Musical Interlude

My husband sometimes lives in an alternate universe. When I first met him, he was in a "growl" band. It is one of those bands that is super-fast in the music and the vocals are "growled". My husband was the growler. He had to stop because after a while of having gigs and going out, he started coughing up blood. This didn't stop him at first, but eventually he had to stop. Anything for the music. It turns out he was probably growling incorrectly, but this was about 8 or 9 years ago before growling was popular with anyone so there weren't really any how-to books.

He plays the drums (kinda) but his real passion is guitars. He started by playing the bass. We call him the reverse Oreo, everyone loves watching him play because he gets into it. He also is really good at playing the regular guitar. That is his latest love. He's been playing for many years, but the acoustic has outshined the bass guitar recently. He has five guitars (five string bass, six string bass, acoustic, electric, orange, black and white, gray, silver- maybe more than five now that I think about it), a drum set, a track recorder, several effects pedals, two amplifiers, a trumpet, a harmonica and I am sure a bunch of other junk I am not even aware of. Okay, it's not junk....

(If you have dogs, you must get a harmonica and play it for them. They howl along. It is great fun!)

He now is venturing in to regular singing (versus growling). He is getting pretty good. I love music. We have a CD collection of over 400 CDs ranging in every genre you could imagine. We have some embarrassing CDs like Vanilla Ice and New Kids on the Block. (We are 28, I am sure some of you have never heard of these people.) But the music ranges from alternative to punk to classical to jazz to blues to country to butt-rock (some people call them big hair bands) to pop to oldies to disco to Latin to whatever. Take your pick. The really enlightening thing about being married to a musician is the appreciation for people who are creative in any genre. You don't necessarily have to like the style, but it is necessary to respect the talent.

My husband takes any opportunity to play music. He has friends come over to "jam". I am left out because I have no musical talent. I can't even play the armpit.

I get lost in music. Totally and completely. It makes me smile usually. Some songs make me want to drive very fast. Songs can center me, get me happy, reinforce my sadness, and a whole other range of emotions.

There is a girl at church who is deaf. I wonder what it is like for her to sit through 30 minutes of songs when she can't hear anything. Yesterday the pastor stood up and asked the sign interpreter what the movement for Hallelujah was. She showed us. For the next minute or so, the whole church (we have about 400 people for those who are trying to envision this) sang the song while doing the movement for Hallelujah. You should have seen the expression on Elizabeth's face. She was in compete awe and all teary eyed. I think music is just an expression of the soul however it is played.

So go ahead! Rant, rave, praise music! Comment on the post. Tell me what music is for you.