Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Pandora and Yanni

I'm kind of embarrassed. Pandora thinks I like Yanni. I decided a long time ago, I do not like Yanni. His mustache is way too 1980's Magnum PI and he is way too New Age for me. So, when I enter modern piano composer Dustin O'Halloran and they play Yanni, I get confused.
It's a funny little test of prejudice for me. The Dustin station is a new one for me, and it's taking a lot of tweaking. I love piano, simple, graceful or melancholic and deep; solo piano is one of my great loves.
But I'm very particular about my music. I love a lot of styles and music is life to me. There is bad music though. Sometimes the line is real obvious. For instance, this Sunday at an event in the park. The garage band playing what I think had to have been their first public performance made me want to punch people in the face. It was so bad, I can only compare it to a billion times worse than your pet peeve. I had to leave. I was so depleted, I couldn't tune them out. From what I hear, the line was clear to many people. They were on the crap music side of the line.
The line is not so clear to me with this new Pandora station. I know what I really like, but other songs give me a not so sure feeling. That is, until I click over and see the face. The bush of black hair. The broom over the lip. I cannot enjoy Yanni. That's all there is to it. While I didn't hate the song, I had a sneaky suspicion it would be guilty by association, and sure enough, it was. Dislike. Please, do not play Yanni again. I don't care that your algorithm makes me want to hear Yanni. I don't.
Which makes me think of the bigger picture. How often does something sound okay, but there is a whiff of something we've decided we don't like, so we just decide not to like it? I've been trying to catch myself in that as I'm reading from a lot of different disciplines. It's challenging to receive things in their purest form and not through our filters, built up through years of experience.
I wish life was as easy as Pandora sometimes. You can just hit the dislike button, and it's on to the next song. In a way it is that easy. Just as one day, maybe Pandora will have the perfect Dustin station, maybe I will have a collection of thoughts and perspectives that resonate perfectly with me. For now, I read and listen and cull and collect. I need to wrap this post up and head over to Pandora now. I think a Nordstrom piano player got into my playlist.

3 comments:

Marty Cassity said...

I am not aware of this Dustin guy but I am aware of Pandora and Yanni... I love Pandora! Yanni...not so much, but I won't/can't say that I hate his music but serious dislike comes to mind! I play piano now and not the index finger chopsticks kind, but the two handed Beethoven's Ode to Joy kind. I've even written my own lyrics to this tune! I'll share with anyone that asks, but it involves fine Scotch and sitting on my stairs/amphitheater while I sit at the piano like Ludwig...
Anyway... Back to Pandora! I love Pandora... It's like a musical genius sort of friend to me! I have friends that know my tastes in music-many of them quite new, but Pandora!!!-she knows me like I don't even know myself... And with the iPhone "capture" photo feature (hold round and top buttons simultaneously) I can I stately save a photo of the channel, artist, album and song for further exploration on iTunes... I love these technological advances but at the same time I do "hate" them... More on this another time! Whose blog is this anyway???

Cassandra said...

Oh! Thanks for the good idea! I was bummed I couldn't save songs on my phone, and now I know how! Duh. And, I'm asking...I'll have to get some Scotch. Don't hold your breath.

Marty Cassity said...

and as for the down side of all of our can't live withou, totally addicted to, makes my life easier technology... There are loads of other excellent uses for this smartphone thingy such as, recording my (for family and friends only) musical musings...translating my thoughts into a foreign language...figuring out where I am when I'm lost, figuring out where I am going so as to not get lost, making hands-free, voice activated phone calls to my friends, searching wikipedia in a moment's notice to get the answer to some inane bit of trivia that I absolutely must have...finding about some cool music event or festival...downloading an app that will make my life so much easier when I go to a music festival...timimg my kids zucchini car races...making sure I don't burn dinner...find the nearest gas station(and with the best price) when I am nearly out of petrol...having some Facetime, going on Facebook, finding funny videos on youtube...finding movie times and tix in a snap...the list goes on and on... I love my smartphone...but I also desire to live a life that is mostly unplugges from all of the trappings this little device and our lives have become...to move to the country...eat a lot of peaches...blow up my TV (and all other electronic devices)...make my own beer...and cheese...and maybe even Kombucha??? and yet all of that remains a "Spanish Pipedream..." for now...