music is the art that most touches people emotionally and physically--it's about our heartbeats, i think--very primeval and basic.

i don't know. it's always been in me. probably the only good thing i came by naturally.

Because painting is for tossers.

It seems to be the art form that's hardest to get tired of. How many times have you read your favorite short story? How many times have you heard your favorite song (or even a nonfavorite)?

Because it ROCKS OUT HARDCORE!!!!

Because...

Take Five. Chopin. Birdsong. Plainsong. The Clash. Ragas. Reggae. The Dead. Calls to Prayer. Siren Songs (Calls to sex?). The rhythm of our hearts. The pounding beat of happy footsteps on a sunny morning. Melodies in everyday speech. Accidental rhyme. Bach. Ludwig Von B. Spike Jones. Tom Jones. The echoing clack of high-heeled shoes. That odd series of single notes that comes to you in the middle of the night, never to return. "The sky's alive with ladies legs; they're dancing in the clouds." Amazing Grace. Jumping Jack Flash. Rockabilly. Stan Getz Recording with Asrid Gilberto. Getz recording a one-off with a Greek bazoukie band. Bob Dylan. Lenon/McCartney. Dave Carter (RIP). Tracy Grammer (Carry on and may the God of your choice bless you). Kinky Freiedman and the Texas Jewboys. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Tex Rubinowtz and the Bad Boys. Steve Ray and Jimmy Lee. Los Lobos. The Roches. There's a Place For Us. Those times when Jerry Garcia was :"on". Bruce Hornsby mixing Gl of the North Country and Black Muddy River into a new song, live on solo piano. Watching my wife play flute. Watching my daughter play bass. playing guitar. playing drums. singing like a crazy man in the car. Daydreaming about performing with the Dead/The Clash, etc. Nickel Creek. The Ramblin' Beach Guys. Woody Guthrie. Wilco. And the legion of artists I will discover and love before I die.

Music has given me all this and a thousand times more.

nicely said : >

Because you can't dance to a toaster. Unless it's played by Devo, and then it's music anyway.

Because I can't live without it. Nope. It's as necessary as food or air.

As much as it pains me to quote Nietzsche, life without music would be a mistake.

Wow. I was typing too fast last night... "Girl of the North Country". And probably other typos. Hrmph.

music is the highest form of Art. done correctly it's magic in the true sense.

this is the only conclusion i can draw. nothing else comes close to it in terms of psychic/emotional/physical effect.

i'd agree with amberglow about the heartbeat thing, but i think it's more than that. forgetting rhythm entirely, why do certain chords/tones/cadences/etc. make me shiver and make my hair stand up and make me want to smile or weep? i have no idea, nor do i want to know.

(also, bmarkey - nietzsche also said "I should not believe in a God who does not dance." so i figure he was ok. at least until the syphilis crossed the blood-brain barrier.)

"done correctly it's magic in the true sense."

Amen and fucking hallelujah.

Music predates our spoken-written visual-symbolic language. Ask the birds.

It's the first external communication we humans respond to as well - often while still in the womb.

I've been stone-cold sober at numerous unpermitted desert electronic dance gatherings, just sitting on a rock somewhere, and have heard morning birds doing "call and repeat" synchronized to the tempo and key of the music being played at the time on the PA.

(Where was it, Norway? Sweden? Where the birds started mimicking cellphone ringtones as chatter?)

and He came and played to us a mighty dub...