I keep my iPod with me at all times, especially at work. I find that having music pumping directly in my ears helps me block out all of the distractions of working at a busy office (people talking loudly, clacking on keyboards, phones ringing, etc) and puts me in my own world where it’s easier to focus. I’ve found that changing my playlist or musical selection somewhat manipulates my work ethic as well. During crunched times when I really need to crank stuff out, having an upbeat indie rock or electro soundtrack makes me work more intensely. Whereas, if I need to focus on something a little more taxing like sifting through lines and lines of code, lush music like Antony and the Johnsons keep my brain working to a steady tempo. It’s kind of like having your own soundtrack to a movie that you’re constantly writing.

I am hoping you are using Ipod as a generic term for a portable music player(PMP). Some of us have escaped the stranglehold of Apple.

In fact, I am listening to your show on the radio on my Microsoft Zune. A feature that no Ipod has natively

I have an IPod but use it rarely.

Walking down the street, or on the subway, I am more aware how iPod, with their screens and users’ constant searching for the right track, cause all these people to be tuned into their little masturbatory devices, rather than to the world and the people around them.

I don’t own one. I find them to be a plague on our society in some ways. I find that to many people are using them to tune out life.

Also I can imagine that in years to come a lot of these people will have an early onset of ear problems.

To me ipods are another example of a technological step forward and a psychological and social step backwards. Music formerly a magical and communal event now becomes yet another manifestation of addiction, obsession and out of control consumerism, a retreat from the world into one’s own spun web.

I am grateful for iPods in that I don’t have to deal with the noise pollution of people’s stereos blasting out music I don’t want to hear. I’m fine with people going into their own world to hear their music instead of forcing their tastes on me via boom boxes, etc.

iPod culture not only influences our relationship with music . . . but our relationship with others. It numbs us and, as you said, reacts like morphine – and removes us from reality. Music has the power to move us into a psychosis of sorts. It separates us from communicating with others. It isolates.

I have to turn off music, at times . . . because it takes me to a place of emotional memory that is so bittersweet, that it affects my emotional well-being and totally removes me from the REAL moment. Endorphines are so powerful . . .
and it doesn’t take drugs to send us to hypnotic states – not when we tap into the associations that music offers.

It can be scary – if you are too tuned-into your self.
Anyone else feel like this?

What do you think about how the mp3 player has to some extent made us insular in our music to the point of no longer seeking to discover or uncover new music through radio or live performance? What about the magic of discovering new music?

I went to college in the mid-80s, and I was on the track team. We travelled often for meets, and for the first 2 years, we listened to boom boxes, where we would take turn, and everyone’s music would play for a bit until another person got to choose. We would go from Run-DMC to Creedence Clearwater Revival to Michael Jackson, etc. Over time, as walkmen came into fashion, people became less welcoming to the idea of listening to other people’s music. By my senior year, there were no more boom boxes, only walkmen. We all listened alone. I think we lost something there, and I think it’s all the more so now, when people are constantly plugged in to their own personal reality. I think we’ve lost something of a shared community experience.

I personally don’t have iPod or any kind of “mobile music player” although I spend at least 3 hours per day listening to music and radio. ( And I’m not Old or anti-technology, I’m a programmer and have 5 MACs at home)

There was a street performer in subway playing a really beautiful song, most of the people passed by without hearing it, since all were plugged-in to their MP3 players.

They missed it, they are missing many things.

I’d rather save my money and buy a Bose sound system and then really enjoy music! while hear street performers, cats dogs, babies crying in subway…..

I think iPods aren’t by themselves a bad thing, but for many people they’ve become–with cell phones and PDAs–a way to escape the present and interact only minimally with their surroundings.

What really disturbs me is seeing kids waiting for the school bus all with earbuds in their ears none talking to each other. On a personal note, I have run in several races (marathons) that I have been cut off by another runner who was not aware of me because they were lost in their ipod. This is even after me yelling “on your left.”

A few weeks back I received a phone call from caller ID “private caller” who played me some Beethoven, something so well known that my body and mind locks right into the emotional groove and hears the whole thing. I heard a woman’s voice at the beginning but then just music. I hung up, bemused.
It was kind of a treat because I sort of have my stock of music by age 62. I went through a phase when I wanted to restock visual art, and sometimes I want new windows in music, but at this point I seek other kinds of transformational experience. I don’t often have time when I could listen to music, but I think it’s wonderful many people have it so handy. The appropriate stock, the inner framework it creates, is great for sustenance, growth…

DM STITH is my supreme jam of the year so far – dmstith.muxtape.com

I use my ipod at the gym where my music fades into the background while time seems to fly while doing my work-out.

used the walkman before but know i have over 800 songs at random with ipod.

great show

I own and enjoy an iPod, but I use it as a tool to store new music that I discover on that old standby, Radio. One of the callers lamented that radio has become corporatized and ever more narrowly programmed, but alternatives remain for those of us willing to search. For instance, there are probably a hundred “community radio” stations around the USA (and more beyond) that are all about the music, have no pre-determined playlists, have no commercials, and simulcast on-line. I volunteer for such a station my area (WTJU in Charlottesville, VA) where I do a world music program. But I get new ideas and new music from our station and other community stations around the country. I collect it on my iPod, and bring it in to share with the local and worldwide listening audience. The hours that I spend crafting a playlist for the program save the listeners the time of doing that on their iPod—and there are always surprises.

