Monday 3 December 2007

No Music Day


I drove to collect Daisy and Kitty last night, I drove in silence trying to collect my thoughts and prepare for work. As soon as they got in the car the radio went on. I don’t mind and in fact some of our taste in music is very similar we all prefer XFM to most of the other radio stations. When Daisy sits down to work she automatically plugs her headphones in, to work in silence is an anathema to her, yet in contrast on Friday as I sat down to paint I preferred to sit in silence. I know many artists listen to radio 4 whilst they paint maybe I should try. It was not always like this I do enjoy listening to music but have become less tolerant when something plays that I don’t like and I frequently prefer silence because some times I think my held will explode I have so much whizzing round inside my brain. When I walk I prefer to listen to bird song and fragments of other people’s conversation, lack of music makes me focus visually too, music seems to numb my brain. I only recently read about No Music Day what a brilliant idea especially as it originates from a musician, so although I have missed the last three I will trumpet the arrival of the next two. This alone would be enough to convict me of being old in my daughter’s eyes.

2 comments:

materfamilias said...

Funny, I find I spend less and less time with music on although I have a decent collection and love listening to, moving to, and singing along with it. If I had a parallel set of hours, I'd probably spend them with music playing always, but since I only have this lifetime, I'm preserving any mental quiet I can find. No interest in an iPod for running; I walk to work thinking things through and observing the world around; even puttering around the house on my own, I'm quite often content with the quiet.

Anne-Laure said...

I didn't know about "no music day". It's funny, at my studio I have only recently become sensitive to sound, and really appreciate silence when I'm painting, and have been finding myself get quite annoyed when studios above/beside me start playing theirs really loudly. I don't remember being bothered by it so much before, maybe it's a sign of getting old, but I really appreciate the calm that I find with it.
We've just had a big snowstorm, and the quiet that comes along with having everything covered in snow was wonderful!

Also, thanks for your comments and posting my work on your blog! Happy to find a new blog with a lot of new artists to learn about.