All this musicizing has made me seek out music and more music. It’s not necessarily classical. A couple of weeks ago I spent much of a weekend afternoon downloading songs for an eighties playlist. Whitney Houston got me started—is there a term for the rush of downloading that must happen when a famous musician dies?—but I also picked up a few stray tunes by Tears for Fears, OMD, A-ha, Peter Gabriel, Don Henley, Bruce Hornsby & the Range, and so on. (I had forgotten Bruce Hornsby & the Range existed, and yet could sing every word and anticipate every piano lick of “The Road Not Taken” the first time I heard it again.)
I haven’t just been seeking out actual music; I’ve also been reading like crazy about music. I’ve added probably a dozen music-related blogs to my Google Reader. On my Kindle one day, I rather compulsively searched the store for “violin” and ended up buying Violin Virtuosos, a collection of interviews from Strings. Read it in about two days. Best of all, I am re-re-reading Daniel J. Levitin’s This is Your Brain on Music, one of my favorite books of all time. (Here is an NYT article that touches on a few of the points I found so fascinating in the book.)
Finally [squeal of delight!], I picked up tickets to see Leila Josefowicz, with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting, play the Salonen Violin Concerto later this spring with the Philadelphia Orchestra. That was actually what sent Mint.com over the edge. I cannot wait to hear it live.
Playing violin again is having so many ripple effects like this. It’s as though I have re-opened a door to another dimension of my life and found another gear for my brain. It’s a joy.
Edit: The video above contains only part 1 of 2. You can see the second part here.
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