A World Without Music…
M U S I C M O N D A Y
This is sort of a strange idea for music monday but it’s something that I’m confronted with from time to time and it freaks me out so I thought I’d make a post about it and see how people respond. (I think that was one big run-on sentence.)
Have you ever met anyone who doesn’t like music? They’re not excited by it or moved by it. They can’t tell you a Beatles song without looking constipated. Music is not on their radar. It doesn’t occur to them to turn on the radio when driving in their car. Now just to be clear, I’m not talking about people born without rhythm – I find those people very amusing. No, I’m talking about an indifference to music, a take it or leave it attitude. Have you ever known anyone like this? I have and like I said, it freaks me out.
I knew a girl in high school who was beautiful, popular and athletic. One day I found myself talking to her about music — I can’t recall the exact occasion, maybe we were at a party? Anyway, I just remember referencing some popular group or concert and she had no clue what I was talking about. Mind you, this is a girl from my grade, growing up in the 70’s, and she was completely clueless about any and all music. I continued to probe in fascination, trying to process the fact that she had no interest in music whatsoever. It was a dead topic to her. Her face was blank.
STRANGE…. Am I right?
Music seems like it’s just a part of the human experience. It’s like the pulse or heart beat of the world. (Okay, perhaps that’s a bit much.) Maybe because it’s such an integral part of my life, that I’m unable to wrap my head around life without it? I mean, what would take the place of all those lyrics in my brain — they take up A LOT of room. My head would basically be empty… But I digress. I’m as perplexed by this as I am by people who have no sense of humor — none, zero, zippo. Should we feel sorry for them or should we be afraid of them? I see humor in almost everything – even things I shouldn’t see it in, like people falling down stairs. It seems like the world would be so flat, so one dimensional without these things.
Do you know anyone like this??
Yes! a friend who doesn’t see the point of music. It won’t surprise you to learn that he is very very very lonely!
I can’t imagine how totally lonely that would be… C.S. Lewis said, “We read to know we’re not alone.” I feel that music provides the same sort of comfort. It’s very strange to me.
Hi,
I don’t think I have ever met anyone like that, different friends throughout my life have all enjoyed music, although I suppose there may be more people out there than we realize that don’t like music, to be honest I have never thought about it. 🙂
I’ve met several. It’s not that I don’t like them, but it’s just very strange. It seems we’re born, hard wired, with an appreciation for it and maybe even a need for it?
My father-in-law is totally uninterested in music. Actually he doesn’t like it! Shocking!
Isn’t that the strangest thing? I don’t understand it. I guess on the positive side their brains are not all filled up with pointless song lyrics and maybe they have better hearing than the rest of us? I think I destroyed my ears with too many concerts.
Music, humor, love, fine foods and wine, traveling, nature….these are the wonders of life (and a great belief system blends all that together nicely). I can’t imagine life without music. A song can take me back in an instant to sweet and bittersweet memories. I had a writing instructor once that didn’t have any knowledge of any kind of popular culture, be it music, art, anything. He was a very intellectual type. I agree with you! Music is most certainly a universal language. ;).
Great comment! I agree. Nothing can transport me to another time and place like music. I know a few people that avoid popular culture and all it entails, and it’s sometimes difficult to have a conversation with them. They’re probably way smarter than we are when it comes to academic pursuits! Oh well, I can’t imagine missing out on all the fun stuff. My brain seems more suitable to fluff! haha!
I actually used to be like this. It wasn’t until I started driving when I started learning about music. I’m not a huge fan or anything still. Music sometimes makes me feel not in the moment which is a problem I have always had. I either reflect no the past too often or look toward the future. Music does that for people, which is good, but I’m one of those people who does it too often on his own.
Worse are people who know very little about music. They’re too stuck in the world of what they know and enjoy. It would be like only watching a certain genre of film. At least learn about what else is out there. Please!
I also want to add for some reason I have received 11 clicks from your page so far today. Are your numbers unusually higher today than they have been too?
I had a funny feeling that music for you was, at some point, not a driving force in your life. (No pun intended.) You’re right about it having a transportive quality. I’m seldom in the moment when I listen to it. My mind drifts around – it’s like a drug. I definitely need it to keep me in a good place. I probably couldn’t fly on an airplane without music – it helps me to forget I’m soaring through the sky in a tin can. haha!
My numbers have been high in the last 3 days, apparently? I don’t even know what it all means or how to find my numbers. Lol! WordPress must think I’m totally stupid. They actually had to send me a bulletin telling me what I’m doing! haha!
My mother doesn’t listen to music, I think she may be one of these people. It’s not that she doesnt like music she just never listens to it so it’s not a part of her life.
Apart from that, everyone else I know is in to some sort of music.
I know what you’re saying about your mom. She’s indifferent. She could take it or leave it. It doesn’t occur to her to turn on the stereo but if she hears music, she’s not repelled – she likes it.
I feel like I actually NEED music to thrive. Maybe I’m the weird one?
Haha no you’re not. I need music too; if you’re surrounded by music then you need it, if you’re not then I suppose you don’t 🙂
I have never met anyone who doesn’t like music, but those people do exist.
