Music - The Best Hobby

Obsession: the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.

Have you ever had an obsession? It was something you thought about, dreamt about, and just knew it was something you weren't going to grow out of? Well, I looked up synonyms for "obsession" and I found hobby.

I know there's sports, writing, drawing, and one billion other hobbies, but do you know what the best one is? I think the best hobby is music. You can listen to the instrumental part of it, listen to the lyrics, and even play it yourself. Where is there a better way to spend your time?

Sometimes, when I listen to music, I push past the singer and try to focus really hard on the instrumental part of the song. The instrumental part of a song is very powerful. It sets the tone for the piece, and sort of holds it together. It also helps separate music into genres such as rock, which uses things like electric guitar, drum sets, and bass.

Country, which can really be split into two categories. The first category would be real country or "old-timey country" which would be the original country music. They would use instruments that gave the music a strong twang, like the banjo.

The second category is today's country, and is a more reformed sense of country music. It would probably be better described as "pop country." There's still a lot of twang, acoustic guitar and still sometimes banjo, but now there is use of electric guitars, drum sets, and instruments not usually associated with country music. Of course, these are just some examples of the hugely immense selection of genres.

Maybe you like guitar, or violin, or piano, but the most beautiful thing about music, is how it all comes together. In fact, my favorite thing to hear in music is a bunch of contrasting instruments play together. It's so overwhelmingly beautiful, it's just indescribable. How cool is it that hundreds of different kinds of instruments can be playing thousands of different notes and chords at the same time, and still come together? It's truly amazing.

Music is, in a way, poetry. There are similes, metaphors, rhymes, personification, deep descriptions, and many other writing expressions. Descriptions are very common in music. They bring a deeper sense of meaning into the song. An example would be "Emeralds from mountains, thrust towards the sky, never revealing their depth."

This is a quote taken from a song called I'll Be by Edwin McCain. He is describing someone's eyes, and instead of just saying, her eyes were a pretty green, he fully described them, with interesting words that pull the description together, just like….BINGO- poetry does.

Expressing feelings is probably the biggest use for lyrics in music, from general emotions such as sadness, happiness, and anger, to more complicated things such as moving on, love, broken hearts, total bliss, death, and pretty much absolutely anything you could ever think of.

They can talk about how you feel towards someone else such as "I will never let you fall. I'll stand up with you forever. I'll be there for you through it all, even if saving you sends me to heaven." This is a quote from Your Guardian Angel by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. These lyrics talking about how this person feels about someone. But, as the way many songs are, it can be interpreted in many different ways. It could be talking about how two people love each other or it could be talking about how you feel about your friends and family.

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." Quoted from Victor Hugo, I don't think anyone could have put it better. It proves the great thing about lyrics. What they mean is entirely up to you, and the possibilities are endless.

Listening to music is really great, but how about making it yourself? Can you say "truly incredible?"

I play piano, drums, guitar, bells, snare drum, base drum, and there is nothing more thrilling then making your own music. When you play, even if it's just for a minute, you know in that minute, you brought something to the world, that can never be recreated in the exact same way, and I mean never again.

It's the greatest feeling when someone you know starts talking about that great song they heard on the radio the other day and you can just hop onto the piano and belt it out for them. What about playing with other people? Like I said above, all your different instruments come together and make something perfect.

I have the utmost respect for people who can pick up any instrument and sing. Singing: singing in the shower, in the car, in a chorus, it doesn't matter. When you sing, you are making music. Who doesn't love the contrasting voices together of a soprano, alto, tenor and base?

Music is like life's easy button. If you just throw everything you have at that song, it's like you're stuck in your own world that you control. Maybe it's just me, but I see the whole world as a symphony. Maybe you're a guitar player, maybe you're the flute player, maybe you're the lead singer, and maybe you're the backup dancers.

Through the eyes of music, the world seems so much more beautiful. And so, I will leave you with the words of Lukas Foss, "Great music does not just make me feel good. It means something. It makes us understand. It makes us happy."