The EnvisionaryTime seems to fly by as we age, but other things slow down, such as how we seek to discover new music less. Why is this and why is this bad for us?
Various studies have suggested that as we age we tend to stop listening to new music or stop seeking to discover new music.
Some reasons behind this might be pretty obvious, such as we are living busier lives in general. The times to unwind and listen to a new album (or even a new song) can become less and less.
Remember the days when you would unearth lots of new bands or groups almost daily AND have the time to listen to them all, develop opinions on them, remember all the lyrics, and find time to go and watch them at gigs and festivals?!
Well, as we age (generally beyond our 20’s into our 30’s) these opportunities seem to become less and less, but is that really so? Is it really a lack of time and opportunity, or something else at play?
Why We ‘Really’ Discover New Music Less As We Age
Sure, time is one thing, but as we age time doesn’t actually become any less (it might just feel like it is going quicker). What’s really happening is experience is weighing us down.
The more we learn the more our brain thinks it has to work out a logical connection to what it learns.
That might be easy at first, as we are like sponges soaking up lots of new information to fill our inexperienced minds, but once that fluid intelligence starts filling up and crystalising into ‘matter of facts’ our brain is now not only seeking to learn something new but ALSO figure out where it should fit in the jigsaw we’ve already laid down.
It’s like it is trying to find the ‘right’ pieces for the jigsaw rather than just collecting anything and hoping it will lead somewhere. Once that image grows we become less able to tell ourselves that ‘maybe we don’t want that jigsaw anymore’. When we’ve done it a thousand times it becomes our road map to follow, but in reality we might be better off taking a new road altogether.
It’s like knowing something isn’t good for us but doing it out of habit anyway.
This is what happens with music. If we listen to any music at all we end up listening to music we already know, which aligns with the map we understand in our mind. To throw something new at it feels illogical to our map, and this is precisely the point.
As we age our logic takes over, we have more crystalised intelligence than fluid intelligence, and when we do try to learn something new that fluid intelligence is effectively blocked and turned away. Not allowed in. Don’t pass go.
So, even though we have SO much music out there to choose from these days we can easily become overwhelmed by all the choice and fall back to what we already know. It’s just easier for our minds to process something we already know. When we want to zone out’ for a bit it’s easier to do so when our minds don’t have to process new patterns.
Our senses end up being tingled through nostalgia and through listening to the ‘good old days’, the music of our generation. It’s like our generation just froze in time around our teens and twenties. In some ways it did.
5 Reasons Why We Need To Start Discovering New Music Again Today
We might like nostalgia. We might enjoy listening to the songs we grew up to. They make us feel comforted. However, it’s important to also not get stuck in a grind in life, and embracing new music can have more positive effects on us than we might realise at first.
1) IT KEEPS OUR MIND ELASTIC
When we hear something new our mind has to connect the dots, find new patterns and make sense out of them. It’s this creative and detective-like mind that thrives when we are so used to learning new things for the first time as we are younger, and which is why we like feeding it, we like new music.
As we age we tend to do this less but we actually should be doing it MORE. The more we listen to something new without prejudgement the more we build up the elasticity of our mind again. It doesn’t matter what age we are, we can build that elasticity back up, we just have more blocks and hurdles preventing us from getting to that switch.
This is where it helps to train our brain to try new tiny habits each week. Once we have done it, move on to something else that is small and manageable. We might think we are just wasting time if it doesn’t fit into our logical big picture, but we need to think more Picasso than Constable. The big picture should be ever-changing (if we allow it to be).
Think of ourselves as detectives with a new case to crack, and a new puzzle to fix, rather than worry about how it has to fit into the same puzzle we’ve spent a lifetime trying to put together (and probably haven’t realised that pieces will always be missing – perfectionism doesn’t exist).
2) IT HELPS US CONNECT WITH OTHER PEOPLE
When we shut doors we don’t see anything other than what is in the room we already know, but when we open a new door it could lead to so many new opportunities and people that we otherwise wouldn’t have found.
As we age we can again think we don’t have the time and energy to make new acquaintances. It’s understandable as careers and kids begin to take over, but we might forget that opening a new door might lead to someone who could make a big difference to your career opportunities, or that kids love opening new doors, so why not go through one with them too.
When we discover new music we also open a new door towards potentially finding new friends who share the same interests, or who have more knowledge about this new music than you and therefore someone you can learn from.
Music is an expression of oneself but it’s also a way to connect with other people.
3) IT PROVIDES NEW STIMULUS
If we go back to shutting doors. If we stay within the same four walls our minds can become starved of stimulus and we would become very bored, very quickly. Imagine being in your room without all the modern gadgets or even realia like playing cards to keep you occupied.
What would happen? You’d likely feel like you were in a prison and you wouldn’t have much inspiration to grow around you. That said, sometimes stripping away everything can force your imagination to look for things that aren’t there, just like how we become more resourceful when we have less (see abundance mentality vs scarcity mentality).
