floating in the abstract
I love music, I really do. There is nothing on this earth that I love more (except maybe family). Y'know that perverse question people like to ask -- which one would you rather be: blind or deaf?
I mean, god that's sick. What would possess a person to ask that? I never have and I never will. It's like that board game that used to ask the questions like: "which would you rather drink, a gallon of hot dog water or a shot of someone else's toe sweat?" That's a fantastic idea! Let's just dwell on the worst situation possible and consider it fun! No wonder humanity is so fucked up.
Anyway, my personal debate was always "well, if I was blind I couldn't read, but if I was deaf I couldn't listen to music." Don't get me wrong, I love reading, but I think I've finally concluded that if I couldn't hear music for the rest of my life I might as well be dead. There is nothing in this universe -- nothing so grand and certainly nothing so trivial, which may explain the popularity of fanmix -- that cannot be expressed in music. Music can whip or soothe the blood, enrage or calm your inner demons, incite riot or appease the masses. Music is beyond knowing, and yet it just is.
Which brings me to the point of all this rumination. I love music that makes me feel good. I've been listening to an abnormally high amount of Billie Piper's ShitBritPop lately because it's just so damn cheerful that I can't help smiling. I need that cheerfulness and her music gives it to me.
Tonight I ended up listening to "Madame de Pompadour" from the 1 & 2 Series Doctor Who soundtrack. Again. I tend to listen to it on repeat whenever I'm reading long and involved Who-fic. Or just angsty Who-fic. There's a certain texture to it that lends well to torturous woe-ridden fics. Probably that whole minor key thing it has going on. I'm not a professional musician; I was just raised in a house where both my parents were. Music wasn't something that you randomly came home from elementary school one day and said "Hey, mom and dad! There's this thing called a flute that my teacher wants me to learn how to play!"
Music in my house just was. And it still is. Mom remarried and moved to Norway, younger sister moved up to New Hampshire to snowboard all the time, and I joined to Army. But Dad gave me an electric guitar for Christmas because I wanted more music, and in the next room there's a piano I can play whenever. My flutes are over there too, as well as a couple trumpets, Dad's bassoon and contrabassoon, a complex keyboard, a complete set of recorders, some weird things that I'm not entirely sure what they are, and a wall full of records. I've always got music playing; hell, I have an iPod/speaker set just for the bathroom when I'm in the shower.
So tonight I was listening to "Madame de Pompadour" and I paused it, hummed the first note to myself to keep the pitch in mind (lord knows I'd kill to have perfect pitch), and went into the next room to play the melody quietly on the piano. I added a few chords eventually, worked up some variations on the line, shifted into a major key for a while. I have not taken a single piano lesson in my life, and I think I stopped with my flute lessons around seventh grade. I merely absorbed all this...this wonder and feeling from growing up in this house. I can't imagine what I'd be without having had the opportunity. I cannot conceive of a world in which I would not be able to go into the next room and just...just play with things I'd heard.
I think if I'd ever had lessons beyond what I did have, I wouldn't enjoy music so much (especially piano -- lessons probably would have killed any enjoyment of that instrument). Instead my parents let me explore music for the pure joy of music. Y'know that scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts is at the opera and is crying from the sheer beauty and emotion of it all?
Yeah, it's kinda like that.
I mean, god that's sick. What would possess a person to ask that? I never have and I never will. It's like that board game that used to ask the questions like: "which would you rather drink, a gallon of hot dog water or a shot of someone else's toe sweat?" That's a fantastic idea! Let's just dwell on the worst situation possible and consider it fun! No wonder humanity is so fucked up.
Anyway, my personal debate was always "well, if I was blind I couldn't read, but if I was deaf I couldn't listen to music." Don't get me wrong, I love reading, but I think I've finally concluded that if I couldn't hear music for the rest of my life I might as well be dead. There is nothing in this universe -- nothing so grand and certainly nothing so trivial, which may explain the popularity of fanmix -- that cannot be expressed in music. Music can whip or soothe the blood, enrage or calm your inner demons, incite riot or appease the masses. Music is beyond knowing, and yet it just is.
Which brings me to the point of all this rumination. I love music that makes me feel good. I've been listening to an abnormally high amount of Billie Piper's ShitBritPop lately because it's just so damn cheerful that I can't help smiling. I need that cheerfulness and her music gives it to me.
Tonight I ended up listening to "Madame de Pompadour" from the 1 & 2 Series Doctor Who soundtrack. Again. I tend to listen to it on repeat whenever I'm reading long and involved Who-fic. Or just angsty Who-fic. There's a certain texture to it that lends well to torturous woe-ridden fics. Probably that whole minor key thing it has going on. I'm not a professional musician; I was just raised in a house where both my parents were. Music wasn't something that you randomly came home from elementary school one day and said "Hey, mom and dad! There's this thing called a flute that my teacher wants me to learn how to play!"
Music in my house just was. And it still is. Mom remarried and moved to Norway, younger sister moved up to New Hampshire to snowboard all the time, and I joined to Army. But Dad gave me an electric guitar for Christmas because I wanted more music, and in the next room there's a piano I can play whenever. My flutes are over there too, as well as a couple trumpets, Dad's bassoon and contrabassoon, a complex keyboard, a complete set of recorders, some weird things that I'm not entirely sure what they are, and a wall full of records. I've always got music playing; hell, I have an iPod/speaker set just for the bathroom when I'm in the shower.
So tonight I was listening to "Madame de Pompadour" and I paused it, hummed the first note to myself to keep the pitch in mind (lord knows I'd kill to have perfect pitch), and went into the next room to play the melody quietly on the piano. I added a few chords eventually, worked up some variations on the line, shifted into a major key for a while. I have not taken a single piano lesson in my life, and I think I stopped with my flute lessons around seventh grade. I merely absorbed all this...this wonder and feeling from growing up in this house. I can't imagine what I'd be without having had the opportunity. I cannot conceive of a world in which I would not be able to go into the next room and just...just play with things I'd heard.
I think if I'd ever had lessons beyond what I did have, I wouldn't enjoy music so much (especially piano -- lessons probably would have killed any enjoyment of that instrument). Instead my parents let me explore music for the pure joy of music. Y'know that scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts is at the opera and is crying from the sheer beauty and emotion of it all?
Yeah, it's kinda like that.