The Power of Music

December 26, 2006

Yesterday my soulmate, my best friend, my wife, and my girlfriend conspired to give me two wonderful gifts: books about the ecstatic experiencing of music.  Now, not only are these four souls of one (awesome) mind when it comes to gift-giving; they also inhabit the same corporeal vessel, speak with one voice, and share the same limitless heart.  I am one lucky dude!

The books are "Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy:  How Music Captures Our Imagination" by Robert Jourdain, and "This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession" by Daniel J. Levitin.  Can't wait to explore them!

I plan to approach them more as reference books than as introductions or instruction manuals, because I believe that I'm no stranger to musical ecstacy.  I'm not tootin' my own horn here (more on that later!).  Rather, I lay the blame for my experiencing marvelous musical meanderings squarely at the feet of YOU people, who have intrigued and cajoled and pummeled and yanked and transported me through an amazing array of tonal progressions over the last several years.

So it is to you fellow music lovers and (one day I hope to be able to say "fellow...") musicians that I dedicate this blog.