Authors Note: While I had initially conceived this as a weekly feature, circumstances forced me to change this to a bi-weekly feature to allow for better time management. The next post in this series will go online the week of August 3rd.

When it comes to my taste in music, its just like my personality, which can be described as a bit all over the place. The songs I listen depend on my current mood (and what I am doing) at the time the headphones go in. Growing up, I would listen to country, classical, pop, easy listening, new age….as long as it did not have too much profanity. I would listen to Sunny 95, Mix 107.9 and WOSU Classical on the radio while I was growing up. These days, its my playlists on Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora………

When I was a kid, I listened to my grandmother’s collection of Country music, (and artists like Garth Brooks and Chris LeDoux), and her collection of oldies (music from the 50’s and 60’s) As I got older, I began to branch out a little bit and listened to Country artists like Montgomery Gentry, Toby Keith and Brad Paisley. As I have gotten older though, I don’t listen to as much Country as I used to (namely because of my other tastes.) I still listen to the oldies every once in a while, when my grandmother fires up the record player.

In terms of classical and easy listening, the range of music that I listen spans from the days of Mozart and Beethoven all of the way to this era’s movie scores. Some of my favorite movie soundtracks include the Star Wars films(or for that matter anything by John Williams), the How To Train Your Dragon animated trilogy, and selected soundtracks to Disney, Pixar, and Marvel Cinematic Universe films (A topic for a future edition of My Favorite Things). I do listen to new age and experimental music when I have trouble falling asleep (such as Spa Radio on Pandora or the Coffeehouse or Jazz playlists on Apple Music)

There are some songs (and music types) that I listen to when I need to stay focused on a task. When I am working out I listen to electronic or dance music (Daft Punk and Lindsey Stirling are among my favorites in that category.) I have a dedicated play list for when my favorite hockey team, the Blue Jackets, to listen to on game day. That list has songs by Drake, DJ Khaled, and both songs that play when the Blue Jackets score (For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) by AC/DC and The Whip by Locksley.) In the times that I need a pick me up, I go Full Irish (the name of my Cetlic music playlist). My favorite artist in this list is Gaelic Storm (a.k.a the band from the blockbuster motion picture Titanic)

This is just the tip of the iceberg, I will reveal more in a post at later date.