Hi CherryCola

You have a German Shepherd just like mine!  :)  Aren't they just beautiful!

I come from a Mennonite background; traditionally, music is a strong component of our culture and is "in our blood" in many different ways.

I keep thinking about trying to use music as an every day language.  It would be interesting, because I find music is good as an emotional language rather than a thinking language.

I use music to affect myself, either to calm myself down (listening to a song over and over, to to build a buffer of sound between me and potential overwhelming sounds and situations), or to let feelings out.  My extreme example of this is when I'm feeling REALLY pissed off and can't bottle it up anymore, going to a goth/alternative rock club and dancing. 

Usually.  I do get the times when I want to play music, and pick up my flute, but I have yet to develop any real compositional skills for anything other than making up patterns with scales.

Another thing is that I pick the church I attend by the music.  I prefer the more soul-full songs rather than most hymns and campy attempts to get the younger generation interested.  (It feels like too much lip service to me, and not enough asking questions.  The church I like to attend is one that considers faith to be a football, to be taken out and beaten up to become stronger. The congregation tends to be university crowd.  It also has a Millinnium Falcon and a Darth Maul on the speakers)

As for instruments and music.  I am very sensitive to most sounds.  Flat and out of tune sounds borders on painful.  While I do not have genius skills, I apparently have a good ear, am very good at sight reading, and can fairly quickly pick up a harmony.  I can NOT, however, play everything perfectly, memorize music that I can play back, and I downright am horrible at theory. Also, at certain pitches, I am completely unable to tell notes apart, like the two ends of a piano.  I am talented enough that not only did I get A's in high school music with practicing only a quarter of the time my peers did, but also kept up with the university students that I played with under the tutorage of a university Professor who only takes on about 6 students at a time.   They were all practicing for at least an hour a day; I got by with 40 minutes every couple of days. 

In short, if it hadn't of been other muses, I would have made a fairly decent performer.   I know some people have made a big deal out of some of the things that I do.  I have a tendency to dismiss any praise though. 

But yes, Music.  Big Soul Language.