Hello Again, Sydney

One Sydney-sider's experiences moving back to Sydney after a long absence overseas.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Tuning in

How do you hear new music? Do you listen to the radio in your car? Do you listen to the radio at all? Are you super-realised technologically, hand-picking the podcasts that you want from all over the world? Or are you more of an 'old favourites' type?

A few rows of partitions behind me at work, someone has the radio on constantly, just loud enough for me to get snatches of songs, but not loud enough to actually follow them. You know at trivia nights, how they have those bits where they play five seconds of a track and you have to guess what it is? Well, I'm quite good at that, and this means I get woken out of my desk stupour at regular intervals when I recognise something: there's that one with the electronic hook, the one with the male vocal singing something in a kind of happy, resigned way, there's the na-na-na-nah-nah one (female vocalist) and the one where the guy sings a dramatic descending arpeggio. I don't actually know who the artists are, or the other bits of the songs, so it's kind of a rarefied listening experience.

None of that back in Colombia. The bus drivers put the tunes on loud, and too bad if you didn't like vallenato. Or sometimes on a Friday afternoon, the classroom would be overrun by the music, blasting out from the picos at the student bars nearby. If you looked out the window you could see the kids in there swaying -- with the beat or the drinks you could never be sure. They had beers in their hands and aguardiente on the table and ocassionally you saw one or two of the students who were supposed to be in your class. And no, these were not circumstances conducive to focussing the class's energies on learning.

When I was on holidays at Lesly's parents' place, you could stay abreast of the top 50 without even leaving the house -- music wafted down the street from the nearby tavernas. 'Hey, they're playing this one again.' I miss the desorden, sure, but mainly I miss the music! Wonder what's ringing out these days?

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