Musical Tastes

            Over this past weekend, I found myself home alone – with my wife and in-laws off to visit a friends’ cottage. This, of course, means one very important thing for me. I get to plug my music into my digital piano and shake the house (well... almost) with my improvised sound system!

            I often forget how important music is to me. I grew up in a very musical household with a large an eclectic selection of music. From the age of five up until the end of high school I was in a large variety of choirs and bands – in my second last year, during the school concert, I performed in every ensemble except one, which I snuck into the following year by pretending my clarinet was a tenor sax. I graduated with 8.5 music credits (when there were a total of 8 music courses) and went on to take piano and singing lessons for the following two years until I gave up on becoming a music teacher.

            Yet, now, music is almost absent from my life. I haven’t played a clarinet in years and I hardly ever sit down at the piano to see how much I remember of my meagre skills. Pretty much the only time I listen to music is in the car (roughly twice a week) and even then I rarely sing along. It isn’t until I’m home alone, with no one to disturb with my volume (what can I say, I’m very self conscious – I also have a great dislike for headphones) and no one to feel self-conscious in front of that I re-discover my love of music.

            It was as I was listening to my music – at an outrageous, wonderful volume – that I got to thinking. I was listening to a few songs that have been favourites of mine since childhood, noticing how much they spoke to me, and I started to wonder, how much had those songs helped to shape me into the person I am today?

            Thinking on it further, I considered how my brother’s taste in music differed from mine. We’ve always been very different people, and it showed in the music we liked. So, my question changed.

            Does the music we listen to influence the people we become, or do we enjoy the music that speaks to us because it speaks to who we are?

            It’s probably impossible to say, at least without running a study. I like to think it’s a combination of the two – we choose to listen to the music that speaks to who we are and, in turn, that music helps to grow those aspects of ourselves as we grow older.

            Whatever the answer, I’m going to try to bring more music into my life. It probably won’t work, but who knows? As long as I keep trying each time I remember how important music is to me, eventually I’ll find a way to make it stick around and enrich my life.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.