Music is my coping mechanism

For as long as I can remember, music has been a big part of my life. There was a time when I played music and there was a time when I actually sang in a choir. I think those experiences helped me develop a good base knowledge about music – that, and growing up the younger brother of a teenager who was big into music during those very impressionable years of mine. For that reason, 80s hair band rock is the foundation of my musical taste, but it has certainly grown since I’ve come into my own.

Since then I’ve expanded to have a VERY wide variety of musical tastes. I’ll listen to anything from Eminem, to Atlanta Rhythm Section, to Patty Griffin, to Kent DuChaine, Foreigner and Guns ‘N’ Roses.

Nowadays, more often than not I turn to music as a coping mechanism with the world around me. If something is going well, I listen to music that is upbeat and very positive. But if things are going badly, I tend to listen to slower, more emotional music that really encapsulates how I feel. The way I look at it, it’s not so much me identifying with the music as the music identifying with me. I think it helps me deal with whatever comes along to know and hear that someone else has felt the same way and gone through the same thing as me. I guess you could call it dwelling, but I’d rather think of it as dealing. It helps me get over whatever it was that got me down in the first place and it is remarkably comforting.

For instance, when I feel heartbroken, I might listen to some slow Eric Clapton or Bad Company, or maybe something altogether different. Or if I’m feeling like I could conquer the world, you might find me listening to Guns ‘N’ Roses. I’m sure you get the point.

I have recently tried to help others find their musical coping mechanisms. My mother is someone who grew up with music as a big part of her life. At one point, she was a very talented lead singer in a band and I think music was probably an emotional outlet for her, as it is with most musicians. But she has stopped listening to music for the most part. The same is essentially true for someone else I know and both have a lot of stress in their lives. I think listening to music is a natural stress reliever and both could greatly benefit from re-finding the music, so to speak.

It’s kind of funny to me, but they say smell is the sense that is most associated with memory. I won’t argue with that, but I will say that for me, sound, or certain songs play on my memories like a drum. Probably the same as with most people, I go through phases where I’ll listen to a certain song over and over again until I wear it out. Well, if I happened to be playing that certain song during a definitive period in my life, I’ll tend to associate that song with that period.

I can remember playing one particular song repeatedly every time I was headed over to see my now ex-girlfriend. Well, low and behold, I heard this particular song three years later and it took me right back to that girl. I immediately remembered exactly how I felt when I was headed to her house, exactly the mood I used to be in and exactly why I used to play it.

There was another time when a song hit me this way. When I was in middle school, I used to listen to a particular radio station every morning as I would eat my cereal while getting ready for school. Well, needless to say, I heard one of the songs that used to always play on that station and suddenly I felt as if I should be eating a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini Wheats.

These are very vivid memories. But I digress. The point is that music is my release and I use it to relate to the world as I know it.

Oddly enough, I think cutting the grass is another natural stress reliever for me. But I’ll save that for a different column on a different day.