iPod in a tree...

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I love listening to music but when aloft I'd much rather listen to the three dimensional sounds of nature and the surrounding community.

[/ QUOTE ] Seems to me tree work shouldn't have to be incompatible with personal music players.

[/ QUOTE ]Having tried several over the years, it seems to me they are. They are not compatible with safe communication with coworkers, they are not compatible with concentrating on the job, and they are definitely not compatible with being able to hear the creak and the whoosh and the rustle and the moan that is the tree's language.
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Shigo said to Touch Trees, and also have all senses open to all the trees' communication. He was right; we have so much to learn on a subverbal level, we should not shut ourselves of from that.

I'm glad of this thread, it's helped me decide that my kid will not wear an ipod on the job. He's already too prone to wander into a drop zone, blissfully unaware...
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As long as it doesn't drown out the outside world, there's nothing wrong with listening to music while you work.
But you MUST be able to hear the goings on around you!
 
Folks, this was just a question for anybody who HAS used and iPod in a tree successfully, not a thread on the moral/ethical safe use of music players in treework.

You guys act like it's a black and white issue when it's not even close. The times I've used an iPod in a tree or on the ground can be counted on one hand without running out of fingers... I was just curious.

If you don't like iPods, you don't have use one. If you do, you don't have to use one all the time, right? I'll wager wristwatches have caused more tree worker injuries than iPods ever will. Rushing when climbing and cutting is FAR more likely to result in a lapse in judgment or operational mistake.

We're adults here, capable of making our own judgments about how and whether to use a tool or device or whether to work with someone who does.

Why is it that simple technical questions have to be hijacked into moral arguments?

If I could delete this thread, I would do it... I'd rather keep breaking headsets.
 
i like to think of it as an image issue more so than an interference/ethical issue. I know many people are excellent multi taskers and have no problem listening to music and doing other activities (i have made a homeowner or two laugh when they caught me singing some sweet Wonder Years theme songs while working...don't ask why, the song from that show just randomly invades my mind). But what would you think of a surgeon who was doing a heart transplant on a relative (other than your mother-in-law) and listeing to some zepplin on his ipod...if it were me i would find another doctor...so when i work, i work with a professional image in mind (although Armani has yet to make a suit durable enough for my likeing) and when i rec climb, i will fasten a stand alone portable radio in the tree for all to hear. Then play tree tag and watch my buddy hurt himself trying to swing after me...yeah Adam...thats you..hows the thumb doin buddy?
 
I served two cruises on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. If we relied on hearing the sounds around us, we all woulda been $hit outta luck.
We replaced our audio deprivation with visual attentiveness. It worked like a charm.
 
music in operating rooms is quite common now a days. dentists and docs alike use it to relax themselves, their staff, and patient. however, its background level. although occasionally my dentist cranks it up. in our industry, it would seem at "background levels" it would be acceptable.....if played from an external source. maybe a small speaker. whatever happened to the days of the transistor radio?
 
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grooving to some janes addiction.

I was up at the top when my battery ran out.

All the sudden I could hear the wind and feel the sway of the tree.

At least now my FEAR could.

My enviroment TOTALLY changed.

I then got totally scared and nervous.



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Your fear was caused my listening to Perry Farrell's whining trumpet bulge voice messing with your subconcious!

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Smile,

I was in a tree thinking about you and this quote today.
I dont think he is in my subconcious.??? bt then again, how would I know>
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Folks, this was just a question for anybody who HAS used and iPod in a tree successfully, not a thread on the moral/ethical safe use of music players in treework.



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Blinky.

your not in control of this thread.. its not yours.

its ours
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all of ours.

we are having a discussion on the moral and ethical issue of iRIVERS (ipodr) in a tree.

if you dont like that, stop comming in here.

(ps, Im on your side, I use mine on EVERY tree... when its safe of course.)
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I served two cruises on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. If we relied on hearing the sounds around us, we all woulda been $hit outta luck.
We replaced our audio deprivation with visual attentiveness. It worked like a charm.

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Master, I agree 100%
 
OK,

May be this will be to strong of a rant, but I have to do it anyway.

First I will say that I am way way way into using my ipod in the tree. (if you couldnt tell from my posts)

**** however, I have 10 years climbing experiance. Very rarely is there guess work. when the pieces get really heavy or the situation demands lots of comunication between the ground guys and me (ie, the type of cut that the chippers and ground saws are shut down for) I definatly take out the "tapones" as they say in spanish,,,,,(ear plugs)

SO before I post my true thoughts on the matter, I have to say that guys who dont have a ton of experiance in the tree need to not use the ipod. If you are still guessing which way things will go, and dont have confortable systems and moves in a tree, the last thing you need is to not beable to hear your self think.


