I have had this thought for several years now. Music is like food. As time goes by the more I think that metaphor stands up. Imagine, if you will, that your iPod or CD case or media player is your “menu”. You’re about to drive somewhere in the car or want something to listen to while working on something so you peruse the menu. “What am I hungry for today?” You ask yourself. People have different tastes in music just like they do with food. Some have a more delicate palate while others like just about anything. Some have a love of the more exotic choices (world music, experimental, etc.) while some are perfectly content with fast food (commercial radio).
So you’ve perused the menu and you think “Hmmnn…. I’m not sure what I want. Let’s see… oh Neil Diamond, yeah that’ll work.”, but then after a few minutes it’s just not doing it for you. So you crack open the menu again and your eyes cross Paul Simon’s Graceland. You switch to that and WOW… now that really hits the spot. That is exactly what you were needing.
For those world music buffs you could even go so far as to look over your menu and wonder “Am I in the mood for Chinese today? Indian? Mexican?”. Ok that was a joke.
Now you could take this metaphor to a literal sense and talk about music’s benefits on the physical body. I’m sure everyone has heard dozens of studies on the effect of music on anything from plants to comatose humans. There are even studies on how different types of music can affect biology, like heavy metal vs. classical music on plants, or Barry White and the backseat of a car.
Have you ever had a craving for music? A particular band or artist? A specific song?
yum yum
22/09/2009 at 8:42 pm Permalink
But we just had Chinese yesterday! (Do you think the Chinese ever say that?)
The nice thing about music vs. food is that it’s much easier to make changes in what you’re “tasting.” It’s hard to do that with food. You can’t try a little Indian, then Chinese, then Italian, then French, etc. without overstuffing yourself an having to stop at some point.
22/09/2009 at 9:19 pm Permalink
True, very true. Of course you can “stuff” yourself with music, i.e. ear fatigue.
01/12/2009 at 7:48 pm Permalink
This is HILARIOUS! The 45 vinyl in the picture is a old Romanian production of the ONLY record lable in existence during communism.
I recognized the logo immediately (the lyre) and the record lable name (ELECTRECORD) – because I am from Romania and grew up with plenty of ELECTRECORD produced music – Lol…
And I relate much to this post. I make music and… cook. Many parallels!
Cheers!
Gabi.
01/12/2009 at 10:11 pm Permalink
Thanks again Gabi! And that’s so interesting about ELECTRECORD! I didn’t know that. Very cool! And I’m glad you appreciated the post!