Whilst we can force our imagination into ideas, it would be a lot easier if our imagination had prior stimulus to work with. Often we develop new solutions based on simply looking at two unrelated old stimuli and creating something new.
When we listen to and discover new music we are providing our brain with new stimuli it can use to help it create new patterns and findings, which leads to the next benefit.
4) IT HELPS US SOLVE PROBLEMS
Part of developing the elasticity of our brain is so we can find it easier to solve problems. We might not be consciously doing so but we do end up finding that our ability to create solutions becomes easier when we take our mind away from routine, static thinking.
You may have experienced this. You could be working away on something and feel like you aren’t really getting anywhere, only to take a break, a run, a shower, and come back with the ideas in place. This effect is known as whitespacing.
How does music fit into this?
When we listen to something we haven’t before we open up the detective within. We work out the patterns and this is the same brain process that goes into problem-solving.
If you are stuck on a problem you might well find that a solution presents itself when you simply try something new and discovering new music is an easy way of doing so.
It should be new music though, as old nostalgic music doesn’t have the same effect (as we will see below). Listening to completely different genres is a good idea, and you might even find you like something you previously thought you wouldn’t. Conscious influence can be a good thing for us.
5) IT MAKES US FEEL GOOD
Nostalgia is a funny thing. It can evoke emotions and make us feel happy, but also very sad. A song can remind you of a time in the past that might not have been your most free. We grow up finding our true selves. We go through a lot of individual and societal survival thinking in order to try and figure out how to both survive in the world and who we are within it.
When we listen to old music we are often reminding ourselves of this journey, or this chase to figure ourselves out. Sure, it can provoke great memories of fun times too but nostalgia has a way of making us sad, either by wishing those fun times were still around (as we find life becomes busier and more complicated as we age), or by reminding us of a struggle.
When we listen to new music we don’t have those connections to emotions, although we might at first feel a bit sad that music has moved on from what we once know, which can make us feel older and outdated, but when you begin to embrace new music then it generally has the opposite effect. It makes you feel good.
It can signify opportunity and a fresh start. It’s not attached to old thinking and can give you a new lease on life.
Music, new and old, can help relax us and calm our minds. We may gravitate towards the music we already know here but certain music has calming effects on our brain, so if we are always listening to the same music that doesn’t bring calm then it can be beneficial to bring in some different music to help us relax easier.
How To Discover New Music In A World Different From Nostalgic Years?
Today’s world might look slightly perplexing to people over 30. The days of going into a music store and selecting CDs are more or less over. You might wonder how on earth do people even find new music today. Let’s find out:
DISCOVER MUSIC ON SPOTIFY AND YOUTUBE
Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you’d know that the world today communicates digitally. Finding music is quite easy when you use platforms like Spotify. It curates your playlists based on your likes and suggests new music within those playlists that align with your tastes, but it might not always be the most accurate and it might keep you in an echo chamber of similar new music within a genre.
SEARCH SOCIAL MEDIA
The Gen-Z generation is much more apt at doing EVERYTHING through social media. Whilst social media certainly has many concerns in what it might be doing to our brains in the long run, it can’t be disputed that young people, in particular, shape their whole outlook and life around what they discover through social media.
Music is no different, as people will be more likely to trust a band they follow and their suggestions than what an algorithm on the likes of Spotify suggests. They feel social media has more of a human element to it than these algorithm-led platforms, but to older people, the ‘more human element’ still seems somewhat confusing considering life is led behind a screen rather than in the real world that they were used to.
RECOMMENDATIONS: ASK ‘YOUNGER’ FRIENDS
If you want a surefire way of finding something new and that you feel you can trust then recommendations are your go-to. You can easily discover new music from a friends recommendation or from a stream you follow or article recommendation.
What if all your friends are into Bowie and The Rolling Stones?
First, that’s good music still, but if you are looking into something new then you have to put that old mind behind you. Less ‘back in my day’, and less ‘kids these days’, and more ‘let’s give that a go’. If you have any younger friends then they will likely know a lot more than you about how to source new music. Never be afraid to take advice from someone younger than you, especially when it comes to trending subjects. They know their stuff.
BACK TO BASICS (WITH A MODERN TWIST)
The radio was a tried and trusted method of learning new music, and thankfully, it still is. Although radio stations and podcasts aren’t so mono and instead are found through digital apps, they are still a great way to hear a song you otherwise wouldn’t have selected to play. Using an app such Shazam can also be a good way to hear a song and be able to easily find out what it is.
DISCOVER OLD MUSIC TOO
Whilst we might think that we have to discover the latest release, discovering new music really means new to you, something you haven’t heard before. It’s not about waiting on a brand new release. Mozart might be new to you.
Whilst Gen-Z is generally very good at finding new music in more modern ways, they might not think themselves to seek out good old music. Some do, but most rely on anything that has been digitalised in the last decade or two.
This leaves a wealth of older music that could be very inspirational. A lot of bands rehash old music or inspiration into new fusions and you could do this do when you seek to discover new music.