I think I got off the musical track at about the time CDs were invented. I have a bunch of LPs, but I can’t recall ever having bought myself a CD. And it goes without saying that I have never downloaded a song, wouldn’t recognize an MP3 if it attached itself to my pant leg, and would sooner own an IHOP than an IPOD.
It’s not that I have a particular aversion to music. On the contrary, there are kinds of music I like, and kinds I don’t like. I used to play in the orchestra when I was a kid, and I spent a lot of time as a teenager listening to records. But at a certain point in my life, as I got busier with other stuff, the music just became more and more inessential, to the point where it disappeared altogether.
The important corollary is that I don’t like the idea of background music – music you listen to when you’re doing something else, like going to the gym or reading. I just find that annoying. And God knows, background music beyond your control is something you’re subjected to often enough.
I doubt I’m the only non-musical one out there, but at the same time, I feel like there are a lot of people who listen to music just because everyone else is. There’s a lot of unrecognized peer pressure around listening to music, to the point where some people are afraid to admit they never listen.
I like music, but rarely remember to put it on. I’m rather focused like that and so often can sit quietly reading or browsing the 'net. In a similar way, I never bothered to hang pictures in my house. I wouldn’t remember to look at them anyway. I don’t think you are so odd.
I never used to listen to music. I didn’t like much of it and never bought any CDs. I liked some classical stuff but I had to sit and listen to it or it would register and background noise and annoy me. And who has time to sit around listening to music as if you were watching a movie?
Theeen my uncle got me an MP3 player that I didn’t want or ask for and didn’t plan to use. It had really crap battery life too. I mostly used it as a bulky flash drive but one day on the way home from school it occurred to me to actually listen to the damn thing. The only song on it was Hotel California, which came with the player. It was enjoyable. More importantly, it broke the monotony of my walk home from school. So I went home and discovered P2P networks and stole me some opera (which led to me buying some of my first CDs evar, so the RIAA should be thanking me) and usually have something playing while poking around on the computer.
Nothing wrong with not listening to stuff though. Never bothered me.
I was very interested in music in high school. Pop music (including hair bands and classic rock), classical music, Broadway tunes - I was very active in choir, swing chorale and all the musicals. I constantly had music on “in the background” - even while I slept. I was always singing along, or just singing on my own.
When I moved in with my husband, that changed. I felt self-conscious singing aloud much, and he likes pretty much any music except what I like. (He’s big into navel-gazing experimental Euro-crap. Pretty much the only kind of music I’m indifferent on.) It got to the point where even when he isn’t home, I rarely think to turn on music. I’ll enjoy it when it’s on, but I never think to turn it on, except when I’m in the car.
The exception is “music time” with my baby daughter. Every morning after her bottle, we read a book and then settle in for music time. I put in a classical CD and she swings and listens while I pump milk. As she gets older, I’ll include other music, but never, ever “kid’s music”.
I never listen to music either. I love songs, and I sing constantly, but once I’ve heard a song enough to know it, I don’t really need to keep listening to it. One other big factor is that I don’t drive or own a car, and I don’t like walking around with earphones, so I don’t have much opportunity to listen. When I’m at home, I’m usually engaged in activities where I find music to be a distraction.
I used to buy CDs if I liked a particular artist or heard a song that I enjoyed. But after realizing that I have never once listened to at least the last eight or ten CDs I’ve purchased, I’ve decided that I am not buying any more until my listening habits change. Every once in a while, I still get the urge to buy a CD, but then I remind myself that there’s no point, because I’ll never listen to it anyway.
I am not musical - I find that after a certain length of time, often within minutes, whatever I am listening to becomes irritating nerve jangling noise and I want it stopped NOW!
My husband plays the guitar and listens to music but I cannot bear it.
My son’s piano teacher is also my good friend, and one day she came to our house and played the piano with my son for fun. It was just starting to REALLY get on my nerves when she stopped and looked across at me and said, “Isn’t it nice to have music in your home?” It was al I could do not to shriek, “NO!” at her!!
I think I am dyslexic for music, whatever that word might be. Luckily my kids seem not to take after me.
I don’t listen to music. As a kid, I took piano lessons for eight years. That was enough music to last me for the next 5000 years. I seem to be the only person on the planet who doesn’t like windchimes either.
Music was really important to me when I was younger, and I listend to it most of the time, even sleeping with the radio on, but now I don’t even turn on the radio some days. At 45, it seems like just about all the music I like has become imprinted on my brain, so I don’t need to get it from outside my head much anymore.
