Other than being distracting, these musical bursts can be very limiting. Musical ideas spin around my head in a constant merry-go-round, warding off much-needed respite at night.  Critiquing music has come naturally to me for as long as I can remember. Listening to ensembles, I am able to pick out different parts from a fully orchestrated score and hum them back.  I have also been blessed with a perfect A-440[†] pitch, allowing me to detect correct tunings without using any means of a reference pitch.

I have never been able to sleep very well, so I decided to try to fall asleep to classical music.  Classical music has been proven to provide the most emotion out of all genres of music, so I was sure it would work.  This plan, however, failed monumentally.  On the first night of listening, I discovered an enormous problem; my head would compose music to fit the existing music.  While listening to Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, my head began filling the score with even more notes than the original.  This began driving me crazy because not only would my brain add notes, it would also make the new notes fit the precise sound of the orchestra being played.

After this discovery, I began to experiment.  Trials found that I could read music straight off a fully orchestrated score in the specific sounds of the world’s greatest orchestras.  I began to visualize pieces with the Boston Pops Orchestra horn and trumpet sections with the Saint Louis Symphony’s woodwinds, adding the New York Philharmonic’s strings, and beating the London Symphony’s tympani.  Pavarotti began to sing The Magic Flute in my head, even though I have never heard Pavarotti’s version of the opera.  Different people were playing different instruments than the ones that the recordings were on.  My own soundtracks to movies began to carve themselves out of the colorful masses of images on the screen.

In sixth grade, I really began to notice my musicophillic mind.  I began to listen to its sound more often, and found that I am accompanied by a personal orchestra wherever I go, with me in whatever I do.  The orchestra in my head began to grow louder.  While it would continue to merge with other music that I happened to be listening to at the time, it never abandoned its post as chief of annoyance bureau.

Seventh grade began, and I got my first hearing aid.  I was able to hear a whole host of sounds, such as the ticking of the wall clocks, footsteps, fire alarms, and slight sounds like leaves rustling.  While this changed my regular comprehension rate, the music in my head continued its ongoing ascent to the overpowering volume in my mind.  Quite frequently I turn around to see who has turned music on, only to find that the whole thing is in my head.  I began to realize I really had a problem one day during a Mass at St. Vincent’s Church in Dutzow.

As the Sunday organist, I was in charge of accompanying the congregation.  Just after the closing hymn, I would always play a postlude of some sort.  After deciding to play “The Prayer”, I stroked the keys to the introduction.  Out of the middle of the church, I began to hear Charlotte Church singing.  I continued to play, and Josh Groban’s baritone voice reverberated around the sacristy.  The keys continued to dance, and I began to feel my eyes begin to moisten.  Tears were staining my face by the time I was finished.  I stopped behind a full 140 piece orchestra, and backing up two of the greatest classical entertainers of the Twenty-First century.  Shakily, I swiveled off the organ bench, and collapsed to the ground.  I couldn’t move for what seemed like days.  Finally, I was able to push myself to my feet and walked off the choir loft, still trembling and emotionally insecure.

Experiences like this are not exactly typical to musicophilics, though famous people have been known to have this condition.  Ludwig van Beethoven became a classical composer, not because he wanted to be one, but he had musical ideas soaring through his mind, and a compulsion to write them down.  Beethoven’s musicophilia allowed him to continue writing and performing his pieces even after he was completely deaf.  John Williams writes straight from his mind, and has an instinct with Mickey-Mousing (writing pieces with musical emphasis in places with visual emphasis as well) incomparable to any other film composer.  Other notable composers who have this innate ability include Bach, Mozart, Copeland, Chopin, Schubert, and many others.  They did not compose because they wanted to; they composed because they had to.

Unique points in musicophilia include toleration to select types of music.  I, for instance, can only listen to classical, jazz, Broadway showtunes, oldies rock, sacred music, and some popular music.  I get headaches, fever, and chills when listening to hard rock, pop, hip-hop, techno, and out-of-tune recordings.  Insecurities like these were intensified over the summer at the Missouri Fine Arts Academy, when I was surrounded by brilliant classical musicians constantly, and listened to their performances exclusively for three weeks.  I no longer can tolerate teenage dances, car rides with younger people, listening to popular music, or even performing it.  During the Healthy Lifestyles concert, I got a splitting headache, as well as running a fever afterwards.  This is not healthy, and most definitely not normal.

Living with this music isn’t all bad, though.  I always keep some music manuscript paper with me for use in the event that my brain regurgitates something that is worth my while.  Playing pieces by ear, because I have to get the music out of my system is one way to just vomit the cacophony of sounds out of the bowels of my mind, along with just sitting back and meditating.  Thinking about the music, only extends the agony.

Tormenting as it may seem, no one knows it exists in my head.  It may be affecting the quality of life for someone else, and you would never even know it.

Sitting in my math class, listening to the air conditioner and teacher drone, I cannot help but wonder where the music will go next.  The music never gets any softer.  Day by day the volume creeps up to levels that no human being can tolerate.  Friends’ voices get fainter and fainter, as the music takes over my auditory system.  Waiting for the end of class so I will hear another quick rendition of “Flight of the Bumblebee” or “The William Tell Overture” always makes me nervous.  I am absolutely insane with all this music in my head, but what will I be if it ever leaves?

[†] A=440 describes an orchestra tuning to the note “A” equaling the frequency of 440 Hz.  This provides a concrete base for which musicians can gauge their pitch to perfectly match one another.