I was the caller on the show lamenting the disconnection and self absorption enabled by these devices and as a perfect footnote, as I returned from lunch, I saw a woman very nearly hit by a car as she walked through a red light, plugged in and completely unaware. When I asked her if she saw the car coming, it appeared to be all she could do to rouse herself from her stupor and in an oh so weary way say “no”.

All you can say is “good luck, honey” and the same to the wider culture that so cocoons itself.

I am a Music Therapist. So I can totally understand the power of music. The interview with Arthur Robbins today was wonderful. And I’ve ordered his book. Some of his comments reminded me of two literary ideas. The first one is a quote from a Rilke poem: Music: you stranger. you feelng space, growing away from us. Thedeepest thing in us, that, rising above us, forces its way out. . . a holy goodbye: when the innermost point in us stands outside, as amazing space, as the other side of the air: pure, immense, not for us to live in now.” I used this poem (On Music by Rilke) as the first page of my Ph.D. thesis. The other reference is Doris Lessing’s wonderful book, “Love, Again.” She explores this “yearning” aspect of music starting in the troubador tradition, but putting it into a feminist modern context.

After years of listening to public radio, this evening on the way home from work I heard On Point for the first time. Tom Ashbrook/ Arthur Phillips. Beautiful.
My personal comment illustrates the use of an iPod that I did not hear mentioned. I keep a Shuffle loaded with music that is currently fascinating me and carry it to work where I am privileged to plug it into a sound system and share it with co-workers. The sharing is delightful. Co-workers have become closer friends. And always some requests. Fun squared.

Because I have often said this to my close friends and family; I wanted to share how for me, my ipod, on shuffle, is one of the ways I feel a Higher Power reaching out to me. I imagine God’s hand in the mix and feel that the music is, “chosen”, to awaken me in different ways. I feel this approach also honors the muscians, whose art is inspired, and inspiring to me. For this reason, I especially enjoy listening in Nature, alone, (or with my dog, who doesn’t feel slighted by my preoccupation), but rarely in public around a lot of people.

I’ve transcend the audio world from mono to stereo to quadrophenia. I’ve been through LPs, 8-tracks, cassettes and CDs. Whatever is next will have to wait for me in the next life when I also plan to take up snowboarding.

Since I listen to the show on tape, I can’t call in. However I comment was made about Ipods providing the audio quality that recording artist never heard…like Billie Holiday. I agree with this statement, but I think it has more to do with CDs than Ipods. It has to do with digital enhancement and the fact that this technology has allowed for the historic vaults to be dug into and brought back to life.

There is tons of great music being put out by Bear Family Records and Proper. This music is inexpensive and great quality. With the Proper box sets (4 CDs) you get a 50-60 page booklet telling the artist(s) and the history of the music. Hillbilly, jazz, Afro-cuban, Cajun, etc. If you are searching for great historical recordings of the last century, these are great sources.

As for the Ipods world, it ain’t for me. I love the air in my ears, the bird song, the wind and I don’t need 24X7 sound plugged into my head. But hey, to each his own.

Interesting show…

I think you’re overstating the role of radio and underweighting the importance of the music store in spreading music. The record store, which is now disappearing, used to be a great place where the clerk could turn the customers on to new music, and they could listen and talk about it at the same time – how does the iPod give us something like that?

The ipod has significantly impacted me. I listen to music, podcasts, and self improvement audio’s all the time. I rarely look at T.V. or the radio now

Why listen to an ipod when the world itself has so many wondrous sounds?

And can’t the ipod cut us off from the most essential part of the human community–attention to others?

The Chinese goddess of mercy was named Guan Yin, or “attend to the sounds of the world” for a reason. That can be likened also to Jesus rebuking his follower for cutting off a man’s ear.

How can you have mercy towards all without the ability to listen? I wonder at the morality of anyone wearing an ipod; perhaps to themselves they seem absorbed in sound; to others looking on they seem only self-absorbed.

I’ve read all of Arthur’s work so far including “The Song is You” and I’d been hoping he’d write a music novel ever since he pointed out the often overlooked Lewis Carroll/Charlie Parker connection in “Prague.” Lately I’ve been listening to The Smiths, The Cranberries, The Sundays, and some of the other groups in the book. It’s fun. I generally find rock to be more compatible with running than what I usually listen to and I was pleased to learn that one of my favorites, “Mr. Cab Driver” by Lenny Kravitz, is on Julian’s iPod. Even though I loved the “Four Brothers” humor at the beginning, I’m not unhappy that Arthur didn’t write a “jazz novel,” because they’re usually pretty corny and besides, I always like an excuse to listen to some different kinds of music.

My earbuds are/were my first defense against what I call “Screaming Baby Airlines”. If you don’t want to hear something, you can alter your state of consciouness via music.

I suspect those who intentionally make their cell phone calls loud enough to hear by other people,(and they do) whereever and whenever, who want to be heard to prove their importance….. fear our earbuds. If we don’t want to hear their conversations….we don’t have to….the cell phoners really aren’t as important as they think.

“Can you hear me now” and the bad cell phone connection question has intentionally been replaced by earbuds and ipods and music, podcasts etc with the answer to their question…”No and Thank God for it”.

Music and earbuds and walkmans and ipods have changed the course of who we CHOOSE to listen to.