What are you listening to?

January 5, 2009

I've been sitting in my office working on all kinds of things today, including a visit to a local high school to talk about the opportunities for the students in music at Marian. Unlike most people, I can't have music on while I work. Unfortunately, I put it on anyways although I know all to well that I'll end up focusing on the music and not the work. So, I tried something a little different and typed in a few keywords on YouTube to see what would come up. I stumbled upon this video of Bobby McFerrin and Richard Bona doing a live improv in Montreal and I absolutely had to share it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iimMKWF7SK0&NR=1
If that link doesn't take you there, look up Bobby McFerrin and Richard Bona, you'll find it.

This brought me back to something that I have been thinking about for the past few days. The curious question of "what's on your ipod?" Considering I don't really use my ipod anymore, but tons of cd's around my home office and my office at the university and throughout my car, I've been thinking about music I have been listening to lately. I've been trying some music that I am not all that familiar with. I've been listening to a lot Tchaikovsky lately, most recently his Manfred Symphony. All you trumpet players out there, take a look at those tonguings! It's some awesome stuff out there. And it's such a wonderful reminder of how old music like that is and how fresh it stays. Not too long ago I was watching a Bernstein rehearsal of his famous West Side Story where he was talking about his own music and that he had finally really studied it in the mid-1980's. He never conducted it, except for the overture on a few occasions, but never truly studied his own work like he would study a Haydn score. He mentioned how it was nice to hear his music stay fresh after so many years and but nothing in comparison to how Mozart's music stays fresh. Isn't that amazing and so true?! Although Mozart died over two centuries ago his music still stays fresh.

The point of all this was to make you ask yourself "what are you listening to?" There's nothing wrong listening to the Britney Spears come back album or playing your Thriller album again and again, but ask yourself why you're not exploring other music out there? I know, as humans-especially in a Western dominated society, we tend to latch onto our few things that we enjoy and become numb to everything. I ask you to be adventurous and at least try out something new. You don't have to jump right into looking at the incredible world of "classical" music, but perhaps take out 50 cent and listen to some Run DMC, then listen to the pipes of Steven Tyler and Aerosmith, then perhaps you'll listen to some Dave Matthews and then hook up into some Phish, then maybe the Grateful Dead...the road is endless. At some point you might even listen to Metallica and then come across the work the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra did with Metallica and accidentally listen to Carmina Burana and be blown away with a whole complete idea of "power chords".

Where do you want to go today with music? It'll take you all over the place. It's an incredible ride, so hang on. Or, for some of you who might be more like me, just take a chance...who knows, you might just find yourself needing some bigger space on your ipod. Try something else...you might just find yourself loving something you never knew existed.