What Good Stuff Can Do…For You.

August 8th, 2005 | Filed under Music

I really need to be listening to more “good” music. I get in this slump of letting the iTunes “shuffle” option tell me what I want to listen to and more often than not it picks really great songs….I mean they are my songs, why wouldn’t I want to listen to them.

However, sometimes taking a more active role in auditory enjoyment can make a dramatic impact on my mood, creativity and motivation.

Take today for example…I’ve been running around work with my head-cut-off lately. Accomplishing a lot of stuff, but never really feeling like I’m getting anything done. As I’m checking things off the to-do list (using OmniOutliner) two great songs were delivered to me via shuffle.

Christmas Song by Dave Matthews

Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash

While these songs actually were delivered via “shuffle” it reminded of the fact that I have a lot of great “albums” of music on my computer, iPod and work computer. I guess I’m basically saying that a musical renaissance might be order for Matthew Edward Kappenman.

I guess what I’ve been trying to say throughout this incoherent ramble of a post is that I’ve been underestimating the impact that great art can have. For me personally, it usually takes the form of music, literature and sometimes film. I’ve never really been one for visual art (short of still photography, for some reason I “get” that), but visual art in the form of painting, charcoal etc…tends to escape me. It’s probably because I’m not very well versed in it. I mean how do I except someone who knows nothing about Jazz to understand something like A Love Supreme by Coltrane or The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers by Mingus? Sure they can look/listen at/to it but they probably do not understand it on an intellectual level. However, all art does not have to understood at its utmost level……..I’m so lost. What I’m saying is I like certain things because I understand them, and that understanding stimulates my brain to come up with variations on the things I get (and don’t get at times).

Anyway, listen, absorb, watch, view and read all the great stuff you can find…trust me, unlike Morgan Grade School cafeteria spinach, it is actually good for you.