How does the music and lighting in the room effect the responses you enter in the conferences? Right now I am listening to Future Sound of London, with candle light and incense. I'm sure this makes my responses more introspective than say if I were entering responses under incandescent lights in an office listening to the hum of the CPU. Please describe any interesting ambient conferencing experiences you have had.19 responses total.
Can't say that there's much of an affect.. I'm quite good at separating myself from my situation and surroundings; that's how I keep going every day.
I don't know about my conferencing, but when I try to write fiction or poetry while listening to music, the music has an enormous effect (with an E, dammit!
I've been thinking about this in terms of the way classical music is presented. . .I have noted that clasical audiences seem to be doing alot of dozing. . .I think alot of it has to do with the attitude and presentation of the music, it's all stuffy and stogy. . .it might be cool to go hear chamber music as part of a dinner party, or to have a symphony convcert where people could get up and DANCE to the Rite of Spring, and move around. . . just a thought. I was in the CReative Arts Orchestra for a number of years(a free-improvising ensemble at the Universoty of Michigan), and I think the best concert we EVER had was in part due to the way we set it up. We had it in a BIG empty room, and we set the chairs up in a sort of circle around the group, and we lit candles at corners of the room, and then we did an all free-improv concert, and it was really incredible, the audience was TOTALY into it. . .
It's more than likely I'm listening to DM or possibly the B-52's when I'm conferencing. Otherwise, I leave my mind a little more free. To be honest, music is so much a part of me (I have a tonal memory that's like a little stereo inside my head) that atmosphere shouldn't influence my introspectivity. I might wax poetic with the right lighting and such, but otherwise, ambience enhances what's already there.
lumen--I know what you mean about the 'mental stereo' thing. Friends of mine will complain about having a song stuck in their head from time to time. I would be hard-pressed to find a time when I *don't* have a song stuck in my head. It isn't really stereo-like, though, in that I don't hear the song run through from start to finish. Intead, I get sort of the essence of the song--the general mood, tone, that sort of thing--stuck in my head. Probably my favorite concert presentation was one at the UofM in which a dancer performed on a pile of sand in the middle of a nearly pitch-black room, while the audience sat on the floor on all sides. One of the best explanations of 'good music' that I've heard ran something like this--music that makes you regret the fact that you're sitting down in stuffy clothing. It doesn't have to have the sort of insistent beat that even parts of Rite of Spring has, but if it makes you glad you're seated it's not worthwhile.
orinoco, it happesn to me, as well. I usually have a song in my head at sometime or another.. aoften a flawed version, with the wrong lyrics, but the swong nonethesless.
orinoco-I like that :)
My mental stereo actually seems to be off for once...I think I'm just too tired...
I've got random licks going through my head. . .
Incidentally, I'm listening to ambient music right now :)
Normally I don't listen to much music on grex, because I tend to sing along and get distracted. Especially late at night. And orin, when we complain about having a song in our head, it's not because that's unusual, just that the song that's stuck is annoying. At least for me.
And me, and many other people that I kknow.
When I was in highschool, I had a problem. You see, there are 5 kids in my family, and they all have friends. At any given time in my house, there were 4-20 kids running around and making noise. Every try and concentrate on anything, especially homework, when kids are running around? So, I bought a stereo, and took to playing music really loud. It allowed me to ignore the more or less random sounds of the kids in favore of the structured sounds of the music. Hense, I've very very good at doing other things with music in the background.
I always have been, though I haven't really had the crowd problems that Dan has. Music is easily filtered into background noise that helps me concentrate. (I'd like to point out that I stopped visiting Dan's house on regular afternoons around the time that his homework probably started getting really stiff).
I know of people that are like this, but I am too much of an active listener to really filter music into the background (unless it's at a really low volume level and I've heard it a bizillion times).
I'm a very active listener... when I want to be. My mind is very well divided, however, and I can stow the ability away when I don't need it.
Actually, the music I've heard a bazillion times I find easier to notice. If I'm listening to music I haven't heard before in the background, it rarely jumps up and grabs me, but when I'm listening to music I know, it tends to catch my attention briefly when a new song starts, or a favorite section of a song comes on. OTOH, when some unknown music Does grab me, I find it much harder to shift my attention back to what I'm doing.
Yeah. I know the feeling. Of course, I can't multi-task at all, and have a hard time to begin with, but I finde it harder to write/read/talk, while listening to say, Blind Melon, then something that I randomly checked out of the library.
for those of you interested in ambient music, i write for a music magazine based on those things gothic and ethereal. ethereal, for those who do not know, has been described in as many ways as gothic synth pop to industrial folk. much of what recording companies such as 4ad and projekt are well known for belongs in this catagory. regardless, the magazine just put out a new issue. you can check it out at http://members.xoom.com/dust_to_dust/ the art is worth the trip alone.
You have several choices: