Music Fast

Not the same thing as fast music, alas.

Last Thursday I was driving to my weekly Institute class, listening to my choir's practice CD. Lots of latin and piano and other cool music stuff I don't know the words for. The kind of music that raises the hairs on your arms when you sing along.

And out of nowhere a thought dropped down into my head.

(This is never a good sign. Normally I can trace my thoughts pretty far back, by a method of word-association and random-remembrance that wouldn't make sense to anyone else. The point is, even when I suddenly think 'I should go pumpkin hunting with my dad's rifle,' I can figure out where that thought came from. When a thought just falls into my head, I consider it as though someone leaned through the hole in the floor of heaven and dropped a brick into my train of thought. And these thoughts are never about how I should eat more ice cream!)

The thought was something along the lines of "I should try only listening to music like this and see what happens."

Oh, I did not like that. I love my music. Evanescence, Within Temptation, Linkin Park, Blue October.... Dido, Eurythmics, Cutting Crew, Foreigner.... Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, Carrie Underwood.... Imogen Heap, Ian Van Dahl, Sarah Brightman, Three Days Grace... and so on. There probably isn't a music group on the planet that hasn't written at least one song that I like. (They've probably written at least fifty more that I don't, but such is the nature of my eclectic and fickle taste.)

For me, there was no doubting that this thought was inspiration. See the aside about trains of thought. But that didn't mean that I had to like it.

But when I noticed that the heavy city traffic that I suffer through for Institute every week was leaving me completely untouched, unbothered, and unstressed, that sealed the deal, like it or not.

But there's no way I'm swearing off 'Juke Box Hero' and 'White Flag' forever.

So, until New Year's, I'm only listening to classical, instrumentals (such as Vanessa-Mae and David Lanz), and gospel music such as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

The withdrawal is intense. But I'm considering this a fast, with all the spiritual blessings that come with that, and, most importantly...

... it's not for forever. (Hallelujah!)