On today's episode of WNYC's popup advice show, David Furst, host of Weekend Edition on WNYC, leads am advice call-in conversation about music, and how our ears can tune in to more deeply appreciate it, with Hrishikesh Hirway, creator of the podcast and Netflix series 'Song Exploder,' and a musician himself under the artist name The One AM Radio. Listeners call in with their questions about streaming, fandom, engaging with artists and their work, and other ways to enjoy music.
Note: You are listening to the podcast version of a live radio show. The call-in number only works between 1 and 2 PM Eastern, while the show is live. Some music that was part of the live broadcast has been removed from the uploaded program due to license requirements.
If you'd like to submit advice questions to be featured on the show, or topic suggestions for future shows, please use the form on our showpage at wnyc.org/advice
[music]
David Furst: Welcome to Please Advise, a pop-up advice show from WNYC. I'm David Furst. Thanks for joining us today. It is our fall pledge drive. We're trying to raise all of the money in half the time, and we're asking for your support this hour. Listeners like you help to give us the financial flexibility to experiment with things like an advice show or like our pop-up local politics show with Brigid Bergin called Who's Running this Place?
Tune in this time tomorrow to hear Bridgid's conversation with Claire Valdez, the Democratic Socialist candidate running to represent parts of Queens in the US House of Representatives. She'll also speak with L. Joy Williams, president of the New York State NAACP, and a panel of WNYC journalists with the latest local politics headlines. That's Who's Running this Place with Brigid Bergin. Tune in tomorrow at 1:00 PM.
Today on Please Advise, we're talking about something I love, something we probably all love. We are talking about music, and we're asking, how can I love music even more? We are taking your questions today on how to enjoy music, and especially how to listen to new music. Maybe that new music always seemed too challenging, or maybe you felt some cultural barriers had been set up between you and that music. Maybe there's a particular genre that you could never quite get. Maybe you're simply just looking to add some new artists to your playlists.
We are here to help. Our lines are open for you if you need some expert advice at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. We are joined today by singer, songwriter, and composer Hrishikesh Hirway. He is the host of the podcast and Netflix series Song Exploder. His latest album is In the Last Hour of Light. Hrishikesh, welcome to Please Explain.
Hrishikesh Hirway: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
David Furst: You have a show.
Hrishikesh Hirway: I'm very, very thrilled to be asked to give advice. I have no qualifications, but I'm happy to be here.
David Furst: [laughs] That's perfect. You have a show coming up in New York, by the way. You're going to be performing at National Sawdust in Brooklyn on December 6th, opening for S. Carey, and it is great to have you back here at WNYC. We want to welcome you to this conversation because sometimes music can feel intimidating if you're not a musician. Maybe you're just drowning in the endless options that are presented to you on streaming devices. Maybe you're looking to build up a physical catalog of records and don't know where to look.
Whatever your musical dilemma may be, we are here to help. On the flip side, give us some advice. Tell us about some music that you discovered that you really love. Give us a text or call, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Let's talk about Song Exploder. If you have never heard this before, it's incredible. First of all, can you explain the format and talk about your idea here of how a piece of music changes when you explode it the way that you do?
Hrishikesh Hirway: Sure. The concept behind Song Exploder is it's a first-person perspective from the artist on how a song was made, how they wrote it, what inspired it, and all of the little decisions that went from that moment of inspiration all the way to the finished product. I started the show because I felt like, as a musician, I knew there were all these little, little creative decisions that get made along the way. Oftentimes, when it's time to promote the album or the song or whatever, people talk about just the big ideas and not what felt like the real work of the granular decisions.
I wanted to make a show about that. That's just what the show is. We talk chronologically from the beginning to the end of the creative process, and the artist talks about the backstory, both of what the song means to them and how it was made, and what the component sounds and lyrics are that went into it. I think by the end of the episode, hopefully, people hear the song differently because they've been attuned to new ideas or new sounds, new musical moments that they hadn't heard before. As soon as someone points those things out and gives a little backstory, they have a lot more weight, I think.
