for the love of music

my dad, Peter Woodford, played with louis bellson behind tony bennett, on the tonight show with johnny carson for over 15 years, and on the soundtrack to 'enter the dragon.' i don't need to brag for him, i said that to highlight this: as far back as i can remember, my dad doesn't listen to music in the car unless someone else puts it on. i never understood that. for a very long time i couldn't not listen to something. most days this is still true. (one time in high school though, he made me miss my bus so we could hear all of the barber 'adagio for strings')as i write, i'm sitting outside a philipino restaurant in oxnard, waiting for a meeting at dw drums (not for me). the soundtrack coming through the trees is the same as any shopping center in the country, but the outdoor speakers here are doing something new to me: they are simultaneously playing bird calls. what a shrewd, disneyland/americana version of nature.friends and readers will be unsurprised that i have a pet theory about this type of thing. i think people use music in two main ways: either to check in or check out. i do not know a bar, coffee shop, restaurant, or shopping center that does not have a soundtrack, regardless of its quality. there is no opportunity for silence anywhere, and the music on the radio or these soundtracks is aimed at the 'checking out' crowd. this music plays with some combination of nostalgia, sensory overload, or listing things you need to do, have, or seek to be in this or that club (modern mainstream country and rap are almost perfectly lyrically interchangeable).friends and readers will be unsurprised that i think about this in terms of food: sometimes you want sushi to be deep fried with cream cheese, jalapeños, avocado, roe, eel sauce, imitation crab, etc; and sometimes you want perfectly cooked vinegared rice topped with a perfect portion of a perfect cut of fresh fish. both are cool, but most folks are rarely given the option of the latter because there is almost no place to not listen to music. i think this is a brain numbing way to experience not only music but the sounds the music is masking--like always being slightly drunk on shitty beer. escapism, like dragon-volcano-buttfire rolls and cookies, is a sometimes food.scores of books and studies and films and personal experiences attest to the power and importance of music to human experience. music celebrates being alive and being human in the same way that all the fine arts and sciences do. the music is the work of art, and the work of the work of art can be to teach us about itself, ourselves, and the world around us, if we let it. for the love of music (as the mighty diamonds remix of 'puttin on the ritz' comes to a close), stop listening to so much music. or at least find slightly more time to be quiet.