M is for music

"I got it, I got it. Last words - I dig music. (Beat) I'm on drugs!" - Russell Hammond, Almost Famous

 I've always like listening to music. For the longest time in and after high school, I made it my goal to become a walking encyclopaedia of music. It was mostly classic rock, though, and my musical tastes have expanded since then. I no longer keep factoids of classic rock history in my head, that space is needed for other things. I've shared some of what I listen to on this blog, but that's mostly the classical stuff I listen to that keeps me focused on writing. Lately, I've found my self listening to more noise rock bands, like the Velvet Underground or the Sonic Youth, probably because the works of Philip Glass and Frank Zappa showed me the world of avant garde music. It's a nice change of structure. The minimalist sounds of John Cage keep me motivated and focused to the end of a post. Sometimes, though, I need loud, angry punk to get me through a task. The sounds of the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys, or even Iggy Pop can give the energy to move myself through a task. Sometimes I crave the drug fueled lyrics of the Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers" or the Red Hot Chili Pepper's "Blood Sugar Sex Magik". The doom, gloom and fear of the album "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath has always been a favorite of mine. I used to sit down, listen to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" through headphones, and write and draw for hours. So much music, and so little time.
I can pretend that the only reason why I care about music is in it's connections to math, but that's really only a perk. Music fills the world with sound and, like math, it finds it base in the beauty of nature. We try to explain the world around us because it seems life makes no sense. We try to find patterns in nature with mathematics, recreate the visual beauty through art, relate life experiences through stories, and try to fill the world with sounds based on what's around us. We create, and that creation is art. So on this Musical Monday, stop and listen to the sounds around you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ob-X6DMI4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK7tq7L0N8E