David Furst: We're talking about Song Exploder, and you were listening to Please Advise here on WNYC. By the way, the latest episode is none other than Elvis Costello talking about his great song, Alison. You also had Olivia Rodrigo on the show very recently, breaking down her song The Cure. You have so many incredible guests.
Hrishikesh Hirway: Thanks. Yes, I love that back-to-back because I feel like it hopefully shows the range. One of the things about the show is there's a lot of different kinds of artists on there because I wanted to show that this concept of investigating a song could be applied to all different genres. I think maybe there's an argument that could have been made for making the show just about one single genre and going deep with one kind of audience.
I think there's a trade-off a little bit in trying to get people who might love Olivia Rodrigo to also listen to the Elvis Costello episode or vice versa. I think there are also enough people who are open-minded about all kinds of music and, as is relevant to this advice show, open to finding music outside of what they might normally listen to, that hopefully there are enough folks that will just hang on from episode to episode, even if there's an artist they've never heard or don't normally listen to.
David Furst: I want to get to a call in just a moment. We already have calls coming in if you want to join this conversation. The number once again here on Please Advise, 212-433-9692. Hrishikesh, on one hand, how to listen to music. It's almost an absurd conversation to have, because we gravitate to things that catch our ear and we listen. That's it. I'm also talking about challenging ourselves, intentional listening perhaps, as you were just saying, moving out of our comfort zone, out of the music that we think is the type of music that we like. How do we do that? What's the best way to encounter new music?
Hrishikesh Hirway: Well, David, even before we go into new music, I would say the first part of that sentence, the idea of the music that we just normally listen to, I think that it isn't always just a simple thing. I think the act of listening happens in very different forms depending on how you choose to engage with it. Even a song that you hear on the radio, you're like, "Oh, I like this," or, "Hey, this is even my favorite song," or something. There are so many different ways to listen.
I think if you have time to listen exclusively, really just listen, I think that already is an experience that most people don't have, or don't have the time, or they don't think about it. To really sink in and give music the cinematic experience that we have when you go into a movie theater, and all the lights are off, and all you're doing is looking at the big screen and that you're absorbed in that story. I think the times when you can listen to music in that way is also just the best way to listen to music.
David Furst: Well, I mentioned you're going to be performing at National Sawdust in Brooklyn December 6th, opening for S. Carey. Maybe a great way to hear your music for the first time. In fact, let's hear a little bit of your music right now. This is from your latest album, In the Last Hour of Light. This is a piece called Stray Dogs. It's a beautiful piece of music. As I'm talking about intentional listening, I feel terrible about fading it out right now.
[laughter]
Tell us about you were setting up-- that piece, by the way, once again, it's called Stray Dogs. You can find it on the new album In the Last Hour of Light. We're speaking with Hrishikesh Hirway. You talked about being in a movie theater where you have just undivided attention is being in a live setting in a great listening room. Is that the best way to hear new music?
Hrishikesh Hirway: That's certainly an exciting way to hear new music, and I think an incredibly engaging one. I actually think that seeing a concert is its own unique category. I wouldn't really compare it so much to watching a movie in the theater, although you have the audience around you, and it's great when something exciting or something funny happens on screen, and your laughter is amplified by the people next to you and around you.
I think I was more imagining sitting in a room with headphones on or in front of nice speakers and doing nothing else. Not multitasking, not reading, not running your errands, not even driving, just sitting and listening with your eyes closed or reading the liner, reading the lyrics as you're going through and absorbing every aspect of the thing. I think concert is so exciting, but it's much more stimulating than the thing that I was imagining, which is almost like a sensory deprivation mode where you're turning off everything except for listening.
David Furst: There's no one right way-
Hrishikesh Hirway: For sure.
David Furst: -to encounter new music. Before we get any further, let's take a quick phone call because we're getting several calls coming through right now talking about how to listen to music here on WNYC. Let's welcome Nancy from Manhattan. Welcome to Please Advise.
