When going wide is out, go deep
Hi, I’m Matt, and welcome to Steady Beats: rumination on music, muscle, and motion at midlife.
Trips to Europe. Vacation homes. Cruises.
I’m not in a place right now to be thinking about buying these Facebook-able experiences.
And that’s fine, really.
Crossing the rubicon of age 50, I’m more attuned to the sands slipping through the hourglass. For some, an impending sense of mortality kicks off a frenzy to leave a grand legacy. For others, the impulse is to whirl through as many novel experiences as possible (often posting it all online, of course).
I feel differently about my remaining time. Quieter.
I’m more interested in increasing my attention on what I really savor in this life; to use my time to go deep on the things I actually enjoy, and less on trying to impress myself, or someone else, or to seek novelty.
This approach seems less horizon-broadening. But by going vertical down a few treasured rabbit holes, you end up broadening your horizons anyway.
I’m not arguing my way is better, either. Nothing wrong with wanting to leave a legacy-sustaining impact, or enjoying new experiences.
Pursuing a few of my own interests might actually be more selfish.
And yet, pursuing our interests and sharing what we learn and enjoy is its own form of legacy, isn’t it?
For me, that includes music, and deepening my enjoyment and understanding of it. This is something I hope to chase for decades.
There are a few ways I discover and consume music today: Apple Music, SiriusXM, a slow rebuild of my CD collection, reading about music and musicians, and seeing live performances.
Apple Music is often painted as the simpler, less-robust alternative to Spotify. But it’s my streaming go-to, and has been, since 2015. Far from being a dumbed-down experience, Apple Music has loads of features to help you get the most from your subscription. But the platform does a pretty lousy job of surfacing those features.
Let’s go through some lesser-known, but high-impact, Apple Music features.
iTunes Match
Apple Music may have 100 million songs but incredibly, that’s not even close to everything. iTunes Match lets you upload your own music from CDs or digital files and add them to your library, accessible from any of your devices.
There’s another advantage to building your own library inside Apple Music.
Should you ever unhook yourself from the monthly subscription fee, your own files will live on inside the app, accessible from any of your devices, for a single $24.99 payment each year.
Music Videos
Apple Music has a huge video library, and unlike YouTube, they stream ad-free. And there’s far more than just the usual music videos. There are loads of cuts from concerts, some of which are pretty rare, like performances from the Live Aid concerts from 1985.
Exclude listening history
Maybe there are times you’re listening to music, and you don’t want that listening to screw up your automatically-generated playlists or recommendations.
For example, if I’m hosting a writing gym on Zoom at Write of Passage, I usually play instrumental jazz music in the background off a pre-generated playlist.
I don’t want those tracks screwing up my listening history.
By creating a “Work” Focus Mode in iOS, I can exclude any tracks played during the focus mode from listening history. So can you.
Once you have the Work Focus Mode created, go to Settings > Work > Use Listening History, and toggle it off.
This can work for any focus mode you create.
Equalizer
It’s simplistic, but Apple Music does have an equalizer. On iPhone, go to: Settings > Music > Playback > EQ. From there you can select an option and adjust the sound, mostly based on genres:
Apple Music Replay
I have this weird thing where if I don’t track my workouts in the health app, I don’t feel like they happened.
This is starting to happen to me with music listening, also. (Yes, this is weird, but have you met me?)
Anyway, at replay.music.apple.com, you can review your listening stats by month and year.
You can see your top artists:
And top albums:
(Norah Jones is great background music for working. Though Kasey Musgraves’ “Deeper Well” is closing in fast …)
Apple Music also creates a playlist by year of your most-listened to tracks, and the current year playlist updates each week.
Apple Music Live
Apple has hosted a ton of exclusive live sessions, and then they make them harder to discover than the Ark of the Covenant. As best I can tell, there are two chapters to this story:
Apple Music Live, a concert series, which you can find here.
iTunes Sessions, from ye olden days before the Apple Music rebrand, which is a collection of “live” recordings of exclusive EPs. I’d link them here if I could, but there’s no link. Just search “iTunes Session” inside Apple Music and you’ll find them.
Good luck with your search. The music is out there.
Comedy albums
Apple Music has more than music — it hosts current and classic comedy albums, also. You can go back to at least the 1960s, and maybe further — I couldn’t think of any pre-60s comedians to look up.
Crossfade
Crossfade is oddly divisive amongst music fans. I sit firmly on Team Crossfade. Opponents get snooty about it wrecking the integrity of songs by diminishing their endings.
Crossfade is the style radio stations fed many of us for decades. It’s a familiar and comfortable way to transition songs, and I don’t think the members of Kajagoogoo will get too upset if “Too Shy“ sunsets a few moments early.
If, like me, you are also on the correct team, turn on and customize crossfade. On your iPhone, go to: Settings > Apple Music > Crossfade, where you can toggle the setting and adjust the length of the crossfade.
Third Party Apps
SongShift
If you’re transitioning from one music service to another (or use more than one), you can easily port your playlists from one platform to another using SongShift.
Stats.fm
If Apple Music Replay just isn’t giving you enough data (told you I had a problem), try Stats.fm and connect your Apple Music account. Stats.fm has a free version, but the paid version goes deeper, is ad-free, and costs $5.99 a year.
Remember to import your past Apple Music history for the full picture. That process is a bit clunky and buggy, but worth it.
Stats.fm behaves like a musical prep cook, chopping up your listening history into all kinds of interesting dishes, which can feature various timeframes and views of albums, artists, or tracks.
It also lets you present those dishes in interesting ways:
Phew. I think that’s enough for today.
There’s more we could talk about: lossless audio, Spatial Audio, and the advantages of using Apple headphones with Apple Music. If you’re interested, we can cover that in another post.
Happy listening. Go deeper.
Thank you for reading Steady Beats #246
This is so helpful, Matt. Thank you. I never knew that there so many features in Apple Music.
And I like your embrace of a quiet life.
But be prepared - 50 is nothing - greater Rubicons to come.
Wow. I sure learned a lot just now. And I’m grateful it’s all here in writing so that I can refer back to it.
It’s kinda cool that you listen to Nora Jones so much! It’s not something a stereotypical man would select!