Chapter Text
Songs, especially those with some lyrical ambiguity, define almost every aspect of this life. Babies are bombarded with lullabies and goofy cootchie-cootchie-coo sounds from the instant they emerge from the womb. Prior to that, many are exposed to classical tracks in-utero because some expert wrote a book that told parents that was a good idea. Exposure to music on the radio, in a musical theater performance, a live acoustic session, or through the marching band at a football game, leaves an impression on the listener. Neurologically speaking, learning to play a musical instrument fundamentally changes the way the brain works. Without getting too much into the science of it, musical training is very much like learning a language, and it also encompasses mathematics and physics. There is rhythmic counting of beats, and subdivisions, and then acoustics and mechanisms of sound waves.
If a person is fortunate enough to have parents who appreciate the fine arts, private music lessons become part of daily life and further cement those early goose-bump-causing impressions of beat, rhythm, cadence, and dynamic instrumentation. The creation of music is a right-brained function and the recording or performance of it is a left-brained function. These combine to create better connections between the hemispheres of the brain and result in folks like Einstein, Mozart, Grieg, Springsteen, Streisand, Bowie, Biersack, and well, me. After years of learning theory, construction, notes, chords, intonation, and pitch, a love of music and a need to explore can be blamed or credited for almost everything that happened.