Nancy: Hi. Thank you for having me. I love WNYC and all the shows. My question is more I'm forced into being out of my comfort zone and unintentional listening because my husband, who I must say, first of all, has a wide swath of musical interests, and we do share a lot of them. The biggest swath of music he listens to is more out-there jazz. I'll give a few names. He loves guitarist Mary Halvorson, Anthony Pirog. He likes William Parker. I like some of William Parker, but most of these things he plays at high volume and just all the time. I would like him to get headphones, but he claims that would compromise his listening experience.
David Furst: [laughs] Well, Nancy, are you trying to get into this music or-- I'm not quite--
Nancy: Well, I have two questions. One is about that listening experience. Do you feel that when someone really wants to groove to their music, it is compromised by headphones? Then the other thing is, what is a way in? I have begun to appreciate some of the musicians that he listens to. Jaimie Branch was one. There was one, Paulo Fresu, some of his. How do I--
David Furst: That's a great question. I'm sure there's some genre that doesn't jump out at you, Hrishikesh, as your favorite. What do you do to look for a way in?
Hrishikesh Hirway: Well, I have to say I'm already so happy because even more than just a music advice show, I really want to be in a relationship advice show. I feel like we've gotten into that.
David Furst: We're there.
Hrishikesh Hirway: Yes. Of course, what I want is for my partner and my friends and everybody who's close to me to fall in love with the music that I love as well. It's like being a good host at a party. You need to find the way to draw them in. I don't know, maybe your husband isn't interested in drawing you in. What do you think?
Nancy: He just doesn't want me to shout, "Turn this off. It dangles my nerves all the time."
[laughter]
David Furst: That's a low bar there, right?
Hrishikesh Hirway: [laughs] Well, okay. I have two thoughts. First, I would say listening in headphones is a different experience than listening through amazing speakers at loud volume. I don't think that it's worse. In the process of making music, it's an important thing to do both. You want to listen to music through the speakers, hear how it feels in the room. You get often better bass response that way, and you can hear things that you wouldn't hear.
Then for detailed listening, for really close critical listening, I think you can't beat a good pair of headphones because you will absolutely notice things that you wouldn't otherwise hear. I would say to your husband, maybe it's a good present, birthday gift, or something like that, some really nice audiophile headphones. You can say, "Look, I'm not saying you have to only exclusively listen through these, but I bet you're going to get something new out of this experience, too."
David Furst: I like your idea of wrapping it up in a gift as well. I think that's a great approach. Thank you so much for that call, and we're going to get to more of your calls here on Please Advise if you want to join this conversation on how to listen to music. Maybe you want to give your advice on some new music that we should check out. The number, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC.
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You're listening to Please Advise here on WNYC. I'm David Furst, and we are talking about music, how to listen to music, how to find new music. If you have some advice about music that you love, music we should check out, give us a call. If you want to, if you have some questions about how to find new music, how to get into a genre that perhaps you never could quite get before, give us a call, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. We are here with singer, songwriter, and composer, host of the Song Exploder podcast, Hrishikesh Hirway. It's great to have you with us. Let's take another call. Let's hear from Nora from Sleepy Hollow. Welcome to Please Advise.
Nora: Thank you. Thanks for taking my call. I just love what the guest said about hearing music and doing nothing but hearing music. I grew up doing that. We would say, "Let's listen to a record." My parents' collection had everything from great show music to classical to jazz, and then we started listening to rock. We would put on an album and sit down and hear it the way we would sit down and watch a movie on TV. That's still the way I most like to listen to music.
The other thing is I tried to listen without anybody's ideas in my head. When somebody I was talking to about classical I was really getting into said, "Oh, Bach. Oh, I really don't understand that." This was a guy who mixed sound for bands and for shows. I thought to myself, I didn't have the nerve to say it at the time, "Well, you don't worry about whether you understand it when a beautiful breeze blows over you or a gorgeous autumn sky. You just open up and take it in." The more I could do that and take it in on its own terms, try to hear it as clearly and as completely as I could, and then I would figure out whether I liked it or not later if it wasn't something I already knew I was into.
