The Beauty of Music

I love music.  I think I've mentioned before how my mood can be affected depending on what I'm listening to which generally means that I listen to fairly happy music.  Some of my favorite music though comes from soundtracks.  I think over half my music library is solely made up movie soundtracks and probably half to three-quarters of those are strictly instrumental.  I love vocal music and how uplifting the lyrics can be and those are the songs that really affect my mood depending on whether the lyrics are happy or sad.  But my favorite music is strictly instrumental because 1) no matter what song it is it makes me happy and 2) it inspires and uplifts me like no other kind of music.  I have a few friends who have known me long enough to know that when I'm listening to music and my eyes are closed, I'm listening to one of my soundtracks.  Because those songs don't just inspire and uplift, they also make my imagination run wild.

My favorite music of all time is from The Lord of the Rings.  Something about it just inspires me like nothing else.  For years now I have played that music to help me fall asleep, to help me calm down, to help me get things done, etc.  And I've watched and listened to movies and music enough that I can play the music while do something and essentially be able to watch the movie in my head.  Listening to those songs gives me such a rush, its amazing.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when the soundtrack for The Hobbit came out.  Simply put, its amazing and I haven't stopped listening to it since I got it.  I think one of the things I love about these soundtracks is how different and yet similar they are.  Each location has its own kind of theme song, or tune rather, yet not matter what song its featured in, its always a little bit different.  No song is exactly alike or even really close to being alike.  I love that.  There are some movie soundtracks that, when they're part of a series of movies, are almost exactly alike and I always hate that.

Maybe part of what I love so much about The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit soundtracks is that, when I listen to them, I feel like I'm transported to Middle-Earth.  The songs fit everything so perfectly, the mood, the place, the event, everything.  I think that's really unique for a soundtrack, at least in my opinion.  Most of my other soundtracks, I just enjoy the music,  I don't feel like I'm transported somewhere else in particular usually.  The only other soundtracks that come close are a few of the songs from some of the Chronicles of Narnia movies.

So I hope my rambling here wasn't too hard to follow.  I was just listening to The Hobbit and had to share how amazing this music and just how much I love it.  By the way, I think Howard Shore is an absolute genius.

Aa' menle nauva calen ar' ta hwesta e' ale'quenl