All Music Is Good and Liking Is Overrated
TAoN No. 167: Some ideas about staying "open eared" from one of my favorite DJs. And more
Today I want to revisit a subject I first wrote about a year ago: “open-earedness” — an academic term for openness to new music. I shared some ideas about how to stay open-eared back then, but it’s something I still think about. So I decided to turn to one of the most open-eared listeners I’ve ever met, Doug Schulkind.
Doug has been a free-form radio DJ for decades; I first heard his WFMU show “Give The Drummer Some” in the mid 2000s, driving around Jersey City. (He played Otis Spann’s “Hotel Lorraine,” and in those pre-Shazam days I had to pull over and write it down when he back-announced it.) I’ve been hooked ever since, and constantly dazzled by the variety he plays.
Some years ago now Doug moved to Pittsburgh, and started WFMU’s Give The Drummer Radio stream, which includes his show and more than two dozen other live (and archived) programs hosted by an amazing crew of open-eared folks he’s assembled over time. It’s an incredible resource. (I should note that he has a full-time job, and the GDS enterprise is a labor of love.)
I’ve corresponded with Doug a bit over the years and we’ve met a couple of times, and recently I decided to ask him about how he stays open-eared enough to put together a three-hour show, every week, that covers so many genres, from all around the world, and spanning so many decades of recorded music.
Of course the discussion ended up going beyond his show. Lots has changed as music-hunting has shifted from record stores to the online world, but his underlying ethos is the same. So today I’ll share three highlights from that conversation and subsequent email exchange.
CURIOUS LISTENING
Given how long he’s been doing this, Doug obviously has a wealth of music knowledge to draw from and make connections, both in his head and on his hard drive. (He reckons he owns the digital equivalent of more than 25,000 albums.) While that shapes the show, what drives it his effort to hear new and different sounds — listening as act of curiosity. “I am constantly, as many waking moments as I have available, I am seeking out music,” he says.
The show is generally made up of five or six sets, each built around some common theme or inspiration. For example, one recent show included a set of Greek “underworld” music from the 1920s and 1930s (“tunes about knife-fights and heroin deals gone wrong”),and a set of sub-Saharan African music inspired by the recent passing of kora player Toumani Diabaté. Another included a jazz set united by “a particular sound of the trumpet in my head over the last week or so,” and a set of songs about jukeboxes. Every show ends with a set of rare soul.
The spark of a set could come from anywhere; Doug reads lots of music blogs, might get inspired by something overheard on the Drummer stream or elsewhere, or through poking around his own collection. The Greek underworld set started with “stumbling on a 4-disc set of rembetika music I had downloaded at some point.” Searching his digital library, 579 tracks came up, and he listened to snippets of 40 or 50 on his way to seven in the set on the show. “I can't rush it,” he says. “It's like: Hear enough to hear that I want to hear more.”
Even now, in a typical episode of the show, at least half of what he plays are pieces of music he’d never heard all the way through a week earlier.
LIKING IS OVERRATED
Obviously the way Doug listens is partly influenced by having a weekly radio show to assemble, which most of us don’t. But when I asked if he had any advice for becoming, or remaining, more open-eared, he made a couple of points I think would be useful to any listener — or anyone interested in attention and observation more broadly.
“It's funny, because social media, which now seems like the template for all existence, is all about liking and favoriting,” he said. “But liking something is not necessarily the most important thing.”
Algorithms based on our “likes” serve us more of the same, which sounds desirable at first but is actually quite limiting. “There are other things that can happen,” he continued, “when you expose yourself to a cultural mode of expression, read a novel, watch a movie, read a book, listen to a record. There are other things that happen than just feeling good.” So be “open to those opportunities for positive things to happen that aren't just about liking.”
He freely admits that doesn’t necessarily “like” everything he hears on the Drummer stream — but what he doesn’t like might nevertheless intrigue or challenge or inform him. “I don't have to like everything. But maybe I'm attracted to it because it's unusual or makes me feel anxious or makes me want to dance or other kinds of impulses that get triggered.” In short: “Liking things is overrated.”
ALL MUSIC IS GOOD
The second point may sound contradictory at first. But I think it’s actually complementary. “My basic core belief is that all music is good,” Doug said. “Everything. And there's some things that I'm not yet ready to accept as good — but that's on me.”
In other words: Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s not good.
This partly comes from being “uninterested in people's takes on what they don't like,” he explained. “Life is too short to criticize and to spend the energy on cutting something down. So I believe that all music is good, and it's just the degree to which I am available to appreciate it or not.”
That does not mean he’ll just play anything on Give the Drummer Some, or that he has truly learned to accept all music as good. For example, he deadpanned, he hasn’t yet acquired an appreciation for Billy Joel. But he’s making a sincere point: Better to spend time trying to appreciate music than to criticize it: “My end goal is to live long enough to have loved everything, and I'm not going to get there, but I'm getting there as fast as I can.”
I’ll have a bit more from my exchanges with Doug in the paid/supporter issue later this week. Subscribe here (summer sale through August).
Meanwhile, check out Doug’s show archive here, and listen live to the Drummer stream here. His show airs live Fridays from 9-noon Eastern. THANK YOU DOUG!
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IN OTHER NEWS
The Second Nature podcast is working on a new season and soliciting viewpoints on a range of environmental topics. I love the way they work with their audience, “folks like you who power the climate movement through their everyday lives.” More on how you can get in the conversation(s) here (or here).
Bioswale, exogenous, externality, ultrastructure, veneraforming. Wordnik’s “Five words from …” column “highlights interesting words from interesting books.” Very cool!
Amusing review of food kits for the apocalypse: WaPo gift link.
“My meditation practice was a godsend to me because it allowed me to relax while not feeling like I was frittering away precious time.” (Thx Sandy!)
Artists re-creating disappearing buildings in miniature: NYT gift link
Denver TAoN bureau chief Marianna M. has informed me of a cool event series in the Mile High City: Mixed Taste features two unrelated presentations, and an ensuing audience-driven discussion that connects them. The final installment of the current season is this Wednesday August 14, Aurora Borealis & Wood Type Printing. Wish I could go, I love the concept!
“We pay much more attention to bad events or emotions than good ones.” WSJ article (gift link) on why we often think things are worse than they are (and what to do about that).
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“Algorithms based on our “likes” serve us more of the same, which sounds desirable at first but is actually quite limiting.”
This is why I really miss having a printed newspaper. I love reading random stories about topics that I might not otherwise have been exposed to. Or seeing ads for interesting events. Our algorithmic culture limits serendipitous experiences.
I'be always felt the same way about Billy Joel -- Meh. But recent events led to my reading his biography and ultimately his career is fucking amazeballs. I can't say that I'm putting much (any) Billy Joel on to listen to, but if nothing else I have a much greater appreciation for the skill, sheer stick-to-it-ivness and EFFORT he expended in order to be as ubiquitous as he is.