(request for comment!)

[alexr_rwx]

- *ethnography pith helmet* Question for you! Do you make mix CDs for people? Under what circumstances, and for whom? Are you trying to get across a particular message? How do you pick out the ordering? Is it similar to choosing songs for yourself? (one fellow I'd spoken with said it was part of his mating-dance behavior; how about you?)

- (it was Graham. he's a pretty happenin' cat.). Martin! He uses chuck! (Ladies! Mix CDs!)

- *noises to succinctly communicate subjective experience*

Comments

CRW-1622

[khrysta.livejournal.com]

Oh, I make mix CDs for people, if you know what I mean.
(I am completely uncertain what that euphemism would mean.)

Question the Second: I make them under the circumstances that I know some happening tunes that the person I'm making them for doesn't. Also, that I like them / respect them / know them well enough to assume a. This is an act that they would appreciate (Getting a CD) b. This is the sort of music they might like, or if not like, appreciate.

Question the Third: Not Usually! Once I made a mix CD for a friend of mine before I went off to California because I knew he might miss me and so I made a CD of kind of sappy, but ultimately cheerful favorite songs of mine. I think I tried to send the message: I like you, I'll be back, please be happy! Usually, though, it's just a sharing of music w/ very little message other than "I like these songs, I hope you do too!"

Question the Fourth: With much difficulty, wailing, and gnashing of teeth! Sometimes I put the songs in XMMS and randomize a couple of times and play it through and see if I like it like that, or sometimes I go for symmetry... so that it has, for example, the same artists on tracks 1 and 6, 2 and 5, and 3 and 4. Sometimes I'll put songs in an order that goes happy sad happy sad happy sad. Usually though, it's the wailing and gnashing of teeth at how ultimately meaningless the order seems, and yet understanding that it DOES have some indecipherable effect on the feeling of the CD.

Question the Fifth: I don't think I've ever made a CD for someone like I make them for myself. Point: Sometimes CD's I make for myself have only one or two songs on them. It seems a terrible waste, but I use these (3-5) CDs more than any others. CDs for others are always much better filled, and usually full of variety. CDs I make for myself are usually "mood" CDs, so they are sans variety.

Question the Sixth: Not usually mating dance, but I think music in general is the sort of thing that one looks into when trying to decide "what sort of person is this?" so it makes sense that if you're making a cd for a possible "kiss friend" that you might want to impress them.

okay! that was probably more thorough than necessary. ^_^