I stumbled upon this tidbit of information in my quest to understand what it is about music that pulls me in and why certain songs are appealing and why others are not:

" When you're listening to music, what your brain is doing - whether you know it or not and whether you're a musician or not - is constantly trying to figure out what's going to happen next.

With music that has a steady beat, like pop, R&B and hip-hop, your brain doesn't have to work very hard to figure out when the next event is going to happen - that's pretty predictable - but it doesn't know exactly what's going to happen.

The skilful composer manipulates this sense of expectation. Your brain's trying to predict what's coming next, it makes a prediction and the skillful composer will meet those predictions a certain percentage of the time and violate them a certain percentage of the time.

If those violations are done in a clever way and in an interesting way, your brain gets really excited because it's now learned something new. It's learned a new pattern. It incorporates that knowledge, but it's still surprising relative to the thousands of songs that you've heard before that don't do that. And you want to hear it over and over again because it was surprising that first time.

Take the song Yesterday by the Beatles. It's got a seven-bar phrase, and almost every other pop song is either four bars or eight bars. Even if I tell you this and even if you've known this for years, the song still is rewarding because, although it's not violating your expectation for that song, it's still violating your expectation for pop songs in general.

That is fascinating to me.  It explains why I don't particularly enjoy pop music, r&b, hip hop etc...it is too predictable for my brain!  It also explains why I enjoy Jazz, Classical, World and Folk music.

So all I need to do to write a hit song is find the perfect proportion of violations and adherences to music tradition...so simple...and yet so heartless at the same time!

I think I will just stick to my hit and miss method...it might be more miss than hit but at least I am writing from the heart and not from the head!

I have found temporary security in money, loved ones, religion, drugs, jobs, meditation, yoga, nature, books, music, and art but I can't have them with me at all times and even if I could, eventually they will be taken away. That leaves the only two things that will be with me constantly until death and beyond, me and God.  It is worth mentioning that most of the aforementioned methods that provide temporary solutions are potential paths to finding permanent security within oneself and God, however they are simply the paths, not the destination.  I should also mention that I view religion as separate from God.  I believe you can experience God outside of religion just as effectively as inside.
          

I am drawn to people who are completely open to new ideas, beliefs, people and experiences.  I relish the chance to meet new people who are passionate, creative, mindful and unafraid to explore the depths of the human condition and share what they find with others.  Above all else however, it fills my heart to spend time with people who are compassionate and in love with themselves (in a non-egotistical way), and other living beings.       

I am currently reading a fascinating book by John Shelby Spong called Jesus for the Non-Religious.  Don't let its name decieve you though as it is also a book that the religious would get a lot out of.  It doesn't tear apart christianity as such but it does set out to destroy dogma, myth and the literal interpretation of the bible.  It attempts to reframe our understanding of Jesus by helping us to see how he would have been comprehended by his Jewish followers during and after his untimely death and how this comprehension shaped how he was written and preached about subsequently.  

Now I am no biblical scholar but a lot of what Spong writes about seems to add up.  For instance, I have always known that the whole Bethlehem thing with the three kings, guiding star and traveling for days on a donkey with a pregnant woman about to burst was nonsense, that Joseph and Judas were works of fiction and that the literal interpretation of Jesus' miracles was a stretch but Spong puts it in a way that enables me to still believe in all that Jesus stands for without having to buy into all the misinterpretation that has resulted from non-jews with no background in jewish culture trying to understand Jesus through heavily coded jewish symbolism.  It has allowed me to really open myself to His teachings and accept the reality of the story, which is one of overwhelming hope, love, forgiveness and, ultimately, humanity.  It is still incredibly powerful stuff without all the phony mythology that has been forced down our throats for centuries. 

According to Spong, If christianity is to survive the information age, it must change.  It must strip itself of all the aforementioned nonsense which post-modern people can no longer believe in (unless we switch our minds off completely and blindly following centuries of misinterpretation) to reveal its true heart.  Because as Spong says "a God that the mind cannot accept will never be accepted by the heart".  This has been my struggle ever since Christianity was forced upon me in boarding school.  I could not accept the literal interpretation of the mythology and symbolism that the church promoted and therefore I rejected christianity.  However, I never rejected Jesus.  His words, deeds and inner beauty still shone through all of the crud that surrounded him.  If only I had read this book years ago!

By the by, a funny little fact which literal interpreters will probably love to get their teeth into...the call number on the spine of the book ends in 66.....ooooooh....maybe Spong is preaching the word of Satan!  

Love to you all...Satan worshipers included!