They tend to have a condition where they can’t ‘hear’ the beat; it’s just like any other noise to their ears.
Is that what it is? Do they really process the music differently? If that’s true, then that explains everything.
I would hate music, too, if it just sounded like noise.
Yup! It’s where the phrase ‘tone deaf’ comes from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_deaf
It’s an actual medical condition, as it’s a hearing impairment
So now you know!
Everyone I know likes SOME kind of music, even if it is bad. 😉
Taste in music is a post for another day. I, of course, have the Best taste in music. Haha! Seriously, these people who could care less about music are among us… I’m surprised you haven’t run into any?
I know a few people who are fairly indifferent to music, who could take it or leave it. They baffle me. I mean, I can see not liking certain types of music but being impervious to ALL of it? I don’t get that at all.
I don’t get it either and I don’t trust it. Put it this way, I’m not gonna sit with my back to one of ’em. haha!
I don’t listen to music unless I’m walking or in the car, but, even while reading this, I had tunes running through my head. Of course, I’m not sure what the words were to the tune, thus my desire to create the CD, “Songs I Don’t Know All the Words To”.
I’m sure, somewhere out there, is the perfect soundtrack to your life.
I have it constantly playing which probably explains some of my Alzheimer’s symptoms! Haha!
I literally don’t like people who don’t like music. Like, wtf is wrong with your brain? I remember asking my tutor, Joelle Pearson (or however you spell it) what her favorite Beatles song was and she responded “I don’t like the Beatles.” From that moment on I was like, yeahhhh I don’t need a tutor. Especially one who is musically challenged.
LOL!!! HAHA! She seems like the type who wouldn’t like the Beatles and by “the type” I mean she was an alien. I’m not gonna lie, it does make me a little scared when someone has no need or desire for music in their life. What the…? I’ll have a hard time relating to them, for sure.
The interesting thing about people that are on the fringes of music are very easily turned into complete audiophiles with the introduction to just one song. Music is hardwired into our DNA but still needs to be connected to in some way. Maybe they don’t like or care about current music as it is not what they are wired up to. Then, a jazz fusion tune hits them in eardrum and boom, they found it. I blame a lot of this on popular music, which is generally crap in the great scheme of things. Some just have no interest in it, but blues, classical, R&B, the stuff not on the radio, could be the trigger.
What you’re saying sounds right in theory. I’d like to believe that these musicless people just haven’t been exposed to their kind of music and that’s why they haven’t been turned on but I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve seriously met people who haven’t any desire to connect with music. It’s not on their radar. I feel like music is an emotional experience – I know you’ll agree with that. So maybe these people are unable to emotionally connect because they can’t ‘go there’. I think there’s a chip missing or something?
! chord shy of a classic rock song? I think Isee what you are saying a bit clearer. I never factored in emotion. you would have to pretty distant to not appreciate something so magical. I know you and I share that feeling for music as do most, yet I feel the reverse is true. Some of us could be considered overly emotional when it comes to music. The goosebumps, the chill up the spine, even the tearing up when an artist hits that special spot. If it can happen in that way to us, then I guess the opposite is possible as well.
I like the way you put that. That may be the closest we come to understanding it.
I love music.. while I admit to not being a fanatic for some music, punk rock I truly just don’t get.. all that hollering & screaming..lol.. but a life without music? How drab and boring
There really are people that have no desire to have music in their lives as evidenced from many of the responses to this post. I don’t get it. I NEED it in the same way that I need to dance. It’s primitive. It’s the way I’m hard wired.
Life without it would be depressing for me.
When I was in graduate school, there was a guy in my program who was indifferent to music. And like you, I just found it to be so incredibly odd, especially since we were all studying English which, like music, is so aesthetic. He was an odd bird for other reasons, too, but the music thing was what really freaked me out.
It really is a freak out. The fact that we still remember these people shows you how odd it struck us at the time. It’s like they’re missing a chip in their brain. Weird.
My father in law was the only person I ever knew that didn’t like music. I once asked him what kind of music he liked to listen to and he actually said he didn’t like music, any kind of music. I was shocked! I do know that when he was little he had a lot a ear infections (before antibiotics) and I have to ascribe it to the fact that he couldn’t hear it properly. But either way I felt sorry for him because he missed so much in not being able to enjoy music. And people without any sense of humor are hilarious. One time my mother took her dog who had epilepsy to the vet. The vet gave him some medicine that caused drowsiness and he gave my mother a warning about how it would make her dog sleepy. So she said,
Then I shouldn’t let him drive me home?” And he replied in total seriousness that oh no she shouldn’t let him drive her home! Ha!
Hahaha! People without a sense of humor ARE funny! It’s like they belong on a sitcom like Green Acres. I think they’re funny at a distance but if you would try and have a relationship with someone like that, especially someone like you or me, we’d probably get turned off real fast.
The music thing is so strange. I think it is something in the way they hear it or process it because it makes no sense. I can’t imagine going through life without enjoying music. It would be like living without color. So flat and boring. Just about everyone who responded knows someone like this so they’re obviously out there! It’s freaky.
