Tagged: band
Enjoy The Music But Nothing More
Enjoy the music. Submerge yourself in your own interpretation of the lyrics.
Bath in the rhythm.
Bask in the beat.
Do whatever you need to do to show your appreciation of beautiful music, but stop getting so excited about the artists themselves.
It’s somewhat difficult to say that I have a favorite artist. I call myself a single song buyer, because I seldom enjoy/listen to an album at a time; I’ll probably just enjoy a few songs from a large variety of artists.
When I listen to music, I listen to ONLY the music. I’ll admire the album cover for a couple of seconds and I’ll probably gawk over a pretty face but I’ll tend to focus on the music itself. I suppose that if I shifted focus, I’d probably associate a song with a certain artist instead of with a personal experience, which I prefer. I don’t know what the ultimate point of music is, but it’s not to fawn over people that we’ve never met.
I don’t care about the way the band formed. Don’t tell me about the four times they broke up. I’ll watch the music video but don’t expect me to have watched it beforehand. Why should I be concerned about the personal lives about singers, actors, and the like?
If we continue to obsess about ordinary people like this, we mentally categorize them as people who are just overall better than us, which would be a complete lie. Yes, maybe they do have better voices than us. They can probably write better lyrics than we can, but are they as fast of runners as us? Can they teach trig like my Calc teacher can? Can they knit as well as my grandma? These are just a few examples and simple ways to demonstrate that these so-called “stars” are not as special as we often designate them to be.
Inspiration is good. Having role models is an essential component of worthy success, but there comes a point when we’ve just got to stop glorifying them.
Go to a concert, if you must. It will probably help you get over your obsession, and your expectation of perfection that you have of them, as soon as you see them up on stage, sweating, singing out of tune, and out of breath.
They’ll give a quality show, no doubt, but they are in no way perfect. There’s really no reason to care about what goes on in their lives.
And this opinion of mine also spills over into the realm of celebrities in general.
Why do we alienate celebrities? Do we just assume that since they’re famous and beautiful, that they’re better than us? LIES.
Also – why do we care about their lives? I’m guilty and hypocritical because I’m often obsessed with celebrities but I still think my approach is counterproductive. I become obsessed with a certain celebrity and I’ll either want to be them or marry them. I’ll envy their life over mine when really there’s not much to envy. Why do we have reality TV shows? Is it really just for shallow entertainment, or do some people actually wish they led such lives?
There’s corruption in that system. There’s airbrushing and photoshopping. Everyday, people get paid off to promote something that they would never even consider if there weren’t some economic incentive for them.
Yet, there are actually beautiful people, people born with features so delicate and picture-perfect that you can’t help but advertise their face. There are some people out there with extraordinary talents of singing, dancing, acting, etc. We should appreciate these talents, but limit just how much we appreciate them. Don’t forget to love yourself and your quirks, abilities, and special skills once in a while. Just because you’ve never been on an ad or TV doesn’t mean you’re less worthy than them.
Except maybe Neil Patrick Harris.
What’s in a Song?
I don’t look nearly as dramatic as her.
There are infinite reasons for appreciating a song. In my experience, I’ve liked songs simply because of who it reminds me of, who suggested it to me, where I heard it, or who I heard singing it. I might enjoy just the heavy beat, the interesting music video, or the contagious and infectious catchiness.
Music represents an endless amount of ideas, and there exists a song for every mod. It can immediately add emotion and drama to any situation; it has the tendency to sooth or anger, relax or excite.
Everyone has a unique music taste of their own. You wouldn’t be able to distinguish my particular music taste just from listening to one song on my playlist, simply because I don’t think I can be defined accurately and completely with just a single song.
Music reminds me of my childhood, because there are honestly some songs out there that Ilike, but don’t know why. There are other songs that have never truly left my “favorites queue,” that I have yet to tire of.
You can dance to music; you can jump around and sing to it.
Music is used to promote, and to advertise. We use it to get revenge on others through lyrics, to express emotion, and to connect with other people of similar appreciative tastes and opinions.
What’s in an orchestra? A band, a chorus? A violin, an electric guitar, or a triangle? We wouldn’t have some of our greatest role models if instruments and music groups hadn’t been conceptualized and created over people’s mutual love of music.
Some people are just natural born performers, while others should be confined to their shower.
It’s as if you’ve taken your favorite lines of poetry, set them to a beat, and added a tune, et voila, you have a song.
It blows my mind to imagine music as an inspiration for a revolution. Of course, no one has ever stood on a podium and yelled to a crowd, “FOR THE LOVE OF DUBSTEP!” and started a massive mindset shift towards electronic dance music. What I mean by this is that some pieces have been for influential and moving that people become motivated to fight for what they believe in, and what they want. Astounding to me is the influence that people like Justin Bieber and Harry Styles can hold, because…yeah.
On the other hand, look to the Haiti earthquake in 2010. The remake of “We are the world” raised awareness of the destruction, and motivation to make donations and do service work.
In 2011, a devastating tsunami struck Japan, and a charity compilation album, “Songs for Japan,” raised over five million dollars.
Live performances are a great way for people to congregate and bond over mutual interests, because the performer knows the music backwards and forwards, sweating and crying whilst giving their best performance. It’s as if you are looking the artist/composer/singer/performer full in the face; they can’t hide behind the studio window, buried under hours of remixing and auto-tuning.
One of many of my favorite music genres is dubstep*. It’s music centered around the bass, which draws on many musical influences such as techno and reggae. Quality dubstep is just phenomenal, because no one looks cooler than someone with a big pair of headphones, dramatically bobbing their head up and down as they listen to the epic bass drum of dubstep. Whilst listening to said “dubstep,” you can’t just turn the volume down to “barely audible” and expect to receive the whole experience of what my love of dubstep is founded upon.
I used to think that I would be able to sleep to dubstep, and I did for a while. My daydreams mutated into bizarre hallucinations during the day hours, and my night dreams transformed into extraordinary illusions. The experience was…surreal.
I dramatically nod my head up and down with an obnoxiously big set of headphones, with dubstep banging in my eardrums like a raging animal. The entire experience is complete.
Ear buds are just ho-hum; if you want the full dubstep experience, you need to chuck those little ear buds out and go get yourself a quality pair of headphones.
#topofmytodolist
*Warning: this recently emerged music genre is NOT for the light of heart.
Catherine Zhang 