The Tao of Music

There is a good book, "The Tao of Music" by John M. Ortiz that teaches you how to make various "musical menus" to help process feelings and create a soundtrack for the meaningful events in our lives. In one "menu" it has you choose a specific era in your life that you have a happy memory attached. I decided to choose my early childhood. It was a great exercise because I had forgotten so many happy times I had as a child. It is said that our brains are like Velcro to remember the bad things and Teflon to recall the good. So choosing songs that focused on happy times was great fun.

I made a list of those songs and downloaded them from iTunes and burned them onto a CD. I still remember the day I listened to it on a two hour drive for a job interview. By the time I got to the interview, I was in such a great mood from listening to the happy soundtrack I had created.

Here are some of the songs:

For Once in My Life-- Stevie Wonder
Classical Gas- Mason Williams (inspired me to learn guitar)
Alley Cat ( did a tap dance to this song)
Love Child- Supremes
and so many more.

Try it sometime --it is such fun!

When singing with a group, I think of soundtracks from our life.  When we sing an old song from camp or school, we are all bonding with our happy memories. Last week I sang with a group of people who are closer in age to me, so we all have a similar soundtrack in terms of what was on the radio when we were growing up. I brought a bunch of new songs to sing and we had fun with:

"Penny Lane," "Strawberry Fields Forever," "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," "Moonshadow", "Rocket Man."

I never tire to sing old songs that bring us together. What are some of the songs of the soundtrack of your life?