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THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES
Why do we like listening to sappy old love songs when we’re floating high on the clouds of love, or fresh from a heart-wrenching experience of heartbreak?
Published in PRESS Magazine October 2003
Ever had any of these happen to you?
It starts with the sound of the first single notes of a song lingering in the background, softly at first. As you gaze into the eyes of your lover your lips move closer and closer to each other until they’re just a heartbeat away, the first few notes you heard earlier combine with a variety others to achieve the very melody that intensely captures the heart of the moment.
Or how about that time when you and your barkada were just hanging out, laughing and having a good time? Remember the “feel good music” you heard on the background as all of you sang along with it, even if none of you were really sure if the lyrics you were singing at the top of your lungs were the right ones?
Or how about this: You’re mad at the world and frustrated that no one understands you – not your family, not your friends, not your boy/girlfriend, not even your pet dog. None of them could figure out why you’re so mad. You stare at yourself in the mirror long and hard. Then, as the adrenaline-pumping techno-rap-metal sound in the background begins to get louder, you decide it’s time to change – your image, your life, anything. Grabbing a pair of scissors, you cut your hair. Or your clothes. Or the nearest picture of you and some people where all you are smiling.
If you think all of these sound familiar, it is not just because they’re scenes from some movie or TV series, where music is cued to add depth and heart to the situation. They all sound familiar because some, if not all of these, are experiences that you have gone through, situation, music and all.
Yes, our lives do have soundtracks. Soundtracks we make as we move through life, and experience the different highs and lows possible for human emotion. Soundtracks we put together on our own to describe and communicate to others how we think and how we feel. Soundtracks, which could very possibly, end up telling our life story for us when we’re all old and gray.
Ever notice how no one listens to just one type of music? No one is bent on listening to music from just one genre. We as people are dynamic beings, thirsty for change, constantly seeking variety. And as with all things essential to human life, to which music definitely falls under, we seek for variety in the music we listen to, for it is a means of communicating our thoughts and emotions.
Why do we like listening to sappy old love songs when we’re floating high on the clouds of love, or fresh from a heart-wrenching experience of heartbreak? Why does a background of loud rap-metal music sound extremely appropriate while punching out your frustrations on your pillow? Or how about those just-plain-feel-good songs from the alternative genre that just instantly make your lips turn up at both ends into a smile with their simple and basic melodic lines coupled with their sentiments of hope and a brighter tomorrow with the people you’re with? Don’t they just sound appropriate for lazy summer afternoons you spend with your friends?
And light old classics from the era of our grandparents (think Gershwin, Sinatra) that instantly bring to mind phonographs and sepia-toned scenes – don’t they just sound so right while you look out your window and stare at the seemingly endless fall of raindrops on days that the heavens pour? And just what is it about the dizzying scales and rhythmic quality of jazz that brings more jolt to the caffeine in your cup of coffee as you end your day outdoors, watching the sun set, or that extra hit in your martini or shot of scotch as you end your day at a bar? Why do people who hate dancing like listening to reggae and ska, only to end up finding their bodies swaying to the Jamaican beat of the music? And on really slow days when all you feel like doing is lie down on your back and stare at the ceiling, doesn’t the floating, seemingly drug-induced high produced by the swirling of beats and sounds of trip-hop just sound appropriate?
Like everything personal, when it comes to music, the same basic rules apply: to each his own. So while these kinds of music may be appropriate to the corresponding emotion and disposition to most people in general, it is not always the case. People have asked time and again, why do I listen to the music I listen to? Lots of factors: culture, upbringing, preference, emotional state and a whole lot more. So don’t box and label yourself to just one genre. Explore other options because like emotions and experiences, in music, the possibilities are endless. And before you know it, you would have come up with your own life’s soundtrack.
© Valerie V. Mayuga, 2005
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