A little summer music

Summer? Well, the song puts me in mind of summer. My daughter’s been practicing a song they’re doing for the spring concert next month, which means it’s been running through my head fairly nonstop. To appease the earworm, I pulled up a YouTube video, which I now share with you.

For your viewing pleasure

A few weeks back, I posted the video for my daughter’s favorite song. This is my son’s. Unfortunately, I can’t embed the video. WordPress app plus YouTube on iPad means to me, it looked like I was just posting a link. The wonders of technology. 😛

You ask, I answer, part three

Both B.C. and Nicki asked me questions about my music preferences:

Inspirational music for your favorite genres

One of your music preferences that’s a guilty pleasure

I’m going to address them both in this post.

When I was very young, all I listened to was classical music. And Christmas carols. I fell in love with the Grand Canyon Suite and the Flight of the Bumblebee. I didn’t even hear more popular music until midway through elementary school, when the school bus played rock and my mom played easy listening. Do I feel guilty that I can sing along to Barry Manilow’s entire repertoire? Not really, any more than I feel guilty for knowing the lyrics to “X’s and O’s” and “Grundy County Auction” (country rock songs from the late 90s, for those who don’t know).

I’ve listened to a wide range of music, although not death metal and very little rap or hip-hop. (Yes, I do know “Ice Ice Baby.”) And what I listen to on any given day is going to vary a lot — it might be Amy Grant, it might be Stravinsky. (The Firebird Suite is probably my all-time favorite piece of music.) One novelette I wrote almost entirely to Bon Jovi, and I find Blondie can be wonderful for mindless proofreading. Recently, I’ve been listening to an iTunes Radio station called Giuseppe Verdi Essentials, which is serving as inspiration for a science fiction novel I’m planning.

Most often, however, I work in silence because my brain isn’t as good at letting the music go by without it interfering with the words any more.

What kinds of music do you like to listen to?

And if you have more questions that you’d like to have me answer, ask away in the comments!

Bagpipes

Today, I had books due at the library. My daughter wanted to come along, so we headed downtown. I’d completely lost track of festivals; I didn’t realize Celticfest was this weekend. Fortunately, we got downtown before the big crunch, and we had plenty of time to browse the library.

Before we got outside, the pipers started warming up. Of course, when we got outside, I walked my girl over to watch one of the pipers who was warming up on his own. She was fascinated (although she did comment on how loud he was). When he finished, we started to head to our car — but the pipers for one of the high school bands were warming up over by the City Council building and the girl tugged me over to watch and listen. As she did, I couldn’t help but think how much my dad would have approved her enthusiasm.

Of course, Dad wouldn’t have understood the desire to leave, go home, and get things done instead of staying to watch the parade and hear more music.

Just breathe

Last night, my husband was sharing some videos from Ze Frank with me. This guy does absolutely hysterical true facts videos, primarily about weird members of the animal kingdom, such as mantises, sloths, fruit bats, and baby echidnas. (He also did one about Morgan Freeman.) Then my husband played one of Ze Frank’s TED talks, and I realized I had seen it before. It prompted me to go looking for this song this morning to share with you: