The 30 Second Snippet

The 30 Second Music Sample
I listen to a lot of music while I am writing or researching. Like most Americans I actually listen to music in some form every single day. The majority of my daily listening is comprised of bits and pieces of what I hear from the internet radio station that plays continuously in our kitchen and the snippets of song samples I listen to on iTunes, Amazon.com, or eMusic. I voraciously consume music in the same manner I consume books – before I finish one I am anticipating the next. So, I am constantly listening to all of the indie and alternative music that is newly released. The listen before you buy concept isn't anything new but the ability to listen to anything and everything whenever you desire is rather recent and has rapidly permeated the American and European culture.

The one problem I have with this whole convenience is that the 30 second snippet just isn't enough to make an informed buying decision. I have passed on several albums only to discover later that I actually loved the music but had been deceived by the snippet I heard. I have recently begun to wonder if there should be 30 second snippet composers who will someday pull the perfect 30 seconds from a song. That perfect 30 seconds would fully represent the breadth and depth of the lyrics and music in the song. And then I surmised that if the perfection of the song and the lyrical message could be contained in 30 seconds then why make the song any longer?

The 30 Second Cultural Hermeneutic
My first exposure to gay culture was when I was nineteen during a weekend leave from my Summer Army R.O.T.C. training in that queer friendly city of Seattle Washington. While there I saw for first time same sex couples walking down the street, the Gay News right next to the Seattle Times, and a whole section of queer comics at a comic book shop. At the time that brief exposure to an altogether foreign culture was, to say the least, shocking. Later, while doing my undergrad work in religion, at a Bible college in Lancaster, PA that I will leave unnamed, I took a course in doctrine that focused primarily on ensuring that all of the students shared the same beliefs on sin, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, etc. Our basic premise for defining sin was answered by this simple question, "What does the Bible say?"

At the time, I must confess, I was good with that answer. Being a white heterosexual male from conservative rural West Virginia, I had not encountered any of the prejudices that I now know many of my closest friends must endure. More specifically, when it came to homosexuality I was O.K. with the 30 second snippet. What I mean by that is that what the Bible has to say about homosexuality can be read in roughly 30 seconds and answered by many mainline Christians in less time than that. (Hold on there Biblical scholars. I am referring to the verses that are taken out of context.) As I have already stated, the 30 second snippet does not allow for an informed decision. What I later came to realize was that many of these issues that I and others so quickly dismissed were not issues at all but living breathing wonderful people who deeply loved God and others.

The 30 Second First Impression
I have been pleasantly surprised by a few purchases that were based on a snippet of information – I have also been greatly disappointed as well. In regard to relationships I have been rarely disappointed when I have taken to the opportunity to get to know someone beyond the initial good impression. The majority of people (Dare I say all?) live our lives with a cursory understanding of the people we see day in and day out. We recognize their face, the car they drive, and maybe we know where they work. Even in our inner circle of friends, the ones we tell our deepest, yet not our darkest, secrets to, we don't know them as well as we could. Most of the time we are satisfied with the briefest of snippets we receive because it then allows us to draw our own conclusions. Possibly that is an over generalization but, many of you would probably reluctantly agree with that conclusion.

Much of our understanding of others is comprised of the 30 second snippet we get the first moment we meet them. Maybe, just maybe, we might move into a deeper relationship with that person and discover that there is more to them than our first impression. Quite often we share more and more time with others but we never share more of ourselves. There really is a big difference. Taking the time to know the other comes with a great risk because the more they are willing to share of themselves the more you have to share of yourself – if you want the relationship to prosper.

The same holds true for our beliefs about a topic. If we truly want to know the truth about a topic would it not seem wise to immerse ourselves? There is great risk in purchasing the entire album after only hearing a 30 second snippet. I discovered that there are sites that stream the whole song or album. This allows me to listen to the music in its entirety before making a decision. I choose to listen to internet radio stations that play the music I am interested in so I can hear full songs there as well. We have a lot more options than settling for the 30 second snippet.