pre-programmed with pop song cliches from at least the last 40 
years. Oh sorry, I was thinking about this post as the computer 
started up and just felt like blurting that last bit straight out. 
So yeah, tonight I'm babbling about music, or really anything 
really, I just feel like babbling on the internet and what good is 
an anonymous account if you can't talk nonsense with it? Hell 
that's probably why Usenet went downhill...

Anyway, music will do as the basis for a title:

THE BEATS IN MY BRAIN

Yeah, the beats in my brain,
don't think I'll take the strain,
strange things are happening,
I like them in the main.

The feelings are rising,
time is tight,
is this dream foreshadowing
a future that might?

But I know what is happening,
I know what I see,
I hear what is happening,
I hear it in me.

The beats in my brain,
they're driving me insane,
out of reality
down into the drain.

The beats in my brain,
they're driving me insane,
see what I see
and hear it in my brain!

Yeah, that's more fun than writing about it. I usually just sing 
away to my self making up lyrics as I go along, it's nice to put 
them down in text and be able to refine them, but then you loose 
the flow. You loose the emotion of the moment, and you start to 
care.

I already stated my definition of art as artificial stimulus of 
emotion in a previous post. Music is a good example, at least for 
me. Sometimes I just listen to some music and it's bliss, perfect 
to absorb myself into, but then on another day the same song might 
not seem all that remarkable, or even all that good. It's because 
the emotion stimulated by the music fit me perfectly at that 
moment, and maybe only in that moment will I ever hear it like 
that. Perhaps this is why some people spend lots of money and time 
on HiFi gear? They're trying to find the perfect match of music and 
mood but only know to try the same music, and instead of finding 
new music they think something is missing from the sounds that 
worked for them before. But no, it's probably just me, a lot of 
people just listen to the rubbish in the charts anyway. I'm not 
sure if most people even listen to that as music, or as part of 
some social convention. I expect there's a lot of the latter.

Personally I switch between the ABC Classic radio station, my 
collection of old tracker modules plus SID chiptunes (available for 
download here on my Module Mania CD images), and Rage. Rage is 
something that ABC TV (here down under that means the Australian 
Broadcasting Corportation, not some American station) put on in 
off-peak times. It's back-to-back music videos running all Friday 
night, and these days also split up and played during the week at 
the end of bradcasts on the kid's channel "ABC ME". It's basically 
my only exposure to mainstream music (though I usually can't make 
it through the charts), thanks mainly to being able to enjoy 
watching the video even if the music is rubbish. The videos also 
provide the opportunity for me to play my impossible game of 
guessing the lyrics to songs that I've never heard before. I sit 
there and try to match the singer's voice while trying to use cues 
from the video, and of course the rules of pop rhyming, to guess 
what they're about to say and sing it in unison. It's a wild guess 
of course, and one you have to commit to very quickly, but damn it 
feels good when you get a full verse right! It helps build up a 
good library of quick-access rhyming words to use when making up my 
own songs too. Trying to match all the voices has to be some sort 
of good vocal training as well, I don't really know if I'm any good 
but I can certainly do more with my voice than I used to be able 
to. It can have consequences though when I get excited and try to 
mimic the female singers :).

See this is the wonder of living in the country away from other 
people: you can sing at the top of your voice and there's nobody to 
complain!

I'd love to get into making music properly, and every now and again 
I make an effort with a tracker, but I never have the time. Anyway 
like I said, it's most fun just letting it out in the moment, to be 
heard only by myself and maybe the odd cow.

- The Free Thinker