My favorite things...Music

I am going to be doing a series on my favorite things...at least until I run out of favorite things, which may never happen. Anyway, first up in the series is

MUSIC!

I love music. I listen to music almost every day, and I love all different kinds of music. There are some exceptions, I'm not a huge fan of country (there are some exceptions, mostly just individual songs) and I really don't care for opera. That being said, the rest of the musical world is pretty awesome.
Music is where I go when I lack the words to express something, it is often reflective of my mood, and I have a song for every occasion!
Right at this very minute I'm listening to a play list I put together for Brian, my oldest. It has songs from his favorite cartoon show (Phineas and Ferb), Disney songs, songs from Sandra Boynton, and songs from a folk group called Trout Fishing in America. I love all these songs because they're all intelligent. I'm not generally a fan of music specifically for kids because it tends to dumb things down. These songs manage to be age appropriate, fun, and not stupid. Big win in my book.
One of my few splurges during the year is a Pandora membership. For $36/year I can create as many different radio stations as I like, so I really have a station for every mood! I have classical-one more geared for symphonic/orchestral music and one for more piano music. I have a jazz station that incorporates modern jazz as well as early jazz and everything that came in the middle (good station for rainy days). I have a pop music station (Brian loves to dance), several rock stations (indie, pop, punk, mixed, heavy, classic) a Christmas music station, a Broadway music station, an Enya station (I can't think of how else to describe that kind of music) a toddler music, Disney music, and a lullaby station. Each has a place and I may listen to several throughout the day, it just depends on how I feel. I just realized that I do not have a big band/swing station and I need to fix that!

I also have favorite artists, songs, and genres. I love rock music, then classical. The rest is sort of equally distributed. My all-time favorite group is Green Day. I never get tired of their music. I love anything I can sing along with, anything with great lyrics, but I also love a piece of music that says something without a single word ever being spoken. My favorite is Beethoven's symphony #7. One of the best dates I've ever been on with my husband is the one we went on last year to see the NMSO play this. So much emotion in one piece of music, it is fabulous. The right piece of music can do so much, help me write, help me think, help me clean, help me relax!

Now, I am not by any means a music geek. My mom is, her husband is, but you start getting into theory and all that and I'm out. I can read music and I enjoy singing and I used to kind of sort of be able to play a couple of instruments, but that's about it. And that's enough. I love listening to music, I love being around music, and at times I enjoy helping make music. But I don't need to be able to analyze it.
So to sum up. Music=Awesome. Definitely one of my most favorite things.