However here is MY experiance and the benifits that I have found for ME (and no one eles).

1. More relaxed- somtimes I get so scared in the tree. If i start to think just how close to death I am, I can get a lot of adrenilane that wears me out really fast. the music calms me down and keeps my mind of of the "what if's".

2. keeps me focused.

3. I stay way more energized

4. I have FUN in the tree.

Here are the draw backs-

1. I have found that i have to be VERY visual.

2. If there was ever to be an audible warning to a tree failure, I would miss it.

3. I have to constantly remind myself that i need to be more visual.


Statically, deaf folks are better drivers. (probably cuz they arnt listening to music!) but none of us would say that a deaf guy cant climb a tree safley.

the fact is, when the chipper is running, you can hear the guys on the ground regardless. and they cant hear you. Its 100% visual.

I was thinking about you guys last night and this thread. I thing on the next tree that gives the oppertunity, I will wear the helmut cam and sinc it up exactly to the tune I was listening to.

I was also thinking of yall while I was in the tree today.
thinking about how much fun i was having dancing through that tree.....it was wonderful.
Danielson
 
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[...] But what would you think of a surgeon who was doing a heart transplant on a relative (other than your mother-in-law) and listeing to some zepplin on his ipod...if it were me i would find another doctor...

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I watched every minute while my second child was born by C-section with Bonnie Rait and James Taylor playing on the stereo in the OR. That surgical team was totally professional.

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so when i work, i work with a professional image in mind (although Armani has yet to make a suit durable enough for my likeing) and when i rec climb, i will fasten a stand alone portable radio in the tree for all to hear. Then play tree tag and watch my buddy hurt himself trying to swing after me...yeah Adam...thats you..hows the thumb doin buddy?

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I've been working residential jobs where the music was blaring from from a car stereo loud enough to be heard 50' up... is that more professional?

Bummer about that thumb.
 
I never claimed control or even tried to re-rail the thread. I agree, it's not mine. It does piss me off that instead of having my question answered I get a bunch of crap about whether I should even listen to music in tree.

I didn't ask, "should I use an iPod?" So, while it's not my thread, why should I even bother to ask this community a simple technical question when I have to wade through all this ethical/image/safety/morality/professionalism mess just to find only one person even offering a suggestion? That's why I would delete the thread... let somebody else start the ethics argument because I'm really not interested in other people's judgments on the issue..

But hey, it's derailed so here we go. Ya wanna talk ethics/professionalism/whatever, suits me... but it would be nice to get a straight answer in the mix once in a while.

Like I said, I can make my own judgment about when and when not to use an iPod and no amount of preaching is going to change it.

Did anybody even notice I was talking about when I'm ALONE... ground communication is a non-issue. If I have to let something fall and can't see the ground clearly, I simply nudge the phones out of my ear and yell and wait for a response... usually I yell again if I don't get one just to be sure.

I can have a normal conversation with that particular kind of headset on without even turning down the volume... that's why I keep plunking down $20 for the same model. It's a simple matter to slip the headset out of my ears or down onto my neck if I need to, which incidentally, is where the headsets were when I broke the first two.

This all came about when I was cutting pines on a wooded lot by myself, I broke two headsets in a day at $20 a pop... that made me want to find a better way. I've used an iPod while climbing twice since then (pruning, alone) and broken one more headset... I climb 4 days a week on average so the overwhelming amount of the time, I climb without an iPod.

I'm not fixated on using one, but it would be nice to be able to do it when I want to without trashing headsets. How do you keep from snagging the wires on yours when working through twigs and pine tops... or dragging brush?

To hear the way this is all being framed you would think nobody ever makes a mistake in a tree unless they're doing something outside the generally accepted norm. I've seen some very poor climbing judgment while ground communication was easy where the only reason a serious lost time accident didn't occur was just plain luck.

I make mistakes all the time and have no qualms about admitting them, analyzing them and sharing my experiences with others. I know for a fact that while others may never admit their screw-ups, they still happen. So, at this point, unless someone has an actual Awakening experience resulting from use of an iPod, the discussion is purely academic and completely off-topic from the original post.

Maybe someone will inscribe my tombstone with, "I told you so about that iPod thing" but unless that actually happens my epitaph will be, "Here lies Chip, he never played a single hole of golf and never washed his own car."
 
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[...] whatever happened to the days of the transistor radio?

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I'm pretty sure that had I substituted transistor radio for iPod many of the responses would be the same, some people seem unable to restrain themselves from pointing out what's wrong with other people's behavior... I think it's so they don't have to give attention to their own.

As for background levels, that's pretty much what I'm talking about. I don't have access to my player when I'm working, it's in my pocket which I can't open with a harness on, so I keep the volume at a level I can tolerate for a long time.
 
