Flying W Things

Yesterday I got a CD in the mail from Dean. We have been trading mp3 mixes back and forth for a couple years now.

One of the songs on the mix is Eric Carmen's "All By Myself" - the very definition of "70's pop ballad" if ever there was one. I happen to like the song, partly because the main theme was lifted from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2.

(Stay with me here. I know what you're thinking - hoo boy, Brad has invoked the name of some dead Russian composer and is about to go off on some classical music tangent. Classical music either boring, soft, or boring and soft, blah blah blah, how can music that's 150 years old be relevant, muz muz muz... That's not where I'm heading.)

The first time I heard this concerto, it really got my attention. By which I mean, it reached out, grabbed my shoulders, shook me a few times, and yelled "Hey! Check this out!" I can't really say that about any other classical composition, and believe you me I've heard more than a few. It comes with the territory when you're the offspring of two classically-trained musicians.

I've always wondered what triggered my reaction to this piece. I'm sure you've all heard some music somewhere that got your attention that way - so that you can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing the first time you heard it. Why are we so receptive to music? What language is the music speaking that our brain seems to understand?

Just another one of those things I think about while stuck in traffic.