I cannot say how many times that I’ve stretched out happily with my headphones over my ears only to have a friend walk by, pluck them from my head along with my ease, and listen to the magic pour out of the speakers for a few brief seconds before giving me one of those classic ‘only you Keeley….’ looks. At first I was slightly offended that so many could dismiss the great works of Antonio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, and so many more composers as being as drab as the original music sheets that their scores were written on are dusty. Then I got used to it, but was still a little miffed in a most peciliar way.

       I simply still cannot understand why classical music is carelessly tossed aside and only having it be regularly played on my iPod and on NPR. I make no poorly disguised secret of my loathing of the modern age wave of auto-tuned, no-talent, wannabe-sixties-rockers. I blatantly voice my distaste. However, I was never quite as open with my defending of the classics before (In fact, the majority of my defensive style was glaring like a child who was just denied a quarter for a gumball at he who insulted my music.). I just don’t see why nobody can see the perfection of it. The true blood, sweat, and tears that were poured all over the music sheets, only to have them crumpled up like a grown man forced to his knees in shame for a heinous act of unspeakable evil and rewritten until it is considered pure genius.

       What boggles my mind even further is how teenagers feel nothing when they hear the orchestrated works. A few years ago, when the only Beethoven I heard was from the bathroom door whenever my father took a shower, I was a fan of the worst types of pop music. I remember whenever I was in a bad mood or ‘falling’ for someone hard (or at least a younger Keeley believed she was falling hard) I would listen to music. Instead of stretches of the imagination, I had to do huge leaps and bounds in order to make the lyrics ‘fit’ the exact mood I was currently in. For classical music I never had to do such things. With the rises and falls of the tempos, occasional angry violin segments, and sudden hopeful upturns to the music, almost always ending with a bang, it is the unsaid that matches my mood perfectly, and I filled in my own lyrics. Then when I was in one of those truly awful uproars, the kind where even you cannot quite place the reasoning behind your pent-up rage, I sit down and blast the angriest violin score I can find. Eventually I kick the fury down a few notches, gradually making my progression back to the hopeful upturns to match the chaos of life. I mean, how can you feel nothing towards that?