My Day Without Music
Ellie Patten| 12th August 2015
Most of us don’t realise how much of an integral part of our lives music has become. Like the
internet, mobile phones and cars, music has become a part of our daily routine that we don’t even think about… until it’s gone. As a kid who used to consume music magazines by the dozen and who still buys physical copies of CDs, I knew that going a day without music would be a struggle. For me, a day without music would be like Kim Kardashian going a day without taking a selfie. Yet, for some reason, in the name of science, I decided to give it a go.
The first time I tried to begin this ominously quiet day, it only took an hour before I was on my way to an exercise class and realised that this wasn’t going to work. Exercise without music is just…well, it’s just pain really. After much (ok, not much at all) deliberation I decided postpone my melody- deprived day and sighed with relief as I got my daily dose of Fall Out Boy.
Take two. After the failure of my first attempt, I decided to actually plan out my day. I quickly
decided that visiting any kind of public indoor area would be completely out of the question. Even public toilets play music! I also realised that my usual dose of morning – and evening – television would need to go. With chirpy, jingle-filled advertising breaks every fifteen minutes, and atmospheric soundtracks in between, it would be inescapable. Only the most awkwardly silent, low- budget indie movie might be watchable, and that wasn’t something that sounded particularly appealing at this point. Maybe I’d do some writing, I decided. Writing was safe. As long as I kept away from those horrible auto-play advertisements that some websites still insist on using, I should last at least a few hours.
But even this wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. Am I supposed to sit in a house alone for what might be hours at a time, with only the sound of my fingers tapping at my keyboard for reassurance? If I couldn’t listen to any motivational movie soundtracks (The Lord of the Rings or Interstellar
soundtracks are my particular favourites), then how would I possibly be able to keep myself
focused?
In the end, I tried to listen to a podcast instead. Yet it wasn’t the same. Who was I kidding? I love podcasts, but it was almost like trying to have a conversation while trying to write an essay: you either forget to type and realise you’ve procrastinated your day away, or you miss whole sections of dialogue and end up spending the rest of the podcast or conversation wondering what on Earth they’re talking about. Even when I tried to work in silence, there was something not quite right about it. I felt half asleep, and then half bored. Nothing could quite fill the gap that music had left: silence was too painful, but podcasts and television were too distracting. That’s part of the beauty of music: it can be whatever you want. It can be loud; it can be angry; it can provide entertainment all by itself. But it can also be quiet, barely noticeable background noise when you just don’t quite want to be alone.
Although running frantically from any source of audio provided me with some entertainment, all in all, my day became pretty dull. I couldn’t even watch Hannibal (which is more traumatising than you might think), since I would be missing out on Brian Reitzell’s oh-so-beautiful (and creepy) soundtrack. I couldn’t even watch the Deadpool trailer, or any trailer for that matter, since I quickly realised that watching trailers without audio is about as entertaining and informing as not watching the trailer at all.
Whether or not I listened to music became entirely out of my control, short of hiding myself in my room for 12 hours with only a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and a good book (though I suppose worse things have happened). This must be what it’s like to have a phobia of music, I thought to myself, and by the middle of the day, I was feeling well and truly on-edge, alert for the slightest sign of music. Rather than simply trying to go a day without listening to music, it became a sinister game of cat and mouse, in which I was the mouse, and music was the omnipresent cat, lurking around every corner, ready to surprise me with the words of Bruno Mars.
It didn’t take long before it all became just too mind-numbing for me to cope. I found myself longing for the freedom to leave the house, to blast out my favourite albums and drive, or to do anything other than sitting on my own in silence. In total, I only really lasted a few hours before music found me, cowering in a corner with my ears covered, as it crept in from another room. I can’t pretend I wasn’t grateful. I decided not to attempt a third take.