That experience, the other lifelong project, has been what I call hearing the way we see. We don't look at a painting and see just the orange or just the black. We see all the elements and shapes and colors making the picture. Maybe other people are a quicker study than I, but it's taken me years. Now when I realize I'm hearing the bass and the sax and the guitar and the keys all at once, all of them not tuning into one or another, it's just a thrill.
David Furst: Beautiful.
Nora: I'm going to get ready to take a train to go and sing at Jazz WaHi's second-to-last seasonal jam in Bennett Park.
David Furst: That's wonderful. Enjoy, and thank you for those beautiful words. What about that, being open, really, the way Nora is putting it, being open to the experience?
Hrishikesh Hirway: Yes. I feel like Nora just described herself as the ideal listener. I think if you're making music, the hope is that someone receives it the way that Nora just described.
David Furst: Let's hear from Gail on the Upper West Side. Welcome.
Gail: Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me, and thank you for the show. I'm a huge lover of music. Your discussion on how to bring the beauty of music into the world, even at a greater level, it's just fantastic. I teach dance fitness classes for adults aged 50 plus. They're called Move and Make Merry, and music is what makes us move. I think for me, and I'm sure there are a lot of listeners out there that would agree, one of the most natural things we do when we hear music and appreciate it is move our bodies, nod the head, tap the foot, move the hands. For me, how I can appreciate music is to get into my body and move.
I was listening to how you guys were describing a cinematic experience, putting headphones on, maybe just sitting. For me, and I think for Homo sapiens as a species, it's very natural to move. The first dance that a child does is to the music of its mother's voice. This has been documented. The kicking of the feet. This is pre-verbal expression. The first rhythm we hear is the heartbeat of the mother in utero. Moving to music, moving to sounds is just so natural.
For me, it's the way I can experience music at its highest height. I will say the birth of modern dance came into being through a woman named Ruth St. Denis, who coined the term music visualization for choreography of dance, which is actually based on a visualization of the music. I say in this world, sitting is the new smoking, and we're living a way too sedentary life, or whatever species was evolved to do. Let's listen to that music and get out of our seats and move our bodies. [chuckles]
David Furst: Wow. What about that, Hrishi, bringing movement into the listening experience?
Hrishikesh Hirway: I think that's amazing. I think it requires maybe a level of confidence [laughs] in your body that I aspire to.
David Furst: Come on, dancing alone, who doesn't do that-
Hrishikesh Hirway: Sure. Yes.
David Furst: -when nobody's watching?
Hrishikesh Hirway: Again, I think if you can listen with the lights off, then you can also dance freely.
David Furst: Fair. I had a question for you, Hrishikesh. When we're really young, the music can be such a part of our identity. The music that we begin to love, it can be a part of the way we define ourselves. I know I practically saw the world through the music that I decided was worthy when I was a teenager. The music I decided maybe wasn't, but a couple of years later, those rules and exclusionary ideas can very quickly fall away. That music that we decided we weren't supposed to like is sitting there waiting to be discovered and loved.
Hrishikesh Hirway: I'm just thinking my way through this right now, but the prefrontal cortex part of the brain is not actually finished being developed until your mid-20s. I think there's an argument to be made that adulthood, really, one's full self doesn't really begin until that point. I'm just now thinking about how that idea of this quest for identity and the attachment and the passion around music, maybe that starts to change around that same time in our life. Maybe the desire to find music and really anchor ourselves to it is part of the process of that prefrontal cortex. I don't know about neuroscience, but--
David Furst: That's a very interesting idea. I like that, the thought. Oh my gosh. Let's try to take another call. We have several calls coming through right now if you want to join this conversation. The number, once again, 212-433-9692. Let's hear from JB from Clifton, New Jersey. Welcome.
JB: Hello. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. I've listened to all types of music, and as I've gotten older, my repertoire, so to speak, has expanded. What I wanted to ask you, guest, is what if the music, and not to be disparaging against people making music for a living, but what if it sounds like noise to your ear? How do you try to get a sense or appreciation of it? Like I said, I listen to all types of music.