It never even occurred to me to think that there were people totally indifferent to music.
Yup, they’re out there and I always think they’re freaky. I’m not sure why they’re like that — it’s hard to comprehend.
Right now, I’m listening to Scheherazade, my newest love. I can’t live without music, it’s just a basic thing in live. Music is inspiration and happiness and dancing (a life without dancing is like a life without dancing: horrible).
People with no interest in music seem to miss a part of life. I mean, music is everywhere. There are a lot of festivals in Belgium so everyone is talking about it and stuff. here, it’s impossible not to like music.
One day you’ll meet someone that doesn’t like it or care about it and you’ll look at them as if they were an alien. To me, the desire to dance and make music is primitive. It’s hard wired. But it seems that some people are born without this programming? It’s weird.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone that devoid of interest in music. I can’t even fathom it! Freaky indeed. I’m sure it’s an interesting story (to those of us who like to disect such things anyway) of how she got that way. I have met humorless people, well at least people wo don’t get my brand of humor ;), and I can’t even imagine. A humorless, music less life sounds like a version of hell to me!!! Angie 🙂
Oh trust me, they’re out there. I’ve come to the conclusion that they must not hear or process music and rhythm the way the rest of us do. It’s actually sort of sad.
Humorless people annoy me — it gets old real quick, especially if you’re someone who’s light hearted and loves to laugh. Again, there must be something very different in the way they process information?
I would guess processing to be the problem too. Maybe they don’t have an idea what they’re missing? How sad though! I have a couple friends I have to explain that I was joking ( what’s the point??). I finally told one that, unless I tell them differently, assume I’m joking because I almost always am. I feel for her because she’s not able to pick up on subtle nuances in people’s speech/actions/expressions/etc. ah well, if everyone were jokes ters no one would appreciate the funny ones. :). Angie
That’s the disclaimer that I should use- “Everyone please assume I’m joking!”
That’s how I feel, what’s the point? Ha!
Not caring about music? Err, how’s that for scary? I mean, come on, there’s music everywhere! Anywhere! It’s just impossible not to care about it. A person who says he doesn’t care about music could be the world’s biggest hypocrite, or hermit, or he hates you(by you, I mean the world) enough to avoid anything that can lead to a convo. Me’s lucky I haven’t met a person like that. YET.
You definitely will meet someone like this. I personally have come to the conclusion that they don’t process music in the same way the rest of us do and maybe they don’t have an emotional response to it the way the rest of us do? It freaks me out, obviously, you too : )
Look at all the people who responded, who said they know someone like this… there are aliens among us! haha!
It’s funny I should read this article today, as I’m one of the people you’re talking about. Just never had any interest in music at all, long car trips (6+ hours) it doesn’t even occur to me to turn on the radio, although I don’t mind if passengers listen to whatever they want. I’ve also got a similar attitude towards spectator sports (I enjoy playing, but watching does nothing for me). I find the sciences fascinating and absolutely love to learn about the world around me, but I just don’t have that intrinsic appreciation for music. There’s no reason to be freaked out or scared of someone that doesn’t share your interests!
Garrett! Please know that my attitude is 99% joking. I’m actually a therapist. I’ve always wondered, mostly from a study of human behavior stand point, why certain people don’t like/need music in the same way others do? For me, it’s like oxygen. I guess I’m not willing to accept that there’s not something more to it. You can see from the comments that you’re in the minority. I’ve always found people like yourself to be highly intellectual. Maybe there’s a correlation?
Maybe we’re a bunch of primitive idiots and you’re highly evolved? I don’t know but it does make me wonder… Thanks for your comment and again, I’m pretty silly in most of what I write. Please don’t be offended. : )
Oh, I wasn’t (and am not) offended at all, so you don’t need to worry about that 😛 You are definitely right in that I’m in the minority, as a matter of fact I’ve never personally met someone that was also indifferent towards music, and the comments in this article are very similar to the responses I get from friends when a conversation about music comes up. I was actually messing around on google trying to find out if there were others out there that also felt apathy towards music (which is how I found your article), and it seems that there are very few of “us” out there. I definitely share your curiosity about the subject, unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much information available on the internet about it. Thanks for the article and response!
I have Auditory Processing Disorder. It manifests differently to different people, but for me one of the side effects is that I hate music. My brain doesn’t have the ability to sort between sounds. I want to like it, as I come from a musical family. It’s painful to me, though, because there is so much noise and it overwhelms my brain. I usually lie about it, because people act like I must not be a nice person, I must not have a soul or enjoy art and poetry. Or they decide to “teach” me what good music is by forcing me to listen to it the whole time I feel like spikes are being driven in my ears.
All noise hurts. Loud noise and complex noise hurts most. I’m working to desensitize myself to it, but I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy it.
I like being around people who are singing or listening to music, because they are usually happy, and I like being around happy people.
I have a list of bands that I say I like to shut people up because I feel like such a freak for admitting to hating music. I like songs with interesting lyrics, or when the song is simple and there are very few instruments.
Over all, though? I listen to audio books.