Music
Being a huge movie fan, I realize that some of the greatest movies also include one of the best music soundtracks. Some of the movie theme songs are so popular, they gain more recognition than the movie itself. Everyone knows what the opening title of the Star Wars saga sounds like, even those who have not seen it. The music in certain scene of movies can actually determine your emotions. That way, the music actually becomes the actor, and that particular scene will forever be burned into the person’s memory. The shower scene from Psycho is a good example.
I have always admired musicians. I find the way a pianist’s fingers could glide across the piano keys with so much grace and ease, and how a guitarist’s could dance on the fret boards that quickly
, almost like a frog leaping across lily-pads, and how the drummers could hit so many different drums at once, at different beats very fascinating. All of them actually make playing musical instruments look easy and effortless.
It was not until I received my first guitar, that I realized that the way guitarists’ fingers move actually took years and years of practice. The same went for playing the piano. My piano-playing friends got quite frustrated when I kept hitting the wrong keys and making masterpieces sound like noise. I decided to leave playing instruments to the experts.
Music has many different genres. They range from classic to rock, disco to opera, country to pop, and punk to rap. And that is just to name a few. My personal favourites are rock, country, old style love songs, and classics. I grew up listening to bands like Michael Learns to Rock, the Beatles, Bee Gees and Westlife. My parents were no musicians but they did have a love for good music. The family’s compact disc collection is constantly expanding. My mother has slightly different tastes in music than my father and me, preferring Chinese and Cantonese music, while my father and I stubbornly refuse to listen to anything that is not English.
Most of my friends at school listen to punk music, and other genres. Some of their songs in their MP3s actually make me cringe and groan, as the so called ‘music’ sounds to me like someone was purposefully using the end of a nail to scratch across a blackboard. They say I am crazy and have absolutely no taste and ironically, I have the same opinion about them. My own MP3 contains music by Kenny Rogers, Ronan Keating, Bon Jovi and other rock bands and some of my favourite movie theme songs. I try to listen for the different instruments played in the songs and try to identify them as a game.
Musical instruments come in different sizes, shapes and colour, and while some can produce a range of different notes, others have a limited range. In primary school, all students were taught to play simpler instruments like the recorder, the angklung and the harmonica, but secondary school pupils prefer to learn more complicated instruments such as the guitar, from acoustic to electric, the piano, the keyboard, the drums and in some schools, the Guzheng.
My personal weakness in playing the guitar is that I have trouble reading the different notes on the score sheet and usually prefer to play by memory than go through the whole trouble of reading black dots on sticks on horizontal lines.
Dancers also make use of music and will move to the beat and timing of the music. Being a dancer myself, I know that most dancers, before dancing with the music, will listen quietly to the song before prancing and jumping around.
Music is also added to WebPages and blogs to spruce up their look and attractiveness, and give a certain mood to them. I have enough experience to know that choosing the appropriate music to suit the blogskins is not as easy as it seems.
Music can also be used to bring up a certain memory. Whenever I hear a song I have heard before, my mind always travels back to the previous time I last heard the song and recall me thoughts to that particular day and who I was with. The same thing goes for movies. If in a movie soundtrack I hear a particular song, for example, when I hear the song ‘The mines of Moria’ from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ soundtrack, I recall that particular scene from the movie where the song was played and in a way, I am also re-watching the movie in my mind.
The fact is, music is greatly appreciated widely across different cultures and age groups, and is one of the few things in life that transcends communication barriers and one which animals and humans have in common. Whales are one of the few animals that actually sing. I have also seen a dog bark to the beat of a children’s song.
Music will continue to remain popular and will also continue to exist for as long as there is life in the world, as it plays an important part in our daily lives. Mothers will continue to play Mozart for their newborn babies, wannabe rockers will continue creating havoc during their neighbours’ bedtimes, and Simon Cowell will continue to tell people his opinions on good music. As for me, I will continue to strum on my guitar, making my fingers dance on the fret board.

Da_movie_kid was shot at 8:06 PM