Today, I turned on the mix because I felt like making bread and figured that called for a little baking music. I've had the mix on all day. I'm trying to listen to as much as possible, because I have it set to play in order of plays. The songs I've listened to most often play first and so on. I have so many songs on my comforting mix, though, that some songs never get played. It's not because I don't like them. I just never get to them.
I suppose I could rearrange the list, but I always end up changing it back to the number of plays...
So I've heard a lot of...
And so many others before I get even close to the end of the mix...
Good thing my husband is so patient and doesn't mind when I get in the mood to be soothed.
If a song's a favorite, it's hard to hear it too many times. I love James Taylor. I'm not quite so wild about his ex, although I liked some of her stuff and I like them together on a few of his songs that she recorded with him. I like his son, too, although I like his son best when he's singing James Taylor's music, and the more like his father he sounds, the better I like him, so it makes more sense just to listen to James Taylor in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI try not to use headphones any more than I have to as my parents are paranoid about hearing loss and I've picked up some of their phobias. I mostly plug my Ipod into a player, so if I'm at home it's great but if I'm at school in the dorms I have to keep it quiet because other people shouldn't have to listen to my music, even though it's better than their music.
I listen to more older stuff than do most people my age, although it's not uncommon among people my age to be fairly familiar with the older stuff; a lot of my contemporaries are eclectic when it comes to music, I have a very few favorites among current stuff, but I don't have expansive playlists of strictly modern music. I also like Bach and Mozart, though I don't bother too much with other works of the masters (a little miscellaneous baroque stuff, maybe just a little Beethoven and Chopin, a little Elgar, Holst, Copland, or even Grieg, and a tiny bit of Rachmaninoff, but mostly Bach and Mozart). The only Verdi I really like is everyone's favorite- Nessum Dormi.
i recognize that, for the most part, the music of my generation isn't likely to hold up to the test of time as well as that of, say, the Beatles, Billy Joel and Elton John, Springsteen, the Eagles, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel (and Paul Simon's solo work) and some of the others from the earlier period.
My lists are sorted into rev up music, run-of-the-mill calming music, serious anti-anxiety music, running music, and studying music. If I'm having extreme difficulty with sleeping, sometimes my dad plays and sings for me, It's not that I'm so lacking in discernment as to think he sounds better than James Taylor or whatever artist I want to hear, but the vibrations of live music can be felt and are sleep-inducing.
I have extremely eclectic tastes, though I've been a James Taylor fan since I was a kid. I like his brother, Livingston, too. In fact, one of the best concerts I ever attended was a Livingston Taylor concert.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy most 70s era singer songwriters, including Carly Simon, though I'm more likely to choose Carole King or Joni Mitchell over her.
I have every album Kate Bush ever made. I think she's brilliant, though I know for many people she's an acquired taste.
I also enjoy bluegrass. I especially like Alison Krauss and Rhonda Vincent. And I like Lyle Lovett... that was another amazing concert experience. We saw him in Germany and were very close to the stage. I think my husband and I were among the only ones who got his jokes.
I like classical music, too. I especially enjoy Brahms, Schubert, Chopin, and Faure. But I don't listen to that much classical stuff anymore.
One of my mom's doctorates is in vocal/piano performance, so she's classically trained, but she's a huge fan of Alison Krauss.
ReplyDeleteMy dad's a big Livingston Taylor fan. Didn't James Taylor and Livingston Taylor have at lest one hit together? I should look it up.
Carole King is totally great. I love her piano style, and she seems like such a nice, genuine person.
My mom, as the born-fifteen years-too-late radical, is a major Peter, Paul, and Mary fan. I actually learned vocal harmony at a really early age, because P. P, & M CDs, records, or whatever, aren't mixed terribly well, with the end result being that depending upon how your stereo is set or how far apart your speakers ae situated, you can clearly hear some vocal lines better than others, and sometimes a harmony is more prominent than the melody. I learned some songs thinking harmonies were melodies, then when I found out what the real melodies were, I could already sing at least one harmony part. An unintentional result of mediocre engineering was beneficial to me.
James and Livingston have done a couple of duets. The one that comes to mind immediately is "City Lights", but I know they did another that I downloaded illegally off Napster back in the day. James has also covered a couple of Liv's hits. For instance, he sang Livingston's song "Boatman" (one of my favorites by both James and Liv). I actually like Liv's version of "Boatman" a little bit more than I like James's, though overall, I think I like James's music more.
ReplyDeleteAnother bluegrass artist I enjoy is Sierra Hull. She plays mandolin and sounds a lot like Alison Krauss did as a young woman. In fact, that's the one criticism I have of her... She sounds a little too much like Alison does. There's no denying that she's very talented, though.
My husband's tastes have expanded a lot since he's known me... ;-)
Aha... that other duet is called "Falling In Love With You". I thought it was, but I wanted to make sure.
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