I write like I actually know what I'm talking about when I really don't have a clue.

Instead of writing words, sometimes I wish I could compose music.  Aside from the super tiny bit I learned about music from singing throughout high school, I don't have any training at all.  On a good day, I might be able to read the treble clef the way a second grader would try and piece together the words of Jane Austen.  There were a couple of times I sat down at the piano and tried to take a lesson or two but when it came to practicing, I was never any good as I was too unwilling to listen to the discordance most often heard during a practice session.  Unlike my mother and my sister, I never quite had the ear and always had a difficult time with intonation.

More than that, however, what captivated me for years weren't the "rock bands" of pop, indie, punk, heavy metal, and other popular genres most adolescents tend to gravitate towards.  I loved symphonies, orchestras, and instrumentals.  While others were listening to Dave Matthews, Green Day, or Weezer I spent hours immersed in Broadway show-tunes or the soundtracks from movies like Titantic, Lord of the Rings, and Pirate of the Caribbean.  It wasn't until I met Dave that I went to my very first concert; I was 24 years old.  Even now, I've only been to two in total.  For me, I enjoyed musicals.  I loved the live music and listening to the orchestra warm up was one of my favorite things.  If I could, I would sneak down to the front of the stage, peer over, and watch them as they gracefully played the strings of their violins and cellos or ran up and down the scales on their horns.  

I loved the complexity within all those different instruments all playing together.  Like I said, I know very little about music but composing the scores for musicals and movies seemed far more fascinating and difficult than the music created with a couple of guitars, drums, and maybe a keyboard.  For years, I found the guitar to be a very underwhelming instrument that anyone who wanted to be a "musician" picked up.  Although some were really decent at it, very few knew how to read music.  Of course, according to my young, super-judgmental mind that meant they weren't actually "musicians."  Instruments like the French horn, the cello, or the bassoon were far more interesting and rarely learned yet add vast amounts of depth to music.  Those weren't just instruments people picked up and began messing around with.  No, people who learned to play those instruments, studied and learned not only how to read music, but also music theory; they are clearly far more accomplished "musicians."

Of course, I've since realized just how narrow minded my perception was at the time.  There are plenty of guitarist who've played for years, spent hours studying their instrument, and allow their creativity to craft a sound that expresses their soul.  They are no less a skilled musician than Emily Dickinson is a poet.  I've also heard incredible stories of the feelings that are derived from a couple of people getting together with their instruments and end up finding themselves on the same wavelength.  Still, if given the choice I would prefer to be a John Williams or Nobuo Uematsu.  For me, there is still something so much bigger within their compositions.  I feel that in order to compose pieces like that, one must know all instruments and how they sound together.  As awesome as creating music collaboratively must be, I like the idea of taking a sheet of music and writing down notes as easily as I type these words.   

Like I said above, I don't know if any of what I said makes any sort of sense to anyone with actual musical theory.  There is a very good chance that this entire post is filled with errors so if you happen to stumble upon this and know what you are talking about, please don't judge.  Though, definitely send me a message so I can maybe learn something from you.  Hitting publish on a post like this is really difficult because I don't know what I'm talking about at all.  I feel like I've just written an article about medicine and used the wrong names and descriptions for everything.   All well, I'm not about to write another post all together to prevent posting this.  Please don't hate on me people!