The soundtrack of my life

I’m kind of addicted to music and I’ll have it playing 24/7 if possible. When I’m at work (my 9-5 office job) I usually have a classical station playing on Pandora. I love strings, and classical music makes for good background noise that doesn't interfere when I’m on the phone. It also ensures I don’t sing along and annoy my office-mate with my horrible voice. A songstress I am not!

On Fridays, if you follow me on Twitter or have liked my page on Facebook (yes, that’s a shameless plug), you’ll know that I usually pump up the jam in the office a bit. My office-mate works from home on Fridays, so I start the weekend early with some dubstep, which is dance music remixed by aliens, if you’ve never heard it.

When I’m writing, classical is best to keep me focused. But when I get stuck in a story and just can’t figure out what my characters are going to do next, I turn to country music for some inspiration. Almost every country song tells a story and that 3-5 minute mini-tale will get my creative juices flowing again. It doesn't matter if Hank Sr. is crying in his beer, Alabama is playing the fiddle in Texas, or Carrie Underwood is taking a baseball bat to her cheatin' ex's truck.

I’ve had satellite radio in my car since 2005 and there are many, many, many things I would give up (like cable and broccoli and my 401(k)) before I surrendered that radio. Long road trips will run the gamut from Ke$ha to Led Zeppelin to Bing Crosby to Tobias Hume (look him up, dude’s got a very interesting history). My satellite radio is portable, so if I know I’m taking a long trip in someone else’s vehicle, I have been known to bring it along just in case!

The clock radio at my bedside goes staticky when my phone is plugged in to charge near it, so at night I’ll turn on my tablet for music while I fall asleep. Sleepy time often includes Jason Mraz, Italian pop star Tiziano Ferro, or more classical. Are you seeing a pattern here?

There are two musical pieces I could listen to on an infinite repeat – J. S. Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: Prélude and Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. The first time I remember hearing the Bach piece was in the movie Master and Commander. It’s a short piece featuring a single cello, under three minutes, but if I had to choose only one piece of music to enjoy for the rest of my life, that would be it. Barber’s Adagio is quite well-known also, and many people remember it from the movie Platoon.

What’s your soundtrack for life? Do you enjoy certain music in certain situations, or do you mainly stick with one genre?