Music that makes you move

Having been playing and performing music since I was 6 years old, I have always been in tune with sounds around me. Sorry about the pun. While I've performed other people's songs and pieces as well as my own personal stuff, I much prefer playing along to other people's music rather than writing my own.

From an early age, I would say that my influences were Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Depeche Mode. Are you starting to see when I grew up?

When I moved to the United States, I met my oldest brother (half brother), which I had not known of before hand. He was an ex-Russian paratrooper, tough as nails, listened to heavy metal. I had not heard metal before. My house was usually full of the mainstream music of the time.

Heavy metal struck a different chord with me... sorry about the pun again. It was different. Obviously, but to me the structure was different, the patterns were different.

I have to explain something weird about me. Music has the same effect as drugs on me. I get taken to another world. I literally see things changing in front of me. I become so immersed in the music that it is truly a trip for me. I absolutely get sucked right into this other place.

Now that I got the weird stuff out of the way.... Metal was something fresh. I had to hear more, learn more about it. And I did, I listened to everything, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Slayer and so on.

When I moved back to Australia, things were different again. Mainstream music here consisted of techno and dance music. It sounded so unimaginative and loopy that I couldn't stand it. So I went on the search for more metal.

I found a shop where they sold nothing but rock and heavy metal music. At this stage I had played a myriad of instruments. Starting off with Piano and Triangle in school where I played in a percussion band at the Sydney Opera House. Moving to the US, I didn't get to play much because there wasn't much music in Primary school in the US... well, not any of the ones I went to. We did have a hippy come in to school once a week back in the year 4 that got us to perform at school. I played the Xylophone.

After not much music at all, I started Junior High. They had music, but the only option was Orchestra and the Orchestra had to play at the football games, it was a marching band really. I guess it was fun. I played Alto Saxophone for 2 and a half years. Got good at it, learn to finally read music (I don't remember or care for it now).

I left America to return to Australia where I left you before I dove into my music history in the US.

I joined the music class in high school here in Australia with everyone playing piano, I wanted to play a guitar. Piano got old for me and I had not touched it since I was in Australia before moving to the US. So I picked up a guitar one day and tried to play it. My science teacher walked past the room and saw me with it and said "You play?" I said no, but I really want to learn. It turned out he was the ex-bass guitarist for Rat Cat, a local Aussie band.

He taught me some chords and away I went.

Meanwhile, what were my musical influences doing? Well, they were a bit all over the place. I still listened to Judas Priest and Iron Maiden but I grew tired of the same old stuff from other metal bands that always sounded the same from one album to the next.

I discovered a whole new set of sub genre's in heavy metal that gave me that trippy feeling again. Something I hadn't experienced for a number of years. Power metal, Gothic Metal, Progressive Rock, Operatic Rock.

Bands like Nightwish, Tristania, Within Temptation, Sonata Arctica, Dungeon, Voyager, Amaranthe are all types of bands I mainly listen to these days.

Why? Because they sound nothing like anything else. They get me moving. They make me feel alive. Some of the sounds, and the combination of notes almost make me blind with visuals in my head and I enter a whole new world.

These aren't your ordinary bands. Their influence on me is huge. They're effect on me is unexplainable.

But their effect is totally different to a band I might enjoy. I might think they rock. I rock on listening to them.

One I found just today on MyfriendFaceBookTubes is Makeshift Innocence from Canada. They sound magnificent. Their first track on their page makes me want to grab my Djembe and shaker and go mental... in fact, just before writing "in fact" I went to their site, had a listen to their song "Your body" and had a beat on my African Drum.............. okay. I'm back. :)

That makes me move. Makes me want to dance. Makes me happy. It's a very different feeling I get from the other songs I first talked about.

I do think I'm crazy though. I don't need drugs to trip out. I just need a damn good piece of music to make me slouch in my chair, start drooling and wake up three days later dehydrated, comatose and in bad need of a bath. Ah the life of a rocker!

Hahahahahahahha.