Depressing music:
What is it about depressing music that is SO appealing to me?

Here’s my off-the-cuff explanation: When I get depressed, I seem to get more introspective. It seems that the times when I’m feeling the most introspective are also the times that I’m feeling the most creative – artistically. So, in some way, creativity must be tied to depression. (How’s that leap for ya?) I like feeling creative, so I guess the depressing music is appealing because it enhances my creativity…or is it that I just like feeling depressed?

I wonder what happens, physiologically, during the kind of mild depression experienced from, say, a depressing song? Perhaps the old adage of having to suffer for your art is true?

Music=Presentation, Computers=Implementation
I struck me, while listening to some tunes last night, that you never hear musicians talking about how they implemented a song. I’ve never heard a song writer say anything like, “This song is based on how the fourth beat in the 5/4 time signature is emphasized more than the other four.”

On the other hand, programmers (maybe Alan Cooper’s term, apologists is more appropriate here) talk about how things are implemented all the time.

Why is that? The only good reason I could come up with was that the tools musicians use to create music are way more refined than the tools programmers use to create programs. This makes sense because musical instruments have been around way longer than, say, Java 1.whatever or Microsoft’s Visual Studio IDE.

…but more on that later.