7 posts tagged “music”

i've personally felt for a long time that music is more than something to be enjoyed--it is something that should speak to your heart, speak to your soul. music has the power to touch and move me in ways that nothing else can. i've only read the first chapter in this book, so i only vaguely know where they're taking it, but when the right song is playing, when it fits the moment so well you could cry, it has the same effect (i gather) as "the spirit moving in you" (to borrow a christian metaphor). like emily, my entire family is very churchy, but i grew apart starting in high school and really haven't looked back. just from the short blurbs i've read knowing about the indigo girls and the type of music they sing and the message they convey, i knew this book was a must-read for me, and i'm excited to finish it.

in chapter 1, they talk about "songlines" -- one's personal musical heritage. here's my own:

my mom comes from a very musical family, much of it influenced by the church. the majority of my aunts (and my mom) can play piano and love singing. that totally comes from my grandmother. she had a wonderful alto and sang hymns (even when no one was around) all the time. i don't know where my dad his love of music from (my paternal grandmother wasn't really a great singer nor did she play an instrument, afaik), but yeah, he's totally into it as well.

my mom sings very well and used to sing at weddings and at church (she was in the choir). sometimes she and my dad would sing duets--their favorite being "all i ask of you" from phantom of the opera (their most favorite-est musical evar. EVAR!). somehow my brother and i love singing along to songs--maybe because we saw our parents do it so freely? music clearly moved them, and it moves us. singing in the car, i remember my mom would always admonish us to "sing an octave higher" because we weren't putting enough energy into our singing and were kind of muddling through the song. she'd also criticize pop singers, calling them "no-voice #1" (janet jackson) and "no-voice #2" (paula abdul) because they didn't have good enough voices to be popular. they got us to play instruments when we were young, although we both quit way too early, well, i quit way too early. (i wish i had continued with piano.)

music was one of the highlights of going to church. i'd dread going every week, but singspiration almost made it tolerable. to be able to sing in public even with a crappy voice? love it. well, loved it. (as i said, i don't go to church anymore.)

while i listen mostly to pop punk and indie music nowadays, there's no denying the power certain genres of music have on me, and i can always rely on them to get me through tough times. [i'm kinda rushing this post because i have to get going to the airport--NYC weekend!]

from trance (techno) to rent to artists like the indigo girls, pet shop boys, and imogen heap, music has lifted my heart, soothed my soul, and transported me outside of my everyday existence. transcendence, some might call it.

this is a chart of my music listening history from last.fm, thanks to lastgraph. to zoom in, you can get a PDF but i don't know how long it will be available at that address. in case the PDF no longer works, you can also get the chart as a large image (click on the image on that page to download the full version. warning, it's 7.7 MB!).

i think this is pretty cool (well, besides the fact that it looks rad) because it shows several things:

• you can see the phases of music i went through (e.g., the chicane phase and the petula clark phase). most of the time i listen to a mix of things, but there are times when i just have to get my fix of one particular artist.
• the height of the peaks (=the amount of listening i do) roughly corresponds to the amount of time i spend in front of the computer, and more specifically, the amount of work i have. the heavier the workload, the more music gets played (vs. watching tv shows on hulu or movies on netflix).
• i had big projects in october-november and in february-march. then a bit of a lull, and it's starting to get bad now. expect another large peak for august-september-october.
  

i just so happened to come across this ad for a macintosh. now i've been toying with the idea of purchasing one after i return to the states in the summer. so much so that i called 1-800-MY-APPLE today to see if they offered student discounts on american prices to students enrolled in overseas universities (because if i use the student discount here in germany with the conversion rate it ends up being at least the same as normal US prices). anyways, as i suspected, they didn't. (btw, you should call just to hear the hokey automated attendant guy that answers. i think he tries to be all cool and approachable, but he talks slow in spots and well, i dunno--it seemed obvious that they "instructed" him to tone down the professionalism or something.)

anyways, if you watch the ad, listen to the last thing the PC says. "i have to go listen to some emo." all grumpily. well! i'll have you know that my pc happily plays emo music. for whatever that may be (nebulous, contentious, kind of a disparaging term). granted, the music plays from my ipod in itunes, but still, my PC is more than happy to play it loud and proud.

the top 25 songs played on my ipod (i think this list is only songs i play when not connected to my computer, but is sort of representative of what i play when it is connnected):

Hide and Seek	Imogen Heap
The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows	Brand New
History Is Falling For Science	This Day And Age
Harajuku Girls	Gwen Stefani
Secondary	Brand New
Reckless	Tilly and the Wall
New Day	Mêlée
Tomorrow Is Waiting	This Day And Age
Slideshow	This Day And Age
I Remember Me	This Day And Age
Playing for Keeps	Matchbook Romance
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight	The Postal Service
Clouds & Skyscrapers	This Day And Age
The War	Angels & Airwaves
Jude Law And A Semester Abroad	Brand New
Magazines	Brand New
Saturday	Fall Out Boy
Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner	Fall Out Boy
Lgfuad	Motion City Soundtrack
Helena	My Chemical Romance
New Slang	The Shins
Great Romances Of The 20th Cen	Taking Back Sunday
Foreign Language	Anberlin
Don't Panic	Coldplay
The Good Fight	Dashboard Confessional

well i never! i said good day, sir!

p.s. and obviously i'm writing this blog entry on a PC, and i don't see it complaining!