Nothing I like better than a good civil argument once in a while so I guess I'll keep going... cuz if anything, this has remained mostly civil with only a couple of the ranting all-caps type responses.

One word, <u>Rhythm</u>
Climbing and cutting can be very rhythmic and music is a killer way to set a groove and just go to town. I get crap about how slow I am but I'm slowest when somebody is constantly breaking my flow by trying to change how or what I'm doing. I freely admit that I can take the perfectionist in me too far and take too much time but I work on that every time I go up.

Two words, <u>Cognitive Ability</u> (sorry, I was married to a neuro professor for 13 years)
Anyway, aside from ground communication the arguement seems to be that a climber can't think as well while listening to music. Anybody care to try and support that theory with something other than supposition? Because I simply don't buy it. I concentrate far better when I'm listening music and far worse when there are constant external distractions. Cognitive ability, intelligence, focus, concentration are all manifest differently in different people so judging someone else based on one's own experience... or speculation, is just not valid.

Two more words, <u>Ground Communication</u>
Well, for me, this is simple, I don't carry the iPod when I'm working with other people. But I'm not gonna judge whether someone else should unless I actually have a problem trying to communicate with them. Case in point, I had my 12 year old son working with me yesterday and cleared him to use the iPod while he was dragging brush from a downed tree about 75 yards away while I pruned some tall oaks. Whenever I was ready to drop something I located him visually to be sure I didn't kill my first born. Once, I couldn't spot him so i yelled... no response, yelled again, nada, I whistled really loud and THAT got his attention. He was taking a break around the back of the house after raking. I didn't tell him to stop using the iPod, I told him that he HAD to be able to hear me easily and HE decided to bag the iPod.
This is a dangerous job, verbal communication is barely existent in most cases... and when a chipper is going it's non-existent... so should we stop climbing and cutting when the chipper is running? I don't know anybody that advocates that.

See, to me, this all gets down to judgment, self-judgment that is. If you're supposedly smart enough to do the work of a climbing arborist, hopefully you can figure when something like an iPod is or isn't appropriate without having to be told by someone else.

Last thing (as if anybody is still reading all this), I attribute my worst mistakes first, to rushing my work, second, to being distracted or having my plan interrupted, and third, to being undernourished and exhausted.
The third one I try to do something about but for reasons better left unsaid, my appetite is failing me right now; I have to force myself to eat. The other two are not really in my control most of the time and I simply have to deal with it. But for certain, music at reasonable volume hasn't yet troubled me in a tree, or anywhere else I can think of.

OK, I've got it off my chest now.
 
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Your fear was caused my listening to Perry Farrell's whining trumpet bulge voice messing with your subconcious!

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Smile,

I was in a tree thinking about you and this quote today.
I dont think he is in my subconcious.??? bt then again, how would I know&gt;
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Danny,

Janes Addiction's best song by a long way is their cover of The Velvet Underground's 'Rock and Roll'

It captures their core sound which was good old fashioned garage rock, they never bettered it. Shame, look at them now, with their Motley Crue style marketing and shambolic bloated sound.
 
Blinky,

I tried the Ipod in the tree - a pruning job.

I didn't like it.

I like hearing my carabiners click shut, I like to hear the guys on the ground communicating with me, I like to hear the crack of the branch as I make my top cut with my handsaw.

It felt like I was isolating myself off from the real world and trying to escape from my work, I couldn't even hear the chipper going on and off. It definately does not help in the tree, maybe hedgetrimming would be better as it's so mundane.

I honestly felt less accountable to my crew because I had isolated myself away from them even though they were physically close on the job site. I think when you wear an Ipod in the tree you become a slave to technology and allow technology to dictate how you behave.
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Grover, why don't you just give it up and lay it to rest. Blinky, simply asked,If anybody had an elegant solution for wearing an iPod while climbing or moving brush? He didn't mention any thing about the stuff you are going on and on about. Blinky, to answer your question, what I do is run the wires down the back of my shirt and keep the mp3 player in a case in my ditty bag. I haven't had any trouble from this set-up. I do like to use the earphone that slide behind your ear they don't move around at all. I will get a pick sometime today of the earphones.
 
first of all blinky,well said. don't listen to grover, he's an idiot. i have been using earphones for as long as you've been climbing. it started with a sony cassette, then to sony disk player, and now a mp3. what works for me is i found a backpacker mp3 holder at ems or rei and i attach that to my harness suspenders, when i am on the ground i attach it to my belt in the back and run the wire behind me. i just found something new at deluth trading post.com that holds an ipod and has external speakers, its as small as a cell phone and can attach to your belt. i will not get into the moral issues cause everyone has there own style and as long as your not foolish and unsafe then i say live on. to thy self be true
 
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