in a desperate effort to explain

Many of my posts are efforts to define myself by what I have experienced, what I spend my time with, and what my preferences and thoughts about everything is. I try to describe who I am somehow with a compilation of seemingly random things that hopefully will give this sense of "me" some meaning.

That statement started as an observation, and ended with some melancholy feeling, in all honestly.

There seemed an insufficient amount of documentation for myself. I seemed to often forget or disregard these things about myself which would seem obvious to anyone else, or are key aspects to how I behave and what I like. I often forget my fears, I rarely see my normal facial expressions, and I dared not analyze my doubts and emotionally disturbing feelings. All I wanted to do was feel better and have people take me for who "I" was, whoever that was. Now I want to know, remember, and apply all this to my life so that I do not feel so lost. If someone is taking me for who I am, I'd like to know why. And if I like someone, I'd like to recognize that they actually are complimentary to who I am. And to do this, I need to know who I am. It's a necessity of life.

Perhaps this obsession for self analyzation began when I realized there was no one who knew everything about me, including myself. If there is one thing I need to know in this life it is who I am. For the more I know, the better my life feels. The less obscure and surreal my decisions seem to be, and the more I am comfortable speaking my mind, for I know what my mind actually thinks.

There is nothing I would love more than a few short words to sum up myself. I'm not sure if there is an end to the things that could be said about me.

This is not to say that I am generic or that everything could be said about me, or that everything said would not be completely contradictory or nonsensical. A lot of things could be said. This is all. Often I try to think about myself with a grouping of things that hopefully, barely anyone else has also:

I prefer washing my hands in cold water, spending most of my time in socks, and have acute Arachnophobia. Canned pears are about the greatest thing in the world. I have to fight to not spend the majority of my time doing very mindless and tedious things like sharpening pencils and peeling labels off my possessions. I'm Jewish. Usually I wear either loose braids hanging in front or a side ponytail hanging low in front. My sense of humor is almost normal, finding the most subtly offbeat, coincidental, or awkward things the most hilarious. I get anxiety before asking for direction towards an item in stores from employees, and I rehearse concise and respectful language before speaking. When I was younger, I must have had a slight case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, for I insisted on keeping the movements on either side of my body even. I had a fascination with sex long before I was supposed to know about it, and long before I actually did. I started wearing glasses in 4th grade. I never had braces. I was never stung by a bee. I hate American cheese. My boyfriend bought me a locket this past Valentine's Day. Autumn is my favorite season. Ethnically, I'm mostly Dutch. I like foreign films. I like interpreting art. There are some mechanical things that involve wheels which I find ingenious beyond measure. My favorite color is purple.

How many people do you know that all that is true about? Hopefully none =/

music appreciation

I like quite a few genres of music. My musical taste and education began with a fundamental Classic Rock submersion. Excluding any music heard in the Jewish Renewal Synagogue, my dad's large collection of CDs and the radio in the car crafted my early perception of what music was. Modern Rock/Pop genre in the 90s remained part of my diet well into the 2000s as well as the classic rock which I still listen to today.

As I began gradeschool, I was introduced to more bubbly, girly pop. The boy bands and Britney Spears influenced singers of the age I took a liking to, and I remained in this phase for quite awhile.

In 4th grade I took up viola in the school orchestra; although I am sure this did not give me much real classical music learning and appreciation until much later, after years of playing the instrument, when I had the skill to play famous and interesting pieces (as opposed to "Fiddles on Fire").

Late 6th grade and early 7th grade, I gave into peer pressure and attempted to get into R&B popular at the time. This, thankfully, was a very short phase.

I quickly turned to emo and whiny Alternative Rock, seeming as the only flow of new music despite the mainstream genre I had just rejected. It was a nice change of pace, but it was lacking something; something meaningful and substantial.

I got into Jazz. How? I have no idea. My father had always praised Blues for it's predictable and lovable chord progression, and Jazz is the next step up. I was tired of seeking depth of music solely in lyrics. Pop annoyed me with its relentless 4/4 time and major keys. The utter simplicity of melody and predictability of arrangement bored me to death.

Along the way, through all of the music discovery, I have also enjoyed listening to genres such as Reggae, Electronic, Latin, Folk, Disco, Funk, and Techno, in addition to the main diet. For the novelty but still enjoyment, I have listened to things such as Jpop, Celtic, Trance, Medieval, New Age, Surf, and Polka.

I appreciate music because it is something other than language that expresses meaning and feeling. And there are a few aspects of Rock and Pop that all of my favorites seem to have in common. Some things that when hear I want to jump up and down and say "Yes! Yes! Good song!"

• many parts and melodies, so that I am able to focus in and out on specific parts

• a verse melody that can be used simultaneously with the chorus melody and sound intricate and complimentary
  

• an opening riff that "tricks" you about what key the song is in with an accidental. In other words, making the song sound as if it were going to be minor and really ending up major, or vice versa.
  

• changes of chord between melodic phrases, so that we can hear the shift in feeling rather than being consumed by the melody and lyrics wholly
  

• a verse and chorus and bridge that blend into each other so well that you can barely decipher if or when one ends and one begins. Flow and ease of music is important, and making it seem as though it was not manufactured or constructed in a formulaic manner, but thought of and written.
  

• changes of sets of chords with unchanging melody. This gives a different feel to the same idea of the song, and it is impressive to make notes fit into chords in different ways.

• melody which is uncomplicated but covers a wide range of notes in an interesting way
  

• melody that does not adhere to the rhythm of the chords. Phrasing being overlapped through the bars, or being spared with interesting (but not unsettling) choice of beats.

• change in dynamics