David Furst: No, it's a good question. That's really hitting at the heart of a lot of what we're trying to get. How do we start to enter into the world of some music that we find challenging for whatever reason?
Hrishikesh Hirway: From the artist's perspective, of course, you want to connect with people, and you want people to appreciate what it is that you're trying to convey with your music. It is a conversation. You have to find someone who is willing to hear that at the same time. You certainly can't force anyone to like something if they're not going to.
I think the only thing that I can ask personally is for someone to give it a shot. If someone will actually listen with as little prejudice, a lack of prejudice is impossible, but with as little prejudice as possible and really be open to the idea that, like, "I don't know what this is. Whatever my preconceptions are, there's a chance that I'm going to love this." If you don't, then you don't. I don't think any art is for everyone, and you just try and hope to find the people who it is for.
David Furst: We're speaking with singer-songwriter Hrishikesh Hirway, also host of the Song Exploder podcast. If you'd like to join this conversation, it's 212-433-9692, talking about how to listen to music more in just a moment.
[music]
This is Please Advise on WNYC, our pop-up advice show. I'm David Furst, and we're talking about how to listen to music with singer, songwriter, composer, and host of the Song Exploder podcast, Hrishikesh Hirway. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Hrishikesh Hirway: Thanks for having me back.
David Furst: Oh, it's great to have you here. We have a lot of phone calls coming through right now. Let's try to get to several of them right now. I'll throw out that number one more time, 212-433-9692. Let's try to get to some calls. This is from Malcolm calling from Bed-Stuy. Welcome to WNYC.
Malcolm: Hey, how's it going? Can you hear me?
David Furst: Yes, welcome.
Malcolm: Perfect. How's it going? I had a quick question. I actually am a musician myself. I play a few different instruments. I play cello, double bass, a couple different things. I feel like I have a good sense of a little bit more niche music, like classical, jazz, maybe not so much mainstream things. My question to you was I want to try to get more into exploring different genres that I'm not as familiar with as well, even foreign music or different niche artists or things like that. My question to you was just what would you recommend in terms of going about finding new music that you may not have easy access to, or different artists or different genres that may not be accessible, like mainstream things?
David Furst: Great question.
Hrishikesh Hirway: You live in New York, and one of the great resources you have are incredible record stores. When I lived in New York briefly, I went to Other Music all the time. I would just go in and hang out at the listening station and also ask the staff, who were an incredible resource in and of themselves. Just they had so much knowledge. I would go to a section of the store where you might not be familiar, but you're curious about, and tell a clerk, "This is what I'm looking for. Do you have any recommendations?"
The folks who work at record stores are passionate and knowledgeable people. If they have a listening station, especially, or sometimes they'll just play it for you over the speakers, you can get a taste of so many different things, get a little sampler, and then go home with the one that speaks to you, and maybe that'll lead you to the next one and the next one. If you're checking out, who are the other collaborators? Who are the other folks in the credits? I think just trying to take your curiosity to a record store is a great place to start.
David Furst: I love it. Let's take another call. Jackie from Cold Spring, welcome to Please Advise.
Jackie: Hi, how are you? You're talking music. I'm all ears. My advice is I'm going to plug another public radio station, 90.7 FM, WFUV. When I started listening to them, I could not believe the range of genres of music they played, and they still do to this day. They've got excellent, knowledgeable DJs, Dennis Elsas being one of them from the old WNEW, and Paul Cavalcante, who also works at QXR, a classical station.
David Furst: Absolutely. At WQXR. Yes, indeed. What about--
Jackie: If I could get my-- what? I'm sorry.
David Furst: Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
Jackie: I was just going to say, if I could get my boyfriend, who listens to metal men screaming in the minor key music, to listen to FUV and appreciate Beck and Death Cab for Cutie, anyone could do it.
David Furst: Well, Hrishikesh, here you go again. It's becoming a relationship show.
