Posts Tagged ‘music appreciation’
Confusing Days
Don’t be confused. Today is Sunday. The solar eclipse will happen tomorrow. The championship game of the Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament tips off today.
I don’t know why I’ve been so disoriented this morning, but I mixed these up at least twice before finally realizing where I was in time and space. Maybe it started yesterday. Cyndie and I huffed and puffed to drag the tangles of vines we’d collected up to a temporary staging area.
Before I attempt to craft an entryway arbor out of them, I will need to spread them out to see the individual twists and turns.
When I went in for lunch, Cyndie stayed outside to putter on other projects weighing on her mind. I got a text from her that she came upon a pile of vines we had missed.
Absentmindedness? I thought we had gotten them all.
It’s the kind of thing that leaves me thinking, “What else have I forgotten?”
My past is getting mixed up with the present recently because we have decided to “declutter” the remaining 100 record albums from our life-long combined collection. Long ago, I sold a majority of our library in the transition from vinyl to digital music, but I couldn’t part with the works of our most adored artists and a few one-of-a-kind records that would never be re-released.
After 45-50 years of holding most of these albums, we are ready to send them back into the world. Since our collection wouldn’t bring an impressive amount of money from buyers, Cyndie sought (and found!) an interested party who would appreciate them in a spirit commensurate with how we feel.
I’m not agreeing to this step cold turkey. For one particularly rare Eric Clapton album, I checked online for the availability of every song and then created a personal playlist in the exact order for my digital library. Attaching the artwork to the file gave me the comfort of a memory that will serve as a special link between albums of my youth and the digital library I’ve switched to as I age.
We’ve successfully saved our children from any guilt they might feel if they had to throw these away after Cyndie and I die.
Now, what else am I forgetting?
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Some Songs
Yesterday afternoon, a song popped up on my random shuffled library playback and triggered a visceral response that none of the songs ahead of it did. My reaction wasn’t immediate beyond appreciating that I hadn’t listened to it for quite some time. Then I noticed it was building to an ending that has always been one I adore. The last two minutes of the 4-minute and 52-second song grabbed me.
I spontaneously told Cyndie, “Play this at the closing of my funeral.”
Now, I’m not currently in the thought process of planning for my funeral, so I don’t know where that idea came from. I also don’t know what it was in that moment that triggered my brain and body to react to the end of the song in the way I did.
Some songs just do that for us. Last night we coincidentally watched the 2018 version of “A Star Is Born” with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in which there is a scene that talks about the 12 notes between octaves…
…music is essentially 12 notes between any octave. Twelve notes and the octave repeats. It’s the same story told over and over forever. All any artist can offer the world is how they see those 12 notes. That’s it.
Sam Elliott’s character, Bobby, talking to Ally (Lady Gaga)
There is an article posted (Dec. 2022) on Psychology Today, “The Amazing Power of Music in Our Lives; Seven great reasons to incorporate music into your daily routine.” Music is good for our health.
I don’t know why some songs stand out more than others for us or why a particular moment I hear a song can have such a distinct impact.
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Yesterday, “Opposites” on Eric Clapton’s 1975 album, “There’s One in Every Crowd,” resonated deeply for me.
Some songs just do that.
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Relative Something 