Audiophilistic Moment

I love music and I do thoroughly enjoy a good quality artistically-composed song.  At unexpected times this love stands out to me and I'm reminded of it all in a wave of rushing emotion and a super-heightened appreciation for every minute sound within a recording.  The ebb and flow of the melody carries with it my full attention for mere minutes, however my concept of time sort of melts away as my internal clock pauses it's relentless ticking to match the tempo of the song.  Then, the song ends.  A new one begins.  The atmosphere changes with it.  And, I find myself wondering why the composer only made the tune to last five minutes.  Though, I suppose our emotions are just as fleeting as the timeframe of the average modern song.  Thus, there's seldom a need to carry on longer than the 4-5 minute standard.

My sound set up at work includes a single computer speaker attached to my work computer on which I play my mp3 collection via Windows Media Player.  Since I only brought in the one speaker, as opposed to the pair, I'm only hearing the right channel.  Sound quality was obviously not my goal, but rather I wanted a simple and inconspicuous set up so as not to attract any potential new prohibition of music in the offices.

Today, I was caught off-guard.  I was listening to Ryan Adams' 'Night Birds' from his 2005 album entitled 29.  This isn't an album that I have given much play, but a certain song caught my ear and I wanted to hear it better.  So, I pulled out my headphones and plugged them into the stereo output of the single speaker.  The song truly came to life as I was able to hear both channels and a nice bass response while also having the opportunity to increase the volume to my eardrum's desire.

The next song on the album was 'Blue Sky Blues'.  It was this song that inspired me to write this blog.  It's mostly compiled of a piano and Ryan Adams' voice, but also adds some very subtle horns, a few almost imperceptible wind sound effects, and some gorgeous stringed accompaniment on the chorus.

It's songs like this that inspire people like me to become audiophiles.

Posted in: art,inspiration,music