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Music is the color of life I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. TODAY the cycle is complete. Ten things I know about me. I selected the songs to develop a story, and now we come to the part where the sun is rising on a new day. I started with music as pure color — as sound and rhythm and feeling, of seeing through my mind the world of beauty around me.…

To uncover the pain I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. Today’s song seems unusually prescient, but perhaps it is simply a song that is relevant every day in our America. I built out this list much earlier to explain the songs that are important to me, and here we are and the songs are contextualized by the events of this month, this week, this day, this hour, this minute. This life. “Rose…

To cover the soul I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. Today is a song whose words were written by a 16th century Spanish soldier-poet — one of the more famous of them, Garcilaso de la Vega. His poem was set to music several years ago by Z. Randall Stroop, and the resulting song is sometimes performed in concerts. The music is gentle, sometimes soaring, sometimes plaintive, but it wraps the words of…

Awake, lyre and harp I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. Today is a week of music. And this is a turning point. Stay with me. I’ve come along through 50 years of living and the kids are heading off to college. Soon the house will be empty, and then the next part of life will start. I guess. We’re at the February choir concert in the community college where our youngest son…

The spinning world stops I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. Today is “A Love Song,” from the group Love Song. I was a teenager in Southern California. Like teenagers everywhere, I knew everything and knew nothing. (Please. I’ve grown a little since then. I still know nothing but I’ve stopped believing I know everything — on my good days.) But I was in the moment living during what later became called the…

The unawakened heart I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. Today is Sam Cooke. I heard him sing, in brief snatches, on the radio. I didn’t — and still don’t — listen to radio much. When I’m doing something, I tune out almost all noise, including music. It was the way to survive in a hectic family of six very active mischief-seeking children and parents who are doing their best simply to keep…

Music is human connection I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. Today is getting into first gear. What with instrumental pieces like Bach and Holst there was the enjoyment of being in the music. But then with these songs the words also begin to become more important. Without the music and the rhythm, perhaps the creation would have been powerful still. Put them together and it becomes a new thing. This is James…

Music can move us I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. “Move Over” (from “Through Children’s Eyes,” The Limelighters). I grew up in the 50s and early 60s. Before there was rock and roll, before there was an explosion of tightly produced music that you listened to, there was folk music. You sang along with folk music. The entire album was led by the Limelighters, a popular folk music trio, but behind them…

The envelop of emotion I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. “Jupiter — The Planets” (Holst). Before there was Star Wars and John Williams there was Holst who wrote the themes lifted for the film. This suite of songs was about something but I could not put it into words. Listening was simply an experience. Here was music and here was emotion and it was ineffable. I don’t have the vinyl anymore, and…

Order and Beauty, Mixed I was given the task by a friend of choosing 10 songs that greatly influenced me. I will post one song per day, for 10 consecutive days. Each song draws the picture more clearly, showing what has inspired me or just given me solace. The first day’s offering is “Bach: Brandenburg Concerto №3 in G Major (Parts 1, 2, and 3)” Wendy Carlos 1968. This is the second album of electronic music that I collected. (The first is lost in the mists of time, an album I picked up at discount store back in the 60s as well.) Classic rhythms, harmonies, structure with impossible instruments. Sorry.…