I certainly listen to music now more than I did as a teen, but I still listen to music on my car stereo from time to time, or flip on my iPod.
I think my problem is I’ve gotten bored of the old crap, and can’t stand to listen to the new crap. Oddly, in my old fartitude, I’m naturally being pulled to orchestral and Jazz. Today’s pop just repells me. Yesterdays is…well, it’s been done to death. The only music that warrants many repeat listens anymore is the stuff of great depth and compositional sophistication. Unfortunately, that music can be a bit staid and crusty.
As a teenager, the radio was on all the time and I bought a lot of records and played them to death. Everything I did had a music accompaniment.
Listened to a lot of music during my first marriage – headphones while doing housework, and the stereo in another room when the kids were watching something on TV. Hubby liked music too, and we’d head for Tower Records or Golden Oldies most weekends.
I was able to have a tapedeck at a lot places where I worked too.
Lots of music again after my first husband died – at work, and at home, with friends over, playing cards, or just sitting around drinking beer.
Not so much for the last several years, and I’m not sure why. I discovered NPR and have that on all the time, and sometimes when friends come over I’ll put some CDs on and turn the volume low.
I sorta miss it, but it seems like something to do under special circumstances – like a party – and when I’m doing nothing, it’s usually to sit and watch something on TV.
I don’t think it’s necessarily anything to be ashamed of, but I automatically feel really, really sad for those of you who don’t get pleasure from music. I’m so sorry. I feel the same way about people who don’t enjoy reading. Of course, perhaps my friends who are really into sports feel that way about my indifference to their passion.
I never listened to music in high school. Like, never ever–I had no CDs or tapes or anything. I was pretty ashamed about it, but the truth was that nothing that was available to me appealed to me; everyone listened to top 40 or country, and I had no idea that there was even anything else out there that I would like. This was pre-Internet, and my town only had the one big chain music store in the mall, so it wasn’t like I was going to be turned on to something that way. So I didn’t listen, and didn’t miss it. It wasn’t till my second year of college that I started logging onto the Internet where I discovered bands I liked and started collecting music.
Now I listen to music all the time at work, have over a hundred CDs, and am getting into vinyl. So I like music now. But if I hadn’t found something I liked I probably wouldn’t have liked music. I don’t think it’s weird, I just think that maybe your tastes are selective and you haven’t found something you like yet. Don’t beat yourself up about it or anything, but don’t write music off completely. It would be a shame to cut yourself off from a whole art form.
I rarely listen to music, unless I go to a concert.
This may seem odd given that music is my field of study (ABD Musicology). One reason is that I often have a sound track going on in my mind, so external music becomes superfluous. I am also very sensitive to music, and I have a difficult time concentrating on anything else at the same time. Particularly when studying or writing, which I do a lot, but also when driving or walking or hanging out with friends, etc.
If I listen to music, I need to be able to focus on just that. Otherwise, give me silence. But life is busy and I don’t have the leisure time to devote to it anymore. So I rarely listen to music.
About ten years ago, I developed tinnitus. The doctor’s opinion was that too much loud music when I was young combined with the natural effects of aging were to blame.
Since then, music has become at most a background thing in my life. If I try to sit and listen to music, the tinnitus completely destroys any enjoyment (although there are days when the tinnitus is low enough that I can enjoy music). I’ll play a tape or a cd when I’m surfing the net or doing chores around the house, but that’s about it.
Perhaps it’s just as well. I’d already pretty much lost interest in contemporary pop music around about the late '70’s, and by that time I was usually either working two jobs or working full time and going to school and so never had any time to really get into music. Even if my hearing were to return to normal, I probably wouldn’t regain the intense interest in music I had in my younger years. For one thing, I simply don’t have the time and money.
I sitll have more than 100 cd’s and 300 tapes, though.
Like several noted, I don’t think about music very much. I like it and enjoy many types, but it’s just not all that important to me. I, too, stopped buying CDs when I realized that I wasn’t even taking them out of the shrink wrap, much less taking time to listen to them.
When I’m in the car, I usually listen to NPR. However, when I do listen to music, I zone out pretty quickly and don’t even notice it. In fact, I’ll go weeks without even changing the radio station. It just stays on whatever station it’s on until I have a brainstorm to change it.
In addition to NPR, I have started listening to books on CD in the car. I pay much more attention to them than I ever did to music.