Pet Peeves

Apparently, I am a member of an extremely small minority group. In fact, I long thought I was the only person in the world who finds music irritating and distracting. I can’t stand popular music and find classical music and jazz to be tolerable for only brief periods of time. I did buy one or two 45 RPM records when I was a teenager in the 50’s and a few 33-1/3 jazz albums featuring musicians such as Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis when I was in my late teens and early twenties and living in what was then called West Germany. I hung out in Jazzkellers in Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, wearing shades in the dark and looking cool with my small group of friends. Why I bought the records, I’m not sure because I rarely listened to any of them and gave them away after a short period of time; I think it was the same as wearing the sunglasses at night in an underground cellar listening to live jazz: I bought them mostly to fit in with my friends. I have never purchased music since my return to the states in 1962, and I never listen to it at home, in my studio, or in my car.

It was a relief to learn there are others with anhedonia like me, because people like me are considered weird; we are very rare in this world where music is everywhere, like it or not. It irritates the crap out of me in elevators, it grates on my nerves in supermarkets, shopping centers, restaurants, funerals, and churches. Music fills the radio waves, screams its obnoxious racket over every radio station, it saturates television, and pollutes the Internet. It’s blaring away and distracting us in our cars, on jetliners and even on the phone while we’re on hold. It is impossible to find a motion picture that doesn’t have music pounding away throughout the film even if it’s a serious documentary about some sad and tragic situation. Virtually every Internet, TV and radio commercial—and even the news—is slathered with a thick layer of irksome music.

Some workplaces allow individual employees to listen to music while they work, oblivious to the fact that at least one, perhaps more, of their fellow workers are anhedoniacs about to go postal on the rude morons who listen to cacophony without earphones. Sometimes I wonder if this omnipresent noise is due to irresponsible parents in past years who put their toddlers on musical potty chairs. Now that the brats are grown, they have a fetish for perpetual noise (music) wherever they go and whatever they do.

From elementary through high school and even in the university and work, we are asked to list our favorite songs, bands, and singers. Pity the honest anhedoniac student who responds truthfully with the shocking news that she does not listen to music because she dislikes it. “Oh, you’re missing so much,” the teacher replies, “I pity you.” This is rather ironic since people who dislike music may be the brightest students in the school able to perceive and enjoy an awesome world and universe dullards will never be able to appreciate. Perhaps it is the teacher and her cohorts who should be pitied.

I am not aware of any scientific evidence linking high IQ to anhedonia, but I do know that every person I have met who shares my abhorrence of music has exhibited exceptionally high intelligence. With that said, I must admit that anecdotal evidence has no weight against empirical evidence. On the other hand, I am aware of empirical studies that explain why the masses are attracted to music for a variety of reasons such as a percussive, rhythmic beat that subconsciously reminds the easily influenced of their mother’s heartbeat and the feeling of being lovingly wrapped in the warm safety of Mommy’s womb. A strong desire to be identified as a member of specific group is also evidenced by the preferences of people who are drawn to one or more types of music. The music is not important, it is the image it conveys to others: you choose your brand of music because you want people to perceive you to be a rough-and-tumble bronco-busting cowboy if you are linked to music that identifies you as such. On the other hand, if you want to be cast as a snooty member of society’s upper crust you will see to it that you are associated with classical or operatic music. Your choice of music is your key to joining the club and becoming a member of the group. According to Science, this is the reason why most people choose an explicit type of music: fear of having to stand out as a free-thinking individual.

Most of the students in the classroom join in with the teacher’s condemnation, embarrassing the anhedoniac student and making him feel like a freak simply because he does not share the feelings others have for pointless noise. Some schools even go so far as to allow teachers to play music while students take long and difficult tests, ignorant of the fact that people like me find music so annoying and distracting it interferes with our ability to perform well on a test. Many people quote this old, trite saying, “Music tames the savage beast,” but it makes a beast out of me, so stop that terrible racket or I’ll tear your head off!

An old joke:

Julia asks, “Aren’t those chimes beautiful?”

Harold replies, “Speak up! I can’t hear you over those damned bells!”