our headphones in, we isolate ourselves and create our own world where we dull down our senses. People can view you as being antisocial or “busy” listening to the music in the current environment. For example, in a public and sociable space (pubs, cafes, common areas etc.) we found it often difficult and awkward to approach someone listening to music, given their lack of auditory senses and general closed-off nature. We also felt that people were at their worse when they had music plugged in and they were on their way to work as they tried to avoid us if they saw us approaching them. However, when we move through spaces, such as busy cities, are we listening to music because our surroundings are too overpowering for our senses, or is it because we want to put a meaning to space and turn it into a distinct place?

As we move through different places, we create new memories for every place we visit and we conjure up different emotions from these memories. We also found that music, despite it narrowing down certain senses by blocking out the foreground and background sounds, it also created a new relationship with our surroundings. The different genres of music toyed on our emotions whether we were listening to something upbeat or something much more depressing and slightly changed our attitude towards the place we were walking through. Given the feel of the particular music and your own personal mood, our perspectives on certain places differed. The fairly obvious example being when we were listening to a song with melancholic lyrics and gloomy instrumentation, then the meaning of the particular place that we were in reflected this music and we associated these emotions with the place in the future. We also find ourselves being less alert when listening to more negative music as, for example, we may be looking at the ground or generally thinking more deeply about the poignant lyrics. On the other hand, we found that when listening to upbeat and joyful music we often take in more of our surroundings and are more observant of the various activities in them. We found this extremely interesting – the fact the mood certain music exudes heightens or lowers our visual intake and sensory awareness.

However, this is not just the case with busy towns and cities, we found that we built a new relationship with our surroundings when we walked through the peaceful countryside with music playing. That said, despite there being more things happening in the city, we felt that we built a stronger relationship with our surroundings in the countryside rather than the city. This being due to the tranquility and space in the countryside, which contrasts heavily against how we became almost overwhelmed by sensory stimulation in a big city. This overwhelment stems from the intense sensory stimulants which are often too quick and excessive to mentally process and make clear distinctions. We found that, when listening to the music in the countryside, some of our senses were heightened. We noticed o