Musical Resonance

I am not much of a music freak. I like it. I listen to it in the morning and while driving and working out and doing chores. I know the popular tunes and the names of past and current big stars.

But I can't always put those songs and names together. If it's not played on my top 40 station, I am not likely to know it. And my husband and best friend are constantly referencing songs from our youth that I just don't remember.

But lately, thanks to that best friend, a show I might have mentioned once or twice called Supernatural, and iTunes, I've been branching out and buying a lot more music than I ever did before. And I discovered something.

Lyrics don't mean much to me. Neither does melody, harmony, or rockin' guitar licks. I may like them, may buy a song or album because of them, but what really gets me is voice.

And not just any voice. Josh Radin is my friend's favorite. He's fine. I like his sound. But he doesn't resonate with me the way Jason Manns does. It's the same feeling I get when I listen to Chad Kroeger or Austin Winkler or, I just discovered today, Chris Daughtry. Their voices actually reverberate in me, and generate emotion that nothing else does.

There are a few women who do that, too, like Kelly Clarkson (even when I don't like the song) or Norah Jones, but it's not as strong as it is with men, which makes me think if it were 10,000 years ago, the guy who sang for me would be my chosen mate.

This probably isn't a big revelation to music connoisseurs, who could pick apart music and its effects ad nauseum, but it was an interesting self-revelation for me.

So, who vibrates your breastbone?