I’ve just finished reading Aaron Copland’s brilliant little book, What to Listen for in Music, which breaks down this amorphous, elusive art form into something chewable. It’s essentially a textbook of basic music theory condensed into a very succinct, breezy paperback, with doses of humble commentary by the great American composer. A passage that especially sparked thoughts for me was the following:

Why is it that the typical music lover of our day is seemingly so reluctant to consider a musical composition as, possibly, a challenging experience?…Most people seem to resent the controversial in music; they don’t want their listening habits disturbed. They use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be used as a soporific…It is meant to stir and excite you, to move you—it may even exhaust you.

Copland’s statements are in the context of discussing the “contemporary music” of the 1950s—with its serialism, atonality, and the like. “Serious” concert music that defied the forms and palatable harmonies of times gone by. I admit that I’ve always held a very zealous attitude towards such music that would probably make Copland shake his head in professorial disappointment. I harbor very strong feelings of loathing toward music that wallows in atonality, that rejects traditional melodies, that attempts to redefine music as simply sound. But I’m afraid I’m rather picky, because I also don’t like the very traditional, very musical works of, say, Bach (too stuffy).

The reason I love film music so (though “film music,” as a genre, is quite an amorphous term) is because I love the sensibilities and language of 19th-century symphonic music that so many film scores speak in. I love strong melodies and clever development. I respond to the narrative structure of a good film score; it is a tone poem, an opera, and a symphony all in one. I love how a good film score tells me a story, dazzles my intellect, and gets stuck in my head. I guess those three criteria might, loosely, define why I listen to music. Or at least, why I listen to film music and why I prefer film music to all other forms.

The reasons I listen to “popular” music are different. Catharsis is probably the primary reason; channeling happiness, anger, falling in love, or a broken heart into a 3-minute experience that captures my feelings so well and so hummably. Another reason is the purely visceral, aesthetic pleasure of a catchy song—something to sing along with at my loudest volume or interact with physically (beating the rhythm on the nearest hard object or wailing on my air guitar). I suppose these reasons bleed into my reasons for listening to film music. Perhaps my motives are just as amorphous as everything else.

Today is my last day on the clock at my six-month temporary assignment with the big hospital chain in town. Yes, I’m writing this essay “at work.” Most of the past year’s essays hold that distinction. And that, right there, tells most of what’s good and bad about this kind of job.

Considering that I got into grad school and am leaving Pittsburgh less than a year after I arrived, having a string of temporary assignments turned out to be perfect. I would have been torn if I had gotten into grad school after landing a good “permanent” job—or at least felt really bad about quitting so soon. Being an hourly-rate cog for a few months was probably the best situation for me under the circumstances, and the pay was good enough for Alison and I to enjoy our own digs while living here.

And there’s definitely something nice about “being paid to do nothing,” which is an apt description of about fifty percent of my six months here. Of course, I didn’t do nothing, per se. I wrote a lot of essays for this blog, wrote freelance projects (for money!), applied to Notre Dame, had a bunch of great conversations in gmail chat, kept abreast of culture, and watched a lot of movies on Netflix Instant Watch. I was honest with my employer about my recurring drought of duties, so I don’t have a guilty conscience about the many hours on my paycheck that were devoted to extracurricular activities. And while I did waste a lot of time, I also got a lot accomplished—all while getting paid.

The reverse side of that perk, though, is that I was “getting paid to do nothing,” which starts to feel really crummy after a while. Such an arrangement may sound like paradise to a pubescent teenager during that summer between sophomore and junior year, but it begins to wear on you when you’ve tasted the rewards of fulfilling work. Not to mention that the work I was doing, when there was work to do, revolved around spreadsheets and databases—which is hardly my idea of fulfilling. A few months (okay, a few weeks) of this cycle began to melt my soul like so much bored cheese, and I was giddy over my grad school news for multiple reasons.

Thankfully, for me, temporary life is temporary. In many ways, all of my jobs up to this point have been “temporary,” whether it was (literally) flipping iced lattes at Starbucks, driving the highways and byways as a contract worker for the DOT, peddling doilies and learning the nuances of the United States Postal Service at the college bookstore, or even writing “Send us money!” letters for the College (an unfair summary of a job I mostly enjoyed). In their own ways they all shared a missing ingredient: the sense of purpose and vocation.

I know I may end up working more jobs that aren’t ideal in the future, or even clocking back in to a temp situation. I will do what I have to in order to feed the hungry utilities wolves and take care of my family, and I’m not so idealistic as to think that grad school has just bought me a one-way ticket to career utopia. But I’m on a track now, many years in the planning and discovering, that has me headed towards something far more purposeful and intrinsically rewarding than anything thus far—and I’m optimistic that I’m moving towards “getting paid to do something,” something that I really enjoy doing.

An informal litmus test for my favorite pieces and moments of music is whether the music bypasses my inhibitions, and liberates me to act like an utter fool while enjoying it. A representative picture of this would be of me driving in my car, suddenly compelled to turn the music up to a deafening volume, crank up the air conditioning to the wind tunnel setting (for a physical rush that matches the emotional), and beat upon my steering wheel in rhythm with the song like a violent primate. Picture me doing this while singing along with abandon at my voice’s loudest register, eyes closed in euphoric bliss (but not enough to endanger myself or other drivers).

This is the portrait of a fool, unashamed, and it is the result in me of the best moments of music. Keep in mind that I am primarily talking about instrumental film music here, which makes the image of my “singing” along all the more profound (disturbing). Realize that this is not necessarily sick beats and infectious electric guitar licks under discussion (although those have their place); a piece need not have a pounding rhythm or arena volume to elicit such a response in me. It is simply the aesthetic and visceral power of really good music that renders me a fool.

An example. I recall several occasions when I enacted this general picture, driving through the urbanized bogs of Florida, listening to the track “The Family Arrives” which finishes off Jerry Goldsmith’s seductive score for The Russia House.

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No friend of the saxophone, and an ardent enemy of Kenny G jazz, I am nevertheless entranced here by the improvisational mastery of the instrument by soloist Branford Marsalis. Goldsmith’s pining theme, and the stepwise descent of the accompaniment, is one of my all-time favorites—and in “The Family Arrives” that theme gradually, beguilingly explodes into a fireworks show of syncopated, jazzy glory. During those precious weeks when I was first discovering this score, that finale consistently reduced me to a reveling, unapologetic fool at the wheel.

The sad part is, it’s hard for me to reclaim that all-too-brief window of bliss. I seem to suck all of the marrow off the bone, perhaps even more thoroughly because of these primal fool dances. I go back to these tracks and pieces and moments (which is sometimes literally all they are, a few seconds of sheer musical ecstasy), hoping for that same rush of self-abandoning pleasure—and I find that the little surplus of magic has gone. The back of the wardrobe has been boarded up.

You might say that I live to discover these moments, at least in my life as a music-lover. There’s a lot of music that I like, and a lot of music that I respect (on a technical, artistic, or conceptual level), but I am hungrily on the prowl for that rare dose of music that will clothesline me with its artistic and emotional might, sprawling me out on the proverbial pavement in absolute blind joy. I’m looking for music that removes my manners and self-consciousness, music that makes grown men act like fools.