{"id":1910,"date":"2020-09-28T16:28:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T20:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/?p=1910"},"modified":"2022-02-25T00:30:48","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T04:30:48","slug":"tuning-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelteager.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/28\/tuning-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuning Out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What a time to be alive. I\u2019m absolutely exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reasons are myriad and obvious, and I know I\u2019m not the only one. The endless parade of news headlines reads like something from a slightly absurdist movie. Nearly everyone on social media is engaged in an endless, all-consuming culture war on all fronts. (Of course, that\u2019s not to say that it\u2019s not for righteous reasons. But, at the end of the day, if all you\u2019ve done is pushed out some snarky comments and tweets, what do you have to show for it? What have you done?) Many lives are turned upside down for a multitude of reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve tried quite hard over the last decade or so to keep this blog music-focused rather than an all-encompassing personal diary. That said, I\u2019m veering off that some here. Mostly because it\u2019s on my mind. Also, in my \u201cday job\u201d I work remotely from a home office and have done so for a number of years<\/a>. Between that and being the primary caregiver for our son, I\u2019ve been living a version of \u201cpandemic life\u201d for years before it was the new normal. (Of course, at-home kindergarten wasn\u2019t in the plan years or months ago, which has been the biggest complication for me personally, but here we are.) So, below are a couple cents\u2019 worth of notions if things are all turned around and you\u2019re drowning in the mania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With everything going on, it\u2019s hard for me to focus or care enough about a music topic to attempt to write at length. I\u2019ve attempted to start dozens of posts for this site, only to abandon or trash them. I\u2019ve even found it difficult to properly publicize and plug my most recent album with Matt Borghi<\/a>. (Read about it here<\/a>!) Gigs have dried up, of course, as they have for everyone else. Dozens were canceled for me this summer, though we managed to keep a small handful in the end, and I doubt there\u2019ll be another until the spring. It\u2019s just been a lot of time practicing punctuated by a little recording here and there for a nascent endeavor. I dove deep into the classical literature for a few months during the strictest parts of quarantine, which was refreshing, and I\u2019ve also explored a number of new-for-me jazz standards. But ultimately it\u2019s not worth discussing too deeply at present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[One exception on music topics is my most recent contrarian hot take. I\u2019ve long been a firm believer in separating the art from the artist<\/a> (or, if possible, the person from the artist), so the constant arguments over whom to cancel don\u2019t interest me much. That said, if I were to partake, given the relatively arbitrary nature of where people decide \u201cthe line\u201d may be, my vote would be to cancel J.S. Bach on account of seemingly being a bad parent. Let\u2019s face it: between his work obligations, his extra-curricular musical pursuits, and voluminous progenitorial endeavors, I have a hard time believing he could\u2019ve been an engaged, attentive parent at the individual level. And yet: great contrapuntal technique nonetheless!]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, it helps to just tune out, unplug, and focus on the micro. Though everyone has their own method, the following combination works for me (and admittedly I\u2019m not as good at them as I\u2019d like to be), in no particular order:<\/p>\n\n\n\n