May 29, 2003 14:24 | Culture

Echo

Nevermind having a song stuck in my head.

Since having my iPod and thus having my music with me everywhere I go and all the time... added to that these Shure E2c headphones which so nicely and comfortably fit into my ear canal, blocking out the outside world, absorbing me deeply into the voluptuousness of a fully musical world, I've developped a sort of "echo" in my head...

Nevermind having a song stuck in one's head, which one sings repeatedly outloud or under one's breath. I am speaking of an echo. I am talking about hearing music I'd been listening to all day, faintly in the background of my mind as I tend to other things, long after unplugging and turning off the music.

Sounds nice? It is sort of, at first. However the problem is that lately I've been listening to a fair amount of lyrics-based stuff... rap, hip-hop, pop, rock and roll, whatever... all kinds of stuff, but lyrics based. The problem this creates is that the MOMENT language is involved it sparks up the language processor in the brain, stealing significantly from my concentration and upping it's position in my consciousness index.

(Think Glenn Gould's " The idea of north")

Try falling asleep with 50 cent whispering "yo shorty, it's you burfday" in your head...

(Try turning off language processing next time you are watching television alone. Very hard. Next, try turning it up when you are in a crowded room where many people are talking, not to you.)

Comments

Hehe, this has been happening to me all my life :)


Jam bands? ick!

I have an iPod but i use it mostly to port my Reason files between home and my laptop. I have eidetic memory for music - if I hear a song once or twice, it's in there forever. I have an internal soundtrack instead of an internal monologue...

(currently 'listening' to: There There, Radiohead)

That beign said, E2c's are sweeet. Are those the dual-driver kind? I totally want them because my workplace is like a crowded bar sometimes...How can I produce staggering works of heartbreaking genius with people chattering loudly about Joe Millionaire or whatnot all day long????


3- Boris Anthony

Wola wola...

F: cheap drugs? I haven't touched any such thing in yeeeeaaars. Cheap or otherwise. As for jazz, I can't stand anything but the classics. All this experimental progessive crap drives me insane. And the rap is just small side fancy.. mostly hip-hop... As you know I ilisten to just about everything. :)

AJ: Both you an dSniffles miss the point. I too have what you called "eidetic" memory. I have it both visually and auditory. Think of it like everything I've ever seen is in microfiche and audio tape. (With some of the limitations of those media included, unfortunately.)

What I am talking about is ECHO people!!! There is a definite echo in my head! As in sounds bouncing around! I am not talking about music playback from memory, I am talking ECHO!!!!

:D

Can u tell it's driving me mad? (or at least helping the process along nicely... ;)


Ah well, your internal mixer must be set up to route the output to a spare input and thus you have a latency problem which you perceive as 'echo'. Change the routing, mute the channel or increase your streaming buffer size. Then reinitialize CoreAudio and all will be well. :)