Last week’s nearly 60 degree day gave me the sense that spring was in the air and that, soon, air would be violently vibrating as WRCT starts DJing The Cut again.
WRCT is not the only student organization to blast music on The Cut when the weather gets nice, but they do have the loudest speakers. I am actually a fan of WRCT and enjoy listening to their radio station. Their radio shows have a lot of variety and play some weird stuff, which I always enjoy. To avoid writing a targeted attack on an organization that I appreciate, this article will serve more as a discussion of people playing loud music on The Cut versus WRCT specifically.
Whenever we do things in a public setting, it is crucial to act courteously. Courteous actions are very context-dependent. Shaking someone’s hand is generally a very courteous thing to do when meeting someone for the first time, but it would be inadvisable to shake someone’s hand right after getting out of a stall in a public restroom.
Sound is an overlooked aspect of courteous behavior. Similar to shaking someone’s hand, changing the sonic composition of a space directly affects the senses of others in that space. Although I have seen it done many times, playing your TikToks on full blast in the middle of Stack’d Underground is indeed discourteous because of how it grates on the senses of others in the sonic landscape.
Since music is a disruption of the sonic landscape, in what case is it courteous to play loud music in public? I think a good example of courteous loud music is the music in the Tartans Pavilion. Fundamentally, it’s not very good music compared to the magnificent playlists of The Exchange or The Zebra Lounge. In many ways it grates on my senses. However, the only thing worse than the music in the Tartans Pavilion is sitting in complete silence in the Tartans Pavilion. In dining locations, music provides a break from the awkwardness of having conversations in a silent public space.
The Cut is different from a dining location however. The Cut is a place of transit and transition. Being an exterior location, it has an ambient noise and non-intimate scale which does not cause an awkward silence. If one prefers music to silence, then they can simply play something on their personal devices. I enjoy listening to a wide variety of things on my headphones as I cross The Cut. What I do not enjoy is when I’m really vibing with whatever music I’m listening to and, as soon as I approach the tennis courts, a stupid midi kick drum cuts through my noise-canceling headphones. The question arises: why should someone else’s music take precedence over anyone else’s. Access to recorded music is now instantaneous. If I want to listen to Gregorian chants while walking through Wean without bothering anyone, I can. It is better that everyone can listen to their own favorite sounds on their own devices than that the collective state of the sonic landscape is up to one person.
While there is something special about the common experience of listening to the same music on The Cut, being on The Cut already engenders the sense of a collective experience, doing so with music can be done just as easily by going to The Exchange.
By: Ian Giles
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