...because there is no room for peace and quiet in your life any more. There must be music on a big screen screaming at you while in the supermarket like you are at a concert venue instead of just quietly going about your business shopping for groceries; there must be music at your place of work repeating the exact same songs every day twice a day for the entirety of your working week for three months on end; there must be music blasting from a loud speaker at your job site annoying every co-worker and neighbour who doesn't like your music choices; there must be your own choice of music blasting at a volume to drown out somebody else's music; there must be music interrupting your ability to read in the bookshop you are trying to find a book to buy at; there must be music, there must be music, and it must keep playing so you can avoid that god-awful thing called silence, or peace and quiet, that you experienced once in your life and you were so traumatised by that you swore never to be subjected to that peace and quiet ever again. 

I walked into the New World supermarket at 279 Wakefield Street, Te Aro, Wellington, and was subjected to John Farnham on, not just one, but two big screens, as though I was invited to join in and chant "You're the voice, try and understand it, make a noise and make it cleaaaa-earrr-earrr..." when all I was there for was to buy groceries. 

• Dear New World: "Is there not already enough noise with the beeping of checkout counters, the clanging of trolleys, the voice on the loudspeaker?" 

Now every place I patronise has decided that it wants to create an atmosphere of noise, produced by music that does not suit my tastes, and often doesn't suit the actual decor of the retail outlet that plays it. Not music gently playing in the background, subtle, and soothing, but music loud and obnoxious without any care about how I feel as a paying customer. 

I get that the Customer Service Representatives want to be able to enjoy their work environment, but my question is: How can they enjoy having the exact same songs played over and over without getting insanely sick of it? The other question, is if they work with people who have different music tastes, is it acceptable that one person be allowed to enjoy their work environment while the other suffers? 

We all have different music tastes, and to be honest, even I wouldn't want to be subjected to the bands I love day in and day out on an eternal repeat mode. An experience I had last year subjected me to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in a Wellington cafe. Great! I thought, Music I love. But it was so loud that I couldn't hear my own mother talking to me. This is what I don't get. How does loud music encourage customers to walk into a store? 

• Is it just me that has overly sensitive hearing? 
• Is it just me that doesn't want loud music interrupting every moment?
• Is it just me that finds conversation difficult with loud music overlapping every sentence? 
• Is this just a generational thing? 
• Is this a consequence of growing up on farms vs. growing up in cities?
• Is this the result of children being subjected to an external noise source, like a TV, or music, being played all day in their home environment? 

In Wellington city, it is very hard, if not impossible, to find a retail outlet that doesn't play obnoxiously noisy music. Even libraries, those once-upon-a-time havens of peace and quiet, have become obsessively noisy in recent years. All I want is cafe to sit in and drink my cappuccino in peace. But no such luck.

The city is all just noise, noise, noise, and more noise. When it tries to add music as a contrast to the noise, as a way of creating a sound environment that attempts to relax or bring joy to the citizens lives, it only creates more noise. Because now the music is competing to rise above the noise, and it all joins together in a cacophony of irritating, trauma-inducing, pain. 
 
That is what I am left experiencing in the city: Pain.

Listening to music doesn't have the same appeal that it used to when I was younger. I feel, as I get older, that music is an intrusion on my sense of self. Where once it was the soundtrack to my emotions, now it is a bombardment of noise demanding I pay attention.

And I want to pay attention, but my ears don't want to hear.

