A couple of weeks ago, I subtitled this site �An Autobiography in 365 Movements.� In the course of reviewing the events of my life when I first heard a piece of music, I have found myself seeing them in a new light. Sometimes, the act makes me understand the behavior of a person, which puzzled or hurt me at the time. In other cases, I have gained insight into my own behavior and the motives behind it, which might have lain in my blind spot at the time. This whole exercise has therefore helped me to bring to closure some issues which I have carried around like scars on my psyche, in some instances for my entire life.

My friend John Kim says when he reads my daily screeds he sometimes laughs and sometimes cringes. All I can think of saying is, I do, too. And I haven�t even told the half of it.

This brings me to something that I have learned about autobiographies--they don�t necessarily convey the truth. That may or may not be a conscious act. Think about the mechanism of memory. Ask any two people on the street who�ve witnessed the same accident, and you will get wildly divergent answers. Evolutionarily, what kind of memory do you think would be better suited to the survival of the species-one that remembered only the good or one that remembered only the bad? You probably first remember the things that are bad so you don't repeat the same life-threatening mistake. Next, probably the good things that allow you to propogate.

At the same time an autobiography by its very nature implies an advanced state of narcissism. A cynic might say the autobiographer�s sole purpose is to turn themselves into the hero of their own life. But what purpose does any narrative serve after all, if not to convey how the author sees the world? The autobiographer just makes no bones about saying �this is my point of view.�

Moreover, I�d be the first to admit that I have sanitized the events of my life. I�ve glossed over my own addictions, omitted the shame I was taught to have because of a crippled uncle, left out telling you about the sad, childless life of a very sweet aunt. Still, to dwell on these somehow unsettles me. By the standards of 4/5 the world�s population, I�ve had a pretty cushy life. I was never physically abused, forced to flee my country during a war, or went to bed hungry. So I�ll stop my belly aching.

And what better way to snap oneself out of a blue funk than to dance? I chose today�s work because it is one of those albums that always cheers me. One day in my first or second year of college, I heard a piece on the local classical station, that I couldn�t believe was �serious� music. The announcer said it came from a collection of dances, entitled TErpsichore by Michael Praetorius. But I had heard the piece in another form, maybe in a cartoon or some children�s show popular in my youth. I tracked the album down and immediately bought it. It was one of the first albums that introduced me to music from the Renaissance, which has come into vogue over the last 10 or 15 years.

Praetorius lived from 1571 - 1621 in and around Dresden. The son of a pastor, Praetorius was a prolific composer, churning out some 1244 songs. TErpsichore is important because it was a compilation of dance songs for instruments only at a time when composition was moving from predominantly vocal based works to instrumental. Composers were starting to write for instruments alone as they were being refined to have truer and more reliable sounds. This album introduced me to a number of the older instruments, like crumhorns, rackets and sackbuts, whose croaky, wheezy and raspberry sounds I've come to love. Just what you need to blow the blues away.

Praetorius bio

Recording

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