Hrishikesh Hirway: I love it. First, I want to suggest to your boyfriend, perhaps maybe he could find some of those absolutely gorgeous atmospheric ballads that some metal bands do really, really well and are really incredible compositions. Maybe that could be a place where you two could overlap. I love the shout-out to radio stations, for sure, obviously.
David Furst: Knowledgeable DJs.
Hrishikesh Hirway: Yes. It's a way to be interrupted from your usual. I think that there's a greater and greater tendency for people to live within their own taste, even when they're trying to discover stuff, because they're relying on algorithmic recommendations. Many of the platforms, their algorithms are just pulling from other things you've already listened to, or it's very rare that you are confronted with something that you really never think to put on. So much of my music discovery came from terrestrial radio. Listening to the radio and then being like, "What is this song? I've never heard it, but look, here's someone with great taste playing me something that they think is great. Now I've just found a new favorite artist."
David Furst: Oh, boy. You're describing my childhood right there. Writing down things that I'm hearing on the radio and making cassettes and trying to [laughs] remember all of this stuff. Let's take another call. This is Chris calling from the Bronx. Welcome to Please Advise.
Chris: Hey, everybody. So many things have been discussed that I wanted to touch on. I'll just say, initially, as a young child, I heard a couple heavy metal songs that really connected with me, and they blew my mind. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before. A couple of these songs were One by Metallica and Epic by Faith No More. These songs were long, and they have transitions, and they're heavy, and there's also beauty to them. That really set the stage for the rest of my life. I like other forms of music, but I've been on this heavy metal journey my entire life, and how we just discussed atmospheric music and metal. It's funny because now what I've really been getting into is something called atmospheric black metal.
David Furst: Whoa.
Chris: First of all, black metal started in the early '90s in Norway, and I don't like traditional black metal, but it's like a tree growing these branches into all these different subgenres, and atmospheric black metal is actually beautiful. Usually, artists--
David Furst: Well, there's a new genre for us to check out. I love it, and I like that you're standing up for metal because metal was getting raked over the coals a little bit earlier. I'd like to hear that. What about that, Hrishikesh?
Hrishikesh Hirway: Oh, yes. I don't know if your listening has already extended outside of the atmospheric black metal to related stuff, but there's so much great post-rock stuff like Godspeed You! Black Emperor might be a band you already know, or Mogwai, some other really beautiful, mostly instrumental bands that venture into incredibly heavy territory, but also have a lot of really beautiful music as well.
David Furst: How to listen to music. I think we'll have time for one more call. Let's hear from Diana calling from Chatham, New Jersey. Welcome.
Diana: Thank you. Terrific show, by the way.
David Furst: Thank you.
Diana: I feel like you can never have too much music at too early an age. When our son was little and learning his ABCs, when we drove around in the car, he'd be in his little car seat, we would sing the ABCs in different styles of music. We would do a jazz version, an operatic version, pop music, rock and roll. It was fun. It accomplished a couple of goals in one shot. He learned his ABCs. Then when he started taking piano lessons at the age of eight, his teacher, just to get started, said, "Well, what kind of music do you like?" He goes, "Well, what do you mean? All of it."
David Furst: What do you got? I love that. What about that? Learning the ABCs and every genre at the same time.
Hrishikesh Hirway: Well, congratulations to your child on having such musical parents who could actually render ABCs in so many different styles. I love the idea that it would be incomprehensible to him to subdivide music. As a musician, one of the worst questions you can be asked is like, "What genre of music do you play?" I think that it's just not how you-- at least it's not how I think of it. It's just like I'm making stuff, and it's coming out in this direction, but I'm not trying to pick a category and then be in it. Genre-fication of music is something that happens after the fact.
David Furst: Let's leave it there for today. Singer, songwriter, composer Hrishikesh Hirway, host of the Song Exploder podcast. His new album is In the Last Hour of Light. You can catch him live at National Sawdust in Brooklyn on December 6, opening for S. Carey. Hrishikesh Hirway, thank you for joining us today.
Hrishikesh Hirway: David, thank you so much for having me. What a fun, fun segment this was.
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