Mus(ic)ings

Things that are annoying: Composing a beautiful blog about beautiful music, taking a really long time to do it (when you SHOULD have been school work productive), AND THEN FREAKING DELETING IT SOMEHOW JUST BEFORE YOU WANT TO PUBLISH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not that it’s what happened to me last night… or anything. L’ugh.

You already know this…. I have a profound obsession with musical things.

Profound.

And every once in a while a song or piece of music comes my way which I haven’t heard before. New music EXCITES me!

And every once in a while from the first once in a while (so I think that means it’s a less than frequent occurrence), I learn of a piece of music that I become completely obsessed with. Like, listen to it on repeat for days or weeks on end, never tiring of it whatsoever. Like when I discovered “Adiemus” by Karl Jenkins. Or friggin' “Pumped up Kicks” by Foster the People this summer. Or “Claire de Lune” by Claude Debussy. Or, not even kidding, the stupid theme song for The Tudors.

It just finds me somehow! I have this idea that people do not go LOOKING for these enlightenment's… that wouldn’t be very enlightening, would it! The music comes to you… Somehow the stars just … Align!... and you are never ever the same.

Although this typically annoys anyone who lives with me, drives with me, or does anything involving music with me, I LOVE IT! I love to listen to it in different locations, because no matter what ANYONE says the music DOES sound different in different locations. I have to test what it sounds like on my bedroom stereo, the downstairs stereo, through my headphones, in my car, and just really freaking loud. I NEED to hear it to its fullest capacity.

I don’t know how I become so completely consumed by some songs. But I do. Totally enthralled, completely absorbed, ultimately owned by the music. I LOVE how specific musical sounds can be so much to one person but nothing to another. And THAT’S because I believe in this: Music is a subjective, personal, individual experience. Even when you’re listening to it in the biggest amphitheater surrounded by thousands of people, it’s an individual experience. The lyrics are interpreted differently, certain sounds received inversely from one person to the next. It’s marvelous how that works.

Anyway, since life transformed from 2011 to 2012, I have had the pleasure of experiencing several of these musical “enlightenment's”. These “how the HELL did I EVER live before knowing this music” epiphanies. I woke up on January 1st after a fun night with fun people (one of the best New Year’s Eve’s I’ve had in several years, actually) and flipped from Classical 96.3 (what I listen to at night <3 ) to the Edge. This was the first song I heard that day and the first song of my whole year. I have been listening to it NON-STOP ever since!.....

This song has such a different, creative, beautiful sound. I am so taken in by the xylophone and Mr. Singer’s voice (which sounds strangely Sting’esque, especially in the chorus). I can’t get enough of it!

Tuesday night I was doing a fine job procrastinating. Just pure, blatant avoidance of the voluminous mountain of school work I have staring me in the face at the moment. I decided I needed study music, so I hopped on YouTube to satisfy my hunger. Well that’s NEVER a good idea if you’re me and want to be productive with real things, because what SHOULD be a less than 2 minute task UNKNOWINGLY turns itself into a 2hr concert! But it’s so, so, so wonderful. Again, just not if you have a shit-ton of work to do.

I’ve met few good people since starting Brock in September. A lot of flakes and transparent people (OOPS! Did I type that out loud??), but a few good, intelligent, have something to offer people, too. One of those is Bart.

Ok, first of all, Mr. Most is going to be famous one day. He’s a DJ. A good DJ. Check this out for the PROOF! ….. So it stands to reason that a person who works in the music industry might know one or two good songs, right? Understatement.

I have to admit that I have not really (read: at all) given trance music a legitimate chance. I just haven’t. But I was open to Bart’s ideas, considering how passionate he is about this music… at least, I didn’t suspect he’d steer me wrong. True? TRUE. So, I’ve had the below song on my repeat mix since Tuesday. I.Cannot.Get.Enough.Of.It.!. (note: since saying this was trance, I have been informed it is, in fact, NOT trance. But it's great!)



And then I thought, hmmm. Muse! I have a thing for Matthew Bellamy. In the sense that he is guitar God! As I was scrolling through the Muse songs I could listen to, I came upon a word in one of the video titles which enticed me. "Symphonic". Sooooooooooo, I love classical music. And I love orchestral pieces. And I began to understand how epic Muse’s music would sound in a symphonic presentation. The problem I thought of, though, was that often when rock/alternative music is made into “orchestral” format, it sounds really fucking stupid. Some dope on a keyboard pushing buttons that “sound” like orchestra instruments, but not really at all because they’re fake and on a stupid keyboard. But I thought I’d click on this link. Just to find out.




OK! SO! SO FRIGGIN’ GOOD, RIGHT????!!!!! Muse’s sound is so ridiculously BIG in the first place, and this cover matches that and SURPASSES it in grandiosity! Oh my gawd, I’m in love!

Each of these three songs are so contrastingly different from one another, yet they still have something in common. In all their diversity, they harmonize in me, somehow, speaking to some fragment of my identity in unison. It’s wonderful. So, so wonderful.