Classical music, musicals, soundtracks. I've always loved all of it.
I had a whole phase as a tween where I thought everyone needed to know how good the Marche Slave was (they didn't). I memorized all the cues in the scores for the Lion King and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I would hum them to myself, which was probably pretty annoying out of context. I listened to the Phantom of the Opera and swore that I could understand something new about love and human sadness. I went from hating Phillip Glass to loving his stuff to being more neutral about it. I remember the first time I went to a classical concert, not just listening to a recording, and the power coming from the instruments shook me so much it's as though my breath was squeezed out of me.
I sang Schubert's Ave Maria at my grandmother's funeral, and in the middle of it I swear I felt a force from somewhere beyond myself, and I almost couldn't finish the song because of the tears that threatened to fall. To this day I can never completely ignore the spiritual, because that was a moment that I couldn't have invented and wouldn't have even chosen for myself, yet it happened to me. I've gone from being a crusader as a kid, wanting people to "wake up!!!" and realize what "good" music actually sounded like, to now instead being content with loving it for myself. I was very sensitive for a long time to liking music that was too "pedestrian," but I think the love you find in a piece is enough of a reason to enjoy it. Getting wrapped up in popularity contests just removes the focus from what really matters.
There is so much beauty in sound itself, and I keep wondering why one sound or another produces one emotion or another. How can sound equal feeling so potently? And why have we as humans all agreed on these sounds and these feelings? Is some universal experience at work here? Ultimately, I'm so very proud of the creators and their creations. I know it will be a life-long study, trying to understand the wellspring of music. Luckily it's so enjoyable that I'll gladly pursue it.
