Life Between 0 and 1

If you’ve been following me for a while and reading the Three Things Thursday posts (thanks to Emily at Full-Grown Nerd for that), you’ll have noticed the full album recommendations at the bottom. Whether you actually listen to them or not is not important, it’s the reason I’m doing in the first place that is important. In my acceptance with introversion, I’ve discovered that music is not nearly as much of a distraction as I had one thought, and in fact, helps me focus and concentrate on processing thoughts and feelings almost as much as writing does.

Since finding Spotify, which I now pay for (small indulgences), I’ve been finding all kinds of new music that I never knew existed thanks to watered down commercial radio. Never having been one to be offended by explicit content, I find that the music that contains it has an undertone of emotion you don’t get with edited or censored content. The service is truly something remarkable in how it uses the music you like, save, and add to playlists to then suggest similar music from various artists around the world. Just today, I found the band Hyper through their Discovery function on the desktop application. It isn’t my typical angry new metal rock that I typically listen to, but it has a very unique type of cadence to it that is mesmerizing. A running joke a few of my readers and I have is that anything we like is actually Russian propaganda disguised in normal things that shifts our mindsets subliminally. I’m onto it and just like the band, LOL

This is the first time I’ve written about how music plays a huge part of my life, but I keep coming back to it and attempt to put it into words that make sense and adequately express how it makes me feel. With my fairly wide tolerance for most music styles and genres, Spotify get confused sometimes so I’ve made playlists that are focused on one type of music and then use the “recommendations” at the bottom of the list to expand to new discoveries. When I see a lot of repeats after refreshing the list a few times, I move onto a different list and come back a few weeks later. It’s crazy how much music is actually out there and each time a song is played, the artist gets a little cut.

Perhaps the best feature that I’ve used extensively is the ability to play music offline without the requirement to have an Internet connection active. I’ve loaded up my 32GB micro SD on my mobile device with lots of offline music that I rotate on a monthly basis after adding my favorite songs to the appropriate play list. All this is done right through the app and its the same experience on the desktop, mobile, tablet, or on the website directly. They’ve done a fantastic job at making the service as seamless and spot on (pun intended) for the user.

As this wasn’t an attempt to sell you on the use of Spotify, it has become that unfortunately. I don’t get paid for referrals, I don’t even have a referral link to share. It’s up to you if you want to spend the $10/month for the service, but when Pandora is only $5/month, its hard to justify if you’re only looking at the cost. Pandora and Spotify are two completely different services. Spotify is like a jukebox you have all the control with and access to tens of millions of songs, Pandora has the same library but you’re at the mercy of their “playlist” and have only partial control with the thumbs up/thumbs down feature.

My brain is happier with me for providing it distraction free background music, sort of like my brains theme song for when it does its thing to keep me sane. I even picked up a set of premium noise-cancelling over-the-ear headphones recently that set me back a bit more than I was comfortable spending, but I saved more than I spent, so it justified the purchase. They’re sitting under the tree at home awaiting me to open them on Christmas as a gift from my wife to me. It’s easier for us to do that, really, we both just “get” what we need when we need it.

How does music fit into your routine? If it doesn’t, what does?