Against Earphones

For a long while I was obsessed with in-ear monitor earphones. They seemed like such an elegant solution. The outside world is noisy and chaotic. With in-ears, you can go anywhere and COMPLETELY SHUT OUT the outside world. The world can go by your soundtrack, and since perspective is everything, some semblance of order can be made.

My first in-ears were the Koss Plugs.

That's how I knew them. There was something about how you could modify the back of them with some cotton or foam or something that made the sound MUCH MUCH BETTER.

The next major ones I used were the Zune V2's

They could fit underneath a bicycle helmet and beneath scarves and I could ride throughout the city, miles upon miles, listening to whatever fit my fancy.

There've been more since. These things are very fragile and with heavy use tend to fray in about six months time.

But with in-ear earphones, you miss half the sound. The story comes from the song, which comes from the dance, which is how man communicated to other men and women around the campfire after a day of hunting. Get too far from that root and you lose part of it.

In-ear headphones make music into a cerebral experience. They seek to come as close as possible to directly connect music to the brain, without any intervening body part coming in the way.

But by listening with just your head, you miss the thump of bass on your chest, going deep to your gut, which is not where music is listened to and analyzed, but instead where music is truly felt, literally, on a physical level.

Which is closer to the dance, which is thus closer to the spirit that we celebrate when listening to music.