Day-to-Day Shenanigans

While I may not have been to much in the way of funerals and weddings, I have had quite the experience with music in a somewhat ritualistic sense. Now, of course most of us have listened to music around the holidays, my condolences to those who work in retail... I'm sure Mariah Carey is ingrained in your skulls. All jokes aside, I tend to listen to certain songs only under certain circumstances, whether it be mood, events (such as gatherings), holidays, and then some.

I'll start with holidays first, as festive music, and not just in the Christmas sense, isn't something I'm particularly fond of. Now before the torches and pitchforks come out, there's nothing wrong with Christmas music or Halloween music, or whatever other festive music there is, I just don't really care for the over-played songs such as, yet again, Mariah Carey's, "All I Want for Christmas Is You" or another one that I'm sure a lot may know is Bobby Pickett's, "Monster Mash." Now, that isn't to say I don't ever listen to festive music. One such song that I enjoy listening to is Andrew Gold's, "Spooky Scary Skeletons." However, admittedly I don't listen to the original, too slow for my liking. So here are both since I know some people prefer to listen to the original.

 

Oh, and just for funsies here's a song I usually play on Halloween day and with English subtitles for those who are curious about the rough translation! This is probably one of my favorites not just to listen to, but also watch due to its art style. 

  

Now, I had mentioned that I hadn't been to much in the way of ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, although that doesn't mean I haven't been to any period. I suppose my family is a bit weirder than most when it comes to things of this sort, especially if you consider the traditional wedding and funeral of the "mainland" as my dad's side of the family would call it. For context, my father is from Guam, a small island near the Philippines and a territory of the U.S. That being said, I have been there before, and the way people do things is vastly different in some respective. In terms of funerals alone, nowadays there are the typical burials, however traditionally, burials at sea were more common than what you would see here in the states. My first ever experience of a funeral I attended was actually in Guam for my Papa, my father's father, some summer around 2015. My family are party people, so after both the open viewing and the actual funeral, we threw a huge get together. 

Onto the music portion of this, as I have mentioned before, my family are party people, I didn't particularly mean this in the sense of, "Hey, let's go to a club and rave!" but more like, "Let's have a nice cookout and vibe." That being said, lots of reggae and line-dancing, and I mean LOTS of it. Common Kings, Bob Marley, Iration, Sublime, among many others is mostly what you'd hear at just about any ceremonious afterparty or get-together we do. Here's a few of my favorite songs that you'd typically hear at such events!

So, I went over the not-so huge parts of my experience in music and traditions tied to said music. FINALLY, I'm going over what the other 90% of what my usual "ritual" is for music. I'll keep it short though, since I've yapped quite a bit already. 

As I've mentioned, I listen to music based off of mood, while that's mostly true, a small portion of that also ties into what I'm doing. An example would be if I'm studying. So, what my "ritual" looks like, is essentially mood plus whatever I'm doing at that moment. Like right now, as I'm typing this out, I'm in a rather mellowed and hyper-fixated state while working on various things at the same time. Anytime I'm in this sort of mood while working, I am typically listening to wordless lo-fi game soundtracks. Here's one such song I'm listening to now!

Oh, and last thing, here's a link to the album (Zelda and Chill 1, 2, & 3), in case anyone gets curious about the rest of it!