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"...using one medium over another somehow makes you more "serious" about the music" I believe you missed the point. He says the ritual makes the listener more

"...using one medium over another somehow makes you more "serious" about the music" I believe you missed the point. He says the ritual makes the listener more involved with the music. He doesn't say different media make one more or less serious about music. It's similar with food: you can be serious about your food whether cooking it yourself or ordering it at a restaurant (or eating at a buffet.) But you're more involved with the food if you select your own raw ingredients and cook it yourself.

nocman 9y ago
No, I don't think I missed the point. My point was that he was unnecessarily tying the listener's activeness/seriousness/whatever with/about the music to the medium it was on. I totally get the point about there being different levels of interaction with music. I just don't think that listening to music on vinyl equates to you being a more active listener. For some it might help, I suppose, but I think it is far from universal. Also, the implication was (as I read it), that if you listen on vinyl you are tons more likely to be an active listener than someone who is using a more modern medium, and I just don't think that's true.
- hotgoldminer 9y ago
  Depending on what you're listening to (and more to the point - how what you were listening to was recorded/mastered), an analog medium sounds better. Same can be said for a digital medium, of course. It is a tool box. I put the tools I need in the box. In that light, medium does somewhat equate to being an active listener - you evidence that you care about how the music was made in the first place.
- 0xCMP 9y ago
  It's a similar argument to digital vs physical in other areas. Ebooks vs real books. Evernote/Notes vs a real notebook and pen. There is research which says our minds react differently to the physical world than to the digital one. So from the idea it follows that using a Vinyl itself may not be better/worse than digital, but the mental state you enter into because of the higher activation cost (decide to play music + go to place where music is + select music + play music + go back to place to relax) as well as the reduced control (requires significant movement to pause/play/go back/go forward vs a digital device in close proximity) that it makes a difference in appreciating the music that is playing because of that investment of energy. If you play something on Spotify you just aren't invested as much and aren't as likely to pay as much attention to the song as you would if you had invested that energy into playing it on vinyl. So not so much that you can't do it with modern mediums, but that the modern mediums are not designed to inherently provide that feeling or bring you to that mental state.
osrec 9y ago
I'm not sure if your cooking analogy holds in this case. As someone who has never operated a record player, I don't think the act of merely setting up the equipment would really add to my experience. If we were talking about replacing a musical instrument with an iPod, then your cooking analogy is more cogent. Perhaps the pleasure is more rooted in nostalgia - I remember an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond in which Frank (the elderly father) shuns a state of the art CD player for his vinyls (https://youtu.be/ZQM6GwUancI https://youtu.be/ZQM6GwUancI), and his reasoning for why was that it reminded him of the enjoyment those records gave him earlier in his working life. It's like when I watch a sketchy VHS of Mr Bean, it reminds me of times with my maternal grandfather in a way a crystal clear DVD copy never could!

nocman 9y ago

No, I don't think I missed the point. My point was that he was unnecessarily tying the listener's activeness/seriousness/whatever with/about the music to the medium it was on. I totally get the point about there being different levels of interaction with music. I just don't think that listening to music on vinyl equates to you being a more active listener. For some it might help, I suppose, but I think it is far from universal. Also, the implication was (as I read it), that if you listen on vinyl you are tons more likely to be an active listener than someone who is using a more modern medium, and I just don't think that's true.

hotgoldminer 9y ago
Depending on what you're listening to (and more to the point - how what you were listening to was recorded/mastered), an analog medium sounds better. Same can be said for a digital medium, of course. It is a tool box. I put the tools I need in the box. In that light, medium does somewhat equate to being an active listener - you evidence that you care about how the music was made in the first place.
0xCMP 9y ago
It's a similar argument to digital vs physical in other areas. Ebooks vs real books. Evernote/Notes vs a real notebook and pen. There is research which says our minds react differently to the physical world than to the digital one. So from the idea it follows that using a Vinyl itself may not be better/worse than digital, but the mental state you enter into because of the higher activation cost (decide to play music + go to place where music is + select music + play music + go back to place to relax) as well as the reduced control (requires significant movement to pause/play/go back/go forward vs a digital device in close proximity) that it makes a difference in appreciating the music that is playing because of that investment of energy. If you play something on Spotify you just aren't invested as much and aren't as likely to pay as much attention to the song as you would if you had invested that energy into playing it on vinyl. So not so much that you can't do it with modern mediums, but that the modern mediums are not designed to inherently provide that feeling or bring you to that mental state.

osrec 9y ago

I'm not sure if your cooking analogy holds in this case. As someone who has never operated a record player, I don't think the act of merely setting up the equipment would really add to my experience. If we were talking about replacing a musical instrument with an iPod, then your cooking analogy is more cogent. Perhaps the pleasure is more rooted in nostalgia - I remember an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond in which Frank (the elderly father) shuns a state of the art CD player for his vinyls (https://youtu.be/ZQM6GwUancI https://youtu.be/ZQM6GwUancI), and his reasoning for why was that it reminded him of the enjoyment those records gave him earlier in his working life. It's like when I watch a sketchy VHS of Mr Bean, it reminds me of times with my maternal grandfather in a way a crystal clear DVD copy never could!