Is music sounding bland to you? Try a “music fast”

You may discover more than you expect.

One day in 2011, I got in my car, put on the music, started driving and… nothing. The music was doing nothing for me. I kept skipping tracks, and every track felt like food that’s just a little bit under-salted: a mix of “meh” and “blergh”.

Putting on my playlist had become a robotic gesture, born from automation, not emotion.

I realized this feeling had been going on for a while, and I started wondering why I was having such a hard time finding music I really enjoyed. “But I always loved listening to music”, I thought, “it’s such a big part of my life! What happened?” It occurred to me that, for some time, I had been consuming music mindlessly. Putting on my playlist had become a robotic gesture, born from automation, not emotion.

That’s when one of my best ideas was suddenly trumpeted into my mind: to do a 30 day “music fast”.

The madness

“This makes no sense”, I thought, “I like music too much! Plus, how would I manage without my earphones at work?” The more I thought about it, the more my discomfort at the idea grew. The more my discomfort grew, the more I thought I had become “attached” to music, and I could probably benefit from learning to manage that attachment — hence the fast. So, with quivering resolve, I committed to giving it a go.

The silence

I have experience with (food) fasts of different kinds, and of different durations. However, the music fast was probably the most challenging fast I’ve ever embarked on.

Living 30 days without music felt, a lot of the time, like having an itch you can’t scratch. I would get in the car and, robbed of the possibility of turning the music on, all I had to listen to was the dissonant cacophony of car engines and city noises.

Sometimes, the fast felt like sitting in a doctor’s waiting room without your phone or magazines. “What on earth am I supposed to do now?! Surely I can’t just sit here… can I?”

Slowly but surely, I started realizing that I probably didn’t need music in all these different scenarios in my life. While in the beginning of the fast I was anxious to start listening to music a couple weeks in I became at peace with my music-less life, appreciating the subtle tones of the gradually unfolding discovery: music was not meant to be background noise, it was a beautiful thing in and of itself, not meant to be consumed but listened to, not gulped down but savored.

A note of providence

As the 30 days were drawing to an end, I started to look forward to my first taste of music after my fast. Unlike the first few days, I was not anxious, but expectant. I no longer depended on music, but had learnt to enjoy it fully instead of superficially.

The inevitable question soon arrived in my mind: “what piece of music should I break my fast with?” It is a harder decision than meets the eye. Try to think about it: what track would you have selected for yourself?

I scoured my playlist for possible candidates, finding several possible choices but none that convinced me fully. Then, one day, I saw it: I was walking down the street, and I saw a billboard advertising a classical music concert in which my favorite piece of classical music was going to be played: the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine was going to play Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade just on the day my fast was scheduled to end.

To try and describe what that concert was like would be tantamount to describing, through the use of my computer keyboard and your LED screen, the taste of a deliciously prepared (and perfectly salted) meal. It would be an attempt doomed to failure.

I can only tell you that the ray of bright light cast into my mind by the gracious and powerful B note opening the 2nd movement of Scheherazade will probably stay there as long as I will live:

Do you know what track you would select? Feel free to tell me about it in a response to this article.