the best 10 minutes in which you'll be inspired to create

My beloved gave me a unique valentine last week: a playlist of classical music for my iPod.  I purchased each song he recommended on the premise that each song had a specific element of my personality within.

I want to say, before I forget to mention it, that my beloved is an amazing man who knows me better than I know myself.  I am delighted by his uncanny ability to discern my nuances far better than this silly introvert could ever manage.  One of the songs on my list was Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which delights my ears and my soul each time I listen.

That being said, I want to comment on how beautifully creative, complex and perfect Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is.  This has long been my very favorite piece of music, sifting above any modern-day creation, for its beauty, its symmetry and asymmetry and triad of complexity.  I have also long clung to the notion that those of us who regularly listen to classical music tend toward the intelligent and creative side of life (I mean, after all, if it's true for me, its true for the rest of the world, right?)  

At any rate, I am working on some graphic art design today, and after listening to Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, I am creatively infused.  To anyone who isn't familiar with the piece, it's a work for pipe organ, which gives the piece its three-part complexity -- a part for left hand, a part for right hand, and the organ, or foot, part.  In a minor key, it is dark and shadowy in every corner, but also beautiful as it revels in intricacy, answering itself in humming, slow and fast and fast and slow, pausing only where you as a listener need to take a breath, bliss.  The sheer feat the performer completes by playing this piece, 10 minutes long in it's entirety, is reason enough to laud this creation to its end.  About 3 minutes into the piece, I begin to realize why I wanted this to be my wedding processional (at the risk of sounding a bit Goth.)

If you don't already have an appreciation for this song (or just want to know about which particular Bach organ piece I rave), visit http://www.classiccat.net/bach_js/913.htm to download this music for free.

My recommendation: sit in a dark, quiet area, find yourself some headphones, close your eyes, listen to the song and allow your ears and mind to be washed with the complex and complete beauty of one pipe organ and one fantastic piece of creative genius.

Wishing growth and beauty today!