Perhaps I have gained a great deal more sensitivity towards sound volumes - understandable, to some degree; although, some grow less sensitive as they continue to gain hearing loss. I have not sustained a great deal of hearing loss from my days as a solo acoustic musician and a rock/metal guitarist. While I was working as an assistant book-buyer in Highland Park Paper Plus, I noticed my ears becoming extremely sensitive to the sound of coins dropping against one another in the till, to the sound of trolleys clanging against one another in the supermarket next door, to the point where I felt like I was in immense pain from these noises, and I began wearing cotton in my ears to reduce the decibels, otherwise the extreme sensitivity I was experiencing would bring a great deal of stress. I was also going through the lowest point of my clinical depression at the time, which may have have been a potential cause. Regardless, I had spent years hunched over my acoustic guitar with my right ear being pummelled with sound waves. Years later, after moving from Auckland to Invercargill, and the rock/metal band I was in drawing to an end, I had a hearing test done and it turned out that the hearing loss I did have was negligible (that's approximately 7 years of wearing hearing protection by plugging my ears with cotton in every day!). What I was experiencing, I was told, was 'in my head'. This was somewhat of an unbelievable statement. Years of hearing sensitivity was just something my mind was conjuring? The audiologist suggested that I would simply have to work on getting used to normal levels of sound again. I went back to my flat, mind reeling from this news, heart beating with anxiety at the thought of having to suffer through this excruciating pain all over again; but within a week of not wearing hearing protection, I was starting to get used to normal sound levels again.

Like a lot of musicians, I also suffered tinnitus. I have made efforts to reduce noise levels to assist with the reduction of tinnitus, and over the years this has reduced also.

Since 2018 when I moved into my car, I have sought peace and calm along riversides, through forestry tracks, and over ranges, searching for those peaks or rapids where I can rest and enjoy the natural sounds around me.

Music isn't natural. It is a constructed sound put together by humans. It is my firm belief that animals do not make music. Even birds. We liken their calls to music because we can pitch them to a musical scale, but we can also pitch construction machines to a scale as well - but we don't! (as far as I know no one has, but to be fair, someone probably has!). If birds make actual music, it is unknown to us; we can only hear what they produce and interpret it as music. But music is something that we humans put together out of natural sounds that can be produced. We force these pitches together with rhythmic impulses, and music is born.

Rock music has a noise quality to it - loud for the sake of being loud. Electronic music is produced into digital loudness. Compression destroys all the highs and lows. I first started turning away from loud rock music, but many a morning I have woken up and while driving to my job, have not even wanted to listen to my beloved Mozart.

The silence of morning.
The rumbling of the car engine, the scraping of wind against the windows - all these are noise enough.

I was once accused of being someone who listens to music as background (my god! I don't know how anyone could accuse any musician, let alone someone who has written 200 songs, performed acoustic and metal music, composed for orchestras, and listens to all the best music from all but 2 genres, of being someone who listens to music as 'background'!). I have studied Mozart and Beethoven scores, I learned almost every Led Zeppelin song, learnt every song on Undertow by ear - music has never been a background, and it never will be. I have to HEAR music. I have to hear what's going on - what those flutes are playing over the violins, what the bass is doing when its not following the six-string guitar, what drum patterns are being played as a contrast: all the counterpoint and interesting harmonies will forever fascinate me. Whether it's Mozart or Tool, what those musicians and composers are doing to make music will always bring an interest beyond just the emotional moment that got me first listening to the piece.

But if I don't want to hear noise, I turn music off. All of it.
Because even Mozart, performed by the greatest orchestras ever, is still a noisy presence when I just want as much quiet as I can possibly find.

In the city, where noise reigns supreme, unwanted sounds must be matched with wanted sounds: this day I may want to bring Helmet up on the stereo and help block out those other intrusions, or maybe Page Hamilton's riffs just fit with this day's city-mood; this other day I may want Beethoven's 6th Symphony to bring me some joviality while I drive through the centre of town.

But when I am down on the riverside with water passing through rapids, cicadas in the bushes, swallows dipping and diving, and the occasional cow mooing for attention over in the paddock, the last thing I want is someone to bring constructed sound into the mix. Not even Delius, who of all the composers feels the most 'natural', because even his music is constructed from constructed instruments. And that which is constructed doesn't fit naturally into the landscape.

Let these noises be still,
And let those voices born from the earth have their say.
I will listen,
And let this peace momentarily reign.

• 7th April, 2024; Upper Moutere