Music and Structure

Lately I've been listening to classical music from the anime Nodame Cantabile, which was partially an excuse for Sony Music to release good quality box sets of the best of their classical recordings. I bought one, from Japan, and got it shipped here. I was employed at the time so the cost wasn't terrible. It was harder having to manually type in the names of the movements since the silly program imported them in Japanese, which I can't read.

I've been listening to it, all 9.5 hours, over and over for nearly two weeks now and I can say that the structure of it is good for my brain. I feel like its good meditation. I often wake up in the morning with one of the movements in my head. I have perfect recall for music, right down to pitch and timing, so its like waking up to a radio playing, only there's no radio. Just my memory. The ability for this is passed down from my name, which I won't share here because privacy is nice, and is apparently a maleable form of autism, allowing for mnemonic memory, a crucial skill from our prior Dark Ages occupation from which my name arises. Being descended from Gaelic bards has some upsides. This is also where perfect pitch comes from, I'm sure. My brother and his kids have it as well.

Beethoven's 9th. Rachmaninoff's 2nd. Brahms. Dvorak #8. Mozart. Sarasate. DeBussy. I grew up listening to this. It was like a silk tie: a line that separated me from the redneck fools I grew up around. I don't know how stupid people can stand it. But maybe the true mark of stupidity is not realizing it. I've tried to be nice to them, knowing that their ignorance blinds them. To be subtle enough that the condescension isn't noticed. That they won't see I consider them all violent children.

The class clowns grew up. Maybe these ignorant kids will too? Stranger things have happened.