes to you who you are and what you like:

it tells you who you are in a very specific code. Women, they tell us, are master multi-taskers.

Well, that certainly goes for my daughters who put on music as a background to every activity.

The difference with me, of course, is, they hear - but they don’t listen.

They are able to listen with full concentration, but choose not to.

They have a choice that I don’t have: I have to listen.

When I’m wearing my iPod in the street I imagine passers-by look at me

like I’m a forgotten extra from the set of The Night Of The Living Dead,

aimlessly walking around with a vacant look in my eyes and unaware and

blatently disinterested in my surroundings and its inhabitants.

That’s what happens when you can’t cognitively ‘disassociate’,

a professional deformation the depth of which I intend to investigate further.

Should I envy people that can just have music on and not listen to it?

My girls share their musical habit with a lot of other people. Getting dressed in the morning,

doing homework, sitting with friends in the park, all this needs music in the background

all the time. To them it’s acoustic wallpaper that makes them feel good.

They have found a way to enjoy music as have large sections of the world’s population,

it seems.

That’s the true beauty of MP3 players: an incorruptible musical world all your own,

dependable,

one you can switch on or off,

one that is always at your personal beck and call.

Next time you find yourself with your kids in a popular store with trendy clothes

and the shop assistent has to raise his or her voice to you to be heard over

the banging hip-hop music on the sound system, you’ll see my point

(‘cause you can’t hear it).

The End, for the moment

man tells all

iPod therefore I am

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