Regarding Music

(25 June 2007)

Here's a Weekend Update: Last Saturday, I ran a 10K. That's only 6.2 miles, so it's nothing that grand. Less so, considering my time was 56 minutes. Yet 'twas the first official race I have entered. I just wanted to try something new.

So I will feebly attempt to discuss a certain aspect of music. Many of you are more qualified to discuss this, so forgive a mediocre attempt.

I grew up in a musical family. Some people grow up listening to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, perhaps a little KC and the Sunshine Band or the Bee Gees. Well, that wasn't my environment. Everything I heard growing up revolved around classical music. While not able to name specific songs, I was raised with the Brandenburg Concerto's, Handel's Messiah, everything Mozart… savvy?

Of course, my tastes have changed. But there is always that piece of music which, despite how many times I hear it, always does something unique to me. Do you have that song that holds such a special place with your emotions that you want to listen to it constantly, yet restrain the desire to overplay it from fear of becoming so familiar with it that the magic will leave?

One of the movies I watched most while a kid was "West Side Story." I never realized just how much the music and, overall, the message of the movie meant to me until I went to the LA Philharmonic at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion almost eight years ago and heard Esa Pekka-Salonen conduct Leonard Bernstein's "Symphonic Dances from West Side Story." Don't know how nor why, but when that lone violin began "Somewhere" a nerve was struck in me somewhere. I sat crying through the next five minutes. I regained composure once the "Scherzo" began, yet the Finale made me lose it all over again. If you don't know West Side Story, and went on iTunes right now and listened to them, you probably wouldn't understand why.

There are other pieces that almost have that same effect on me. Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" is close runner up, as is "Vorspiel" from Wagner's "Das Rheingold." The most modern composition would probably be Clint Mansell's entire soundtrack to "The Fountain" (which is the main song on my page right now, "Death is the Road to Awe." Close your eyes and immerse yourself).

Isn't there a line from "Almost Famous" that says "Let's just all admit how much we love music"? I suppose each person has a song that encapsulates everything we feel music is meant to do. The piece that strikes an emotional chord with us, makes you want to improve, perhaps overcome a vice, perhaps return to a simpler time. Where you feel that entire relaxation of being, as your mind unwinds for a few moments and you can sit back and view everything in life from a greater perspective and realize, for that short span of time, that while you have your personal challenges, on the grand scale of things none of us really has it that bad.

Perhaps I'm not phrasing this correctly. Yet by now you either understand what I'm talking about, or you do not. If not, stay tuned for something more 'entertaining' in a week or two. For those of you who forgive my phraseology, and hopefully grasp what I'm trying to put into words, I was wondering if there is a song, concerto, or _____ that has this same effect on you? Would you mind sharing it down below? I'd be interested in seeing what pieces have this effect on the rest of you. I challenge those who read this to listen to the songs mentioned by others. It's good to expand horizons, cachai?

Regards.