The current that I stand upon so still

21/6/2012

Jen Ross writes: Only in very rare circumstances can I bear music playing while I read or write. I'm more likely to have a 'white noise' track playing in the office than music. The bus journey to and from work is usually the only time I'm offline during the day, and the regular time I listen to music (though on the way home I'm equally likely to listen to This American Life podcasts). Music bookends my working day, and on rare musicless days I am restless and unhappy.

My bus playlist is an itunes 'smart playlist' called 'best and brightest' (which I learned how to make online about 5 years ago, but can't find the link for now). At any given time it contains 200 songs fed from two other playlists: songs I've rated over 4 stars (out of 5) but haven't played for a while, and songs that I haven't rated at all and that I've played fewer than 4 times in total. The combination ensures I get a mix of things I love alongside new stuff I don't yet know well.

The 'new stuff' often comes from my periodic trawls through hypemachine (hypem.com), a music blog aggregator. I scan my RSS feed for song or artist names that catch my eye. I download, put songs into itunes, and eventually they make their way into the playlist, and the bus journey.

The current that I stand upon so still by Elektronicheslernenmuzik on Mixcloud

Over the years, via this method, I've discovered I have a real liking for scandinavian pop and scottish indie bands, and that quirkily-named songs are a mixed bag, but irresistible to me… thanks, interwebs.

This mix was selected from what's in that playlist tonight that originated serendipitously, from strangers online. A few are tracks I heard for the first time tonight (whitman, uncles, st vincent & the national). A few are from musicians I now adore (joanna newsom, bright eyes, meursault, dan mangan). The others are songs I especially like, from singers and bands I mostly just have this one track from and know little or nothing about. It's sort of a special, web-sourced edition of my commute.

Dr Jen Ross is a lecturer on the MSc in E-Learning at The University of Edinburgh

4 Comments

James Lamb

26/6/2012 09:38:55 pm

Hello Jen, thanks for the playlist.

A question: does the music you listen to on the bus in any way shape your learning environment for the rest of the day? Or do you see the journey into the University as being distinct from your time of campus.

Also, was the choice of photo - with the 35 passing through the university campus - significant?

Jen

8/7/2012 11:57:50 pm

hi James, thanks for the questions! I'm starting to listen to your playlist, and loving your first track.

I usually start work over breakfast and sometimes continue once I get home again, so I guess the bus journey is a pause in the flow of working. I think that what I hear does shape the day. Often something gets stuck in my head, and then I have a little riff that accompanies work. Depending on how chilled out or high energy my device decides it feels that day (yes, I attribute agency to the 'shuffle' feature and smart playlist), I can arrive feeling melancholy, tough or whatever. And I'm sure that has an impact.

As for the bus photo, this is one of the buses I regularly take, so I wanted to find a photo of it (even though I leave it before it passes through where this photo is taken) - but I hadn't actually made the connection with the location!

Jeremy Knox

7/7/2012 12:43:11 am

I was really interested in the comments here about how you came across new music, a process which seems integrally part of being in digital spaces. So much of my listening to music comes from web streaming services these days, primarily I think because working with my computer is the time when I listen to music the most, and it is just more convenient to bring up a web page than begin looking through CDs (I’ve never really been an iTunes person). There seems to be something here about the merging of computer work (and learning) with computer/web mediated music. Something about being enveloped in digitalness. Just as e-learning has been explored as something which can be deeply entwined in wider social media practices, it seems rather appropriate that an e-learning soundtrack derives from the web itself; is compiled through processes like tagging, blogging and aggregating. Just as facets of the mediating technology are entangled in the presentation of knowledge online, e-learning soundtracks might be considered to emerge from social as well as technical processes. E-learning soundtracks are perhaps not entirely the choice of an individual learner, but derive from connected practices online, communications with unknown others, and influenced by database algorithms and cumulative network effects. So, perhaps it is not just the act of listening to a musical soundtrack that is related to learning practices online, but also the activities of coming across new music, and the creation of our playlists themselves.

9/7/2012 12:11:29 am

hi Jeremy - yes, I think that's what was in my mind when I opted to share the 'web-sourced' parts of my playlist: that digital stumbling is really central to my musical learning, and I wanted to try to represent that.

Indeed, my musical life has always involved a lot of remixing and sharing - the 'mixed tape' has been pretty instrumental (ha ha - no pun intended) to a number of my relationships, and I still make them (cds/dropbox mixes nowadays!), and receive them. And the choir I sing with spends a lot of time sharing and messing around with songs that people bring - usually things I've never heard before in my life. So the social and the musical intertwine - for me, anyway, and I'm guessing for most people - in relatively profound ways.

The current that I stand upon so still

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