My occasional social media habit: Musical Therapy

There’s a little habit I have on Twitter, usually in the hockey off-season but rarely too. It’s great form my end but I think it likely sucks from a Twitter follower’s end because I’m not sharing media as I do it. I just announce it.  I call it Music Therapy or Musical Therapy (#MusicTherapy or #MusicalTherapy in Twitter hashttag terms).

The habit actually inspired some creative writing in 2014 but I never finished what I started or even found finality to work towards… That’s going off on a different subject than I was trying to aim at here, but oddly the not-going-to-be-completed story and my musings on Twitter had one thing in common: Music heals and pushes you forward. It gives you something to revel in and celebrate.

My therapy sessions on Twitter, running on summer nights mostly, were just me announcing songs I was playing and yammering out facts and thoughts and feelings brought on by the song at play, or the band in question. It drew in some very good chatter from friends and ran off a lot of people following me for hockey purposes (that’s my day job, so to speak). Maybe that was opinion derived from what I was listening to at the time – 50 years worth of pop and rock with a habit of 60’s and 90’s stuff being dominant, and without a broad palette of songs. Not heavy metal, not hair metal, not rap, not balladeers (okay, actually those pop in at times but still…), no country, some bluegrass (basically just Credence Clearwater Revival), too little Motown, etc, etc. I only have somewhere above 1,250 songs in my personal library (music I choose to listen to) and not that many playlists, so there is repetition going on there that concerns me. Heck, this whole paragraph is tilted to the negative of my mind because I’m concerned I’m running people off when I’m trying to gain some release.

In another universe, I’m a late night deejay who’s been married five times, has a torrid affair with hi-if going and it helps stymie his bitterness at the world… Music soothes the soul.

It does have a worthwhile DJ feel to it, though, and it’s fun when people are there with me (well — through Twitter) to talk up the songs or suggest music. Some actually consider themselves informed by what i say about songs, be they facts or opinions.