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Saturday, December 3, 2005

The Soundtrack to My Life

Since moving into this apartment in August, I’ve felt like my life is a movie that features a soaring soundtrack of stringed instruments.

While I inhabit the lower unit of my duplex, above me live two professional musicians. Both Yale-educated men in their 20s, one is a violist in the Minnesota Orchestra and the other is a violinist in the St. Paul Orchestra. They are responsible for my film’s score. From dawn until dusk they practice, seeping notes through the floorboards and walls and out the windows. Sometimes they play in the back bedroom and sometimes they play in the dining room and sometimes they play in the sunroom. The don’t live in their apartment so much as they practice in it. Their furniture consists of music stands and piles upon piles of sheet music. There is no room for sofas in their lives. Just music.

I think of this as one of the best features of my apartment. The music they play is beautiful, and the fact that I can hear it quite clearly but cannot see the musician adds a sort of mystery and intrigue.

There also is the added benefit that, with such a dramatic soundtrack, even when I’m doing something mundane like eating potato chips out of the bag in my dark kitchen, I feel like I’m doing something exciting.

Posted by Aaron on December 3, 2005 9:13 PM