systlin:

simonalkenmayer:

official-data:

postmodernmulticoloredcloak:

dreyas-got-beats:

just-shower-thoughts:

In the days before recorded music, I wonder if nobles ever instructed their chamber musicians to play their latest favorite song like twenty times in a row.

Fun fact: Yes. Yes, they did.

Nobles were the only ones that really listened to music and to hear it you had to actually go to a concert. There wasn’t a such thing as background music yet, and whenever there was music people would listen intently. If a piece was particularly stirring, they would give a standing ovation and they would have to play the same piece over again. I suppose this would happen more than a few times so, maybe not twenty times in a row, but close. 

Honestly, what better thing did they have to do with their lives anyway?

What about a terrible song over and over but with another song played once in the middle

“Bard!  I wish thee to play ‘What is newe, O Pussy Catte’ twenty times!  But, hark!  After the seventh play, play ONE ‘It bee notte unusual’”

Yes. This happened. Often. One reason why Michaelmass saw me as far from the city as possible.

Question; were the musicians as dead behind the eyes while forcing a smile as I think they must have been? Because I’m picturing the thousand-yard stare of a Best Buy employee on Black Friday here.

Remember, the only time they’ve heard or played the song was when they’ve heard or played it. Saturation would have occurred at only a slightly different rate for the musicians as for the hearer. Travel times were different. They played that song perhaps at three villages before this one? Instead of the thousands of times one does it in concert these days, with airplanes and buses. So yes, they did eventually go dead in the eyes, but not necessarily as quickly as one might think.