Music to Soothe (Or Inspire, or Energize)

[Music for Good!  This clip is from the U2 iNNOCENCE+eXPERIENCE tour this summer in Boston (2015). The particular song(s) here illustrates two things for me: 1)  As you’ll see and hear, the progression from slow to upbeat is exactly what I’m talking about below (go read in a sec) and 2) This is a great example of using music to promote awareness of so many issues. Here, this is part of Bono and U2’s (RED) initiative, to slow and eventually rid the world of the spread of Aids – rock on U2 and rock on to the rest of you!]

I ADMIT, when I began to list these areas of music and TV, etc, I knew that taste is personal, and I was going to be forcing my tastes on others. Somewhat. But come on, you’ve all get a sense of humor, or at least you are open to learning something new – it’s why you’re here.

So I will list some favorite songs, artists, and thoughts on music. But if you are thinking of using music to heal, or at least change your mood, here’s a tip I learned:

If you are feeling tired, sluggish, or depressed, start off with quiet reflective ballads, or even classical music, just so it’s down-tempo, and relaxing. BUT – (and you probably might want to have some sort of playlist, or facsimile of one – like changing radio stations) what you need to do is gradually change the kind of music, slowly, to tunes that are more lively, and upbeat.

And surprise, surprise, you do the same thing in reverse if you are feeling frazzled and stressed, and you need to relax.