#741: Homework

GETTING MORE TALE #741: Homework

Teachers and counsellors used to tell us it was OK to listen to music when you’re studying, but don’t play things you like so much that you find it distracting.  Nothing you love too much, nor anything you hate.

That was always a problem for me as a kid.  I loved music!  Then and now.

There were always a few albums that hadn’t clicked with me.  In 1992 I was studying for exams, and I chose Mr. Bungle’s debut to do it.  I was also working with the belief that listening to more complex music got your brain juices flowing even better.  I had my method for studying, and I really don’t think music had much impact.  I just remember choosing Mr. Bundgle for the reason that it was complex, and I didn’t get it.

When I was younger, in highschool, I remember listening to a lot of different things while studying.  I had a vinyl phase in early 1988.  I was 30 years ahead of the hipsters.  My sister and I had discovered B-sides in the singles rack at the local Zellers store.  Def Leppard’s “Ride Into the Sun” was playing in store, and my ears perked up.  I knew it was Leppard, but I never heard that song before!  Another single I purchased at that time was Triumph’s “Let The Light (Shine On Me)”.  Rik Emmett played it a few weeks earlier live and acoustic on the Power Hour.  The single got quite a few spins while I was doing my homework that winter.

For some reason, Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind was also on the turntable a lot while studying that year.  I may have purchased the record off Bob, because I am sure I got it from him.  There were a couple songs I played repeatedly.  One was “Still Life” and the other was “Sun and Steel”.  At that age, Bob and I thought we could really sing like Bruce Dickinson if we worked hard enough at it.  Those were two songs I was practising at the time!

Listening to music while studying seemed to work for me, but I will admit to one distraction.

Do you remember when Wayne’s World came out on home video?  The first releases came with a free pair of Wayne’s World drum sticks.  My sister bought the video and got the sticks.  However, I would frequently steal them and claim that I needed them to study.  It wasn’t untrue.  A lot of the time, I would pound out a beat on the bed while I was memorising names, dates and events.  However, other times I was just playing a solo.  Probably most of the time!

One could argue that drumming on the bed eventually led to my degree.

Hey, the teachers and counsellors also told us to take breaks from studying.  Sometimes mine were the length of a song…or several!

 

30 comments

  1. I could never listen to music while doing homework, it’s too much of a distraction. I just start analyzing the music, and don’t get anything done. The only exception was back in high school when I had to design my own website and I listened to the first three Metallica albums in chronological order start to finish with no pause in between. That was awesome, and probably made me work faster since it was just redundant coding. I also had the CD of Kill ‘Em All with “Am I Evil?” and “Blitzkrieg” tacked on at the end as bonus tracks which made it even better. I still have it, and it’s still my favorite Metallica record. Another semi-rare thrash gem I’ve got is the Music for Nations CD of the first Megadeth with the uncensored Nancy Sinatra cover of “These Boots”, and it smokes. Gar Samuelson was a monster drummer.

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  3. On one hand I couldn’t study with music in the background, but on the other hand, when I needed to smash out an essay, I would listen to a whole concert and do the essay in one go at the same time.

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  5. I was a music-while-studying kid, too. In fact, even now I like to listen to music when I’m working or whatever. I’m a bit more productive. Unless it’s the radio. Then I get too caught up in saying stuff like “jeezus, they’re dugshite” or “this song’s been on 3 times already”.

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        3. He came close to winning Celebrity Big Brother in the US and has been discovered by a new generation of fans. He won the popular vote! And he was totally still Tom Green. One night he was in the kitchen, flapping two cereal boxes like wings, pretending to be a bird.

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  7. I just commented over at Geoffs I need the iPod if I have to ride city transit or my bike in the summer!
    Taking the dogs outside for toss or a walk is must with tunes…
    Speaking of walking the dog I still recall taking Fender for a huge walk the day Maidens Book of Souls came out and I made it back halfway thru Empire of the Clouds!
    Than I sit down open up WordPress and there are two reviews of Book of Souls done already by u and Mr Books!
    Frigg the album wasn’t eve a day old and you two yo-yo’s smashed out reviews and I hadn’t even finished listening the album once through..

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    1. HAHAH! So what happened was, that was a Friday, and Jen bought the deluxe for me at the mall. We got her Mum and we all went to the cottage. I asked if we could listen to Maiden in the car and they said yes.

      The CD was only a little shorter than the full drive, so I had a great chance to really enjoy it for the first time, all in one go.

      Then I got to the lake, pulled out my laptop, plugged in the CDs for round two, and started pounding out the words! It took me about 3 hours to do it.

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  8. I wrote all my first year university essays to The Beautiful South’s “0898”. Don’t ask me why because I don’t remember how it started, but once I did, it seemed wrong to change it up.

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      1. Haha. To be honest, I got a bit repetitive, especially on nights like the one I pulled an all-nighter to start and finish two essays, back to back, hopped up on Jolt Cola.

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