Just a Song Sunday: The Soundtrack is My Favorite Source of Music

Well, Gaston and Sears is finished, so now I am thinking about what to do with this weekly post. It's time to focus back on the song aspect of Just a Song Sunday.

I was never one to have a favorite performer over all other performers. I knew folks in high school who were obsessed with Duran Duran, others who loved Michael Jackson - you get the idea. Me? I always felt drawn to the song rather than the performer.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I did have ONE poster of a performer, but I got it as a book club reward when I was in the first grade. Andy Gibb. I had no idea who he was, and then he died. All of a sudden, I was somewhat cool because I had a poster. I did not listen to his music because Mom didn't really let us listen to popular music. That's a whole different story, though.

I grew up listening to Disney records, Sesame Street songs, music from the 60's folk scene, and the soundtracks to Jesus Christ Superstar and The Graduate. My mother protested when I got a small transistor radio for my birthday. She was convinced that I would spend all my time in my room, listening to bad music. I laugh now because that thing only picked up three stations when the weather was just plain old perfect, and I wasn't allowed to play it at a volume that was audible from my doorway. If anyone could hear it in the hallway, it was WAY too loud.

Most of my music exposure came through the movies I was allowed to watch. I think this is why most of my music library is soundtrack based.

I am all about the soundtrack.

This is music selected for a specific purpose, used to elicit an emotional response of some sort, and designed to be in the background (most of the time). Soundtrack music is also linked to specific sights in movies which is why it has such an effect on me (visual learner). I am transported when I hear specific music into the movie itself. It is easy for me to recall the movie when I hear the music. In addition, the music in soundtracks is often one piece per performer, so I can hear a song, figure out I like it, and then get just that one song rather than buying an entire album (I am old, folks, that's how we used to get music - we would have to buy the entire album just to get the one song that we liked. That's no longer a problem with iTunes and Spotify around. Ah, how things have changed.).

I can tell you that I have found some performers that I enjoy because of a song snippet in a movie. Ellis Paul, Dido, James Horner, Peter Salett, Jay and the Americans, etc. are all performers that I first heard when watching a movie. I then went on a wild search to find the song that I wanted. It's amazing how many of those songs have become therapeutic music experiences for some of my clients.

My all-time favorite source of music, however, is the original music composed specifically for background to movies. I have music from all sorts of movies - epic fantasy films, gritty army films, space films, and the epitome of all movie music - EVERYTHING BY JOHN WILLIAMS! I use it for all types of things in the music therapy clinic. 

We are listening to the Carnival of the Animals this summer in my music therapy sessions. Many of my students have remarked that the music sounds like Disney music or music from a movie of some sort. It always makes me laugh because, of course, neither of those things were around when Saint-Saens wrote the CotA, so it is more probable that the composers for the Disney and other movies were inspired in part by CotA rather than the other way around.

I think it is time to get my music history timeline out again. Maybe I'll make a new one that includes the birth of the soundtrack on it to give some perspective to my clients who do not understand history that much. Time to get a new shower curtain (Interested in what a shower curtain has to do with a music history timeline? Email me!).

In the meantime, I am going to stream some soundtracks while I am spending time doing chores today. I'm thinking the soundtracks to The Lord of the Rings trilogy will go nicely with trash bags and cleaning solutions. I'll use the music to keep myself moving towards my goal of cleaner places to live.