I brought my Zumba cd's to camp last week. I run an art camp, and the schedule gives the kids a half hour between art classes--for snack. My experience in the public school system means I know that 30 minutes is WAY too long. The kids are going to eat their snacks in about five minutes, and the rest of the time they will be running around, falling and hurting themselves, stealing each other's hats, etc.
So I came prepared. The first time I turned on the music, only seven kids danced with me. The next day, pretty much EVERYBODY did (except for a few hold-outs who insisted on running around, falling and hurting themselves, and stealing each other's hats, etc.). Nearly everybody wanted to join in, to move around the room to a fun song.
We use music to exercise all the time. We use it in the car, sometimes singing at the top of our lungs. We have it at parties, watch it in concerts, and infuse it into several finite parts of our lives. We hum songs when we don't have any playing.
But what are the songs of our lives? We had a wedding song, if we got married. We might have even shared a song with each person we dated. And then hated that song when we broke up. But what songs determine how we think? What songs run through us and fit the way we walk, the way we interact with the world around us?
Here are some songs on my personal soundtrack:
Wake-up song: "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" from Oklahoma
Song to sing with kids: "La-La-La-La-La-La-La" from Nightmare before Christmas
Song to vacuum to: "Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge (great for tango dancing, too--or tango vacuuming)
Song to sing when all alone: "Gethsemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar or "Wishing You were Somehow Here Again" from Phantom of the Opera (actually, I have LOTS of songs I like to sing along--all of them kind of eerie--love the minor key)
Song to sing in the car with the windows down: "Love Shack"
Song for writing a gripping climax: "Night on Bald Mountain"
Song for writing a romantic climax: "Seduces Me"
Song for exercising: "Rocky Theme"--or "Flashdance" or "Faith" or any Irish dance music (I know, weird, right?)
I'm still toying with the idea of writing a book with an accompanying playlist--each chapter gets a song to go with it, and you can choose to listen to the song as you read the chapter. It would mean writing some rather short chapters, but it would be an adventure trying to get it right.
I don't yet have a theme song for my life. Do you? What music would you have as your soundtrack?
