Enlightening Thought #30

These were today's musical activities:
3:00 - 4:30 - Chamber ensemble rehearsal
4:30 - 5 - Practice cello for symphony orchestra.
5:15 - 5:35 - Practice violin for chamber ensemble.
6:00 - 7:00 - Chamber & Orchestra call time. More rehearsing.
7:00 - 7:20 - Chamber ensemble performance.
8:00 - 8:30 - Symphony orchestra performance.

That adds up to a total of 4 hours and 10 minutes of musical goodness today. Also, that's disregarding the additional 40 minutes of listening to other performers and ensembles. That's over 1/6th of a 24-hour day, and 1/3rd of my 12 hours of being awake! You know what I learned from this?

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

Yup, I said it. I love music and all... But today was overkill.

This rule applies not just to music, but for anything else you experience in life and every other action. Actually, you can't have too much sex. But be sure to watch your dosage for everything else.

Enlightening Thought #14

People today live in the fast lane. We live in a world where we're always rushing to start something, rushing to finish something, rushing to get somewhere, and rushing to leave somewhere. There's simply always more that we need to do.

People today live life loud (damn, that's some nice alliteration right there!). There's always somebody saying something to us, some sort of noise in the background (construction, traffic, or that person who just won't stop nagging at us...), music playing, or something. Anything.

The only chance we have to slow and quiet down is in those few minutes before sleep. Even then, our thoughts are usually rushing around in our mind, reminding us of the shitton of stuff that we have to attempt to accomplish tomorrow.

As a result, we lead stressed, hectic, frazzled, and all-around unhappy lives.

And so, to right this terrible wrong, and to make life calmer and smoother, I offer to you the following piece of wisdom:

Listen to soothing music.

No metal, no pop, no indie, etc. Don't listen to anything where any words and lyrics are actually understandable.



Granted, you won't be in complete silence, but this will be the closest to catharsis as you'll ever get.

My own personal suggestions include: Sigur Ros (Post-rock), Radiohead (Experimental rock), Ravel (Classical), and Saint-Saens (also Classical).

Enlightening Thought #12

Today's 4/20, the day of revelry for potheads! Today's also a Monday, the day of my weekly piano lesson.

Prior to my lesson, I'd been extremely sleepy and grumpy, and I simply was in a flat-out bad mood. But after an hour of musical goodness (granted, most of it was filled with my teacher pointing out mistakes...), I felt whole enough. Happy and free. I was riding my own natural high.

The point of this brief post?
Don't do drugs.

Get high off of music.

Now, I'm off to enjoy some more music. You should be too!